Japanese boxer Naoya Inoue dethroned WBC and WBO super bantamweight champion Stephen Fulton of the United States with an eighth-round technical knockout on July 25 in Tokyo.
While Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has expressed readiness to engage in high-level communication with North Korea, Japan must perform a careful balancing act to ensure its outreach to Pyongyang does not undermine its alliance with the United States and South Korea.
China has called for the chair statement of an ASEAN Regional Forum meeting later this week to express opposition to Japan's planned release of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant, a diplomatic source said Monday.