Finance Minister Taro Aso on Monday sought to fend off the U.S. demand for a provision to prevent currency devaluations, saying currency issues should be handled by finance authorities, not in bilateral trade talks. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S. President Donald Trump have agreed ...

In September last year, a monster was discovered in London's sewers. Weighing about 130 metric tons and measuring 250 meters in length — longer than the city's Tower Bridge — a congealed mass of fat, oil, wet tissues, condoms and diapers was found blocking a ...

The development comes as the education ministry probes irregularities involving 81 universities with medical schools, following revelations of systems disadvantaging women and older applicants.

The city of Kimitsu, Chiba Prefecture, has set up a "business school for hunting" that provides courses introducing people to the pursuit of game and encouraging them to consider it as a livelihood. The city has been battling destruction of its agricultural crops by wild ...

An 11-year-old Japanese boy has become the youngest world champion of the Othello board game, triumphing in a four-day contest held in Prague through Friday, according to the organizer. Keisuke Fukuchi, a fifth-grader from Kanagawa Prefecture, beat other participants including adults in the 2018 World ...

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Abe asked relevant ministers to come up with measures to mitigate negative impacts of the increase.

Japan has sounded out North Korea about a plan to establish a liaison office in Pyongyang aimed at resolving the long-standing issue of past abductions of Japanese nationals by North Korean agents, according to sources familiar with bilateral relations. Tokyo hopes to get to the ...

The Japan Tourism Agency seeks to explore ways to foster environments where tourism can coexist with residents’ lives amid a surge in foreign visitors.

Japan and New Zealand agreed Monday to continue cooperating on regional security issues, particularly through maritime surveillance of illegal ship-to-ship transfers by North Korea. During their talks in the New Zealand capital, Foreign Minister Taro Kono, together with his New Zealand counterpart, Winston Peters, said ...

The longtime partners in the nuclear business will aim to commercialize the reactors, which they hope will be cheaper and safer, by the 2030s.

One recent Sunday, 7-year-old Yukito Takanashi of Tokyo was dribbling a soccer ball on a makeshift field. At one point, he put on an eye mask like those worn by blind soccer players. But he took it off after a while, feeling somewhat uncomfortable. The ...

Flight attendants and television producers seeking a career change might want to look up Japan's third-biggest bank. Mizuho Financial Group Inc. wants hospitality and media veterans who can woo investors and company executives with their strong communications and social skills, said Yuki Maeda, head of ...

Japanese and Chinese logistics firms are paving the way for an alternative route to ship cargo from Japan to Europe faster than by sea by exploiting China's "Belt and Road" initiative designed to improve regional cooperation and connectivity. Major Japanese logistics firm Nissin Corp. and ...

Major lingerie and underwear maker Wacoal Holdings Corp. has launched surveys at outsourcing plants within Japan to make sure foreign trainees there are not subjected to unlawful labor practices, company officials said Monday. The rare probe was launched earlier this year into conditions at 40 ...

Japanese cosmetics maker Shiseido Co. has found that human bodies produce a distinctive odor that is similar to that of an onion or a long onion when they come under stress. Shiseido said early this month it plans to use the discovery to develop new ...

Higher U.S. tariffs on Japanese car exports are less likely now that the two nations have agreed to start new trade talks, economists said, but most think U.S. trade friction with China and other economies will have a significant impact on Japan. The U.S. threatened ...

The future that fast-growing cities in South Asia and Africa choose — cleaner and safer, or dirtier and more dangerous — will be pivotal to efforts to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, scientists said in a key U.N. report last week. Iconic metropolises ...

Saudi Arabia is running out of time to explain to the Trump administration what happened to journalist Jamal Khashoggi within its consulate in Turkey. The administration increasingly regards Saudi Arabia's denial of any involvement of Khashoggi's disappearance as untenable, and President Donald Trump and his ...

As the nation enters the autumn tourist season, concerns are growing over hornets, whose nests and number of workers are larger than usual this year because of the warmer spring and limited rain during the rainy season. Hornet stings have been reported in Gifu and ...

U.S. President Donald Trump has hinted that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis — long viewed as a force restraining Trump's foreign policy excesses — could be one of the next officials to leave his Cabinet. In an interview that aired Sunday on the CBS program "60 ...

Syria's main jihadist group signaled on Sunday it would abide by the terms of a Russian-Turkish deal to prevent a Syrian government offensive on rebel-held Idlib the day before a critical deadline. Tahrir al-Sham, a jihadi alliance spearheaded by al-Qaida's former Syrian affiliate previously known ...

Islamic State in Nigeria might kill health care workers it has held hostage since March within 24 hours, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Sunday, pleading for mercy and urging Nigeria's government to intervene. Medical workers Hauwa Mohammed Liman and Alice ...

Woken one night by a 6.4 magnitude earthquake at the IMF annual meetings in Bali, global finance chiefs spent the week assessing the tremors now rippling through the world economy. The quake "was symbolic for the widespread feeling among participants that the ground under the ...

The Khashoggi crisis is the first and probably the biggest test for Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman as a leader of Saudi Arabia.

Leaders have a hard time inflicting political pain now for possible future societal gains.

Reducing the amount of materials taken from nature is also critical to the creation of a "circular economy."

From 'ban' and 'go' to 'kazu' and 'su,' there are a variety of ways to refer to numbers in Japanese depending on the situation.

Introducing two expressions that use わけ — わけではない and わけにはいかない.

Have you ever thought about where your trash goes after it's tossed into a basket and whisked away by the garbage truck that shows up like clockwork every week? If not, comic Shuichi Takizawa says now is the time to think about it. Though he may ...

The Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks powered past the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters 5-2 on Monday, with five solo home runs from their red-hot batting lineup helping them advance to the final stage of the Pacific League Climax Series. A day after the Fighters evened the best-of-three ...

Hanshin Tigers minor league manager Akihiro Yano accepted a promotion that will make him the top team manager, the seven-time All-Star catcher revealed Monday. Yano will replace former teammate Tomoaki Kanemoto, who last week refused to accept a contract extension to take responsibility for the ...

Tomoyuki Sugano turned, slapped his glove and thrust both arms into air once the ball was safely secure in Daikan Yoh's glove in center field. He wore a broad smile as catcher Seiji Kobayashi enveloped him in a hug near the mound at Jingu ...