The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has added the Tone River basin north of Tokyo and a mountain range in the country's southwest to its list of biosphere reserves, the government learned Wednesday. As of March last year, 669 areas in 120 countries were ...

A senior education ministry official has indicated that whistleblowers involved in the Kake Gakuen scandal could be punished for leaking internal information in violation of the National Public Service Law.

The acquittal of former presidents of JR West over a tragic 2005 train derailment has prompted calls for legal reforms that would enable prosecutors to hold corporations criminally liable for causing large-scale accidents.

The government said Wednesday it aims to drastically reduce the suicide rate by shoring up support for people who have previously attempted to take their own lives as well as mothers suffering from postpartum depression. In its latest draft of the suicide prevention guideline, released ...

Housekeeping operators are looking to increase more foreign maids in Tokyo, taking advantage of a special deregulation-zone system, as the need for such services is expected to grow. Two Filipinas, Jocelyn Paloma Oledan and Marianne Paragua Culaniban, on Wednesday flew from Manila to Tokyo's Haneda ...

As head of the Muelheim-Kaerlich nuclear reactor, Thomas Volmar spends his days plotting how to tear down his workplace. The best way to do that, he says, is to cut out humans. About 200 nuclear reactors around the world will be shut down over the ...

A group of calendar makers told the government Wednesday they will suffer huge financial losses if the new era name to be adopted after the abdication of Emperor Akihito is not announced before January, saying they will have difficulty moving forward for the following ...

The Nagasaki Municipal Government is considering lighting up the Peace Park commemorating the Aug. 9, 1945, atomic bombing of the city. City officials in charge of tourism said they hope to have the lighting display in place by 2020 to attract more visitors to the ...

Uber Technologies Inc. director David Bonderman said on Tuesday that he has resigned from the company's board following a remark he made during a staff meeting that was widely seen as offensive to women. Bonderman's ill-timed remark came during an all-staff meeting Tuesday to discuss ...

An executive at one of the country's biggest defense companies has bemoaned government barriers to exporting military equipment, as changes to the law have failed to bring the bonus some expected for the domestic industry. Speaking at Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd.'s booth at the MAST ...

Nintendo Co. has announced a slate of new titles for its new hybrid console Switch, moving to capitalize on early excitement for its newest game system. A Pokemon role-playing game for the Switch is in development, Kyoto-based Nintendo said Tuesday on a webcast at the ...

The operator of Ivanka Trump’s fashion brand has halted negotiations with major Japanese apparel company Sanei-International Co. over concerns about potential conflicts of interest.

A photo collection of Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike went on sale Wednesday, with its publisher saying the number of first edition copies being printed is "extraordinarily" large for a book of its kind. Titled "YURiKO KOiKE 1992-2017," the book contains 130 photos, including private shots ...

Education is a process that needs both long-term commitment and investment. So the government's move toward making preschool education free must sound attractive to many. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe views stepped-up investment in citizens as key to unlocking the country's economic potential. But there is ...

A local maker of traditional tabi split-toed footwear is looking to widen overseas sales channels after its fashionable products gained traction in France. Musashino Uniform, which runs a shop specializing in work clothes in Gyoda, Saitama Prefecture, exhibited a lineup of tabi footwear tinged with ...

Labor authorities on Wednesday referred H.I.S. Co. and two of the travel agency's senior officials to prosecutors for allegedly forcing employees to work overtime beyond legal limits. The travel agency is suspected of violating the labor standards law in 2015 by making two corporate sales ...

More than 190 Democratic lawmakers sued U.S. President Donald Trump in federal court on Wednesday, saying he had accepted funds from foreign governments through his businesses without congressional consent in violation of the U.S. Constitution. The complaint said Trump had not sought congressional approval for ...

When she entered medicine in the mid-1980s, Masayo Takahashi chose ophthalmology as her specialty, she said, because she wanted to have a family and thought the discipline would spare her from sudden work calls in the middle of the night, helping her best balance ...

A wild boar entered the grounds of a Kyoto University dormitory in Kyoto's Sakyo Ward Tuesday where it caused a minor injury to the leg of a bike rider in his 60s before being captured. According to police, the roughly 1-meter-long wild boar appeared to ...

The head of a nongovernmental organization pursuing nuclear abolition believes the reference to the suffering of victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki will remain in the final text of an envisaged treaty outlawing nuclear weapons. "I don't see anyone who would object ...

The U.S. government on Tuesday issued a rare alert squarely blaming the North Korean government for a raft of cyberattacks stretching back to 2009 and warning that more were likely. The joint alert from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of ...

Japan has sounded out China and South Korea about holding a trilateral summit in late July in Tokyo, diplomatic sources said Tuesday. The summit between the three countries would be the first since one held in November 2015 in Seoul. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hopes to ...

The 1987 nuclear-free act was a milestone in New Zealand's development as a nation.

If and when the U.S. does begin to join South Korea in holding a dialogue with North Korea, Japan will have to quickly ask itself whether limiting its approach to pressure is a good idea

So-called conspiracy legislation massively expands the state's coercive powers, with few checks in place to prevent abuse.

A reader wrote to Lifelines recently about the subject of dividing property upon divorce.

Some ARK staff have called this 10-year-old mix of Norwegian elkhound and Australian cattle dog "the Chris Hemsworth of dogs," in reference to the actor's portrayal of Thor.

Vampires have been a staple of Western pop culture since Bram Stoker published his best-selling novel "Dracula" in 1897. The hit "Twilight" series of films (2008-12) made the monsters hot again as millions of teens swooned to the romance of Bella (Kristen Stewart) and ...

One of the attractions of Asian martial arts for many Westerners (including this one) is the promise of self-improvement that goes beyond better street fighting. In Kazuyoshi Kumakiri's "Mukoku," a turgid film set in the kendo world, mastery of the sword is supposed to not ...

Loie Fuller was the ultimate "it girl." A little-known dancer from Illinois, she wound up in turn-of-the-century Paris, smack-dab in the middle of La Belle Epoque. Her friends? They were artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and filmmakers the Lumiere Brothers, and her protegee was acclaimed ...

It took until June, but Shun Yamaguchi's debut as a Yomiuri Giant made the wait seem almost worth it, as the right-hander threw six no-hit innings in Wednesday's 3-0 interleague win over the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks. Of the three players who signed with Yomiuri over ...

James Brooks wears an affable smile and never loses his polite attitude off the field. But once the 195-cm, 123-kg defensive lineman gets on the field, he becomes a guy who forces offensive coordinators to shape their game plan around combating him. The IBM BigBlue will ...

Takuma Sato joked that he has had a little too much milk since the great feat he accomplished on May 28 — when he became the first Japanese and Asian driver to win the prestigious Indianapolis 500. At a triumphal news conference at the Honda ...

Japan is one win away from qualifying for its sixth consecutive World Cup after grinding out a 1-1 draw away to Iraq on Tuesday. Yuya Osako opened the scoring early for Japan, but Mahdi Kamil equalized midway through the second half as the Group B ...