Transport authorities launched a full-fledged investigation Sunday into the derailment of a bullet train on the Akita Shinkansen Line in Daisen, Akita Prefecture, on Saturday afternoon.
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 ...
Two days into the campaign for the Lower House election, former Prime Minister Naoto Kan made a stump speech last Thursday at Fuchu Station in his western Tokyo constituency. Though a prominent advocate for the elimination of nuclear energy, many passersby didn’t even recognize ...
If the Liberal Democratic Party emerges victorious in next Sunday’s Lower House election, one of the main tasks looming for the new government will be repairing diplomacy. Despite the Democratic Party of Japan sending relations with China to new lows since taking power in ...
The main election slogan of the Liberal Democratic Party, which polls say will prevail in the Dec. 16 general election, is “Restoring Japan,” underlining its determination to reclaim the power it lost three years ago. But which version of Japan does the LDP plan ...
Three years ago, Robert Eldridge gave up his associate professorship at Osaka University to work on behalf of the U.S. Marine Corps in Okinawa. He said he thought he could make bigger contributions to U.S.-Japan relations in the prefecture than by teaching about the ...
The Liberal Democratic Party unveiled on Wednesday its policy promises for the Lower House election, pledging to steer the economy out of a decade of deflation by reaching an accord with the Bank of Japan to set an inflation target of 2 percent per ...
China is on the verge of installing a new leader, presumably Vice President Xi Jingping, to lead the nation for the coming decade at a time when its economy and society are showing strains and its growing military expansion and tensions with its neighbors, ...
Kentaro Sakakibara, 37, leads a group of samurai. But his fortress isn’t a feudal stronghold. Instead, it’s an incubator of sorts to nurture startup businesses seeking to go global. Sakakibara heads Samurai Incubate Inc., which offers office space at Samurai Startup Island near Tokyo ...
Softbank Corp. CEO Masayoshi Son took the world by surprise last month by announcing a $20 billion buyout of U.S.-based Sprint Nextel Corp. In 1980, his startup firm was a two-man computer wholesaler. Now through vigorous mergers and acquisitions it’s angling to be the ...
The government lodged a protest Friday with Washington over the reported break-in and assault by a U.S. serviceman in Okinawa, an incident that comes less than three weeks after a high-profile alleged rape by two U.S. sailors of a woman in the prefecture. According ...
Hikariko Ono has always been a survivor in Japan’s male-dominated society. When Ono started her career at the Foreign Ministry in 1988, she was the only female among 26 incoming career diplomats. Now a top government spokeswoman, she said she was unfazed at the ...
