Five tons of bonito fish fell from a refrigerator truck and were scattered across an expressway in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, on Thursday morning, police said. The frozen fish were dispersed over 500 meters of highway near the Miharaminami Interchange of the Hanwa Expressway linking Osaka ...

A Hokkaido-based aerospace startup said Thursday it will launch its fourth privately developed small rocket next week, following the success of its predecessor in May. Interstellar Technologies Inc. said Momo-4 will be launched from the company's test site in Taiki, Hokkaido, on July 13. Four ...

A consortium of companies is to enter exclusive talks with the land ministry over operating New Chitose and six other airports in Hokkaido, the ministry said Wednesday. The move is part of plans to privatize the operations of New Chitose, Wakkanai, Kushiro, Hakodate, Asahikawa, Obihiro ...

The focus will be on whether the LDP and other forces in favor of constitutional amendment will be able to retain their current two-thirds supermajority.

South Korea's economic policy chief said Thursday he would not rule out direct countermeasures against Japan if Tokyo maintains restrictions on exports of high-tech materials to South Korean companies for an extended period. "Implementing corresponding measures against Japan cannot be ruled out, because it will ...

South Korea’s economic policy chief said he would not rule out countermeasures against Japan if Tokyo maintains restrictions on the exports for an extended period.

China is considering buying some U.S. agricultural products as a gesture of goodwill amid the resumption of trade talks between Beijing and Washington, though the volume is likely to be smaller than before, according to people familiar with the situation. Purchases could include soybeans, corn ...

Tsuyoshi Kobayashi, president of Seven Pay Co., said the company will compensate users for the losses caused by fraudulent access.

As campaigning for the Upper House election began Thursday, voters voiced their opinions on key topics that could change the course of the nation, such as the planned consumption tax hike, the pension system and constitutional amendment. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government plans to raise ...

President Vladimir Putin disclosed Thursday for the first time that a top-secret military submarine hit by a fatal fire three days ago was nuclear-powered, prompting Russia's defense minister to assure him that its nuclear reactor had been contained. Russian officials have faced accusations of trying ...

When the baseball season kicked off in Japan this spring, fans of the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles were faced with an inconvenience they'd never encountered before: The food and drink stalls did not accept cash. The team's owner, internet commerce firm Rakuten Inc., was trying ...

Shanghai-based Buick dealer Ron Li in late April found himself in an unfamiliar quandary: how to sell off almost 80 sedans and SUVs crowding his dealership lot. The crux of the problem: a June 30 deadline for cars built to so-called China-5 emissions standards to ...

Taking a cue from soaring world prices for vanilla, an Okinawa farm has started cultivating the valuable spice in an initiative aimed at promoting the employment of low-income workers and people with disabilities. Vanilla, called "green gold" for the prices it fetches, requires a labor-intensive ...

The weather agency continued to warn of mudslides and flooding Thursday following downpours in southwestern Japan, while torrential rain and lightning could strike the eastern part of the country later in the day. At its peak, evacuation orders were issued for about 1.1 million people ...

Major mobile phone service operators SoftBank Corp. and KDDI Corp. said Wednesday they will look into teaming up on the wireless networks for their 5G services, in a bid to cut costs and speed up installation. The two companies will study how and where they ...

Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Tuesday he regrets being unable to secure a contract to have Japan help develop Australia's new class of submarine, according to local media reports. During an event at the Japanese Embassy in Canberra, Abbott expressed disappointment over his ...

After a week of turbulence in Hong Kong, Beijing appears to have settled on its message to the city: Continued protests risk throwing away everything that makes it special. A front-page editorial in the Communist Party's flagship newspaper, the People's Daily, blasted the protesters who ...

Whale meat auctions were held Thursday in different areas of Japan, the first since the country ended its 31-year commercial whaling hiatus earlier this week, with some cuts selling for over ¥10,000 per kilogram. A whaling fleet left Kushiro in Hokkaido on Monday to hunt ...

A federal judge on Wednesday ruled against Qualcomm Inc.'s effort to block the implementation of a sweeping antitrust ruling against it as the mobile chip supplier pursues an appeal that could take more than a year to wind through the courts. The ruling was widely ...

U.S. military armored vehicles stood near Washington's majestic Lincoln Memorial on Wednesday as President Donald Trump pushed ahead with an elaborate Fourth of July production with him at the center, as critics accused him of hijacking a nonpartisan celebration of America's Independence Day. Trump, seeking ...

A volcano on the Italian island of Stromboli erupted on Wednesday, throwing ash high into the sky and enveloping the popular tourist destination in smoke, the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology (INGV) said. Rescue services said the eruption had started fires on the western ...

The recent scandal involving medical universities rigging the exam results of female applicants are a reminder of the persistent gender discrimination and inequality in action within Japanese society.

Central banks are back on the center stage of the global economic policy debate. The U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank now appear ready to ease monetary policy — in a turnaround from just some months ago when people were looking for ...

Nadaman restaurants have long represented the height of Japanese cuisine. Now, that height is taking on a literal meaning as well. The Nadaman Group is happy to announce the grand opening of Nadaman Sokyu, its 26th location situated on the top two floors of ...

A free smartphone app for iOS and Android and designed to enhance mutual understanding and exchange between Africans and Japanese, Nahfconnects, was recently launched in Tokyo. The app, available in Japanese and English, enables users to chat and make free phone calls. It also provides ...

Writer and director Mamoru Oshii is best known for creating sci-fi thrillers that challenge orthodoxy with their philosophical musings and provocative, often nutty, imagery. His most famous film, the 1995 anime epic "Ghost in the Shell," features a stone-cold cyborg heroine who dives nude ...

With his single sequined glove, sparkly jacket and sharp moonwalk dance moves, the man on stage could be no one else. Or could he? "The good thing about being a Michael Jackson impersonator is that I play a global superstar," says Kazushi Yabe, who has ...

All it took was one ball, right were Hayato Sakamoto likes it, for the suddenly surging Yomiuri Giants to get off and running toward another victory. Sakamoto connected on his first grand slam in six years, Nobutaka Imamura ended a long winless drought and the ...

Commentators often divide sumo into eras, each defined by its outstanding rivalry. Whether it's Akebono vs. Takanohana, Taiho against Kashiwado or Tochinoshiki taking on Wakanohana, great yokozuna pairings have traditionally been the standard way to separate one generation of rikishi from the next. So dominant has ...

When you think of the Nagoya tournament what first comes to mind? For many it's something like the scene in "Fight Club" where the narrator tries not to think of the words "searing" or "flesh." No other tournament is as closely associated with the weather as ...

The lottery will mainly be for those who failed to win any tickets in the first one, which was held on June 20.

After winning just 10 of 60 games this past season, the Levanga Hokkaido are aiming to flip the script. For Tomohide Utsumi's first full season as head coach, Hokkaido is revamping its roster. Among the changes: the East Division squad on Wednesday announced the signing ...

Nagoya Grampus suffered an ignominious 3-0 defeat to the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Kanoya on Wednesday, perhaps the biggest upset of the evening's slate of Emperor's Cup second-round fixtures. Fielding a reserve-heavy squad, the J. League first-division side was unable to find ...