Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa and new South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol have affirmed close communication between their governments as a way to improve bilateral ties.
At the start of their meeting on Tuesday in Seoul, Hayashi handed Yoon a letter from Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio.
Japan's government formally approved additional sanctions on Russia in a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday in response to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
The move reflects Japan's belief that it must work with the Group of Seven nations to step up pressure against Russia.
New government figures show household spending in Japan rose in the last fiscal year. It is the first time in four years the figure has ticked up, but spending still has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
The internal affairs ministry said on Tuesday that households with two or more people spent just over 280,000 yen, or about 2,160 dollars, on average per month during fiscal 2021, which ended in March.
Scientists say studies using artificial intelligence have shown that abnormal rainfall is occurring more frequently in Japan, mainly due to human-induced climate change.
The study was led by Murakami Hiroyuki, who belongs to the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Japan's transport ministry plans to strengthen the emergency inspections of passenger boats that are being conducted in the wake of a vessel's sinking. It says it wants to ensure that the boats are capable of communicating with operators on shore.
The tour boat, "KAZU I", sank off the coast of northern Japan's Shiretoko Peninsula on April 23. Of the 26 people on board, 14 have been confirmed dead, and 12 others are missing.
Some groups in Japan are tapping the power of digital art to revitalize their local communities.
They are creating and offering NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. That technology proves the authenticity of digital works and products.
May 15 marks the 50th anniversary of Okinawa's return to Japan from US rule following the end of World War Two.
About 80 percent of respondents in an NHK survey say they think it's wrong for the majority of US military facilities in Japan to be concentrated in the southwestern prefecture of Okinawa.
Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin is to arrive in Japan on Tuesday on her first visit to the country. She is scheduled to meet Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio the following day.
Finland is considering joining NATO in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Kishida and Marin are expected to discuss their countries' responses to Moscow.
An NHK opinion poll shows that the approval rate for Prime Minister Kishida Fumio's Cabinet stands at 55 percent, up 2 percentage points from the previous survey last month. The disapproval rate is unchanged at 23 percent.
NHK conducted the telephone survey over the weekend. More than 1,200 people responded.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government confirmed 3,011 new cases of the coronavirus in the capital on Monday.
The daily tally is up about 600 from a week ago and marks the third consecutive day of week-on-week increase.
Japanese education experts have urged central and local governments to take urgent steps to address the chronic shortages of teachers.
Four experts released a preliminary result of their survey at a news conference on Monday in Tokyo.
A search operation using an unmanned submersible continued on Monday to find people who went missing after a tour boat sank off Hokkaido, northern Japan, last month. But no new clues were reported to have been found about the whereabouts of the missing passengers.
The "KAZU I" sank off the Shiretoko Peninsula during a sightseeing cruise on April 23. Of the 26 people on board, 14 have been confirmed dead and 12 remain missing.
Japan's Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa is on a two-day visit to South Korea to attend president-elect Yoon Suk-yeol's inauguration ceremony.
The visit is the first to South Korea by a Japanese foreign minister since June 2018.
Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio says Japan will study the current situation to decide how to phase out oil imports from Russia.
Kishida spoke to reporters on Monday morning, hours after he announced at an online summit of the Group of Seven nations that Japan will ban Russian oil in principle. The meeting was held to discuss the situation in Ukraine.