North Korea reportedly informs Japan that Minoru Tanaka of Hyogo, who vanished in 1978 in a suspected North Korean kidnapping, is living in Pyongyang with his former coworker.

A woman in her 50s who served as a volunteer interpreter at a marathon in Oita Prefecture has apologized for an online blog post in which she referred to African marathoners under her care as "chimpanzees." The woman, who volunteered during the Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon ...

Students at the Prefectural University of Hiroshima on Friday said that they have received a paper crane from former U.S. President Barack Obama to complete their senbazuru (1,000 origami cranes) wishing for a peaceful future. Earlier this month, students who are part of the school's ...

Prime Minister Abe’s dream of revising the Constitution gets harder after he claims 60 percent of Japan’s local governments are resisting Tokyo’s efforts to recruit new SDF members.

More than a year of work to bring Amazon.com Inc.'s headquarters and tens of thousands of jobs to New York City ended on Thursday with a couple of phone calls. Jay Carney, the company's top policy executive, told New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo that the ...

Foreign Minister Taro Kono is planning to visit China, possibly in late March, to discuss bilateral cooperation on economic and other issues, diplomatic sources said Thursday, in a sign of improving relations between the two countries. Kono is expected to meet with Foreign Minister Wang ...

A 26-year-old man was arrested for allegedly stabbing two people with a knife on a street near Tokyo Metro Co.'s Korakuen Station in the capital's Bunkyo Ward on Thursday night. The suspect, Takashi Kaneda, was arrested at the scene on attempted murder charges. The victims of ...

A court delivered a painful nip to European Union fishermen on Thursday by tightening Norway's grip on snow crab catches in the Arctic, a ruling that may also let Oslo claw more control of oil and gas from other nations. Fishermen from the European Union ...

Hong Kong customs seized a record 40 kg (88 pounds) of rhino horns worth around 8 million Hong Kong dollars ($1 million) from Johannesburg en route to Vietnam, the latest bust for authorities trying to tackle the rising volume of endangered species trafficked through ...

China has pledged to end market-distorting subsidies for its domestic industries but offered no details on how it would achieve that goal, according to three people familiar with the U.S.-China trade talks in Beijing this week. China promised to bring all subsidy programs into compliance ...

An anonymous donation of around ¥100 million ($900,000) in old bank notes has been delivered to the Ehime Prefectural Government, the prefecture said Thursday. The prefectural government intends to use the money to finance rebuilding efforts to recover from last summer's heavy rain in the ...

While there has been tangible progress toward achieving full barrier-free access for people with physical disabilities through the installation of ramps, elevators and other pieces of infrastructure at public facilities, measures to clear obstacles for people with mental disabilities have been sorely lacking in ...

New political groups are emerging to contest Myanmar's next election in 2020, aiming to challenge the hegemony of national civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi after she has been weakened by escalating ethnic conflicts and slowing economic growth. Those factors were blamed by party officials ...

Noriko Mori, 47, paid about ¥700,000 ($6,300) to a cram school to help her daughter prepare for a school entrance exam in Tokyo. Her daughter was six, and the entrance exam was for an elementary school. "It was expensive," Mori said. But "she passed the ...

Airbus's decision to end production of the A380 looks set to reignite a transatlantic trade row over mutual claims of illegal aircraft subsidies, even as Airbus implements a two-year plan to stop making the world's largest airliner. The plane-maker announced the shutdown on Thursday due ...

The Venezuelan opposition envoy to Washington urged the international community to help let assistance into the crisis-stricken country on Thursday, as Cuba accused the United States of flying military transport close to the area. Carlos Vecchio, opposition leader Juan Guaido's representative, spoke to an international ...

When Nigerians go to the polls on Saturday, there'll be much more at stake than the presidency and seats in the parliament of Africa's most populous nation. Democracy is on the back foot in Africa, and a credible and widely accepted outcome will go some ...

U.S. retail sales recorded their biggest drop in more than nine years in December as receipts fell across the board, suggesting a sharp slowdown in economic activity at the end of 2018. The economy's outlook was further dimmed by other data on Thursday showing an ...

Despite the low odds of success for the second Trump-Kim summit, there is no alternative to diplomacy in the search for peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Beijing and Moscow are teaming up to diminish Washington's global influence, spread tyranny and undermine democracy.

It was only after the third run to the bathroom that regret started to set in over my beachside lunch — a veritable smorgasbord that included a green curry chock-full of seafood, tom yum hot-and-sour soup and a smattering of side dishes, all enjoyed ...

A bakery in a tiny, rural town in northeast Tasmania has become an unlikely pilgrimage site for Japanese tourists and Studio Ghibli animation fans alike. No one is quite sure how or when the Ross Village Bakery became a cult tourist destination, but it's believed ...

Like countless sports fans, Mitsuaki Ono can pinpoint a formative period in his life that cemented his fandom. The Kawasaki native was living in Rochester, Minnesota, during the 1989-90 school year because IBM assigned his father, Koji, to work in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. As ...

The Sunwolves kick off their 2019 Super Rugby season on Saturday in the heat and humidity of Singapore against the Durban-based Sharks, and co-captain Michael Little would have it no other way. "South African guys are pretty big in general so what better place to ...

Rika Kihira said Friday she aims to cap her remarkable senior debut season with a world championship. The 16-year-old, who won the women's individual titles at this season's ISU Grand Prix Final and Four Continents Championships, held an open practice with Pyeongchang Olympian Satoko Miyahara ...

The San Diego Padres have doubled down on their pursuit of free agent infielder Manny Machado. Padres general manager A.J. Preller flew to Miami last week to have a second meeting with Machado, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. Multiple media outlets subsequently confirmed ...

World No. 7 Kei Nishikori breezed past Latvian lucky loser Ernests Gulbis 6-1, 6-4 on Thursday to reach the quarterfinals of the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament, an ATP 500 indoor hardcourt stop in Rotterdam. The top-seeded Japanese raced out to a 5-0 lead in ...

Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback whose NFL career was cut short after he knelt in protest during the national anthem, would still have a job if he were a basketball player, according to former NBA commissioner David Stern. Speaking on the "Bloomberg Business of Sports" podcast, ...