Yasukazu Hamada

Japan's new prime minister will be formally elected by parliament on Oct. 1 following next week's leadership contest, a ruling party official said on Wednesday.

Polls indicate that three frontrunners are emerging among the nine candidates to succeed Fumio Kishida as head of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the Sept. 27 internal vote.

UFO sightings should not be dismissed out of hand because they could in fact be surveillance drones or weapons, say Japanese lawmakers who launched a group on Thursday to probe the matter.

North Korea on Monday notified neighboring Japan that it plans to launch a satellite in coming days, which may be an attempt to put Pyongyang's first military reconnaissance satellite into orbit.