Troops in the Philippines have been training with partners from the United States. Members of Japan's Self-Defense Forces observed. The exercises played out through Friday on a Philippine coastline that faces disputed islands in the South China Sea.

Those islands are the focal point of tension over an increasingly assertive Chinese presence. NHK World's Charmaine Deogracias reports on the joint military drills and the message they likely send to Beijing.

Japanese people face the urgent issue of an ageing society. But it's not only people who suffer. The problem extends to the abandonment of pets. More animals are left behind as owners become too old to care for them, or pass away.