MANILA – The Philippine women’s football team is on track to cruising past the first round of the Paris Olympic qualifiers this April.

TOKYO – Young women in colorful kimonos and and smartly-dressed men celebrated Coming-of-Age Day at ceremonies across Japan on Monday.

TOKYO – Japan will toughen its COVID-19 border control measures for travelers from China from Sunday, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said, in response to a surge of infections.

TOKYO – Japan said on Monday it scrambled jet fighters and dispatched aircraft and warships over the past two weeks to keep tabs on China’s Liaoning aircraft carrier and five warships that conducted naval maneuvers and flight operations in the Pacific.

TOKYO – Japan’s Ministry of Defense will deploy a surface-to-air missile defense unit on Yonaguni Island, the country’s westernmost island, near Taiwan, Jiji news reported on Tuesday.

MANILA, Philippines — A two-year mandatory basic military and police training program for all college and technical vocational students is being proposed in the Senate.

TOKYO – Heavy snow in northwestern Japan since the weekend has left at least three people dead, stranded hundreds of vehicles on highways, disrupted trains and left thousands of homes without electricity, officials said Wednesday.

NIIGATA – Heavy snow in coastal cities from Monday through Tuesday in northwest Japan has stranded hundreds of vehicles overnight on highways while disrupting local train services and causing electrical outages.

LUSAIL, Qatar – Lionel Messi, wearing a black Qatari robe over his blue-and-white Argentina shirt, kissed the World Cup, shuffled toward his teammates and hoisted the golden trophy high in the air.

TOKYO – The tax commission of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party agreed Wednesday to allocate about 1 percent of current income tax payments to a new “defense tax” as part of efforts to fund a planned increase in the country’s outlays for national security.