Reuters

Japan will develop and mass produce a cruise missile and a high-velocity ballistic missile, it said on Wednesday, as it seeks the ability to strike more distant targets as part of a military expansion aimed at meeting threats from China and Russia.

Amid sliding approval ratings, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida apologised for his party's links with the controversial Unification Church, vowing to win back public trust by severing such ties and tightening vigilance over political activities.

Taiwan said on Wednesday it would exercise its right to self defence and "counter-attack" if Chinese armed forces entered its territory, as Beijing increased military activities near the democratic island.

China's ruling Communist Party will hold its five-yearly congress beginning on Oct.

Michelle Bachelet, once a political detainee under Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and a doctor for tortured children, pledged to be the champion of victims when she became U.N.

Russia halted gas supplies via a major pipeline to Europe on Wednesday, intensifying an economic battle between Moscow and Brussels and raising the prospects of recession and energy rationing in some of the region's richest countries.

Life expectancy fell in the United States in 2021 for the second year in a row to its lowest level since 1996, driven by COVID-19 deaths, according to provisional government data published on Wednesday.

The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday it found evidence to suggest that documents removed from the White House when Donald Trump left office were later concealed at his Florida home to obstruct a federal investigation into their whereabouts.

Ukrainian troops have attacked Russian positions along the entire front, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, while Russia halted gas supplies via a major pipeline to Germany citing the need for maintenance.

Bank of Japan board member Junko Nakagawa on Wednesday warned of risks to the country's fragile economy such as the chance of rising living costs hurting household spending, highlighting the need to keep monetary policy ultra-loose for the time being.

Asian markets extended the global stocks selloff on Wednesday, as investor worries about aggressive monetary tightening were inflamed further by strong U.S. jobs data.

India's economy probably achieved its fastest annual expansion in a year in the April-June quarter, economists said, expecting the pace to sharply slow this quarter and in the next two as higher interest rates hit economic activity.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose 64 cents to $92.28 a barrel at 0012 GMT, after sliding $5.37 in the previous session driven by recession fears.

Japan's factories extended expansion in output to a second month in July as motor vehicle production improved, marking a positive start to the third quarter for manufacturers and broader economic activity.

Abortion rights groups and medical providers in Indiana said they filed a lawsuit on Tuesday to stop the state's ban on the procedure from going into effect.

The U.S. government expects its supply of COVID-19 vaccines and antiviral treatments to run out over the next year and is preparing for them to be sold via the commercial market, the Department of Health and Human Services said on Tuesday.

Netflix Inc lured two of Snap Inc's top executives to lead its advertising sales team, the company announced Tuesday, poaching two people that lent the social media company credibility with brand marketers.

Taiwan's China Airlines Ltd said on Tuesday it would buy 16 Boeing Co 787 widebody planes to replace its ageing fleet of Airbus A330s following a widely watched contest held against the backdrop of regional tensions.

Elon Musk is seeking to delay until November a trial over his intention to back out of a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter Inc and amend his complaint against the social media company, according to court filings, after a whistleblower provided him with fresh ammunition.

U.S. wholesale gasoline prices fell to their lowest levels since before Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Tuesday, suggesting retail consumers will see more relief in coming weeks in the world's largest user of the motor fuel.

Euphoria. There is no better word to describe my feelings, the feelings of many in the Soviet intelligentsia, when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power and started the reforms that the world came to know as perestroika and glasnost.

Mikhail Gorbachev, who ended the Cold War without bloodshed but failed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet Union, died on Tuesday at the age of 91, hospital officials in Moscow said.

U.S. President Joe Biden's public approval rating fell modestly this week, a poor sign for his Democratic Party's hopes in the Nov.

For all the adulation he inspired in the West, Mikhail Gorbachev was a tragic figure who failed in the historic mission he had defined for his own country.

U.S. President Joe Biden condemned violent threats against FBI agents who searched predecessor Donald Trump's home as "sickening," as he called for more police funding and an assault weapons ban in Pennsylvania.

Brazilian food processor BRF SA said on Tuesday that chief executive Lorival Luz has resigned and will be replaced by Miguel Gularte, a top executive at beef-packer Marfrig Global Foods SA.

Texas on Tuesday reported the first death in a severely immunocompromised person who was diagnosed with monkeypox, according to state health department officials.

A sheriff in Barry County, Michigan, already under state investigation for alleged involvement in an illegal breach of a vote-counting machine, sought warrants in July to seize other machines in an effort to prove former President Donald Trump's claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, documents reviewed by Reuters showed.

Brazilian aluminum producer Companhia Brasileira de Aluminio and green economy project developer Reservas Votorantim are issuing Latin America's first carbon credits from the Cerrado biome, they said jointly on Tuesday.