AP A car bomb exploded outside a mosque Sunday, killing at least 37 people and wounding another 141 in a mostly Shiite Muslim neighborhood in the southern Pakistan city of Karachi — the third mass-casualty attack on the minority sect in the country this ...
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 ...
Since mid-November, the yen has weakened substantially against the dollar, the euro and other currencies. The rapid decline was fueled by aggressive policy announcements by Shinzo Abe, before and after he became the prime minister in December, calling for more fiscal stimulus and for ...
Political parties in Japan are busy preparing for the Dec. 16 Lower House election. Each day, voters face new or newly merged parties, most of them determined to become part of the “third political force” or “third pole” forming to challenge the ruling Democratic ...
On Sept. 14, the Japanese government presented to the public a new national energy strategy. This long-awaited plan included as its focal point the objective of eliminating nuclear power by the end of the 2030s. Less than a week later, however, Japan’s hopes for ...
On May 5, Japan’s last operating nuclear reactor was shut down, turning it into a nuclear energy-free country. The government is working desperately to restart two reactors in the town of Oi in Fukui Prefecture, but the outcome is difficult to predict. In fact, ...
The University of Tokyo, locally known as Todai, has announced a draft plan to shift the start of its academic year from spring to autumn and called on 11 other major universities to join it. Public discussion of the proposal has been immense since ...
On July 1, 2011, the European Union-South Korea free-trade agreement took effect, promising to significantly facilitate the exchange of goods and services and give both nations a major economic boost. The conclusion of the deal demonstrated the huge European interest in South Korea’s economy ...
Japan launched major yen-selling intervention on Oct. 31 in response to massive speculative yen-buying — the first such action since August. The ever-rising yen is threatening Japan’s export industry and can easily derail the eagerly awaited economic recovery from the March 11 shock. However, ...
The Fukushima power plant crisis has clearly damaged Japan as a country brand. There has been an outpouring of sympathy for the victims and a widespread admiration for Japan’s perseverance, stoicism and orderly response, but the overwhelming perception overseas is negative: disbelief that such ...
Pure chaos is reigning over Japanese energy policy and the future of its nuclear power industry. Just after trade minister Banri Kaieda declared the nation’s nuclear power stations safe to restart late last month, Prime Minister Naoto Kan suddenly ordered that stress tests be ...
Japanese automakers were hit hard by the March earthquake and the massive supply chain interruptions continue. It’s so bad in fact that normalization of production at most domestic and overseas plants is expected to take until the end of the year. Toyota is likely ...
The economies of Japan and Germany, similar in many respects, are often compared. Not only did both rise from the ashes of World War II to become the leading economies in their regions, but they also formed strong manufacturing bases, large numbers of successful ...
Japan and Germany will celebrate the 150th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties in 2011. The first commemorative events will kick-off this October, with the grande finale planned to take place in October 2011 in Yokohama. Both countries were defeated in World War II but ...
