In a first official visit by an EU leader, Donald Tusk toured A-bomb memorial museums in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, where he held talks with the mayors of the two cities.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe renewed his commitment to empower women and improve gender parity around the globe at the Women Political Leaders (WPL) Summit 2019 in Tokyo on Wednesday, ahead of the Group of 20 summit due to start Friday in Osaka. Speaking to female ...

On Wednesday, the government formally determined that the Upper House election will take place July 21, preceded by campaigning that would kick off July 4.

Some of the planned one-on-one meetings, such as the Trump-Xi meeting, could have a heavy influence on the fate of a number of key global issues.

The Yoshida trail, the most popular of the four routes taken to climb Mount Fuji, will open Monday for the climbing season, but climbers using the trail won't yet be able to reach the summit. The route is still blocked by a rock-slide caused by ...

A 32-year-old woman was sentenced to a 2½-year jail term, suspended for 5 years, for assisting her husband in assaulting their daughter and contributing to the child’s death.

When international delegates arrived at Karuizawa Station for the Group of 20 environment ministers' meeting earlier this month, they were greeted by local schoolchildren, bilingual volunteers — and a wild boar the size of an elephant. Constructed from various forms of household waste, including garbage ...

In a world first, Facebook Inc. has agreed to hand over the identification data of French users suspected of hate speech on its platform to judges, France's minister for digital affairs Cedric O said on Tuesday. O is one of French President Emmanuel Macron's earliest ...

Over one-third of Americans would back a preventive attack by the U.S. on North Korea — including one using nuclear weapons — despite knowing it would kill some 1 million civilians, an innovative new survey has found. According to the survey, published Monday by The ...

Plastic, paper, metal? In Kamikatsu, sorting rubbish isn't that simple. Residents face a mind-boggling 45 separate categories for their garbage as the town aims to achieve zero waste by 2020. And that's not all: There isn't even trash collection. The 1,500 residents of the town ...

Denmark on Wednesday became the third Nordic country this year to form a leftist government after Social Democratic leader Mette Frederiksen finalized terms for a one-party minority government, making her the country's youngest-ever prime minister. While the new left-leaning government is unlikely to fundamentally change ...

The Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday approved a plan to hold an Upper House election on July 21, following a two-week campaign period. One of the main focuses of the election will be the decision by Abe, who has been facing pressure ...

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Afghan President Ashraf Ghani during an unannounced visit to Kabul on Tuesday to discuss ongoing peace talks with the Taliban and the security situation ahead of Afghan presidential polls in September. Pompeo stopped over on his way to ...

Japan needs to create a system to build an intercultural society by learning from the efforts of other countries.

The impact of Chinese tourists is more than economic; the visitors to Japan are having a diplomatic impact as well.

A big part of retirement is spent organizing your home and your affairs, but tidying experts advise decluttering well beforehand.

Standing alone, high up on the balcony of the Musicasa theater in Tokyo, the character of Jane — a wife, mother and a victim of domestic abuse — leaves a red analog phone with a coiled cable hanging over the balustrade. "That's a bit of ...

When Japanese directors of a certain age and status film abroad, they usually head for developed countries, not developing ones. Although, to be fair, their choice of foreign locales often comes down to box-office calculations. Japanese audiences enjoy seeing famous European sites on the ...

Japanese movies and TV dramas often feature scenes of mothers making elaborate bento lunches from scratch for their offspring. Seeing these women washing rice in icy water with bare hands before the crack of dawn I reflect back to my own school lunches of ...

Before Donald Trump made "fake news" the buzzword of choice for dissemblers and autocrats, Japanese netizens were already starting to question the veracity of what they read in the papers, albeit for very different reasons. The media's handling of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, in ...

The four sports proposed by Paris organizers — breakdancing, skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing — were provisionally approved for the 2024 Summer Games at the International Olympic Committee Session on Tuesday. The four sports, featuring 12 individual events, are set to be contested in Paris ...

In the space of nearly 24 hours, Japan's hopes at two major international tournaments were extinguished. On Monday, the Samurai Blue's Copa America campaign ended — not with a bang but with a relative whimper — following a 1-1 draw against Ecuador in Belo Horizonte, ...

The Japan Sumo Association loves committees. Barely a scandal or incident goes by without the creation of some kind of panel or investigative group. Last month saw the establishment of yet another. The "Expert Committee to Contemplate the Future Succession of Sumo" is an advisory body whose ...

Aaron Judge and his teammates were joking about which one of them would hit the home run that gave the New York Yankees a major league-record 28 straight games with a long ball. The 6-foot-7 (200-cm) slugger, batting second in the lineup, predicted the mark ...

Rui Hachimura, the first Japanese player selected in the opening round of the NBA draft, embarked on his professional basketball career Tuesday on the first day of the Washington Wizards' mini-camp. The 21-year-old, who was claimed by the Wizards with the ninth pick on Thursday ...

Tears were still flowing from Saki Kumagai's eyes more than 30 minutes later. With victorious Dutch rivals passing her on the way out of the stadium, Japan's captain seemed to find solace in speaking about the penalty long after it cost her team a place ...