In a bid to lower teachers' workloads, the education ministry will compile guidelines by the end of next March on how to reduce their burden with regards to the collection and management of school lunch fees, informed sources have said. As part of work style ...

A bronze statue symbolizing women forced to work in wartime brothels for the Japanese military was unveiled at a ceremony in the southern Taiwan city of Tainan on Tuesday, marking the first installation of such a memorial in the country. Although the statue could cast ...

Just six visually impaired people were confirmed to have taken shelter at evacuation sites in the three hardest-hit prefectures of Okayama, Hiroshima and Ehime.

People traveling to venues at the same time as commuters are expected to cause serious congestion at railway stations in the city during the games.

Masatane Muto slowly maneuvers the controller on his power wheelchair with his right hand to move around his Tokyo office. He can barely move his body on his own and needs the help of a colleague to take occasional sips from the straw in his ...

Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko are considering a visit in September to three prefectures in western Japan that were hit the hardest by torrential rains last month, senior officials of the Imperial Household Agency said Tuesday. The Imperial Couple are hoping to visit Okayama and ...

Abe is expected to support the Ginowan mayor in a bid to push ahead with a controversial plan to relocate a U.S. air base within the prefecture.

Tokyo bus tour operator Hato Bus Co. celebrated its 70th anniversary Tuesday, with its unique jaunts around the capital continuing to attract many visitors from around the country and also from overseas. Known for its bright yellow buses marked with its logo of a dove, ...

A number of people were injured when a car collided with security barriers outside London's Parliament building on Tuesday and the driver was arrested, police said. Police said they could not immediately determine whether the incident was terrorism-related. "The male driver of the car was detained ...

In a sign of improving relations between Tokyo and Beijing, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang plans to attend a bilateral student exchange event with Japan later this month, sources close to diplomatic ties said. From the Japanese side, Yoshimasa Hayashi, minister of education, culture, sports, science ...

The 1980s cyberpunk novels that predicted today's internet failed to conceive of anything as outlandish or contradictory as Bitcoin: A digital currency that's spent nowhere, a commodity that's used for nothing, and a libertarian dream that is effectively run by elites. Now, after its 66 ...

The government is set to push back the deadline — scheduled for late March — for working out the specifics of a plan to obtain information on elderly people's financial assets, such as savings and securities, through the My Number identification system due to ...

Kei Komuro, the boyfriend of Princess Mako, on Monday started a three-year study at Fordham University's law school in New York. Komuro, a paralegal at a Tokyo law firm who aims to pass New York state's bar examination, greeted journalists as he stepped onto the ...

Foreign Minister Taro Kono and his Ecuadorian counterpart, Jose Valencia, agreed Monday to deepen economic ties and cooperation in disaster mitigation, with this year marking the 100th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the nations. Kono, the first Japanese foreign minister to visit ...

A 36-year-old female photographer is passing on the stories of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by taking family photos of third-generation survivors. Since 2015, Hiroshima resident Hiroko Doune has photographed over 70 families with third-generation hibakusha, whose grandparents were survivors of ...

Your next vacation in sun-drenched Turkey may now be a lot cheaper. On the flip side, corporate profits from selling goods locally are dwindling by the day when converted to home currencies. The effects of the imploding Turkish currency are now rippling through the boardrooms ...

Indoor playgrounds are proving a godsend for parents looking to allow their children to stay active and safe as Japan sweats through a summer of record-breaking heat. Parents are turning to playgrounds in air-conditioned shopping centers and other commercial enterprises when they would typically use ...

Scientists called on Monday for greater transparency over the use of tax havens by companies involved in activities that have harmed the world's oceans and the Amazon rainforest. In a study published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, they said many firms involved in ...

Osaka is the third most liveable city in the world after Vienna and Melbourne, according to a recent global survey by the research unit of British magazine The Economist. The Kansai metropolis boosted its ranking from last year, when it didn't make the top 10. ...

Tesla Inc.'s handling of Chief Executive Elon Musk's proposal to take the carmaker private and its failure to promptly file a formal disclosure has raised governance concerns and sparked questions about how companies use social media. Musk stunned investors Aug. 7 by announcing on Twitter ...

Bayer shares plunged as much as 14 percent on Monday, losing about $14 billion in value, after newly acquired Monsanto was ordered to pay $289 million in damages in the first of possibly thousands of U.S. lawsuits over alleged links between a weedkiller and ...

Over 80 percent of major companies expect the economy to grow toward the end of this year, but most do not see the expansion lasting beyond the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, according to a recent Kyodo News survey. Around 82 percent of the 113 companies surveyed ...

Japan can possibly go down in history as a nation that played a crucial role in preventing the collapse of the global free trade system.

A rules-based global trade system for intellectual property could help reinvigorate it by driving more specialization and cross-border cooperation among the world's inventors.

While we wait for politicians to act, it is important to concentrate our spare resources on effective aid that helps poor people lead the best lives they can.

And so are all the big boys of tech.

The U.S. president is voicing a widely held resentment about China's double-dealing economic policy.

Jia Pengfang's talent with the erhu took him around the world, but would audiences overseas appreciate the traditional Chinese instrument?

Where Flemish still-life painters combined fruit, vegetables and flowers that could not normally be picked in the same season, and portrayed them together in an imaginary, but highly realistic pictorial space, Kosemura uses contemporary tools to achieve the same with photographic detail.

Hotaka Yamakawa and Tomoya Mori each knocked in two runs, with Mori driving home Yamakawa with the game winner as the Seibu Lions rallied from six runs down to beat the Orix Buffaloes 7-6 in 10 innings on Tuesday night. Mori, who had doubled in ...

Ryota Murata will not make a mandatory defense of his WBA middleweight title, his gym chairman revealed Tuesday. Earlier, the WBA had announced that Murata's Teiken Gym and promoter Top Rank had rejected a 50-50 split of the purse against second-ranked challenger Rob Brant. Regardless ...

Russell Westbrook brought smiles to enthusiastic fans' faces on a festive Tuesday morning in Tokyo. Visiting Japan for the first time, he made a promotional stop at a crowded Nike shop in Harajuku as part of the ongoing Russell Westbrook 2018 Why Not Tour. As he ...

With 2018 wins over Grand Slam champions Serena Williams, Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova as well as reigning world No. 1 Simona Halep, Naomi Osaka has proven that she, too, has the potential to win a major — or perhaps several. And the game's upper ...

Kei Nishikori advanced to the second round of the Western & Southern Open men's singles after beating Russia's Andrey Rublev in straight sets on Monday. Nishikori, ranked 23rd in the world, claimed a 7-5, 6-3 win over the No. 37 Russian at Lindner Family Tennis ...