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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 ...
Germany’s resort island of Sylt has been shaken by the death of a celebrated Japanese chef who was roughed up by two customers who had complained about his food and, according to reports, left without paying. Miki Nozawa died Monday from a brain hemorrhage ...
The coalition’s plans to crack down on Britain’s tax havens were discussed April 13 at a meeting between British Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, amid growing concerns in Germany. Merkel was understood to have had questions about the monitoring of ...
Germany has one of the most robust green movements in the world, but economic pressures are tempting it to try something critics say will harm the Earth: shale gas drilling. Motivated by a rapid-fire increase in natural gas production in the United States, German ...
A new political party in Germany that is opposed to the euro is emerging as an election-year wild card and a potential threat to Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose coalition government is ruling with a narrow margin. The small Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which ...
The workers used the early morning darkness to obscure their secretive task: removing pieces of the longest-remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall. When the wall fell in 1989, Berlin’s residents were eager to clear away the hated divider as quickly as they could. Now ...
Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, will avoid the recession that has engulfed many of its partners in the region and return to growth in the first quarter of 2013, the Bundesbank said Monday. “As it currently looks, a plus in economic output can be expected ...
Finance Minister Taro Aso and his German counterpart, Wolfgang Schaeuble, have agreed that the two countries will continue to closely discuss economic and financial matters, a source said. During a 20-minute conversation Friday on the sidelines of a two-day meeting of Group of 20 ...
The debate over the legality of drone warfare is stretching from Capitol Hill into the shadow of the Brandenburg Gate, as Germany considers purchasing armed drones for the first time. Ever since World War II, Germany has been skeptical about military deployments, mindful of ...
Chancellor Angela Merkel was left licking her wounds Sunday after her education minister quit amid a plagiarism scandal, depriving her of a key ally as she gears up for September elections. Merkel betrayed rare emotion as she accepted “with a very heavy heart” the ...
Prime Minister David Cameron claimed victory in his battle to slash the EU budget Friday, saying marathon talks proved that his promise of a referendum on EU membership had not left Britain isolated. Cameron had vowed to accept nothing less than a real-term freeze ...
German Chancellor Angela Merkel criticizes Japan's monetary easing and weakening of the yen, voicing concern over possible exchange-rate manipulation.
Imagine a vast registry that details every legal gun owner in the country, along with information about all of their firearms. Now imagine the gun lobby not making a fuss about it. That is what has happened in Germany, where a new gun database ...