Japan's government also reported the launch and condemned the tests as a threat to the region's peace and security. Nobuo Kishi, the Japanese defence minister, said the missiles appeared to have landed in the ocean near North Korea's east coast.

In a dimly-lit room with racks of women's clothing, Ghanaian artist and LGBT+ activist Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi prepares herself for the day, pairing a dress with carefully applied makeup. Transitioning is not illegal in Ghana, but it will become so if a new law is passed, intended to tighten already strict anti-LGBT+ regulations which render same-sex relations illegal. Homophobia is pervasive in the West African country and trans people are generally considered to be gay.

Ninety-eight-year-old Priscilla Sitieni is the oldest primary school pupil in grade six at a school in Kenya's Rift Valley. Sitieni wants to achieve the goal of a lifetime: to pass her exams and obtain her diploma.

Lawyers for the family of a cinematographer killed when a gun mistakenly fired on the set of the movie "Rust" have said a real firearm was not required, and blamed "reckless behavior" for her death.

Sofiya, one of thousands of Kyiv residents who spent their sixth night at a metro station seeking shelter from Russian missile and rocket attacks, choked back tears as she spoke about Ukrainian families' ordeal. "It is terrible how many kids are there. We want to live as independent, normal country. And thank you that so many countries can hear us and support us. I hope all this violence and cruelness ends soon, ” she said.

Experts say that Tokyo's imposition of sanctions on Russia is almost certainly the final nail in the coffin of Japan's ambition to resume control of the disputed Kuril Islands.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida pushed for India to take a tougher line or Russia while meeting Narendra Modi in New Delhi. India has not directly condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

A German woman who moved to Syria as a teenager to join the 'Islamic State' has gone on trial in the city of Halle. Leonora M. is accused of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity. Now 22, she is alleged to have enslaved a Yazidi woman in Syria.

Hot on the heels of the success of "Drive My Car" at the Academy Awards, Ryusuke Hamaguchi returns with a three-part feature that puts his talent for dialogue and visual storytelling in the spotlight. Lisa Nesselson extolls the charms of "Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy" and tells us why the prolific Japanese filmmaker should be receiving armfuls of awards in the years to come.

A Japanese woman born at the dawn of the 20th century and believed to have been the world's oldest person died at age of 119, public broadcaster NHK said on Monday. Kane Tanaka, born in 1903, the year of the Wright Brothers' first controlled flight of their motor-driven airplane, was confirmed by Guinness World Records in 2019 as the oldest living person.

Wishma Sandamali, a 33-year-old Sri Lankan woman, died in a Japanese detention centre in March of last year. Her death sparked debate on the treatment of the 1,500 asylum seekers currently in detention in Japan. Many of them claim they are being treated inhumanely. Despite its economic might, Japan takes in few refugees. In 2020, it accepted less than 100 asylum seekers, while France, whose population is half the size of Japan's, took in 24,000. Our correspondents report from the city of Nagoya, where Wishma died.

On a visit to Japan, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has lauded Tokyo's support for Ukraine in the face of Russia's attack. He also stressed close German-Japanese ties.