Shinzo Abe’s sudden resignation (on health grounds) ends the tenure of Japan’s longest-serving prime minister. The country’s most internationally recognised statesman since 1945, Abe has been, among other things, the world leader most keen on playing golf with United States (US) President Donald Trump. Though he leaves with a still-weak economy, Abe has made Japan stronger and more autonomous in matters of defense and foreign policy.

On 11 August, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) signalled that it would be revising its 2020 real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) forecast for South Korea from -1.2 percent to -0.8 percent, adding to the confidence that the country is faring better economically than any other OECD member.

The importance of a reliable and widely accessible health-care system is never more apparent than during a pandemic. It is now painfully clear that countries cannot pursue economic development, and assume that the health system will develop in tandem.

Just a few weeks after the first COVID-19 cases started appearing outside China, South Korea launched a system for broadcasting the exact profiles and movements of individuals who had tested positive for the disease.

Like the leading character in a long-running television series, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has kicked off the latest crisis on the Korean Peninsula with familiar theatrics. After cutting off all communications with South Korea earlier this month, the Kim regime bombed the building in which it had previously hosted South Korean diplomats. It has redeployed troops into demilitarised border areas and issued renewed threats of violence against the South.

Since the early 2000s, South Korean and Chinese pop culture have been competing with each other to capture the Indonesian market. It began with Korean dramas such as Autumn in My Heart in 2000 which directly competed with Chinese drama Romance in the Rain in 2001.The popularity of Chinese dramas, nonetheless, quickly faded in the archipelago.

North Korea criticised Donald Trump in a stinging denunciation of the United States (US) on Friday, the second anniversary of a landmark summit in Singapore where the US president shook hands with leader Kim Jong-un.It was the latest in a series of vitriolic statements from Pyongyang aimed at both Washington and Seoul, and came a day after the North implicitly threatened to disrupt November's election if the US did not stay out of inter-Korean affairs.

Here are the latest developments from Asia related to the novel coronavirus pandemic: Japan Lifts Emergency For Most RegionsJapan's prime minister lifted a state of emergency imposed due to the coronavirus for the majority of the country but kept it in place for top cities Tokyo and Osaka.

South Korea experienced one of the world’s largest initial outbreaks of COVID-19 outside China. But, unlike the United States (US) and many European countries, we have been able to contain and drastically reduce the spread of the virus, at least so far – and without imposing a nationwide lockdown.

Emerging technologies are being deployed across Asia to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic.