Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida invited South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol for a working visit following South Korea's announcement of a local fund for Korean victims of wartime forced labor that will pay compensation the South Korean court judgment has demanded from Japanese companies. The two countries hope that it could restart regular bilateral visits, after a gap of more than a decade.
China's dispute with Japan over tiny islands in the East China Sea heated up Thursday, with both sides accusing the other of violating their maritime territory after China coast guard vessels entered waters around an uninhabited island group that Japan controls and calls the Senkakus, and which Beijing also claims and calls the Diaoyu Islands. The islands are just east of Taiwan, which also claims the islands.