Transport authorities launched a full-fledged investigation Sunday into the derailment of a bullet train on the Akita Shinkansen Line in Daisen, Akita Prefecture, on Saturday afternoon.
It's a dangerous, unpredictable world. Twice in January Chinese warships in the East China Sea challenged Japan's Maritime Self Defense Forces patrols in a manner deemed threatening. And on Feb. 12 came North Korea's nuclear test.
Here's an open secret: Japanese men have a bad international reputation on the romance front.
SELLING WOMEN: Prostitution, Markets and the Household in Early Modern Japan, by Amy Stanley. University of California Press, 2012, 282 pp., $49.95 (hardcover) In the vast cultural landscape, Japan fascinates the mainstream with manga and anime, the martial arts, Zen and kimono. Of course, ...
Kenta Maeda shook off worries about his form with five shutout innings as Japan beat China 5-2 in first-round Pool A of the World Baseball Classic on Sunday at Fukuoka Dome. Japan improved to 2-0 following a tough win over Brazil in Saturday evening’s ...
Pope Benedict XVI leaves the Catholic Church in unprecedented limbo as he becomes its first leader in 600 years to resign, exiting with an extraordinary pledge to obey his successor.
Inside the ruins of a market demolished by a powerful bomb, four tiny white candles — dwarfed by the scale of the destruction — flickered gently in the freezing rain as dazed Shiite Muslim Hazaras wept for the nearly 90 people killed in the ...
She didn’t know the man in the casket, never met him or his family. Yet, Kate Hopkins stood watch over 48-year-old Francisco Carmona’s funeral on a gray, cold day in a Kentucky cemetery. Hopkins joined a group of students, a few county employees and ...
Pope Benedict XVI delivered an emotional final Sunday prayer in St. Peter’s Square, saying God had told him to devote himself to quiet contemplation but pledging not to “abandon” the church. Tens of thousands of supporters turned out for Benedict’s weekly Angelus prayer, his ...
Britain’s most senior Roman Catholic cleric, who is due to vote on Pope Benedict XVI’s successor, has been reported to the Vatican over claims of inappropriate behavior, the Observer newspaper reported on Sunday. Cardinal Keith O’Brien, leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, contests ...
A sect named Defenders of Christ that was broken up in Mexico last month forced women to participate in orgies, discouraged baths and made people eat raw animal organs, the wife of a cult leader said Tuesday. Mexican immigration authorities raided the sex-driven sect’s ...
How much weight does an endorsement from a lame-duck pope carry in the upcoming election? No, not that election — the one to pick the next leader of the Catholic Church. Another key ballot is looming even closer, when Italians go to the polls ...
Documents detailing the dubious fundraising practices of a disgraced Roman Catholic religious order called the Legion of Christ were released to the public Friday, showing how the organization took control of an elderly woman’s finances and persuaded her to bequeath it $60 million. The ...
Inside a 13th-century monastery in a sleepy village north of Rome, the Rev. Salvatore Palumbo was allegedly serving more than one higher authority. Italian prosecutors say a Ferrari-driving lawyer who defrauded insurance companies used the priest as a front man, with Palumbo stashing the ...
Electing a successor to Benedict XVI will involve a centuries-old procedure steeped in secrecy that will offer few signals about the identity of the 266th pope until white smoke wafts over St. Peter’s Square. Only the 118 of the 210 members of the College ...
Pope Benedict XVI says he will resign this month because of his advancing age in a fast-changing world, becoming the first pontiff in 600 years to step down of his own free will. The 85-year-old said Monday he will step down on Feb. 28 ...
Roman Catholics around the world expressed disbelief and grief Monday at the first papal resignation in six centuries. Some saw it as a dramatic act of humility, others as a sign of crisis in the Roman Catholic Church. Many more expressed hope that a ...
