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 ...
Bruce Willis says he’s against new gun-control laws that could infringe on rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution. The “Die Hard” star also dismisses any link between Hollywood shootouts and real-life gun violence. “I think that you can’t start to pick ...
The U.S. media has turned a spotlight on itself after three news organizations admitted keeping the location of a drone base in Saudi Arabia secret at the request of the U.S. administration. The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Associated Press this ...
In theaters, the movies might look the same. But perhaps now we see them differently. After the gun massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, in December, the ground shifted for good. Assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and background checks became a permanent part of the conversation, as ...
Ever since the Liberal Democratic Party regained power last year, standard-bearer Shinzo Abe has been conspicuously cautious with his public pronouncements, cooling it on the nationalist rhetoric and keeping the bravado to a minimum. Deprived of excitement, the media was delighted by Vice Prime ...
For one Chinese TV extra, playing with the enemy has proved the secret of his success — one that requires him to die as often as eight times a day. Shi Zhongpeng, 26, works at the Hengdian film studio in Zhejiang Province where scores ...
When reporters from The New Yorker, “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams,” “Good Morning America,” The Associated Press and The Washington Post, have all converged upon one event, it must be important. An appearance by the president. A press conference about dignified matters, with ...
In December several celebrities were forced to apologize publicly for stating on their personal blogs that they had “won” items on so-called penny auction websites when, in fact, they hadn’t. Penny auction sites, which first appeared in Germany in 2005, offer people the chance ...
Nearly 180 million Americans will settle in front of TV sets with beer and chicken wings this weekend and, over four hours, watch commercials interrupted by a football game. Well, all right, the gridiron showdown Sunday in New Orleans between the Baltimore Ravens and ...
According to the National Police Agency (NPA), Japan’s annual total of suicides dipped below 30,000 people for the first time in 15 years in 2012 — to 27,766. While the fall is great news, part of me wonders: Has there really been a drop ...
Article 18 of Japan’s Constitution states, “No person shall be held in bondage of any kind. Involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime, is prohibited.” And Article 97 declares, “The fundamental human rights by this Constitution guaranteed to the people of Japan are fruits ...
Japan plummeted to 53rd from the previous year’s 22nd in the 2013 press freedom ranking released Wednesday by Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based nonprofit organization. Japan “has been affected by a lack of transparency and almost zero respect for access to information on subjects ...
Thanks to a feature that appeared on the front page of the Dec. 31 issue of the Asahi Shimbun, oidashi beya is the first topical neologism of 2013 if you don’t count “Abenomics.” It’s not clear if the term, which translates as “expulsion room,” ...
