North Korea has test-launched a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) toward the East Sea, the South Korean military says.

Russia's former president Dmitry Medvedev says Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has betrayed the rights of hundreds of thousands of victims of US nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Japan is set to allocate $295 billion to $318 billion for military spending over five years from the next fiscal year that begins in April.

In a fresh blow to Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida's government, a scandal-tainted minister for internal affairs and communications tendered his resignation on Sunday following reports of his involvement in a funds-related scandal.

Japan bids farewell to the controversial former prime minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated in July, with a rare state funeral on Tuesday that has deeply split public opinion in the Asian country. 

Japan will restart more idled nuclear plants and look at developing next-generation reactors, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Wednesday, setting the stage for a major policy shift on nuclear energy a decade after the Fukushima disaster.

Russia says the United States and its allies are on the brink of an open military conflict with Moscow, as tensions continue to grow between the Kremlin and the West over Ukraine.