The Fukui Prefectural Assembly on Thursday effectively gave the green light to restarting reactors 3 and 4 at the Oi nuclear power plant. By a majority vote, the full assembly adopted an opinion paper that implicitly assumes the reactors will be restarted. The final step ...

Japanese companies are paying more for employees these days. Problem is, the money is going toward social security payroll taxes instead of wages, adding to the frustrations of Bank of Japan policymakers seeking higher wages and stronger inflation. While businesses haven't raised salaries much, their ...

Japan's yield-hungry investors are helping turn companies that were once bond-market pariahs into stars. Olympus Corp., the medical equipment maker that came under fire six years ago for a cover-up of losses, this month sold its first bond to the public since 1996, to strong ...

The effective sudden death of the largest opposition force could turn the Oct. 22 election into a two-party race between conservative forces: Abe’s LDP and Koike’s Kibo no To.

A hospital in Osaka began performing autopsies to investigate causes of death at police request in April for cases in which foul play is not strongly suspected, in response to a chronic shortage of anatomists in Japan. Osaka Habikino Medical Center became the first institution ...

In a highly unusual case that has surprised Japanese legal experts, a Turkish national based in Osaka sued a local second-hand car dealer for discrimination and won, all without the services of a lawyer. Ibrahim Yener, 40, a Turk who works as an IT engineer ...

SoftBank Group Corp. has agreed to block any attempts to elevate Travis Kalanick — controversial former leader of Uber Technologies Inc. — back to the company's top ranks, according to people familiar with the discussions. The decision removes a major obstacle from the Japanese firm's ...

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reaffirmed to the families of North Korean kidnap victims on Thursday his government's vow to bring the abductees back home to Japan in cooperation with the United States. In a meeting with the relatives at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo, ...

A type of coral on Japan's list of endangered species has been found in waters off the Henoko district in Okinawa, where landfill-related construction is underway for the planned replacement of a key U.S. military base within the prefecture, the Defense Ministry said Wednesday. The ...

A British schoolgirl has become the 13th foreign winner of a Japanese tea company's poetry competition with her ode to a newly cut lawn in autumn. Gracie Starkey, a 14-year old student at Wycliffe College, Gloucestershire, submitted the poem in the English-language category with the ...

Prince Akishino and his wife, Princess Kiko, attended a ceremony on Wednesday in Chile commemorating the 120th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two nations. At a ceremony held at Moneda Palace in Santiago, the prince said wide-ranging cooperation is taking place in the field ...

Singaporean teen blogger Amos Yee, who was jailed twice in his home country for his social media postings, has been released from U.S. custody after his bid for asylum was upheld by an immigration appeals court, his lawyer said Wednesday. Yee also confirmed by phone ...

Shinobu Sakamoto was just 15 when she left home in the Kumamoto Prefecture fishing village of Minamata to go to Stockholm and tell the world of the horrors of mercury poisoning. Forty-five years on, she has flown overseas again, this time to Geneva, to attend ...

A team of "flying doctors" providing emergency care in disaster areas showed off its specially adapted aircraft on Thursday at Saga airport. The team, made up of doctors from Saga University Hospital and pilots, is on standby around the clock, according to the Asia Pacific ...

South Korea said it will offer tax and loan concessions to firms hit by trade sanctions China imposed in retaliation against Seoul's deployment of a powerful anti-missile defense system, highlighting the broader impact of intensifying tensions on the Korean Peninsula. The government plans to allow ...

For each person sleeping rough on London's streets, there are 13 more "hidden homeless" who sofa surf, sleep on buses, squat or have sex with strangers each night, a report said on Wednesday. The London Assembly — an elected body that holds London's mayoral office ...

Thailand's former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was sentenced in absentia Wednesday to five years in prison by the Supreme Court after it found her guilty of negligence of duty for mishandling a rice subsidy project that caused massive losses. Yingluck is believed to have fled ...

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday an unnamed foreign leader told him at the United Nations last week that the country would soon announce plans to build or expand five automobile industry factories in the United States. "I just left the United Nations last week ...

Britain told U.S. plane-maker Boeing on Wednesday that it could lose out on future British defense contracts because of its dispute with Canadian rival Bombardier which has put 4,200 jobs at risk in Northern Ireland. The U.S. Department of Commerce on Tuesday imposed a 220-percent ...

The government received a wedding-day photograph of a woman thought to be a Japanese abductee to North Korea, provided on Wednesday by a Seoul-based advocacy group for the families of South Korean civilians thought to be kidnapped by the North. Officials from the Foreign Ministry ...

The leader of Japan's main opposition force, the Democratic Party, will propose that the party stand no candidates in next month's Lower House election, and let its members run under the banner of the new party led by Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike, sources said ...

Indonesian authorities are preparing to divert flights to 10 airports across the country in case an increasingly active volcano on the holiday island of Bali erupts and disrupts travel. Officials have warned that Mount Agung in eastern Bali could erupt at any time, prompting several ...

QE probably helped end the Great Recression, though we'll never know for sure.

In calling the latest of what's been a five-year flurry of election after election, Shinzo Abe admitted what households have long known: Abenomics is a dud.

The Tokyo Dome Hotel is holding "Hokkaido Fair 2017," the second iteration of its food from the north at the international buffet restaurant Rilassa from Oct. 20 to Nov. 30, enticing guests with a variety of dishes made with choice ingredients from Hokkaido. Rilassa-don, one ...

"Final Fantasy XIV: Dad of Light" follows a story familiar to anyone who knows Japanese TV dramas. A son and father grow distant, so the young man thinks up a convoluted plan to bond with pops. In this case, the plan involves him secretly ...

J.J. Abrams and Paramount Pictures will be turning one of Japan’s highest-grossing anime films into a live-action remake, but not all fans are enthusiastic.

At the end of his speech in July announcing details of this year's Festival/Tokyo running from Sept. 30 to Nov. 12 mainly at venues around Ikebukuro, its director, Sachio Ichimura, dropped a bombshell. "There is a rumor that F/T is facing the ax," he declared, ...

Hanshin lefty Atsushi Nomi went the distance and Kosuke Fukudome was 2-for-2 with four RBIs as the Tigers pounded the Yokohama BayStars 11-2 on Thursday and secured a berth in the Central League playoffs. The second-place Tigers qualified for the Climax Series for the first ...

There might not be many teams that are as motivated as the Kawasaki Brave Thunders to have a great start to the 2017-18 season. Kawasaki was the runner-up to the Tochigi Brex in the inaugural B. League Championship in May. On Friday night, the Brave Thunders ...

Mainz striker Yoshinori Muto and Stuttgart striker Takuma Asano were among the foreign-based players named on the Japan national team for next month's friendly soccer games against New Zealand and Haiti, the Japan Football Association said Thursday. But regulars Keisuke Honda of Pachuca, Shinji Okazaki ...

Midfielder Keisuke Honda scored the closing goal, one minute before the whistle blew on Pachuca's 4-0 victory over Cruz Azul on Wednesday, as Liga MX returned to action a week after a devastating earthquake struck central Mexico. Honda came off the bench in the 81st ...

Shion Sassa's ultimate goal is to compete as an Olympic equestrian rider, hopefully as soon as the 2020 Tokyo Games. The 22-year old Waseda University student would make history if she's able to achieve that goal. Of the three equestrian categories in the Olympic program, ...

The Chiba Jets Funabashi are riding a wave of positive momentum. They defeated five teams in as many days last week to capture the title at The Super 8, a new international tournament in Macau. Coach Atsushi Ono's club completed its impressive run with an 83-73 ...

What impact will Kenji Hasegawa make for the defending champion Tochigi Brex in his first season at the helm? Will the new head coach tinker too much with the winning formula that carried the Brex to their second championship under Tom Wisman in the past ...

Justin Burrell has distinguished himself as one of the elite basketball players in Japan this decade. The dynamic forward helped lead the expansion Yokohama B-Corsairs to the bj-league Final Four in 2012 and earned the circuit's regular-season MVP award. Since then, he's been a vital contributor ...