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A sit-in by visa violators and their families entered its second day Tuesday in front of the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau with protesters seeking government good will. The action at the bureau in Minato Ward is being organized by the Asian People’s Friendship Society, ...
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, ...
Takashi Miike's blood-soaked vengeance tale, one of two Japanese films being shown in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, draws the biggest boos so far, with critics savaging it as overacted and cliched.
Have you ever given your best effort while striving to achieve something but felt like what you were doing was futile? That’s the feeling I’m getting about Tokyo’s bid to host the 2020 Olympics. With just over three months to go until the IOC ...
In a country infamous for heavy-handed officials, the government employees who harass and sometimes beat and extort money from street vendors are among the most despised. Their official name is “chengguan” — literally, “city management” — but the word has become slang for someone ...
Thrashing wildly, 5-year-old Reta wails as she is hoisted onto a bed during a circumcision ceremony in a school hall-turned-clinic on Indonesia’s island of Java. “No, no, no,” she cries, punching and kicking as her mother cups her tear-soaked face to soothe her. Doctors ...
Amid mounting military and nuclear tensions with North Korea, an American retiree has gained rare access to the pariah state to build schools in the usually off-limits countryside. Christopher Carpenter, 73, who used to head the U.N. refugee agency in Vietnam, began building schools ...
Nearly 330 million abortions have been performed in China in the 40 years since it first took measures to limit population growth in the world’s most populous nation, official data showed. China has announced structural changes to its family planning system, which oversees the ...
Chinese couples are flocking to divorce to avoid a new property sales tax imposed by the government, after it left open a loophole for those who end their marriages. Government marriage registration offices — which also handle divorces — were swamped by scores of ...
Babies born to Indian surrogate mothers for gay and single Australians may be left stateless and unable to leave the country after New Delhi changed the rules on surrogacy, an expert has said. The Indian rule changes circulated to foreign missions late last year, ...
With virtual bodyguards, panic buttons and maps to pinpoint harassment blackspots, women in urban India are using their smartphones for protection after a notorious gang rape in New Delhi. Interest in safety apps and websites has surged since the fatal December attack, in which ...
Teenage boys in a Shanghai school are on the front line of teaching reform after the world’s top-scoring education system introduced male-only classes over worries they are lagging behind girls. Rows of white-shirted boys are put through their paces as they are called up ...
A dozen elderly women are gathered inside the pink house, set on a narrow dirt road in a dusty Jakarta suburb. Together they sew, bake and chat. At first sight they look like a group of benevolent grandmothers, but the sunken cheeks and deep ...
It’s just after morning opening at Sydney’s Randwick Labor Club and already a few regulars are at the slot machines, or “pokies” as they are known locally, for a quiet flutter. Electronic poker machines are the most popular form of betting in Australia, but ...
Singapore’s biggest protest in decades shows that the ruling party for over half a century is facing a more vocal electorate and must change or watch its popularity slide further, analysts say. At least 3,000 Singaporeans chanted “we want change” and endured heavy downpours ...
A Sri Lankan newspaper vowed Sunday it will not be intimidated after an investigative reporter survived an assassination bid, the latest in a string of attacks against the country’s media. Faraz Shauketaly, 54, from the privately owned Sunday Leader, is in intensive care at ...