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Pope Francis’ fascination with the devil took on remarkable new twists Tuesday, with a well-known exorcist insisting Francis helped “liberate” a Mexican man possessed by four different demons despite the Vatican’s insistence that no such papal exorcism took place. The case concerns a 43-year-old ...
Kazuhiro Shiraishi, 66, is a guest-house manager in the Izu-kogen Highlands, a famous resort area on the Izu Peninsula of Shizuoka Prefecture. Looking out onto the Pacific Ocean, and just 90 minutes by train from Tokyo, Izu has a warm climate all year round ...
“I was stopped by two men in a government-registered vehicle, blindfolded and dragged off the street. They took me away to a house in a place I did not know. I was forced into a room with blood all over the walls and floor, ...
Guitarist Dustin Wong hesitates for a split second. It’s a pause that would go unnoticed during most other sets, but Wong has spent the last 40 minutes seemingly in a trance while playing guitar and looping the notes via an array of pedals in ...
Tim Duncan saves the day as the Spurs hold off the Grizzlies in overtime
The Bank of Japan said Wednesday it will maintain its zero interest rate policy but gave a somber assessment that a pickup in economic activity has “paused.” The economy is being influenced by “the effects of a slowdown in overseas economies and of the ...
The revised immigration law will take effect next July 9 and the government will start accepting applications for new residence registration cards on Jan. 13, the Cabinet decided Tuesday, paving the way for increased government scrutiny through a centralized immigration control of foreign nationals. ...
Business sentiment among large manufacturers deteriorated in December, according to the Bank of Japan’s quarterly “tankan” index released Thursday, underscoring the growing concern over Europe’s sovereign credit risk and the persistent rise of the yen. The business index for major manufacturers — companies capitalized ...
Mothers with young children, and the overall dairy industry, were quick in reacting Wednesday to news of cesium-tainted baby formula being sold in markets, even though the reported contamination levels were well below the government-set limit. Although experts stressed that such levels would not ...
The government will aim to specify when and by how much the 5 percent consumption levy will be hiked in the social security and tax reform plan it hopes to present by year’s end, Finance Minister Jun Azumi said Tuesday. “We want to lay ...
Rehabilitating disgraced Olympus Corp. should begin with the ouster of many of its current board members, former President Michael C. Woodford said Friday in Tokyo. “These people cannot continue as directors” if the company is to properly account for its coverup of huge investment ...
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal by condemned killer Seiichi Endo, lowering the curtain on the trials over the cult’s heinous crimes, which began in the 1980s and culminated in the 1995 nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system. All but ...
Judicial proceedings for Aum Shinrikyo figures effectively came to an end Monday as Seiichi Endo became the 13th member of the doomsday cult to have his death sentence finalized by the Supreme Court. But while Aum’s criminal masterminds await the hangman’s noose on death ...
The Bank of Japan Policy Board said Wednesday it will maintain its virtually zero interest rate policy while putting off additional monetary easing to cope with the impact of Europe’s debt crisis and the yen’s sharp rise. Despite agreeing by a unanimous vote to ...
Japan’s gross domestic product grew in the July-September period for the first time in three quarters, marking annualized growth of 6 percent, the Cabinet Office said Monday. Economists remain skeptical, however, that the recovery will keep up in the next few quarters, citing uncertainties ...
Delaying the decision to take part in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations by a day may have bought a little time, but experts said Friday there is no going back for Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda now that he has announced Japan will participate in the ...
The discovery of xenon in the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant’s reactor 2 earlier this week was likely a result of “spontaneous fission,” a nuclear expert said Friday, agreeing with an earlier conclusion by Tokyo Electric Power Co. that some of the melted fuel ...