Asia Pacific

Bangladesh disaster probe blames owner

The head of an official inquiry into the deadly collapse of a Bangladesh factory complex said the building’s owner was the “main culprit” for the disaster because he violated construction codes. The cave-in of the eight-story Rana Plaza outside the capital last month killed ...

An overture to Pyongyang

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent an aide, Mr. Isao Iijima — a former secretary to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi — to North Korea last week in an effort to make progress on unresolved bilateral issues, including the past abduction of Japanese nationals by North ...

Food & Drink | JAPANESE KITCHEN

Springtime beans aim for the sky

by Makiko Itoh

Throughout most of Japan, June is the rainy season. While all that rainfall is great for rice paddies so that we can have delicious new harvest rice in the fall, it makes it a rather dull month for seasonal produce: The summer’s bounty of ...

Issues | THE FOREIGN ELEMENT

Fear and incarceration, from Kampala to Nagoya

by Stephen Carr

“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, ...

Stage

Shizuoka theater festival courts the avant-garde

by Nobuko Tanaka

Claude Regy says the team at the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC) threw him the “best birthday party ever” when he arrived in Japan just days after the actual May 1 occasion. The 90-year-old French director is hoping for an even better birthday gift, ...

Baseball | SPORTS SCOPE

Fighters rookie Otani makes solid impression in mound debut

As far as debuts go, Shohei Otani's delivered. The celebrated rookie pitched fairly well on Thursday night, and though he finished outside the decision, he left the mound with the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters well within striking distance of the Tokyo Yakult Swallows.

More Sports / Figure Skating

Machida second at Four Continents

JEONJU, South Korea (Kyodo) Tatsuki Machida bounced back from sixth in the men’s short program to finish second at the Four Continents Championships on Saturday.

The 19-year-old Machida skated a near-flawless performance in the free skate to earn a personal-best 217.48 points. American Adam Rippon came from seventh in the short program to claim his first title with 225.78.

“I am happy to have earned a personal-best score,” said Machida. “This is the first time that I skated without errors in such a big event and it’s a confidence boost that I did well in a competition against great skaters.”