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Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, resolved to end nearly two decades of deflation and revive the economy, explains his economic and fiscal policies to his fellow G-8 chiefs, turning "Abenomics" into an international commitment in the process.
About 45 minutes from Tokyo’s skyscrapers, resting in the hinterlands of Tachikawa there is a land of mist and dragons. It’s a place where rolling hills tumble toward an Aztec pyramid, and children bounce on clouds. The place is called Showa Kinen Koen, and ...
Edward Snowden, the fugitive former CIA employee and NSA contractor who leaked secrets about America’s spying operations, often hung out online with foreigners in Japan who shared his interests in anime, video games, martial arts, the stock market and the expat lifestyle. Snowden, who ...
Across the colorful show floor at last week’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, there were games on display where players could become all manner of things, like a throat-slashing 18th-century pirate, zombie killer, a guardian of the last city on Earth, music-making sorcerer, ruthless Roman general, ...
Manu Ginobili ran onto the floor as fans stood and screamed. He went to the bench, and they chanted his name. The sights and sounds of so many San Antonio spring nights were back Sunday — and the real party might be just a ...
Efforts by a citizens’ group to hold a plebiscite in Osaka on the future of nuclear power hit a major stumbling block when Mayor Toru Hashimoto formally announced his opposition to the plan this week. Earlier this month, the group pushing for a plebiscite ...
Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto’s campaign to fundamentally reform the central government is moving forward even as Diet lawmakers and members of his own group criticize his goals as unrealistic. Earlier this week, nearly 100 members of Hashimoto’s Osaka Ishin no Kai (One Osaka) group ...
Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto’s local political group is preparing a platform for the next Lower House poll that will likely include promises to shrink or even abolish the Upper House, create a system for voters to directly elect the prime minister, and to drastically ...
Atsushi Sakima, a former member of the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly, was elected mayor of Ginowan by 900 votes in a controversial race closely watched outside Okinawa for its impact on the long-stalled relocation of the Futenma air base. Despite initial hopes in Tokyo that ...
Kansai’s annual gathering of senior corporate executives concluded Friday with calls to consolidate the management of Kansai and Itami airports, extend the planned maglev line to Osaka, build a separate Hokuriku shinkansen line, and encourage qualified foreign professionals and more women to live and ...
Wednesday’s agreement between Tokyo and Washington to delink the transfer of U.S. Marines in Okinawa to Guam from the relocation of the Futenma air base in the prefecture was greeted by politicians and pundits in both countries as an acknowledgement that the original plan ...
Osaka Municipal Assembly members from Mayor Toru Hashimoto’s Osaka Ishin no Kai (One Osaka) group are pursuing allegations that a city labor union attempted to gather votes for Hashimoto’s opponent in last November’s election in possible violation of campaign laws. The allegations surfaced Monday ...
Domestic and imported craft beers have found an ever-growing number of Japanese fans in recent years, and festivals in major cities and smaller towns have offered the public a chance to sample numerous ales, lagers and porters, as well as a variety of German ...
Okinawa Defense Bureau chief Ro Manabe’s alleged attempts to influence the Feb. 12 Ginowan mayoral election by indirectly suggesting that ministry officials and their families vote for Atsushi Sakima over Yoichi Iha have angered, but not surprised, Okinawans, who say such interference by Tokyo ...
Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto’s political fortunes in and out of Osaka continue to rise, as a growing number of local- and national-level politicians seek his cooperation to form what could well be the ruling coalition after the next Lower House election. But key policy ...
With one of the world’s largest clusters of nuclear plants just some 60 km to the north, the Fukushima crisis is looking to be a major campaign issue in Kyoto’s Feb. 5 mayoral election. But even though most Kyoto voters are not affiliated with ...
Last June more than 90 percent of Italian voters said no to nuclear power in a referendum, while Germany and Switzerland voted to phase out atomic energy in the coming years. In France, which faces a presidential election this spring, the Socialists and Greens ...