Abe denounced a top South Korean lawmaker’s comments about Emperor Akihito as “extremely inappropriate,” ratcheting up already high tensions between the two neighbors.

The automaker also slashed its full-year profit forecasts amid sluggish demand in the North America market and other markets worldwide.

Apple Inc. iPhone sales in China fell 20 percent year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2018, while sales for smartphones made by home-grown rival Huawei soared by 23 percent, according to data from industry research firm IDC. It is the first time a firm number ...

Once synonymous with long work hours, Japanese companies are beginning to embrace — or at least consider — the idea of a four-day workweek. Although the concept is nothing new and the number of companies adopting the system fluctuates, it is increasing over the long ...

Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa said Tuesday he plans to meet the new Renault SA chairman in Japan soon, with the focus of the talks apparently to be on the future of the alliance following the arrest of the two carmakers' former chairman, Carlos Ghosn. The ...

China has postponed a major tourism campaign in New Zealand days before its launch and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's visit to Beijing has been further delayed as concerns mount of strained ties over China's growing influence in the Pacific. Ardern on Tuesday acknowledged there were ...

A flamboyant entrepreneur known as the "Prince of Green Juice" was arrested for alleged tax evasion on Tuesday. Tokyo prosecutors raided beauty and diet product company Media Hearts Co., which President Yuta Misaki set up in 2007, over the evasion of about ¥180 million in ...

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned U.S. allies Monday against deploying equipment from Chinese telecoms gear manufacturer Huawei on their soil, saying it would make it more difficult for Washington to "partner alongside them." The United States and its Western allies believe Huawei Technologies' apparatus ...

Kyōgen actor Nomura Man and two noh actors were honored Sunday with the French Order of Arts and Letters for their contribution to promoting Japanese performing arts in France. Nomura, 89, received the rank of officer, the second of the award's three degrees, while noh ...

Temples across the country, including in the Chugoku region, are increasingly turning to mobile apps, videos and social media to entice visitors. Some temples even offer an app that adds up points each time an individual visits, while others livestream Buddhist services for people unable ...

The annual Sapporo Snow Festival, one of the nation's largest winter events, attracted a record-high 2.74 million visitors thanks to good weather and an influx of Chinese vacationers during the Lunar New Year period, organizers said Tuesday. The event, held since 1950, was staged from ...

The Trump administration said the U.S. president still wants to meet China's Xi Jinping in an effort to end the trade war, a sign of optimism as negotiators from the world's two biggest economies start their latest round of talks this week. "He wants to ...

Japanese airlines will be given 12 daily slots and U.S. airlines will be given another 12, transport minister Keiichi Ishii said.

Jtekt Corp., a Nagoya-based parts manufacturer affiliated with Toyota Motor Corp., has developed an upgraded version of Ninja, the brand name for its bearings used for skateboards, ahead of skateboarding making its Olympic debut at the 2020 Tokyo Games. By making use of its technological ...

The surprising shift in perceptions of the U.S. under Trump was “the largest change in sentiment among the global threats tracked.”

The Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau said Sunday that a Vietnamese woman fled during immigration checks at Narita International Airport in Chiba Prefecture. The immigration bureau and the Chiba Prefectural Police are searching for the woman, 22, on suspicion of illegally entering Japan. According to the bureau, ...

Four Chinese government ships sailed for about two hours in Japanese territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea on Monday, according to the Japan Coast Guard. It was the first such intrusion since Jan. 18 and the fourth this year. The four ...

The owner of the wrecked Fukushima No. 1 power plant is trying this week to touch melted fuel at the bottom of the plant for the first time since the disaster almost eight years ago, a tiny but key step toward retrieving the radioactive ...

Adam Oleson has enjoyed a tax refund every year for the past couple of decades. He normally counts on it to make an extra house payment, reduce student-loan debts or pay down the credit cards. But this year, no such luck. Not only won't Oleson ...

U.S.-led coalition warplanes struck Islamic State's last stronghold in eastern Syria and hundreds of civilians fled the besieged enclave on Monday as U.S.-backed fighters pressed their campaign to seize it. Coalition jets roared overhead as columns of white smoke rose from the Islamic State-held Baghouz ...

The relationship between Japan and Colorado has been fantastic, in part because how the state's governor treated Japanese-Americans during World War II.

With the likely demise of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, Europe is entering a potentially dangerous period.

The Venezuela crisis is a test of Russian and Chinese power in America's backyard.

It's a cold afternoon in mid-January and, inside a factory operated by Maruyama Toys in a quiet residential area in Tokyo's Katsushika Ward, Cory Privitera is making sofubi (soft vinyl toys). In a cramped workspace surrounded by machinery and long sinks, the 33-year-old begins by ...

Featuring an astounding 480 prints, spanning the entire 70 years of Katushika Hokusai's career, the new Hokusai exhibition at the Mori Arts Center Gallery is a great overview for ukiyo-e fans.

Feb. 19-May 19 Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (1887-1965), a pioneer of modern architecture also known as Le Corbusier, is well-known in Japan for designing the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, which opened in 1959. As an artist and designer, he also led the purism movement — ...

Feb. 16-March 17 Taki Tamada creates her artwork out of cardboard using an unusual method. She peels card into strips and rubs them until they have the appearance of clay before layering them over skeletal frames to create sculptures. She leaves the card in its original ...

Feb. 16-March 16 In 2017, psychologist and art critic Yasuo Miwaki organized an art exhibition featuring two artists — Yoshinobu Nakagawa and Kohei Takahashi — titled "Gather: Crowd." It was the first exhibition Miwaki had organized, and was inspired by Nakagawa's observations of art and ...

A new opera based on the quintessentially Japanese novel "Kinkakuji" is set to open in Tokyo following a premiere held not in Kyoto, where the famed golden pavilion of its title is to be found, but at the Opera National du Rhin in Strasbourg, ...

It was a banner weekend for Japan on the ice, with Rika Kihira and Shoma Uno taking the gold medals at the Four Continents Championships and Satoko Miyahara and Koshiro Shimada doing the same at the Bavarian Open. Kihira bounced back from her second-place finish ...

The players and staff seemed relaxed. That is a good indication of their state of mind as they get into the final window of the FIBA World Cup Asian qualifiers. The provisional Japanese men's national team began its final training camp on Tuesday before its ...

One thing the current conversation about a possible universal DH in MLB is showing is that a lot of people have great disdain for the concept of pitchers hitting. Like, a lot. So it's sort of amusing to recall the time NPB flipped the DH rule ...