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Farmers in the city of Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, have begun planting rice in a district once designated a no-go zone because of radioactive fallout ejected by the disaster-hit Fukushima No. 1 power plant.
Recently I was asked to write a blurb for a new liquid plant-nutrient. As soon as I saw the name of the product, 早根早起 （Hayane Hayaoki), I smiled at this example of linguistic creativity.
Life in Japan just seems tailor-made for certain foreign residents, who slip into the fabric of this society as smoothly as a hand slides into a glove. American Curtis Patterson, a professional koto player and music teacher, is a case in point. Not only ...
Denmark’s Emmelie de Forest won this year’s Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday night with her ethno-inspired flute and drum tune “Only Teardrops,” despite tough competition from spectacular stage shows by performers from Azerbaijan and Ukraine. Juries and television viewers across Europe awarded the barefoot, ...
One team’s quest for a first title has ended. The other team’s fight will continue next season. The Yokohama B-Corsairs outplayed the Rizing Fukuoka in Sunday’s bj-league championship game, controlling the tempo for larger stretches and making enough timely baskets to fill an instructional ...
Selfish, shameful, unprofessional, pathetic, inexcusable, disgraceful, inexplicable, intolerable and reprehensible but not unsurprising. Carlos Tevez’s behavior in Germany reached a new low even by his standards. His refusal, according to manager Roberto Mancini, to come on as a substitute for Manchester City against Bayern ...
The reporter from the Middle East newspaper could not have expected the Sir Alex Ferguson hair dryer-type response from Arsene Wenger. The Arsenal manager was asked if the Gunners needed a defensive coach and if looks can kill, the journalist would certainly have been ...
The oldest manager in the Premier League goes head-to-head with the youngest at Old Trafford Sunday when Manchester United plays Chelsea in a match that will do much to determine the early pecking order of what is building up to be a fascinating season. ...
It was the kind of incomprehensible, muddled display we have become used to when England plays. The country was again left scratching its collective head asking: ‘What on earth. . . ?” Anyway, enough of Fabio Capello’s post-match press conference. England’s performance in a ...
There has always been an arrogance about the English where football is concerned. Too often we think the world should revolve around us and others should dance to the English tune. England wants to dictate the terms of the transfer window and the international ...
If Arsenal loses at Manchester United on Sunday, it will be eight points behind the champions. It may be premature to say Arsenal’s Premier League season could be over before the end of August, but overcoming an eight-point deficit to United, even with 35 ...
“Imagine the worst situation, we lose Fabregas and Nasri — you cannot convince people you are ambitious after that.” - Arsene Wenger, July 2011 “You cannot be considered a big club if your best players leave because a big club holds onto its big ...
Selecting the elite group from which the 2012 English champion will come is easy: Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City. Picking the winner from the four-horse race is less straightforward, but Premier League history dictates the team — if any — that finishes ...
Sepp Blatter has presided over the most corrupt era in the history of FIFA. While not suggesting he has been involved in any impropriety, he is certainly guilty of not noticing half his executive committee has done enough to either been found guilty of ...
Over the last two weeks Sir Alex Ferguson has watched a rerun of the 2009 Champions League final five or six times. Manchester United began the stronger in Rome but after Samuel Eto’o gave Barcelona the lead in the 10th minute, the Reds lost ...
It is billed as Survival Sunday and as the most exciting season many fans can remember reaches a climax Wigan, Blackpool, Birmingham, Wolves and Blackburn will be fighting for their Premier League lives and a television contract next season worth a minimum of £40 ...
The downgrading of the F.A. Cup, football’s oldest knockout competition, continues. Saturday’s final between Manchester City and Stoke City will be one of the lowest profile of all-time. Not because the participants are not from English football’s traditional elite, but because for only the ...