Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Sunday he hoped to meet the Chinese and South Korean leaders soon to improve relations strained by separate territorial rows.

Japan's estimate for the amount of debris from the 2011 quake-tsunami disaster that will reach North America later this year has sharply increased, a report said Friday.

Japan's hard-charging prime minister on Friday said he wanted in on talks to forge a huge trade pact, the latest bold move from a man who says he is determined to lick the frail economy into shape.

Japan's parliament Friday approved a new central bank management team that is widely expected to back government demands for more policy action to stoke the world's third-biggest economy.

At least two people died and five others were injured Thursday when a man believed to be a Chinese worker went on a stabbing rampage at a fish processing firm in Japan, police and press reports said.

The lower house of Japan's parliament has endorsed Haruhiko Kuroda, a finance ministry veteran and president of the Asian Development Bank, to become central bank governor and spearhead efforts to break the world's third-largest economy out of its long bout of deflation.

Japan on Wednesday called for stronger security ties with Southeast Asia as Tokyo looks to boost alliances at a time of growing territorial tensions with China.

China will send a team at an “appropriate time” to survey islands at the heart of an increasingly heated dispute with Japan, a Chinese official said Tuesday in Beijing's clearest statement yet that it intends to set foot on the Japanese-controlled territory.

Japan said Tuesday it was “disappointing” China did not send anyone to a ceremony marking the second anniversary of its tsunami, in the latest sign of deteriorating ties between the two countries.

People all over Japan bowed their heads in silence Monday as they remembered the almost 19,000 who died when a ferocious tsunami surged ashore two years earlier.