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The U.S.-led Artemis Accords are signed by the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, Luxembourg, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates. According to NASA, the Accords aim to establish norms of behavior between countries regarding lunar resource extraction and exploration, outline "safety zones" on the lunar surface where other countries should not interfere, and protect heritage sites on the lunar surface such as the Apollo landing sites. Successive signatories since then have been announced.
2020-10-13

Solomon Islands bans all travelers from China, South Korea and Japan. Health minister Dickson Mua also says that the country has suspended flights to Brisbane, Australia, and banned all civil servants from overseas travel in an effort to contain COVID-19.
2020-03-14

Australia and Canada deploy surveillance aircraft to Japan to monitor ship-to-ship transfers between North Korean vessels that bypass United Nations sanctions. The aircraft join a warship already deployed by the United Kingdom.
2018-04-28

Australia is threatening to take legal action against Japan over its resumption of its controversial whale hunt in the Antarctic Ocean. A whaling fleet set sail last week, ignoring international condemnation, and last year's ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) prohibiting these hunts.
2015-12-7

Japan advises the International Whaling Commission that it plans to resume hunting minke whales for scientific research in the Antarctic Ocean by the end of March 2016. The United Nations' International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in March 2014 that Japan's decades-old whale hunt in the Antarctic should stop, prompting Tokyo to cancel the bulk of its whaling for the 2014-2015 season. ICJ decisions were binding and cannot be appealed.
2015-11-28

Japan announces plans to resume whaling in the Antarctic during the southern hemisphere summer. Commercial whaling has been banned for over 30 years by the International Whaling Commission.
2015-06-22

Japan vows to continue its whaling program despite passage of an anti-whaling vote in the International Whaling Commission.
2014-09-19

The United Nations International Court of Justice rules that Japan's Antarctic whaling program is not scientific but commercial and forbids grants of further permits.
2014-03-31

Japan vows to continue its whale hunting despite pressure from environmentalist group Sea Shepherd.
2013-02-22

Newly released cables from Australian intelligence show the intelligence assessment that charges of sodomy laid against Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim are due to a "set up job" that he "walked into". Others refer to Malaysia as a "confused and dangerous" state, Thai politicians as corrupt and Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn as "very erratic and easily subject to influence", and Japan as a "big fat loser".
2010-12-12