The public is nearly evenly divided over whether the sales tax should rise next April, but not over Prime Minister Abe's remarks about the Fukushima water crisis.

For Kohei Jinno, the redevelopment work triggered by the 2020 Olympics means he'll have to move house again — just like he did in 1964.

An oversight in the "feed-in tariff system" for promoting renewable energy is allowing major power companies to shut out independent upstarts eager to sell electricity.

Flashback to Christmas 2002. America was recovering from the twin shocks of the tech bubble crash and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The stock market was rising, real estate was heating up and optimism was rebounding. And then there was Jim Bruce, ...

For decades South Africa has been the promising but slightly uncouth cousin of the wine world, but a new generation of vintners are creating distinctive — and some say world-beating — wines. Quaffed by the likes of Napoleon Bonaparte, Charles Darwin and Frederick the ...

Brigitte Hoss lives quietly on a leafy side street in Northern Virginia. She is retired now, having worked in a Washington fashion salon for more than 30 years. She recently was diagnosed with cancer and spends much of her days dealing with the medical ...

Philippine troops closed in on Muslim rebel positions Sunday and cut off escape routes to end a weeklong standoff that has left more than 60 people dead in the southern city of Zamboanga, officials said. Sporadic clashes continued as soldiers moved to clear Moro ...

When Moammar Gadhafi renounced chemical weapons in 2003, the Libyan dictator surprised skeptics by moving quickly to eliminate his country’s toxic arsenal. He signed international treaties, built a disposal facility and allowed inspectors to oversee the destruction of tons of mustard gas. But Gadhafi’s ...

The first sign that Republican leaders could not control their new majority came on a vote to help Americans who lose their jobs to foreign workers. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor considered the measure routine and in February 2011 put it on a list ...

Near Iraq’s northernmost point, close to Turkey and Iran, a national park of snow-capped peaks and forested valleys is drawing tourists and researchers keen to explore a hardly touched land. But this region of outstanding natural beauty has also been scarred by war, and ...

Alien plants believed to have been unwittingly transported by tourists to Mount Fuji are threatening to destroy or damage the ecosystem of the nation’s newest World Heritage site and even its landscape, researchers say. In a recent study of plants along the Fuji Subaru ...

Former Prime Minister Naoto Kan urges Taiwan to close all its reactors and explains how his experience with the Fukushima crisis changed his views on atomic energy.

“France for food, Japan for wives.” That was basically the conclusion made by French journalist/novelist Pierre Loti, who dropped by our shores in 1885 and wrote a book about his stay called “Madame Chrysantheme.” Loti hadn’t exactly caught the Japan bug — he was ...

As soon as Wladimir Balentien’s bat made contact with Daiki Enokida’s fastball there was no doubt: Japan had just crowned a new home run king. And the new king’s first decree was that his record total wasn’t high enough yet. Balentien set the NPB ...

With the National Basketball League getting under way in a couple of weeks’ time, league officials, coaches and players expressed their excitement at a news conference in Tokyo on Sunday evening. “We’re finally opening our NBL at the end of this month,” league president ...

Victories by Kei Nishikori and Go Soeda in reverse singles rallied Japan past Colombia to a 3-2 triumph in their Davis Cup World Group playoff at Ariake Colosseum on Sunday afternoon. The win puts Japan back in the World Group for 2014 after it ...