A Japanese doctor who was killed in Afghanistan has been honored in a memorial held in his hometown in southwestern Japan.

Tetsu Nakamura, who represented the Japanese NGO Peshawar-kai, spent years in the war-ravaged country providing humanitarian support and helping with water projects.

Health authorities in Japan have confirmed the country's third case of the new coronavirus.

Health ministry officials say a woman in her 30s from the inland Chinese city of Wuhan complained of fever and other symptoms after she arrived in Japan last Saturday as a tourist.

Japanese Defense Minister Taro Kono has given a talk to the crew of a Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer that will set out in early February for a mission in the Middle East.

Japan's government issued an order earlier this month to dispatch a destroyer and aircraft to the Middle East for an intelligence-gathering operation designed to safeguard commercial ships with links to Japan.

Japan's Finance Ministry has indicated new government bond issues in fiscal 2021 may increase for the first time in 11 years. The announcement comes amid rising social security costs such as medical care and pensions.

The ministry has worked out an estimate which indicates that if the economy continues to grow by 1.5 percent in nominal terms, social security costs in fiscal 2023 will increase to 38.5 trillion yen, or about 352 billion dollars. That is up 2.6 trillion yen, or nearly 24 billion dollars, from the budget plan for fiscal 2020.

A former care home worker accused of mass killings in Japan has rejected his lawyers' argument that he is mentally unfit to stand trial.

The Yokohama District Court began questioning defendant Satoshi Uematsu on Friday. The 30-year-old is charged with killing 19 people with intellectual disabilities and injuring 26 others at the care home in Sagamihara City in July 2016.

With just six months to go before the start of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, organizers are busy compiling contingency plans.

The organizing committee for the Games is facing the challenge of preparing against natural disasters and other emergencies, as the country last year suffered huge damage from a series of typhoons.

Narita Airport east of Tokyo is crowded with tourists from China as the Lunar New Year holiday period gets underway.

Direct flights arrived from China one after another on Friday except from Wuhan, where outbound flights were grounded due to the spread of a new coronavirus almost across China.

A panel of Japanese experts says that over the next 30 years, many people living along the Nankai Trough face a higher chance of experiencing a deadly tsunami than being injured in a traffic accident.

The government's Earthquake Research Committee gave the assessment in a report on Friday.

Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi says the ministry will swiftly raise the infectious disease warning for China's Hubei Province to the second-highest level of three. Hubei is home to the city of Wuhan, where infections of the new strain of coronavirus are centered.

Motegi told reporters on Friday that the ministry will urge Japanese citizens to refrain from traveling to Hubei Province.

Japan's transport minister says he is stepping up measures against a possible outbreak of the latest coronavirus. Kazuyoshi Akaba pledged an all-out effort for the expected spike in visitors from China during the Lunar New Year holiday.

The government is urging airlines and cruise ships to distribute a "health card" to all those arriving from China. The card directs people to quarantine officers if they have come from Wuhan and have symptoms, or are taking medicine for pain.

The Japanese government says the amount it has spent directly related to running the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics has so far reached 277.7 billion yen, or about 2.5 billion dollars.

The figure is for the period starting in fiscal 2013, when Tokyo was selected as the host city, until fiscal 2020 beginning in April.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has instructed his ministers to ensure that more hygienic laboratories are able to conduct tests for the new coronavirus. Only one facility in Japan is carrying out such tests at present.

Abe gave the instruction on Friday morning at a meeting of relevant ministers, including health minister Katsunobu Kato and foreign minister Toshimitsu Motegi.

Japan's health ministry has confirmed the country's second infection of the new coronavirus strain currently spreading in China. The virus was detected in a man in his 40s visiting Tokyo from Wuhan.

The inland Chinese city has been hit by a pneumonia outbreak that is likely caused by the virus.

Japanese Defense Minister Taro Kono has downplayed the danger to the Self-Defense Forces' intelligence-gathering mission in the Middle East. The government hopes the information will help safeguard commercial ships at a time of regional tension.

Kono discussed the mission in an exclusive interview with NHK World on Thursday.