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DRIZZLE/RAIN
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 ...
The House of Representatives approved a bill Friday for tax reform in fiscal 2013 that will include lower levies to help boost private-sector investment. The Lower House, dominated by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling coalition, voted for the plan for the year starting April ...
The Cabinet at a meeting Friday adopted a bill banning major retailers from advertising price discounts in the lead-up to the planned sales tax hike in an attempt to return extra tax payments to shoppers. The move follows government concerns that such campaigns by ...
Chinese couples are flocking to divorce to avoid a new property sales tax imposed by the government, after it left open a loophole for those who end their marriages. Government marriage registration offices — which also handle divorces — were swamped by scores of ...
President Barack Obama takes the most specific steps of his administration in an attempt to ensure the election of a Democratic-controlled Congress in two years.
The American economy shrank at the end of last year for the first time since the recession ended, according to new government data, as deep cuts in federal spending torpedoed what otherwise looked to be a modest recovery. Consumers did their part, spending more ...
The government and ruling bloc has decided to tax capital gains from bonds and bond investment trusts and lengthen tax breaks planned for dividends and capital gains from minor investments in stocks and stock investment trusts to 10 years instead of three, sources said ...
The Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association is calling for a lower rate for publications when the consumption tax is raised in April 2014. The association, headed by Asahi Shimbun Co. Chairman Kotaro Akiyama, is pitching the request as part of the movement to ...
French actor Gerard Depardieu, who has announced he wants to quit his homeland to avoid higher taxes, said Thursday he was pleased after President Vladimir Putin granted him Russian citizenship. The decision appears to give Depardieu, a frequent guest of the Moscow celebrity circuit, ...
French actor Gerard Depardieu, who has announced he wants to quit his homeland to avoid higher taxes, said Thursday he was pleased after President Vladimir Putin granted him Russian citizenship. The decision appears to give Depardieu, a frequent guest of the Moscow celebrity circuit, ...