Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made a push on Sunday for his country's nuclear technologies at a summit in Warsaw with leaders of four ex-Communist European Union countries, as part of his bid to boost the Asian powerhouse's exports. Abe recently unveiled plans to treble Japan's infrastructure exports to 30 trillion yen ($300 billion, 225 billion euros) a year, a target that could not be reached without nuclear reactors.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his counterparts from Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia agreed in Warsaw on Sunday to deepen cooperation in the field of energy, including nuclear power and renewables. In a statement issued after the first-ever summit between Japan and the so-called Visegrad Group of Eastern European nations, they also agreed to strengthen national security ties by holding a seminar, possibly by year-end, and confirmed the significance of holding regular talks at the leadership and foreign ministerial levels.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe meets the leaders of four ex-communist European countries on Sunday at a regional summit in Warsaw, where he is expected to promote the country's nuclear technologies. On his first trip to Europe since taking over as premier in December, Abe will attend the meeting of the so-called Visegrad Group: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Then he will head to Northern Ireland where the G8 summit begins Monday.

The solar-powered Solar Impulse aircraft landed near the US capital early Sunday on the second to last leg of its cross-country journey, organizers said. The single-seater plane, which runs on four electric propellers powered by 12,000 solar cells mounted on its 63-meter wingspan, touched down smoothly in the dark at Dulles International Airport at 12:15 am (0415 GMT). The Solar Impulse usually lands in the middle of the night, when airport traffic has subsided.