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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 ...
An Organization of American States study released Friday is calling for a serious discussion on legalizing marijuana. Advocates for drug policy reform called the report historic, though it made no specific proposals. It said there is “no significant support” among the 35-member OAS for ...
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 ...
Venezuela’s acting President Nicolas Maduro rose from bus driver to union activist and foreign minister, and now the man who calls himself Hugo Chavez’s “son” has succeeded his mentor in Sunday’s election. Named by Chavez as his political heir, Maduro ran a campaign that ...
By virtue of being the most diverse and hybrid area on the planet, Latin America is a kind of potpourri that is difficult to understand due to the number of ingredients it contains. Are we the poor suburbs of the West, as some see ...
When it is completed in 2015, the Jirau hydroelectric dam will span the Madeira River, feature more giant turbines than any other dam in the world and hold as much concrete as 47 towers the size of New York’s Empire State Building. And then ...
Spain’s bid to join the Pacific Alliance illustrates the growing clout of the trade association between Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, a new rival to the South American trading bloc Mercosur. In an interview with Santiago daily La Tercera, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy ...