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Is it a sign of a full-fledged economic recovery or a looming catastrophe in the monetary making? Recent spikes in Japan’s long-term interest rate, represented by the 10-year government bond, have created a stir and roused a deep sense of alarm among investors and ...
Tonkatsu is comfort food, gourmand grub — not a gourmet delicacy. So what are those hearty, unpretentious deep-fried breaded pork cutlets doing in an elegant little bar-style restaurant above one of Ginza’s temples to high-end consumption? Katsuzen has come a long way from its ...
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 ...
Disgusted by corrupt local leaders, an angry miner picks up a shotgun. A migrant worker returning home looks to armed robbery to escape a life of relentless bleakness. A pretty receptionist at a sauna is driven to the limit when a gangster tries to ...
David Beckham, whose curling free kicks, rugged good looks and celebrity marriage made him one of the most famous athletes in the world, is retiring from soccer. Whether striding on the grass, the red carpet or the fashion catwalks, Beckham transcended his sport and ...
For years, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been saddled with an image of a cigar-smoking, cognac-drinking socialite. Now a new disclosure about his soaring spending on housekeeping, furniture, clothing and other expenses is increasing pressure on him in a country whose leaders once ...
European Union governments want to shift the cost of rescuing troubled banks from taxpayers to the banks’ creditors — including the holders of large deposits — as part the region’s plan to shore up its shaky financial system. Finance ministers from the 27-country bloc ...
The European Union’s top economic official warned Monday that Slovenia may not have done enough to escape becoming the eurozone’s sixth bailout case. Speaking after talks among eurozone finance ministers in Brussels, EU Economy and Euro Commissioner Olli Rehn said a decision on the ...
Liberals are increasingly facing a conundrum as the Pentagon experiences the deepest cuts in a generation: The significant reductions in military spending that they have long sought are also taking a huge bite out of economic growth. Liberal lawmakers and others on the left ...
France plans to ax nearly 10 percent of all jobs in the armed forces but maintain significant spending as it tries to maintain its status as a top military power, a government review showed Monday. The white paper, which sets the general direction of ...
Sequestration became a reality to the broad public in airports across the the United States this past week, and on Friday both Congress and the White House caved in to pressure from tens of thousands of airline passengers angered by flight delays. The lawmakers ...
After months of inside-the-Beltway drama, the impact of sequestration cutbacks moved to center stage America on Monday as the aviation system was slowed by the furlough of 1,500 air traffic controllers. With about 10 percent of the controllers who direct 23,000 planes a day ...
The city of Yubari, Hokkaido, which declared bankruptcy in March 2007 with debts of ¥35.3 billion, has posted a clock on its website to show the real-time liability balance and amount it has repaid. The “debt clock” is the brainchild of Mayor Naomichi Suzuki ...
Portugal’s constitutional court Friday rejected several aspects of the country’s belt-tightening budget for 2013, seen as crucial to austerity efforts promised to creditors by the center-right government. The court ruled that some measures in the budget were unlawful, including the scrapping of a 14th ...
After President Barack Obama set up a national online suggestion box in 2009 asking federal workers for new ways to cut the budget, 86,000 ideas came in. Some, inevitably, were a little odd. One suggested that Transportation Security Administration officers scour airport floors for ...
As soon as policymakers averted a crisis in Cyprus, another appears to be brewing. The latest country to provoke concern is Slovenia. The small former Yugoslav republic took a beating Friday, with long-term bond yields spiking to 5.4 percent amid fears the country would ...
European leaders Monday hailed a last-minute bailout for Cyprus as an important step in defending their unified currency, but some officials and analysts questioned whether the deal raised new problems that could still threaten the survival of the euro. The arrangement will grant Cyprus ...