Hong Kong's embattled leader abandoned a State of the Union-style speech on Wednesday after she was heckled by opposition lawmakers during chaotic scenes inside the city's legislature.

Rescuers in Japan worked into a third day on Tuesday in an increasingly desperate search for survivors of a powerful typhoon that killed nearly 70 people and caused widespread destruction.

Protesters in Hong Kong have hauled a four-metre statue to the top of a mountain overlooking the city in an effort to inspire their fellow pro-democracy demonstrators to keep up the struggle.

Japan's military scrambled Sunday to rescue people trapped by flooding after powerful Typhoon Hagibis ripped across the country, killing at least 19 people and leaving more than a dozen missing.

One of the most powerful typhoons to ever hit Tokyo paralysed the Japanese capital on Saturday, leaving millions confined indoors and streets deserted as fierce rain and wind killed two, flooded rivers and threatened widespread damage.

A heavy downpour and strong winds pounded Tokyo and surrounding areas on Saturday as a powerful typhoon forecast to be Japan’s worst in six decades made landfall southwest of Tokyo, with streets, beaches and train stations deserted.

The Japanese Grand Prix's entire Saturday track programme, including qualifying, has been cancelled as Typhoon Hagibis bears down on the Suzuka circuit, race organisers announced Friday.

Wrapping up seven centuries of Chinese history in 13 stories, historian and China expert Timothy Brook has published a book that he says would surprise most Chinese. In "Great State: China and the world", he argues that China did not originally set out to be a vast nation or great state, but rather that today's China is the result of successive foreign invasions. This helps shed light on the current situation, where "China is anxious about its place in the world". Brook joined us for Perspective to tell us more.