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 ...
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Jan | Mar » | |||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | ||||
| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
| 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
| 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | |||
Chuck Hagel is set to be sworn in as U.S. defense secretary, battered by a confirmation fight even as he faces challenges from Pentagon budget cuts to withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan.
Italian leftist leader Pier Luigi Bersani admits he had "come in first but not won" key elections and asks parties to help him push through reforms amid a political deadlock that has sent markets tumbling.
The terror lasted less than two minutes: smoke poured from a hot air balloon carrying sightseers on a sunrise flight over the ancient egyptian city of Luxor, it burst in a flash of flame and then plummeted about 300 meters to the ground. A ...
A deeply divided Senate votes to confirm Chuck Hagel as U.S. defense secretary, handing President Barack Obama's choice the job just days before billions of dollars in budget cuts hit the military.
A U.S. appeals court has labeled militant conservationist group Sea Shepherd as pirates and cleared the way for Japanese whalers to pursue legal action against them. “You don’t need a peg leg or an eye patch” to be a pirate, declared Alex Kozinski, chief ...
A hot air balloon flying over Egypt's ancient city of Luxor catches fire and crashes, killing at least 18 foreign tourists, four of whom are believed to be Japanese.
S-Pulse manager Afshin Ghotbi aims to take club to a higher level this season.
Following its only big-scoring game so far, manager Koji Yamamoto’s Japan lineup will face more scrutiny after being stymied by the Hanshin Tigers 1-0 in a World Baseball Classic tuneup game on Tuesday at Kyocera Dome. Hanshin drew first blood in the bottom of ...
A government panel on education proposes that schools enforce suspensions of bullies more strictly.
The government plans to ease vehicle import screening procedures to encourage the United States to approve Japan's participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
The transport ministry unveils steps to aid airlines forced to keep their Boeing 787 jets grounded.
Diego Maradona returned to Italy on Monday in a bid to clear his name in a tax evasion case. The 1986 World Cup winner with Argentina landed in Rome dressed in black and wearing dark glasses before heading straight to Naples, where he will ...
Roger Federer rallied past Tunisian wild card Malek Jaziri 5-7, 6-0, 6-2 on Tuesday to reach the second round of the Dubai Championships. The second-ranked Federer is looking for his sixth title in Dubai. He next faces Albert Montanes or Marcel Granollers. Federer was ...
Japanese whalers and militant conservationists have again been in dangerous clashes off Antarctica, with both sides accusing the other of ramming their vessels. Veteran antiwhaling campaigner Paul Watson said that on Monday the factory ship Nisshin Maru rammed the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s much ...
The Japanese Olympic Committee said Tuesday it has debriefed at least 11 of the 15 female judo wrestlers who lodged a joint complaint accusing their former coach of physical and verbal violence. JOC executive member Yosuke Fujiwara said the interviews of the women, which ...
After a quiet game in the series opener, Gunma Crane Thunders point guard Jermaine Dixon lit up the scoreboard for 28 points in a 78-75 bounce-back win over the host Sendai 89ers on Tuesday night in the bj-league. Dixon was 9-for-16 from the field ...
The Boston Celtics weren’t too tired after playing five games in seven days back and forth across time zones. They had enough left to play overtime to close out a long Western road trip, beating the Utah Jazz 110-107 on Monday night. Thirty-five-year-old Paul ...
Two U.S. sailors pleaded guilty Tuesday to raping and injuring a woman in her 20s in Okinawa last October. A lawyer for Petty Officer 3rd Class Skyler Dozierwalker, 23, from Fort Worth Naval Air Base in Texas, told the Naha District Court that he ...
The Bank of Japan may pack a bigger punch under Haruhiko Kuroda, an opponent of deflation who ran the nation’s currency policy and then built an international reputation leading the Asian Development Bank. Finance Minister Taro Aso told reporters Monday that Kuroda, Prime Minister ...
The American media recently made a big to-do over Michael Jordan turning 50. Among noted outlets, Sports Illustrated devoted the greater part of an issue to His Airness. And ESPN the Magazine likewise allocated huge space to the beginning of Mike’s sixth decade on ...
Foreigners with low Japanese-language ability who live in Tokyo and have pets often worry about finding proper care for their animals and medical professionals who can communicate the necessary diagnostic and treatment information. Tracey Perkins, an Australian who lives in Minato Ward with two ...
The Japanese soccer pyramid will add a third tier in 2014 as the J. League decided on Tuesday to introduce J3 next year. The new third division is expected to be made up of around 10 clubs from the Japan Football League and the ...
A 30-year-old man arrested for allegedly making online threats through hijacked personal computers told the Tokyo District Court on Tuesday he was not involved in the high-profile case. “I have nothing to do with the case,” Yusuke Katayama told a session in which the ...
The Baltimore Orioles’ Tsuyoshi Wada took a step toward making his long-awaited major league debut Monday, throwing in the pen for the first time since last spring. Wada missed all of last season, in his first year with Baltimore, after undergoing Tommy John surgery ...
Marian Hossa skated along the boards, pumping his right arm as the United Center roared its approval. Go ahead and give two more points to the streaking Chicago Blackhawks. Hossa scored 1:44 into overtime and the Blackhawks beat the Edmonton Oilers 3-2 on Monday ...
BP bears most of the blame for the disastrous 2010 spill in the Gulf of Mexico because it cut corners and put profits ahead of safety, a U.S. Justice Department attorney charged Monday at the opening of a high-stakes trial that could result in ...
Swedish furniture giant Ikea became entangled in Europe’s meat scandal Monday, forced to withdraw meatballs from stores across Europe amid suspicions that they contained horse meat. The company reacted after authorities in the Czech Republic said they had detected horse DNA in tests of ...
ANNOUNCEMENTS Peninsula scholarship Ahead of the upcoming two-year anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake, The Peninsula Tokyo held a ceremony on Jan. 22 to honor Mizuki Kumagai as the first recipient of the Great East Japan Earthquake Hotelier Scholarship. In February 2012, the ...
Teenage boys in a Shanghai school are on the front line of teaching reform after the world’s top-scoring education system introduced male-only classes over worries they are lagging behind girls. Rows of white-shirted boys are put through their paces as they are called up ...
C. Everett Koop, the former surgeon general of the United States who started the government’s public discussion of AIDS during the administration of Ronald Reagan, died Monday at his home in Hanover, New Hampshire. He was 96. A spokeswoman for the C. Everett Koop ...
The image was meant to convey growing friendship between the United States and Myanmar, the world’s hottest frontier market. Flanked by national flags, Win Aung, the president of Myanmar’s main business association, and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jose Fernandez shook hands in Yangon ...
Itoko Uchida, 82, was counting on the nephew she raised to support her in old age. He refused, forcing her to pay for a sponsor to join the 420,000-long line of Japanese waiting for a nursing home bed. With no relatives willing to help, ...
When Patrick Linehan, the U.S. consul general in Osaka and Kobe, attends a black-tie dinner party, like others he takes his spouse: in his case his husband, Emerson Kanegusuke, 40. Linehan, 60, has been in his post, under the administration of Barack Obama, the ...
The estranged wife of a New York policeman sobbed as she testified Monday that her husband, who is accused of plotting to kidnap and cannibalize women, went online to discuss torturing and killing her. Kathleen Mangan-Valle, 27, was the star witness for the prosecution ...
Suzuki Motor Corp. said Tuesday it wants to secure a 30 percent share of the domestic minicar market in fiscal 2013 in the face of fierce competition from its rivals. Suzuki’s share for minivehicles, with engines of 660cc or less, dropped below 30 percent ...
KFC launched a campaign Monday to rebuild its battered brand in China, promising tighter quality control after a scandal over misuse of drugs by its poultry suppliers. The company, a unit of Yum Brands Inc., promised to test meat for banned drugs, strengthen oversight ...
The administration is considering Vice Finance Minister for International Affairs Takehiko Nakao, the nation’s top currency official, as a candidate to lead the Asian Development Bank under the assumption that current ADB head Haruhiko Kuroda becomes the next Bank of Japan governor, Finance Minister ...
A ceremony was held Tuesday to celebrate the completion of the new Kabuki-za theater and an adjacent office building called Kabuki-za Tower in the Higashiginza district of central Tokyo. Those present at the event on the top floor of the 29-story Kabuki-za Tower included ...
A video posted online Monday apparently shows seven French hostages kidnapped from northern Cameroon, with a masked militant claiming the radical Islamic group Boko Haram from neighboring Nigeria holds them. The video, posted to YouTube and mentioned on a jihadist website, shows one of ...
He shuffled into the room and stopped, plexiglass and cinderblocks framing his slight figure. He looked much as I remembered him from nearly a decade earlier: big eyes in a boyish face, a thin build, long fingers, waist chains. But his eyes, once cold ...
It may be called weed, but marijuana is famously hard to grow. Now that the drug has been made legal in Washington and Colorado, growers face a dilemma. State-sanctioned gardening coaches can help people cultivate tomatoes or zucchini, but both states have instructed them ...
Alex Ndungu is the latest victim of the harsh mountain winds that blow through the rows of straw huts in Gwa Kungu, a village where those displaced by violence following Kenya’s 2007 election remain even as the nation readies for another election. Alex died ...
President Benigno Aquino III warned a sultan on Tuesday he would face the “full force of the law” unless he withdrew his gunmen from Malaysia, but the elderly ruler remained defiant. Dozens of followers of the little-known Sultan of Sulu have been facing off ...
Auto safety regulators in the U.S. are deciding if they will investigate a complaint that the steering can fail on the Toyota Prius. An automotive testing laboratory in Virginia asked for the investigation on Jan. 30, after it evaluated a 2005 Prius owned by ...
Singapore on Monday tightened curbs on foreign labor for a fourth consecutive year, as the government seeks to reduce companies’ reliance on overseas workers amid a public backlash over the influx. The government will increase levies that companies must pay for lower-skilled foreign employees ...
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday he will make a decision soon on Japan’s entry into the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership trade liberalization talks. “I will make an early judgment on the best path to serve Japan’s national interests based on the outcome of the ...
The nation’s music copyright body is pushing the government to seek an end of what it says is a “unilaterally imposed” 10-year extension for Japan to continue paying royalties to rights holders in 15 World War II victor nations, beyond the typical 50 years ...
Turkey has embarked on a campaign to retrieve children of Turkish immigrant families living in Europe who are fostered by foreigners, and instead place them in homes where their cultural identity can be preserved. The step comes after a court in the Netherlands refused ...
Syria said Monday it is prepared to hold talks with armed rebels bent on overthrowing President Bashar Assad, the clearest signal yet that the regime is growing increasingly nervous about its long-term prospects to hold onto power as opposition fighters make slow but persistent ...
The dollar plunged below ¥92 in Tokyo trading Tuesday as the euro was battered after the general election in Italy left the country in political gridlock and raised uncertainties over the reconstruction of its public finances. At 5 p.m., the dollar was quoted at ...
South Korea’s elementary and secondary school students will spend more hours studying about the history of a pair of islets controlled by their country but claimed by Japan, Yonhap News Agency reported Tuesday, citing an education ministry official. “We’ve decided to make it mandatory ...
India’s top investigative agency is looking into the role former Air Chief Marshal Shashi Tyagi played in a $750 million helicopter contract marred by reports of bribery. Italian prosecutors suspect that kickbacks worth around 10 percent of the deal, or $68 million, were paid ...
Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) is moving forward with plans not only to field candidates nationwide in this summer’s Upper House election but also run against Kansai politicians who oppose its efforts to create a new regional system. “We’re making preparations to ...
Japanese restaurants took the top two spots in a ranking of the 50 best restaurants in Asia at an awards ceremony Monday in Singapore. Chef Yoshihiro Narisawa’s French restaurant Narisawa in Tokyo’s Minami Aoyama district took the top spot, while Seiji Yamamoto’s restaurant Nihonryori ...
Russia is eager to deepen its economic ties with Japan to lay the groundwork for future generations in the two countries to find a mutually acceptable solution to a long-standing territorial dispute, a Russian minister said in a recent written interview. Minister for the ...
Stocks fell sharply Tuesday, pressured by heavy selling on the back of the yen’s upsurge and rekindled concerns over the European debt crisis after Italy’s general election. The Nikkei 225 average closed down 263.71 points, or 2.26 percent, at 11,398.81. On Monday, the key ...
Britain pledged £1.4 million ($2.1 million) Monday to fund Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge war crimes court, which is close to running out of money. Foreign Secretary William Hague said the court, which is trying top leaders of the murderous communist regime that ruled Cambodia in ...
Around 50 people remained isolated Tuesday in the mountainous hot spring resort of Okukinu in Nikko, Tochigi Prefecture, due to landslides after the strong quake the day before, local officials said. No health problems have been reported regarding the people who were cut off, ...
The Diet passed a ¥13.1 trillion supplementary budget Tuesday for fiscal 2012 to finance a stimulus package aimed at pulling the economy out of deflationary recession. The budget, the second-biggest ever of its kind, cleared an Upper House plenary session. The Lower House, where ...
As spring descends on Japan, we’ll all be welcoming warmer temperatures and cherry blossoms in the coming weeks. But spring in Japan typically means new smartphone lineups from Japan’s major mobile carriers, too. And while consumers’ love for Apple’s iPhone is still in full ...
After more than a century, the U.S. Census Bureau is dropping its use of the word “Negro” to describe black Americans in surveys. Instead of the term that came into use during the era of racial segregation, census forms will use the more modern ...
Israel and the U.S. on Monday carried out a successful test of the next-generation Arrow 3 missile defense system, for the first time sending an interceptor into outer space, where it could destroy missiles fired from Iran. The Arrow 3 is part of a ...
A few weeks ago, the chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, spent four days in Cambridge as the Humanitas visiting professor in the university’s Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, where I work. Afterward, one of the questions I was most ...
Vietnam says it will begin participating in United Nation’s peacekeeping operations from early next year, a further sign that the Southeast Asian nation wants to assume a bigger role in international affairs. Facing a rising demand, the U.N. has publicly appealed for countries to ...
Apple has already transformed two industries — music and computing. Now, as the company reportedly attempts the redefinition of the watch — one of man’s oldest pieces of technology — the next phase of the techno revolution is moving into clear view: Welcome to ...
Prime Minister Julia Gillard slipped behind opposition rival Tony Abbott as Australia’s preferred leader for the first time since August after her credibility was dented when a mining tax she helped design brought in less revenue than forecast. On the question of who would ...
“Star Trek” fans, rejoice. An online vote to name Pluto’s two newest, itty-bitty moons is over. And No. 1 is Vulcan, a name suggested by actor William Shatner, who played Capt. Kirk in the original “Star Trek” TV series. Vulcan snared nearly 200,000 votes ...
Hundreds of Internet address suffixes to rival “.com” should be available for people and businesses to use by the end of the year, the head of an Internet oversight agency said Monday. The initial ones, expected in mid-2013, will likely be in Chinese and ...
Toshiba Corp. said Tuesday that Hisao Tanaka will take over as president in June as it tries to bolster growth from energy and chip operations. Tanaka, 62, a corporate senior executive vice president in charge of strategy planning, purchasing and production, will replace President ...
The Nobel Prize awarded to Francis Crick in 1962 for discovering the structure of DNA has been put up for auction by his family along with one of his lab coats, his books and other memorabilia. It is believed to be the first Nobel ...
