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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 ...
A senior Israeli military official says it is "quite clear" Syria has used chemical agents, which U.S. President Barack Obama has called a "red line" Damascus cannot cross.
Senior Israeli military officials asserted Tuesday that forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad have used chemical weapons against the country’s civilians, saying their evidence — including photographs of victims foaming at the mouth — made them “nearly 100 percent” certain. It was the ...
Wriggling through crater-size holes in deserted, bullet-pocked buildings, once-dormant Kurdish militia fighters in the city of Aleppo are providing Syrian rebels a much-needed boost to push back regime forces. Since the uprising against President Bashar Assad’s regime started more than two years ago, Syria’s ...
The European Union was set Monday to ease its oil embargo against Syria in favor of rebels fighting President Bashar Assad’s regime in its latest signal of support to the opposition. EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg were set to formally adopt measures enabling ...
Britain and France have informed the United Nations that there is credible evidence that Syria’s government has used chemical weapons on more than one occasion since December, according to senior diplomats and officials briefed on the accounts. In letters to U.N. Secretary General Ban ...
In the heart of rebel-held territory in Syria’s northern province of Aleppo, a small group of intrepid Westerners is undertaking a mission of great stealth. Living anonymously in a small rural community, they travel daily in unmarked cars, braving airstrikes, shelling and the threat ...
The public pledge of allegiance to al-Qaida by Syria’s fiercest rebel group, Jabhat al-Nusra, ultimately serves the interests of President Bashar Assad’s regime, according to analysts. “It’s a point in the regime’s favor because it reinforces the official narrative that claims (the proregime army ...
Western nations have "hard evidence" that chemical weapons have been used at least once in the Syrian war but a U.N. investigation team is now unlikely to get into the country, diplomats say.
Airstrikes have hit bakeries and hospitals among other civilian targets in Syria, a watchdog reported Thursday, accusing the regime of killing thousands in raids it said amounted to war crimes. “Individuals who commit serious violations of the laws of war wilfully — that is ...
As this remote corner of northeastern Syria fast slides out of government control, many Syrians are bracing for what they fear will be another war, between the relatively moderate fighters who first took up arms against the government and the Islamist extremists who emerged ...
In his sharpest warning yet about the potential fallout of his country’s civil war on neighboring states, Syrian President Bashar Assad warned the fall of his regime or the breakup of Syria would unleash a “domino effect” fueling Middle East instability for years to ...
Italy’s Foreign Ministry said four Italian journalists were kidnapped in northern Syria, the ANSA news agency reported late Friday. Italian authorities said they have been monitoring the case from the start but called for “maximum discretion,” insisting that “the physical safety of the hostages ...