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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 ...
North Korea fires three short-range missiles as the totalitarian state showcases its military ambitions in defiance of international sanctions.
President Barack Obama and visiting British Prime Minister David Cameron expressed limited optimism Monday that an upcoming international conference on Syria will lead to a political solution to its civil war. “I’m not promising that it’s going to be successful,” Obama said at a ...
For nearly two years, the White House has avoided direct military assistance to Syrian rebels out of a strong belief that it would not necessarily tip the balance in their favor, would be difficult to justify under international law and would displease the majority ...
North Korea has moved two missiles from launch sites on the country’s eastern coast, U.S. officials revealed Monday, signaling lowered tensions following worries Pyongyang was ready to test-fire the weapons. The Musudan missiles had been ready to launch at any moment, but “they moved ...
President Barack Obama is preparing to send lethal weaponry to the Syrian opposition and has taken steps to assert more aggressive U.S. leadership among allies and partners seeking the ouster of President Bashar Assad, according to senior administration officials. The officials emphasized that supplying ...
The United States and South Korea on Tuesday wrapped up military drills at the center of soaring tensions with North Korea, as Pyongyang ignored a new overture over a flagship joint industrial zone. The two-month-long “Foal Eagle” air, ground and naval field training exercise ...
The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks led to a massive buildup of security to make the country safe. Subsequent plots, including attempts to conceal bombs in shoes and underwear, prompted hasty additions to that edifice, as officials sought to fill in cracks that terrorists might ...
North Korea's military on Tuesday threatened the South with imminent "sledgehammer" retaliation unless Seoul apologized for anti-Pyongyang protestors burning effigies of its revered leaders.
North Korea’s fatal artillery attack on the border island of Yeonpyeong over two years ago uprooted old wooden houses from their foundations. One shell punctured the concrete side of a soccer stadium, another struck a rooftop oil tank. Residents rushed to underground bunkers, and ...
The views posted on Chinese Internet sites about the diplomatic faceoff with long-term ally North Korea have been anything but diplomatic.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meets with top Chinese officials to press them to rein in a defiant North Korea and help defuse soaring nuclear tensions.
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 ...