The Democratic Party called Monday for the new minister in charge of issues related to Okinawa to be sacked after he made a gaffe just two days after being assigned the post in the latest Cabinet reshuffle. Tetsuma Esaki told reporters Saturday that he would ...

Fresh off the adoption of new U.N. sanctions, the foreign ministers of Japan, the United States and South Korea agree to build international pressure against Pyongyang’s weapons programs.

Courting controversy, Japan’s new defense chief says the ability to strike North Korean missile bases might be pursued by the Self-Defense Forces.

A Kyoto startup unveils a way to mass-produce platelets, a key component in clotting, that could reduce doctors’ dependency on donated blood to minimize bleeding.

Fire ants, a venomous, highly invasive nonnative pest, have been spotted over the past few months in various parts of Japan, prompting the Environment Ministry to both warn the public to seek immediate treatment for stings and take measures to prevent further infestation. First detected ...

The mayor of Yamanashi was arrested Monday for allegedly falsifying the results of a municipal recruitment test last year to help an applicant land a job, the police said. Seiki Mochizuki, 70, is serving his first term as mayor of the mountainous city, which is ...

Kyoto hotel bills look likely to rise as a special panel studying a proposed lodging tax hands in its final report to the Kyoto Municipal Government.

Deep in the Shikoku wilderness, along a steep winding road above a dark green river, sits the tiny village of Okawa. It's located in a region sometimes dubbed by enthusiastic travel writers as the "Tibet of Japan" for its comparative isolation within the mountains. With ...

Honda Motor Co.'s go-it-alone strategy looks increasingly risky as the alliance-happy auto industry scales up to cope with the soaring investment needed for self-driving vehicles, electrified powertrains, connected-car technologies and artificial intelligence. In the latest industry tieup, Toyota Motor Corp. and Mazda Motor Corp. announced ...

The Bank of Japan is adding to the risks of its aggressive monetary easing policies by discussing only their potential upside, according to recently departed Policy Board member Takahide Kiuchi. "Communicating only bullish confidence about the positives is a big problem," Kiuchi said in an ...

Xi Jinping appears to again be back in Donald Trump's good graces — at least for now. Last week, it looked as if the leaders of the world's biggest economies were on a collision course. North Korea's second intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test in a ...

The probe of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and possible collusion by associates of President Donald Trump is not a "fishing expedition," the Justice Department official who launched it said. In his first Sunday news-show appearance, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein declined ...

The Australian government said on Sunday it would deploy its armed forces to assist in recovery efforts after the U.S. Marine Corps suspended its search for three Marines missing since their aircraft crashed off Australia's northeast coast a day earlier. The Marine Corps said earlier ...

If Prime Minister Abe and his party were less beholden to vested interests, his efforts to defeat deflation would gain more traction.

When American musician Scott Murphy first came to Japan in 2001, he could only say a few phrases in Japanese.

The Osaka District Public Prosecutor's Office's special investigation unit on July 31 arrested Yasunori Kagoike, 64, former chief of Moritomo Gakuen in Osaka, and his wife, Junko, 60, for allegedly defrauding the central government of public subsidies.

This week's featured article KYODO Japanese men and women ranked second in the world in average life expectancy in 2016 after setting new longevity records for a fifth year straight, according to welfare ministry data. ...

The Japan Rugby Top League unveiled its 2017-2018 season on Monday in an event revealing both ambition and concern as it builds toward the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan. "In this, our 15th Top League season, we are playing toward 2019 and the Rugby ...

Japan's best finish in marathon was ninth place for Yuki Kawauchi in the men's race and 16th for Mao Kiyota in the women's event at the world athletics championships Sunday, the country failing to book a place in the top eight for the first ...

It won't be long before the Yomiuri Giants' Shinnosuke Abe breaks through the 2,000-hit threshold. Abe has 1,994 now, so it's only a matter of time before he becomes the 49th player to reach the mark in NPB alone. Abe should be followed in short ...

Norichika Aoki hit a two-run homer against his former team Sunday for his first hit since being traded to the Toronto Blue Jays six days previously, but the visitors suffered a 7-6 walkoff defeat to the Houston Astros. With Toronto down 3-2 in the top ...

It was a record that was bound to fall to the right man in the right circumstances, and on Sunday the mark for career games pitched in Nippon Professional Baseball was eclipsed by Chunichi Dragons lefty Hitoki Iwase, Japan's all-time saves leader. The previous mark ...