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Farmers in the city of Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, have begun planting rice in a district once designated a no-go zone because of radioactive fallout ejected by the disaster-hit Fukushima No. 1 power plant.
Recently I was asked to write a blurb for a new liquid plant-nutrient. As soon as I saw the name of the product, 早根早起 （Hayane Hayaoki), I smiled at this example of linguistic creativity.
Life in Japan just seems tailor-made for certain foreign residents, who slip into the fabric of this society as smoothly as a hand slides into a glove. American Curtis Patterson, a professional koto player and music teacher, is a case in point. Not only ...
Denmark’s Emmelie de Forest won this year’s Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday night with her ethno-inspired flute and drum tune “Only Teardrops,” despite tough competition from spectacular stage shows by performers from Azerbaijan and Ukraine. Juries and television viewers across Europe awarded the barefoot, ...
One team’s quest for a first title has ended. The other team’s fight will continue next season. The Yokohama B-Corsairs outplayed the Rizing Fukuoka in Sunday’s bj-league championship game, controlling the tempo for larger stretches and making enough timely baskets to fill an instructional ...
North Korea delivered its most in-depth account yet of the case against a Korean-American sentenced to 15 years’ hard labor, accusing him late Thursday of smuggling in inflammatory literature and trying to establish a base for anti-Pyongyang activities at a border city hotel. Still, ...
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday announced the resignation of his influential deputy prime minister, Vladislav Surkov, credited with designing the country’s notorious political system. The Kremlin said in a statement that Surkov had left his post voluntarily, but analysts and observers said he ...
Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's tax fraud conviction and four-year prison sentence are upheld on the first appeal in a case that could see him barred from public office for five years.
Not just anyone is allowed to become president of Iran. But just about anyone can sign up to be considered, and the dozens of candidates who lined up to do so in Tehran on Tuesday offered a window into the uncertainty and confusion surrounding ...
A former scandal-plagued South Carolina governor completed a stunning political resurrection Tuesday, defeating the sister of famed political satirist Stephen Colbert to win back his old U.S. House seat. Republican Mark Sanford had trailed his Democratic rival Elizabeth Colbert Busch in polls a week ...
A CIA officer who was the first woman to lead the agency’s clandestine service, but was also closely tied to the agency’s interrogation program, will not get to keep that job as part of a management shakeup announced Tuesday by CIA Director John Brennan, ...
For nearly two years, the White House has avoided direct military assistance to Syrian rebels out of a strong belief that it would not necessarily tip the balance in their favor, would be difficult to justify under international law and would displease the majority ...
A close ally of a charismatic but divisive politician killed by two assailants in Curacao said Monday he believes the lawmaker was slain in some sort of politically motivated attack on the Dutch Caribbean island, off the coast of Venezuela. Donald Balentina, president of ...
Gunmen in Tripoli kept up their siege of ministries Tuesday despite the adoption of a law to purge Gadhafi-era officials from their posts, with some demanding the government’s resignation. Different groups at the Justice and Foreign ministries, however, failed to reach a shared position ...
Giulio Andreotti personified the nation he helped shape, the good and the bad. One of Italy’s most important postwar figures, he helped draft the country’s constitution after World War II, served seven times as prime minister and spent 60 years in Parliament. But the ...
One congressional candidate is a former Republican governor seeking redemption after his career imploded in a public scandal involving lies, a mysterious absence and an Argentine mistress. His Democratic opponent is a famous TV comedian’s sister who is trying to benefit from her rival’s ...
The anti-immigration U.K. Independence Party breaks through as a major political force in local elections, averaging a quarter of the vote and bloodying the ruling coalition's nose.