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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When the armored car set off for the Brussels airport carrying $50 million worth of precious stones from Antwerp's diamond district, eight gunmen knew all about it.
The number of foreign visitors dropped 2.4 percent in January from a year earlier to an estimated 669,000, the Japan National Tourism Organization said. Visitors from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia decreased because the lunar new year holidays fell in February this ...
The Chinese Army controls some of the most prolific hackers in the world, an Internet security firm that traced a host of cyber-attacks to an anonymous building in Shanghai reports.
The NBA icon, who oversaw the team during 10 championship seasons, passes away at age 80.
Using genetically modified pigs that can't grow their own pancreases, Japanese scientists succeed in growing the gland in the pigs by injecting normal pig embryonic cells into their embryos.
Yokozuna Harumafuji insists the prospect of being forced to retire never once crossed his mind ahead of last month’s dominating victory at the New Year Grand Sumo Tournament, but the Mongolian refuses to speculate on how much more success he can achieve before he ...
Oscar Pistorius told a packed courtroom Tuesday that he shot his girlfriend to death by mistake, thinking she was a robber. The prosecutor called it premeditated murder. The double amputee said in an affidavit read by his lawyer at his bail hearing that he ...
The Diet will approve Japan joining the international treaty on settling cross-border child custody disputes, possibly in May.
The game is supposed to be America’s national pastime, but the United States has not fared well in the World Baseball Classic. Joe Torre is putting his manager’s uniform back on to lead Team USA in this year’s competition, but he cautions that there ...
Greenpeace launches an online campaign saying nuclear power plant manufacturers should be held accountable for the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant.
The government of Guam is desperate to keep Japanese coming to the island despite last week’s attack that left three tourists dead and 11 people wounded. “It goes without saying,” Antonio Muna of the Guam Visitors Bureau said when asked if the U.S. territory, ...
Nissan Motor Co.’s luxury Infiniti unit said it is aiming to turn profitable in the next three to four years as it begins production in China and introduces entry-level vehicles to attract customers. Infiniti, which last year relocated its headquarters to Hong Kong from ...
Only 13 percent of about 6,000 junior high and high school students in and around Tokyo think the use of “dappo habu” (quasi-legal drugs) is a matter of individual freedom, a poll showed Tuesday. Quasi-legal drugs are substances that are chemically similar in composition ...
Long-term Japan resident, writer and critic Donald Richie, who through dozens of books and articles published from the late 1940s until the last decade helped introduce Japanese film and culture to the world, passed away in Tokyo on Tuesday, according to his long-term editor, ...
Sony is slashing the price on its handheld PlayStation Vita console by as much as one-third as the electronics giant and rivals face stiff rivalry from online games. The company said Monday its 3G/Wi-Fi model will sell for ¥19,980 starting Feb. 28, down from ...
First in a series on hangings In the execution chamber, a red lamp near the ceiling lights up, the chief detention officer gives the signal and five guards each press a button, one of which triggers the trapdoor of the gallows. No one will ...
Rejecting a push by Britain, European governments on Monday decided against providing weapons to Syrian rebel forces, expressing fears that more arms would only lead to more bloodshed in a conflict that already has taken nearly 70,000 lives. The decision, by European Union foreign ...
A Byzantine maze of maritime rules and regulations, fragmented oversight and a patchwork quilt of nations that do business with cruise lines make it tough for consumers to assess the health and safety record of the ship they are about to board in what ...
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made a surprise return to his homeland on Monday after a 10-week convalescence in Cuba following cancer surgery, a long absence that had raised doubts among his opponents and even some supporters about who was running the oil-rich nation. “We ...
Construction equipment maker Komatsu Ltd., which has seen sales fall for seven consecutive quarters in China, expects demand there to recover this year, aided by stimulus spending. The world’s top producer of diggers and the second-biggest maker of bulldozers and dump trucks after Peoria, ...
Nestle SA, the world’s largest food company, is withdrawing some beef ravioli and beef tortellini products and suspended deliveries after food tested positive for horse DNA. Nestle is removing the chilled pasta foods in Italy and Spain immediately and replacing them with 100 percent ...
China's toxic air pollution is exacting a toll, as more people suffer coughing attacks and are forced to stay indoors, especially anywhere near Beijing.
Recalling her son’s funeral, the mother of executed killer Yukinori Matsuda said he appeared to be at peace in his coffin surrounded by flowers. “You couldn’t see your mother’s face before you died,” she had said to the body. The funeral for Matsuda, 39, ...
Tens of thousands of Indian troops are deployed to these remote borderlands, their mission to fight a decades-long armed separatist rebellion. But for years, residents of the area have alleged that security forces have also waged a separate war of rape and murder of ...
Some Bank of Japan policymakers pointed to the difficulty of achieving 2 percent inflation at their Jan. 21-22 meeting when the central bank decided to introduce the target, according to the minutes released Tuesday. Other Policy Board members, however, said it was “meaningful” to ...
A Belgian court rejected a request by notorious child sex killer Marc Dutroux for early release from prison Monday, much to the relief of his victims’ families. Belgium’s “most hated man” wanted to serve out the rest of his sentence under electronic surveillance, after ...
Officials of the Environment Ministry and about 130 municipalities meet in Tokyo to boost cooperation on measures against possible high concentrations of toxic smog spreading to Japan from China.
The body of a Russian lawmaker was found cemented in a barrel, and a former government official has been accused of ordering the killing over an $80 million debt, officials said Monday. Mikhail Pakhomov, 37, went missing last week. He was a member of ...
Nissan Motor Co. opened a research center Monday in California’s Silicon Valley that the carmaker plans to make its hub for research on self-driving vehicles and Internet-connected auto technology. The facility will be staffed by more than 60 engineers and technicians within three years, ...
Miki Hotta, 26, works in Jakarta as a reporter for a local Japanese-language newspaper after failing to land a job back in Japan with any of the firms she contacted. Hotta started job hunting in September 2008 as a Nagoya college junior, and sent ...
The dollar fell below ¥94 in Tokyo Tuesday after Finance Minister Taro Aso said the Bank of Japan will not buy foreign bonds as a monetary easing step. At 5 p.m., the dollar was at ¥93.46-46, down from ¥94.05-06 on Monday. The euro stood ...
Europe’s main stock markets mostly fell on Monday after a weekend meeting of the Group of 20 leading economies ended with Japan being spared an accusation of unfairly devaluing its currency. London’s FTSE 100 index of leading companies slid 0.16 percent to 6,318.19 points, ...
Armenian President Serge Sarkisian has won re-election with more than 58 percent of the vote, official results published Tuesday showed, as his main rival cried foul. The Central Election Commission said that tallies from all voting precincts following Monday’s election showed former Foreign Minister ...
The government plans to drastically ease debt-related rules under the Civil Code to sharply reduce the burden on guarantors. There have been many cases in which borrowers defaulted, leaving the guarantors, including some not adequately informed of the loan particulars, holding the debt. This ...
Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, will avoid the recession that has engulfed many of its partners in the region and return to growth in the first quarter of 2013, the Bundesbank said Monday. “As it currently looks, a plus in economic output can be expected ...
Jin Co., whose sales of antiglare eyewear drove its stock up more than fourfold last year, said revenue, helped by overseas expansion, will reach ¥100 billion by 2018, two years earlier than expected. The company wants to triple the number of its stores across ...
About 1,400 small earthquakes have been recorded around Mount Hakone in Kanagawa Prefecture over the past month, alarming tourists and residents, who are worried about greater possible dangers to come. Experts say the cluster of tremors, most of which were too small to feel, ...
The government has called on the Netherlands to take effective action to prevent the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society from interfering with Japanese whaling ships, fisheries minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said Tuesday. The move came after a Dutch-registered Sea Shepherd vessel approached unusually close last Friday ...
The ruling and opposition parities agreed Tuesday to revoke a self-imposed restriction on how nominees for key government positions are endorsed, moving a step closer for the administration to propose a new Bank of Japan governor and vice governors. The Diet affairs chiefs of ...
An exhibition of works by Japanese and Chinese manga artists will be held next month in Nagoya’s Chinese sister city of Nanjing, Aichi Gov. Hideaki Omura said. The event was initially slated for last September but was postponed amid the wave of anti-Japan riots ...
The amount of illegal stimulants smuggled into Japan and impounded by customs officials in 2012 increased 20 percent from a year earlier to around 480 kg, marking the highest level in 10 years. The number of cases involving impounded stimulants in excess of 5 ...
The Nikkei 225 average fell back Tuesday, pressured by profit-taking after the previous day’s surge, but investors’ continuing eagerness to buy Japanese stocks limited its loss. The Nikkei closed down 35.53 points, or 0.31 percent, at 11,372.34. But the Topix edged up 0.92 point, ...
Accusations that Israel deliberately tried to curb birthrates among Ethiopian immigrants have reopened a debate over discrimination against the group — highlighting the state’s uneasy relationship with a community that has yet to fully settle into the Israeli mainstream. Women’s activists and a series ...
A U.N. commission on Monday said fighters on both sides in Syria’s civil war have committed atrocities and should be brought to justice. The 131-page report issued Monday detailed deepening radicalization by both sides, who increasingly see the war in sectarian terms and rely ...
A Hiroshima museum opened an exhibition Friday celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Robert Jungk, an Austrian writer known for his efforts to focus international attention on the devastation caused by the 1945 atomic bombing of the city. Through his book “Children ...
The Iranian-backed Shiite group responsible for most of the attacks against U.S. forces in the final years of the Iraq war is busily reinventing itself as a political organization in ways that could enhance Iran’s influence in post-American Iraq — and perhaps beyond. In ...
World-renowned conductor Seiji Ozawa will make a comeback in August at the Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto, conducting French composer Maurice Ravel’s opera “The Child and the Spells,” the festival’s organizing committee said. The 77-year-old maestro will conduct the Saito Kinen Orchestra on Aug. 23, ...
Finance Minister Taro Aso said Tuesday the government has no intention of buying foreign bonds through a fund with the Bank of Japan, comments that caused the yen to strengthen. “We don’t intend to buy foreign bonds,” Aso told reporters in Tokyo, when asked ...
A suspected Mossad agent known as Prisoner X was arrested by his own spymasters after leaking detailed information about his work to Australian intelligence services, according to sources cited by broadcaster ABC on Monday. Ben Zygier, an Australian-Israeli, gave Australian intelligence officials a comprehensive ...
The late filmmaker Akira Kurosawa and three of his collaborators were honored by the Writers Guild of America, West at a ceremony in Los Angeles on Sunday for their contributions to screenwriting. Kurosawa, Ryuzo Kikushima, Hideo Oguni, all deceased, and Shinobu Hashimoto were honored ...
Jakob Silfverberg hit the post on one shot and just missed with another in regulation, so the young Ottawa Senators right wing wanted to make sure he made the right plays down the stretch — especially in the shootout. “I had a few chances ...
Amazon says it has fired a German security company amid mounting criticism after reports that temporary workers had been mistreated. An Amazon spokeswoman in Germany, Ulrike Stoecker, said Monday the online retailer has ended its ties with Hensel European Security Services “with immediate effect.” ...
Three New Zealand telecoms companies say they plan to jointly build a new $60 million fiber-optic cable connecting New Zealand with Australia. Telecom, Vodafone and Telstra announced Tuesday they hope to complete the undersea Internet-powering cable by the end of next year. They say ...
BBC journalists walked off the job Monday in a 24-hour strike to protest job cuts at the broadcaster. Staff mounted picket lines outside the BBC’s studios in central London and around the country. Programs went on, but many shows were canceled, including the flagship ...
Drunkenness, misuse of prescription drugs and bullying were among “toxic” incidents in the under-performing Australian swimming team at the London Olympics, a report said on Tuesday. So bad was morale at the 2012 Games, swimmers described them as the “lonely Olympics” and the “individual ...
Two cells in a battery for the auxiliary power unit used in the All Nippon Airways 787 that made an emergency landing last month were found to be swollen, the Japan Transport Safety Board said Tuesday. The board had initially said the battery for ...
The owner of Heathrow Airport said Monday that Britain must expand its airport capacity or lose out to rivals, as it announced that a record 70 million passengers used the London air hub in 2012. Including interest payments on debt and one-off items, Heathrow ...
Struggling chip-maker Renesas Electronics Corp. plans to promote Senior Vice President Tetsuya Tsurumaru to president as early as this month, sources said Tuesday. Current President Yasushi Akao, 58, who will step down to take responsibility for the business slump, is expected to remain as ...
The CIA thrillers “Argo” and “Zero Dark Thirty” have won top screenplay honors from the Writers Guild of America. The guild’s adapted screenplay award Sunday went to Chris Terrio for “Argo,” director Ben Affleck’s tale of the CIA’s masquerade of six U.S. diplomats as ...
The Tokyo Olympic bid committee held a commemorative event Tuesday to mark 200 days before the vote to decide the host city for the 2020 Summer Olympics. The event was held jointly with the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce and Industry at the international terminal ...
Shanghai Shenhau has been stripped of its 2003 league title and fined $160,000 as part of a new round of sanctions aimed at rooting out match-fixing in the Chinese Super League. The Chinese Football Association also banned 33 officials and players for life at ...
Dr. Jerry Buss, the legendary Basketball Hall of Fame owner of the Los Angeles Lakers who died Monday, was by vocation a chemist, the Dr. before his name for his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Southern California at age 24. Smart man, ...
Need a crash course in digital capitalism? Easy: you just need to understand four concepts — margins, volume, inequality and employment.
Nepal’s major political parties have agreed to form an interim government led by the Supreme Court chief justice and hold elections in June, likely ending a deadlock that has left the nation without a fully functioning government since last year. The leaders of the ...
Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf ordered an operation Tuesday in the southwestern city of Quetta following a weekend bombing targeting minority Shiite Muslims that left 89 people dead and dozens wounded. The order came amid reports that Pakistani forces killed four men and arrested ...
A little-known Islamic extremist group claimed responsibility Monday for the kidnapping of seven foreign workers from northern Nigeria, threatening their safety if anyone tried to intervene and free them. The group that calls itself Ansaru issued a short statement in which it said its ...
British actor Richard Briers, an avuncular comic presence on TV and movie screens for decades, has died at the age of 79. Briers’ agent, Christopher Farrar, said Monday that the actor died at his London home on Sunday. A onetime heavy smoker, he had ...
Panasonic Corp. will reintroduce a divisional system April 1 under which development, production and sales of each product will be managed in an integrated manner, company officials said Tuesday. The system was replaced in the early 2000s with a setup under which operations, including ...
All Blacks coach Steve Hansen expressed disappointment Tuesday at Richard Kahui’s decision to play rugby in Japan next year, saying he was frustrated the center never gave him a chance to change his mind. Kahui announced last week that he would move to Top ...
Plans by China to build three dams in Tibet have rung alarm bells in next-door India, where fears are rising that the northern nation’s thirst for power and water will one day affect the flow of the mighty Brahmaputra River, a lifeline for tens ...
New Zealand’s government wants to get even tougher against smoking by making tobacco companies remove their logos from cigarette packs. The country already has become one of the strictest antismoking countries by increasing taxes and making retailers hide packs below the counter. The new ...
The trial opened Monday of a Bulgarian man who allegedly beheaded a British woman with a carving knife in a random attack inside a supermarket on the Spanish resort island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands. Deyan Valentinov, a 20-year-old homeless Bulgarian man with ...
The government will allow the re-entry of a senior member of a pro-Pyongyang Korean residents’ group who departed Japan for North Korea before Tokyo strengthened its sanctions against the country following its third nuclear test last week, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Tuesday. ...
A bipartisan group of Diet members focusing on relations with the U.S. has resumed its activities for the first time in four years, and ahead of the meeting of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Barack Obama later this week. The group had been ...
The health ministry said Tuesday that an adult male was confirmed dead after being infected with a tick-borne disease in Hiroshima Prefecture last summer, bringing the death toll from thrombocytopenia syndrome, or SFTS, in the country to four. The victim is believed to have ...
The Twitter account of U.S. fastfood chain Burger King was hacked on Monday with somebody posting obscene messages and changing its profile picture to a McDonald’s logo. The tweets stopped after a little more than an hour, and Burger King said it had reached ...
Taking tea to new highs In collaboration with R. Twining and Co., British Airways this month began offering a special blend of Twinings tea that will not lose its flavor even at an altitude of 10,000 meters. Based on data showing that the flavor ...
Innovations in software coupled with the widespread availability of Internet broadband are transforming the once stodgy business of language education. Leading the charge in Japan are two Japanese-American brothers, John Hideyoshi Martyn and Billy Kosuke Martyn. The brothers want to reduce the many hours ...
If you search for the acronym MMD on Niconico or YouTube — the two most popular video-sharing sites in Japan — the resulting list will have over 100,000 anime videos, most of which have 3-D anime-style girl characters singing and dancing to electronic J-pop ...
With scant snowfall and barren ski slopes in parts of the U.S. Midwest and Northeast the past couple of years, some scientists have pointed to global warming as the culprit. Then, when a whopper of a blizzard smacked the Northeast with more than 60 ...
Soccer is falling under a cloud of suspicion as never before, sullied by a multibillion-dollar web of match-fixing that is corrupting increasingly larger parts of the world’s most popular sport. Internet betting, emboldened criminal gangs and even the economic downturn have created conditions that ...
Referee Toshimitsu Yoshida reported to the Asian Football Confederation that he was offered money to rig a soccer match held last November in Thailand, according to media reports. Several Thai newspapers said the Thai Football Association has begun an investigation into claims that match-fixers ...
A California missionary and linguist has compiled a comprehensive dictionary for the Mien language, a fast-fading idiom spoken by thousands of refugees from Laos who have resettled in cities throughout the United States. Herbert Purnell spent 26 years compiling the Mien-English dictionary, and once ...
Nani and Javier Hernandez both scored in a three-minute span in the second half Monday, as Manchester United finally broke down Reading’s stubborn defense to reach the F.A. Cup quarterfinals with a 2-1 victory. United had dominated much of the game at Old Trafford ...
Departing South Korean President Lee Myung Bak warned North Korea has pushed itself further into a corner with its recent nuclear test. Lee said Tuesday in his farewell address that North Korea will only face international sanctions and isolation if it hangs on to ...
Derek Jeter received an ovation that could be heard throughout Steinbrenner Field when he jogged onto the diamond for the New York Yankees’ first full-squad workout Monday. Jeter took part in most of the team drills, including on-field batting practice for the first time ...
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has nominated a North Korean-educated former Iranian military official for a key post in his government. The official IRNA news agency says Mohammad Hasan Nami has been named as the proposed minister of communications and information technology to Parliament, and will ...
