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The head of an official inquiry into the deadly collapse of a Bangladesh factory complex said the building’s owner was the “main culprit” for the disaster because he violated construction codes. The cave-in of the eight-story Rana Plaza outside the capital last month killed ...
Throughout most of Japan, June is the rainy season. While all that rainfall is great for rice paddies so that we can have delicious new harvest rice in the fall, it makes it a rather dull month for seasonal produce: The summer’s bounty of ...
“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, ...
Claude Regy says the team at the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC) threw him the “best birthday party ever” when he arrived in Japan just days after the actual May 1 occasion. The 90-year-old French director is hoping for an even better birthday gift, ...
As far as debuts go, Shohei Otani's delivered. The celebrated rookie pitched fairly well on Thursday night, and though he finished outside the decision, he left the mound with the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters well within striking distance of the Tokyo Yakult Swallows.
The move by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Hitachi Ltd. to merge their thermal power businesses, announced Thursday, comes as domestic companies that construct power plants face increasing competition from foreign rivals. The crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant has prompted reforms ...
The domestic criticism started pouring in almost as soon as Israel’s ceasefire with Hamas was inked Wednesday night. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had waved a white flag and left the job unfinished, the opposition howled. A snap poll on TV found a large majority ...
The first senior-level talks held between Japan and North Korea since August 2008 have resulted in an agreement to continue discussing Pyongyang’s past abductions of Japanese nationals, despite the two sides’ vastly differing agendas. Although a resolution of the decades-old abductee dispute is still ...
Friday’s dissolution of the Lower House sets the stage for a no-holds-barred grudge match between the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and the Liberal Democratic Party, while emerging “third-force” political groups are seen struggling to raise public awareness enough to change the current two-party ...
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s readiness to hold a general election next month has sent shock waves through his Democratic Party of Japan, whose ranks worry the campaign will spell their doom. DPJ Secretary General Azuma Koshiishi has led the resistance to an early dissolution ...
Dealing with tensions between Japan and its East Asian neighbors, resolving the long-stalled relocation of the U.S. Futenma base, negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade deal, and promoting nuclear power while Japan looks to phase it out are just some of the bilateral issues U.S. ...
Toyota Motor Corp. has revised upward its group operating profit projection for the year through March to ¥1.05 trillion from ¥1 trillion, despite struggling along with other Japanese automakers with faltering sales in China. Chinese consumers are increasingly shunning Japanese products in the face ...
The rare joint statement Tuesday by the government and the Bank of Japan to showcase their alliance in fighting deflation meant to display unity, but it also highlighted the lack of trust in each other’s commitments. The mutual suspicion, reinforced by decades of weak ...
With only two months left before the government’s cash runs out, enacting a bill to allow issuance of deficit-covering bonds is the top priority of the reshuffled Cabinet of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. To cope with the money shortage, the Noda administration decided last ...
Despite achieving his prized policy goal of raising the sales tax, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is facing a diplomatic double whammy of territorial disputes with China and South Korea that could deal a fatal blow to his party’s three-year rule. While South Korean President ...
Tokyo and Beijing are exchanging tough words over the arrest of 14 Hong Kong protesters and journalists who landed Wednesday on the disputed Senkaku Islands, repeating their harsh rhetoric over who owns the rocky outcroppings in the East China Sea. But diplomatic experts in ...
The countdown to raising the sales tax officially began Friday with the Diet passing the necessary legislation, but the move is just the start of a long road that still lies ahead. Even the welfare ministry acknowledges that the consumption tax must be increased ...