AP A car bomb exploded outside a mosque Sunday, killing at least 37 people and wounding another 141 in a mostly Shiite Muslim neighborhood in the southern Pakistan city of Karachi — the third mass-casualty attack on the minority sect in the country this ...
It's a dangerous, unpredictable world. Twice in January Chinese warships in the East China Sea challenged Japan's Maritime Self Defense Forces patrols in a manner deemed threatening. And on Feb. 12 came North Korea's nuclear test.
Here's an open secret: Japanese men have a bad international reputation on the romance front.
SELLING WOMEN: Prostitution, Markets and the Household in Early Modern Japan, by Amy Stanley. University of California Press, 2012, 282 pp., $49.95 (hardcover) In the vast cultural landscape, Japan fascinates the mainstream with manga and anime, the martial arts, Zen and kimono. Of course, ...
Kenta Maeda shook off worries about his form with five shutout innings as Japan beat China 5-2 in first-round Pool A of the World Baseball Classic on Sunday at Fukuoka Dome. Japan improved to 2-0 following a tough win over Brazil in Saturday evening’s ...
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Tokyo police arrest a man suspected of making anonymous online threats last year by remotely manipulating other people's computers.
The judo coach who beat his Olympic charges with a bamboo sword is a nasty reminder of how Japan still depends on the traditions that led it to war.
A swelling number of American expatriates are giving up their citizenship rather than deal with the difficulties imposed on them by U.S. tax authorities.
Rockets and mortar rounds kill six people and wound around 40 at a refugee camp for Iranian exiles next to Baghdad's international airport.
Mao Asada leads a Japanese sweep of the women's medals at the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships.
Taking a deep breath, Wally Mozdzierz points his skis down the icy slope and leans forward. He hears the snow crunch and feels the contours change beneath him as he glides swiftly down the mountain, his guide following close behind. The run is exhilarating ...
In a Mars first, the rover Curiosity has drilled into a rock and prepared to dump a pinch of powder into its onboard laboratories for closer inspection. The feat marked another milestone for the car-size rover, which landed last year to much fanfare on ...
Six pregnant Asian women stroll across a road in the suburbs of Los Angeles. Two others cross the road in the opposite direction. In a nearby store, around 10 such women compare baby clothing. Nearby, a string of “maternity hotels” — where Asian women, ...
The young man at the roadside checkpoint wept softly behind the red bandanna that masked his face. At his side was a relic revolver, and his feet were shod in the muddy, broken boots of a farmer. Haltingly, he told how his cousin’s body ...
Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka, Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams headline a strong field for the WTA’s Qatar Total Open that features 17 of the top 18 players in the world beginning here on Monday. Belarussian Azarenka, fresh off her second straight title in ...
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi has found his most effective weapon is the sound of his own voice. Draghi Thursday caused the euro’s biggest drop in seven months by suggesting its recent appreciation could damp inflation, a signal that further interest-rate cuts remain ...
Chancellor Angela Merkel was left licking her wounds Sunday after her education minister quit amid a plagiarism scandal, depriving her of a key ally as she gears up for September elections. Merkel betrayed rare emotion as she accepted “with a very heavy heart” the ...
“I think my friends are a little jealous, because I’ve got two mommies and two daddies and they’ve only got two parents,” said Simon, 6, squirming with his 3-year-old brother, Joaquin, on the knees of their four gay parents. While Britain and France in ...
The annual Lunar New Year fireworks barrage in Beijing was notably muted Sunday following government appeals to reduce the smoky celebrations after air pollution rose to near catastrophic levels in recent weeks. Setting off fireworks to celebrate renewal and ward off evil spirits is ...
When it is completed in 2015, the Jirau hydroelectric dam will span the Madeira River, feature more giant turbines than any other dam in the world and hold as much concrete as 47 towers the size of New York’s Empire State Building. And then ...
Farmer Hugh Bowman hardly looks the part of a revolutionary who stands in the way of promising new biotech discoveries and threatens Monsanto’s pursuit of new products it says will “feed the world.” “Hell’s fire,” said the 75-year-old self-described “eccentric old bachelor,” who farms ...
So close to that presidential microphone . . . yet so far away. As President Barack Obama delivered his 2,000-word inaugural address outside the Capitol last month, his chief governing partner, Vice President Joe Biden, looked on from his chair just to the left, ...
A food fraud scandal over horse meat sold as beef deepened Saturday as two companies at the center of the row took legal action and European governments said criminal activity is suspected. Frozen food giant Findus lodged a legal complaint in France after evidence ...
For weeks, a mysterious microblog has been lifting a veil from around Xi Jinping, China’s new leader, with candid snapshots from his travels that defy the typically stiff and staged images of the leadership presented in state media. Ordinary Chinese, foreign reporters and even ...
After years of fighting the government from hidden jungle bases in the southern Philippines, an al-Qaida-linked militant group is facing a new adversary: fellow Muslim insurgents who can match their guerrilla battle tactics and are eager to regain their lost stature by fighting the ...
In the cannabis plant family, hemp is the good seed. Marijuana, the evil weed. Michael Bowman, a gregarious Colorado farmer who grows corn and wheat, has been working his contacts in Congress in an attempt to persuade lawmakers that hemp has been framed, unfairly ...
The big-budget “House of Cards” original series launched this month on Netflix highlights the growing importance of streaming video, which is ramping up competition against traditional television. With stars including Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, the new 13-episode series, estimated by some to have ...
Shotaro Yachi, a special adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Cabinet, said the most important diplomatic issue for Japan in the coming decades will be how to develop relations with China. In a recent interview, the former vice foreign minister and the brain behind ...
The Osaka Evessa do not look like a championship contender. And it will probably take a minor miracle for the Western Conference club to qualify for the playoffs this season. But this much is certain: The Evessa are headed in the right direction under ...
The Nobel Peace Prize committee probably isn’t expecting great things from Shinzo Abe or Xi Jinping, the new leaders of Japan and China. Quite the opposite, most likely. Chinese warships pointing missile radar at a Japanese naval vessel in disputed waters is the latest ...
The U.S. Northeast slowly dug out Saturday from a mammoth blizzard that caused at least seven deaths, left some 650,000 homes and businesses without power and choked air, road and rail travel. The storm in areas still scarred by last October’s Superstorm Sandy dumped ...
The English Premier League trophy slipped further from Manchester City’s grasp after the champions lost 3-1 at Southampton on Saturday and gave Manchester United the opportunity to surge 12 points clear. City’s calamitous night on the south coast was summed up at the start ...
Wales finally ended a miserable run of eight straight defeats and sent a witless France into wooden-spoon territory with a surprising 16-6 victory in Six Nations rugby on Saturday. George North scored the only try, the match-winner, of a turgid match when he collected ...
Denver coach George Karl thinks it’s about time people started taking notice of his team. Given the fact the Nuggets have the NBA’s longest active winning streak, Karl has good reason to feel that way. Danilo Gallinari scored 19 points, Kenneth Faried added 17 ...
Online trading is ballooning as individual investors jump onto the stock market boom that began emerging in November. Average daily trading value soared by more than 70 percent in January from the previous month at the nation’s top online securities firms: SBI Securities Co., ...
Six contestants have braved butt-numbing cold and boredom to win an annual ice pole sitting contest in northern Sweden. Two women and four men shared the 20,000 kronor prize ($3,100) for remaining on 2.5-meter-tall blocks of ice during the 48-hour contest, which ended Saturday. ...
The way the Pittsburgh Penguins were taking penalties, it was only a matter of time before New Jersey took advantage. Adam Henrique and Bobby Butler scored third-period power-play goals during a 2:12 span, and the Devils extended their winning streak to four games with ...
Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge war crimes court has been dogged by controversy since its creation, but the U.N.-backed tribunal now faces a potential threat to its very existence after running out of money. The court’s 2013 budget still has not been approved by international donors, ...
More than 100 police searched the snow-blanketed California mountains Saturday for a former police officer accused of three murders after his car was found nearby, reportedly with an arsenal of weapons and a broken axle. Police are hunting for Christopher Dorner, a 33-year-old disgruntled ...
The crowd gathering Saturday was a typical Rio Carnival mix: a sprinkling of superheroes, girls in cute bunny outfits, zombies and princesses, a group of hula dancers with hairy chests. But the sound sure wasn’t samba. “You and I must make a pact,” a ...
Trade and industry minister Toshimitsu Motegi has extended an offer to help Saudi Arabia build nuclear power plants. In a meeting in Riyadh on Saturday with Waleed Hussain Abulfaraj, vice head of the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy, Motegi suggested the ...
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has published a summary of his income and tax returns to defuse a corruption scandal engulfing his government after media allegations that he and senior members of his party received and distributed under-the-table payments. The accounts appeared Saturday on Rajoy’s ...
The influential Keidanren business lobby will name Toyota Motor Corp. Vice Chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada, 66, as one of its deputy chiefs, sources familiar with the matter said Sunday. Two others slated to become vice chairmen at the business group, also known as the Japan ...
I was talking to a joshikōsei (女子高生, high school girl) friend of mine (yes, I’m fully aware of this exalted position) and she told me that these days in sociology class, Japanese teens are taught that by the time they start paying taxes, the ...
With his blue Stetson and thick gray jacket, Lai Pei-yuan looks like a modern-day cowboy. But rather than raising cattle, he grows trees. The 57-year-old Taiwanese entrepreneur made his fortune in transportation and property, but his real mission in life is to reinstate at ...
Mali defeated Ghana 3-1 to finish third in the African Cup of Nations on Saturday, overcoming the Black Stars for the second consecutive year in the consolation match. Striker Mahamadou Samassa opened the scoring with a header in the 21st minute, captain Seydou Keita ...
The Justice Department’s lawsuit against Standard & Poor’s has revived focus on the role of rating agencies in causing the financial crisis. Yet four years after shoddy mortgage investments bearing top grades nearly took down the country’s economy, government attempts to revamp the rating-agency ...
Reigning world champion Haruna Asami provided a welcome respite for Japanese judo with victory in the women’s 48-kg final on Saturday at the Paris Grand Slam, the first international competition since an abuse scandal rocked the country’s national sport. Asami won through to the ...
Brandt Snedeker ran off four straight birdies along the prettiest part of Pebble Beach and wound up tied for the lead with rookie James Hahn in the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. Snedeker had his ninth consecutive round in the 60s. One more and he ...
Syrian troops backed by warplanes battled rebels for control of a key highway in Damascus on Saturday, a day after opposition forces cut the strategic artery as part of what they say are efforts to lay the groundwork for an eventual assault on the ...
Japan’s exports of alcoholic beverages in 2012 rose 8.5 percent from the previous year to a record ¥20.6 billion, according to National Tax Agency data. The surge came partly because exports of beer and sake grew for a third consecutive year. Exports came to ...
A top Russian opposition figure has been placed under house arrest for two months, a move that also bans him from using most forms of communication, including the Internet, telephone and mail. A Moscow court imposed the restrictions Saturday on Sergei Udaltsov after prosecutors ...
Tens of millions of Hindus gathered Sunday for a holy bath in India’s sacred Ganges River on the most auspicious day of the world’s largest religious festival. Ash-smeared naked holy men led the ritual bathing before dawn — which is said to cleanse pilgrims ...
Yemen’s national security chief Saturday accused Iran of “damaging Yemen” with an arms shipment that was seized last month, and the Interior Ministry said it was investigating. “Such a shipment cannot be made by traders or smugglers. . . . Only an official power ...
A 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck off the Solomon Islands on Sunday, the latest powerful aftershock following a magnitude 8.0 temblor that sparked a tsunami four days ago, according to U.S. seismologists. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake hit at 8:02 a.m. at a locations ...
Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. agreed to take a $3 billion loan from Japan Bank for International Cooperation as the country provides financing to secure crude supplies, government officials from both nations said. JBIC, as the state-linked lender is known, is extending credit to ...
Simply by filing into a church pew on Chicago’s South Side on Saturday and mourning the killing of a smiling 15-year-old girl whom she had never met, first lady Michelle Obama spotlighted the everyday gun and gang violence plaguing U.S. cities. “Genocide,” one eulogist ...
Ayumi Morita stunned world No. 20 Ekaterina Marakova 6-2, 6-2 to pull Japan level at one rubber apiece in its Fed Cup World Group first-round tie against Russia on Saturday. The pressure was on Morita, ranked 57th in the world, to beat Marakova after ...
Rafael Nadal has reached both finals of the VTR Open in Chile, a perfect return to tournament tennis for the Spaniard after a seven-month layoff with a left-knee injury and a stomach virus. Nadal defeated Jeremy Chardy of France in Saturday’s singles semifinal 6-2, ...
Watching the events in Tunisia, where a leading anti-Islamist politician was shot to death this past week, members of Egypt’s liberal opposition are fearfully asking whether it could it happen in their country too. Their fears of a renegade Islamist attack on any of ...
The pattern looks eerily familiar. The stock market scampers up to historical heights to start the year then gets knocked on its back. Last year, worries about Greece and the U.S. economy helped flatten a rally by June. The year before it was an ...
Chinese surveillance ships were spotted near the Senkaku Islands on Sunday, the coast guard reported, showing that China isn’t backing down from Japan’s allegations of radar-lock provocations in the East China Sea. Four Chinese surveillance vessels entered the contiguous zone adjacent to Japan’s territorial ...
Islamist Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali said Saturday that he will resign if his proposal to appoint a nonpolitical Cabinet by midweek is rejected. Jebali first called for the change Wednesday after Tunisia was thrown into a crisis when a prominent opposition politician was shot ...
