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 ...
Former NBA superstar Dennis Rodman hung out with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his improbable visit to Pyongyang, watching the Harlem Globetrotters together and later drinking and dining on sushi with him. “You have a friend for life,” Rodman told Kim before ...
Inside the ruins of a market demolished by a powerful bomb, four tiny white candles — dwarfed by the scale of the destruction — flickered gently in the freezing rain as dazed Shiite Muslim Hazaras wept for the nearly 90 people killed in the ...
In an unusual action that quickly sparked debate online, Chinese authorities showed a live broadcast Friday of four foreign drug smugglers in their last hours before execution for killing 13 fishermen. A shocking and apparently unprecedented form of reality TV for China, the program ...
South Korea’s decision to support a United Nations investigation into human rights abuses by North Korea signals that Seoul’s new conservative administration is willing to pressure its neighbor on such issues — even if it hurts the chances for engagement. South Korea’s pledge Wednesday ...
A Maldives court has sentenced a 15-year-old alleged rape victim to 100 lashes and eight months under house arrest after she admitted to having premarital sex in a separate incident, an official said. During a police probe into allegations that the girl had been ...
Thailand signed its first-ever public agreement with a rebel group in its Muslim-majority south Thursday, pledging to work toward peace talks aimed at ending a festering insurgency. The potentially historic pledge was signed in Kuala Lumpur by Paradorn Pattanathabutr, secretary general of Thailand’s National ...
Focus It was billed as China’s Dubai: a cluster of sail-shaped skyscrapers on a man-made island surrounded by tropical sea, the epitome of an unprecedented property boom that transformed skylines across the country. But prices on Phoenix Island, off the palm tree-lined streets of ...
About 150 friends and family of a man killed in a shark attack wrote messages to him in the sand Thursday and stepped into the water at a New Zealand beach to say goodbye. Adam Strange, 46, was an award-winning television and short film ...
A defiant Beijing restaurateur refused to apologize Thursday despite removing a racist sign barring citizens of states in maritime disputes with China, along with dogs, following an international outcry. The notice in the window of the Beijing Snacks restaurant, near the Forbidden City, had ...
South Korea has big plans to become a major nuclear energy player, but they are unfolding at a time when the global industry is under intense scrutiny after the 2011 Fukushima disaster. And its ambitions have not been helped by a series of domestic ...
The U.N. human rights chief declared recently that it was time for a “long overdue” investigation into what she called unparalleled rights abuses in North Korea. The probe, unprecedented in scope, could help establish whether Pyongyang’s leaders are committing crimes against humanity. Navi Pillay’s ...
Former NBA star Dennis Rodman brought his basketball skills and flamboyant style — tattoos, nose studs and all — to the country with possibly the world’s strictest dress code: North Korea. Arriving in Pyongyang, the American athlete and showman known as “The Worm” became ...
