SoftBank Group Corp. has secured pledges from Microsoft Corp. and other investors of around $108 billion for a second Vision Fund aimed at investing in technology firms. The Japanese conglomerate itself plans to invest $38 billion in the fund, it said in a statement. Others ...

The annual milestone came 30 days later than last year, and temperatures will likely start rising to dangerous highs.

Disputes over wartime history and trade policy have started creeping into other areas as the bilateral relationship sinks to its lowest level in years.

Hodaka Maruyama, who was expelled from Nippon Ishin no Kai, will become a member of NHK Kara Kokumin wo Mamoru To (the Party to Protect the People from NHK).

The server was located inside a concrete-lined room on the ground floor of the studio building gutted in a deadly July 18 fire.

Some post office workers forged documents or engaged in other unlawful practices in selling the products of Japan Post Insurance Co. in fiscal 2018, according to an internal document revealed Monday. The revelation adds to the scandal involving the insurance arm of Japan Post Holdings ...

China said violent protests in Hong Kong wouldn't be tolerated, in the Beijing government's most high-profile response to unrest rocking the Asian financial hub. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, which answers to China's Cabinet, reaffirmed its support for the city's government and police ...

The fate of Tokyo's famed Nakagin Capsule Tower is set to be decided as early as autumn, attracting attention from home and abroad on whether the building and its unique exterior will be kept or scrapped. Currently, a foreign company is holding negotiations on acquiring ...

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Monday that Japan wants to maintain a bilateral accord on military intelligence-sharing with South Korea despite deteriorating ties. "It is important to cooperate with each other on issues that should be dealt with in a cooperative manner," the top ...

China has announced large-scale military exercises in broad swaths of the waters and airspace in both the South and East China seas near Taiwan, days after Beijing said in a defense white paper that it will not renounce the use of force in efforts ...

Mankind will have used up its allowance of natural resources such as water, soil and clean air for all of 2019 by Monday, a report said. The so-called Earth Overshoot Day has moved up by two months over the past 20 years and this year's ...

The Kyoto Animation Co. No. 1 studio, hit by an arson attack that killed 35 people, has been receiving support in a diverse range of forms, including nonmonetary aid. Masanori Fukusumi, a 58-year-old bus driver from the town of Seika in Kyoto Prefecture, found time ...

This is the fifth and final article in a series of reports about Japan's energy policy. In the first four parts of this series, I mainly outlined the current state and challenges facing the supply side of energy. But reflecting the growing popularity of the ...

For months, Renault SA's partnership with Nissan Motor Co. has been a strain on management and a public relations nightmare. Now the Japanese carmaker's woes are hitting where it really hurts: the bottom line. The largest French automaker, which owns 43 percent of Nissan, reported ...

The Bank of Japan began a two-day policy meeting Monday amid market expectations that it will strengthen its commitment to keeping interest rates ultralow to prevent a surge in the yen following a potential rate cut in the United States later this week. But some ...

The deer population in Nara Park, a popular tourist attraction, has increased for the third straight year to a record 1,388, a local organization said Monday. The figure was the highest since record-keeping began in the 1950s. The Nara Deer Preservation Foundation said the latest annual ...

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson formed a war Cabinet of six senior ministers to plan for exiting the European Union by Oct. 31, as a key adviser said leaving without a deal had become a very real prospect, the Sunday Times reported. Johnson's most senior ...

Two groups working to help war-displaced descendants of Japanese in the Philippines acquire Japanese citizenship are redoubling their efforts as time runs out for the aging applicants, many of whom technically remain stateless. These second-generation Filipinos are the children of Filipino women and Japanese men ...

The launch of facial recognition technology at two Indian airports and plans to place it in police stations have stoked fears over privacy and increased surveillance among human rights groups in the country. The "paperless biometric technology" launched in Bengaluru airport this week identifies passengers ...

A Russian military plane's incursion into Japanese airspace last week seems to be viewed by many Japanese government officials as an attempt, assisted by China, to throw off balance the three-way collaboration among Japan, the United States and South Korea. Meanwhile, Japan plans to use ...

"Shall we all just kill ourselves?" It was an odd title for a comedy night, but British stand-up Carl Donnelly has chosen an environmental theme with impeccable timing. With temperature records tumbling daily in last week's European heat wave, a crowd in an east London bar ...

The Singapore prime minister's estranged brother has thrown his support behind a newly formed opposition party in an intriguing twist ahead of elections expected to be held as soon as this year. In Facebook comments made late Sunday, Lee Hsien Yang said the ruling People's ...

American teenager Kyle Giersdorf won $3 million on Sunday after taking the top prize in an esports tournament in New York for the popular online video game Fortnite. Giersdorf, 16, from Pennsylvania, was one of at least 100 players competing for $30 million in total ...

Meghan, wife of Britain's Prince Harry, has chosen to feature 15 women she considers "Forces for change" on the cover of the September issue of British Vogue that she guest edited, Buckingham Palace said on Sunday. The Duchess of Sussex, who gave birth to her ...

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was hospitalized on Sunday after suffering an acute allergic reaction that one doctor said may have been the result of him being poisoned with an unknown chemical substance. Navalny, 43, was rushed to a hospital on Sunday morning from jail ...

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders accused American pharmaceutical companies Sunday of letting diabetic patients die out of "greed," after he accompanied a group of Americans to Canada to buy insulin. Sanders joined the group, which took a bus from Detroit to Windsor, Ontario, to restock on ...

Exiled to the Gobi Desert at the age of 15, Weijian Shan's days were marked by gnawing hunger and back-breaking forced labor. But his sense of hope was kept alive by an unlikely source — insecticide manuals. Now one of Asia's top financiers and the ...

An attack this weekend by Boko Haram fighters on a funeral in northeast Nigeria has left 65 people dead, almost triple the initial toll, a local official said Sunday. Dozens more bodies were discovered following the assault Saturday by gunmen on a village close to ...

An oil spill under investigation by the Chilean navy on the far southern coast of Patagonia was contained, mining company CAP SA said on Sunday. The 40,000-liter diesel oil spill occurred on Saturday at its onshore terminal on Guarello Island, about 150 miles (240 km) ...

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh refuse to return to Myanmar unless they are recognised as an ethnic group in their home country, leaders told visiting Myanmar officials on Sunday as fresh repatriation talks started. A campaign by Myanmar's military in response to insurgent attacks in 2017 ...

The United States has shipped several million tons of soybeans to China since the two countries' leaders met in June, Chinese state media said on Sunday, an apparent sign of goodwill before trade talks in Shanghai this week. The U.S.-China trade war has curbed the ...

The Abe administration has secured a stable political footing, but is now confronted with major challenges in its economic policies.

Unless a diplomatic genius appears out of the blue and solve this small but serious spat between Tokyo and Seoul, the two neighbors may have to reach an extreme end of their game of chicken.

If you want to pet a stranger's dog, it's better to know how to ask permission first.

The terms "sore de" and "soko de" translate as "and so" or "therefore," but there's a slight difference between their nuances.

The biggest thing that people moving to Japan have trouble with is finding an apartment. A Kyodo article looks at a recent poll on this.

Are you aware of your company's policy on paternity leave? Take part in an English discussion on the rights of a father in Japan.

Inside a 19th century silk merchant's house in Katsunuma, Yamanashi Prefecture, the three Aruga brothers are pouring several white wines in their timbered tasting room. All are made at their Katsunuma Jyozo Winery Co. under the Aruga Branca label from Japan's unique grape variety, ...

Former Netherlands international and Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles pitcher Loek van Mil has died, the Royal Dutch Baseball and Softball Federation said Monday. He was 34. In a statement, the governing body said van Mil had died as the result of "a fatal accident." At 216-cm, ...

Japanese skater Yuto Horigome won the men's title at the second stop of the Street League Skateboarding World Tour, held in Los Angeles on Sunday. Horigome, winner of the first three stops of 2018, accumulated 35.7 points from his top-four scores in the event, which ...

Ofunato High School was inundated with calls after its loss in the final of the Iwate Prefectural tournament on Thursday. But it wasn't a stream of commiserations and condolences pouring in — there were around 150 calls on the day of the school's 12-2 loss ...