The health ministry releases guidelines on how people should react if they fear infection with the coronavirus.

In test flights for new low-altitude flight paths using Tokyo's Haneda Airport conducted by the transport ministry between Jan. 30 and Wednesday, noise in Kawasaki ran as high as 87 to 94 decibels, louder than inside a pachinko parlor, according to data released by ...

Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said Monday he took 12 days of paternity leave over the course of one month after his son was born in January. Koizumi has said he planned to take about 14 days of child care leave over three months and that ...

A group of 328 Americans previously aboard a cruise ship quarantined off Japan left for home early Monday morning on chartered flights, while 44 stayed in the nation for medical treatment. Those that remained are among hundreds that have become infected with COVID-19 aboard the ...

While some Americans aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship, quarantined in Yokohama port, left Monday on chartered flights back home, others opted to stay. One passenger who chose to remain was Matthew Smith, who said he felt an "about-face" by the U.S. government risks undermining ...

As the new coronavirus threatens to spread through Japan, hotlines for virus-related consultations are being flooded with requests from concerned people who want to be tested. While some government authorities have taken steps to handle the situation, including by adding telephone capacity, others are expected ...

Five years after voters in the city of Osaka narrowly voted down a referendum on consolidating its 24 wards into five with more autonomy and eliminating the municipal assembly and mayor, another referendum is set for later this year. The merger is the chief political ...

Sharp Corp. unveiled its first 5G smartphone model Monday, ahead of the ultrafast network service launch scheduled for March. The Osaka-based electronics firm, reportedly the first Japanese maker to introduce a 5G-ready smartphone, has boasted the top share of the Android-based smartphone market in Japan ...

Toyota Motor Corp. and other major Japanese carmakers operating in China said Monday they have partially resumed operations suspended by the coronavirus outbreak. Mazda Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. all said they had restarted some work. Toyota said that of its four ...

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has canceled his planned trip to Barbados for a regional conference to help resolve widespread rail disruptions caused by indigenous rights activists opposing the construction of a natural gas pipeline, his office said Sunday. Indigenous communities across Canada have been ...

Regional economies have been dealt a blow from plummeting numbers of foreign visitors, largely affected by a ban on group overseas travel by China to curb the spread of COVID-19, the pneumonia-causing coronavirus. While the government has extended financial support to smaller businesses in the ...

Prosecutors on Monday demanded the death penalty for a man charged with murdering 19 residents and injuring 26 others at a care home for people with mental disabilities near Tokyo in a knife rampage in 2016. During the trial at the Yokohama District Court in ...

Thailand will likely decide whether to join a revised Trans-Pacific Partnership around April, economy minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said Monday. Nishimura, the government's point man on the TPP, told reporters after meeting with Thai Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak in Tokyo that he hopes the current ...

The NTT group, Yahoo Japan and GMO Internet are among the companies trying to reduce the risk of their employees contracting the COVID-19 virus.

A shortage of components has pushed manufacturing costs for Sony Corp.'s next PlayStation to around $450 per unit, forcing a difficult price-setting decision in its battle with Microsoft Corp., according to people with knowledge of the matter. The tech giant is preparing to gradually replace ...

Hard-liners are set to tighten control of Iran this week in a parliamentary election stacked in their favor, as the leadership closes ranks in a deepening confrontation with Washington. Big gains by security hawks would confirm the political demise of the country's pragmatist politicians, weakened ...

The contraction in the annualized gross domestic product for October-December was the worst in five quarters.

Kenya’s livestock herders planting chile peppers, Pakistan’s mountain farmers rearing fish and tropical fruits being grown in Sicily — farmers around the world are already shifting what they grow and breed to cope with rising temperatures and erratic weather. In a few more decades, potatoes ...

The broad policy direction for many of the world's central banks and governments now hinges on one question: How will the Chinese government respond to the economic shock caused by the coronavirus? The Communist Party's elite Politburo has urged the nation to meet its economic ...

The approval rating for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet has fallen to 41.0 percent, a Kyodo News survey showed Sunday, dropping 8.3 points from the previous poll in January and marking the sharpest fall in nearly two years amid ongoing political scandals. In the nationwide ...

Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi has proposed "concrete steps" to Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, to resolve a long-standing territorial dispute, the minister has said. Motegi did not say what the steps were, but told reporters he invited Lavrov to visit Japan soon to continue negotiations aimed ...

Armed robbers who stole hundreds of toilet rolls were being hunted by Hong Kong police Monday, in a city wracked by shortages caused by coronavirus panic-buying. Toilet rolls have become hot property in the densely packed business hub, despite government assurances that supplies remain unaffected ...

The U.K. said it will spend £1.2 billion pounds ($1.6 billion) on developing the most powerful weather and climate supercomputer in the world. The program aims to improve weather and climate modeling by the government forecaster, the Met Office, Business Secretary Alok Sharma said in ...

International experts have begun meeting with their counterparts in China over the new coronavirus epidemic, whose future path is "impossible" to predict, the World Health Organization said late Sunday. The number of new cases from China's coronavirus epidemic dropped for a third consecutive day, but ...

Elon Musk's plan to build an electric car plant in Germany has run into legal trouble after a court said clearing a forest near Berlin for a new Tesla Inc. factory must stop immediately while it considers a challenge by environmentalists. The Berlin-Brandenburg higher administrative ...

Crisis-hit Lebanon's national carrier on Sunday said it was scrapping plans to only accept payments in U.S. dollars, a decision that had earlier sparked anger among Lebanese. Lebanon is in the throes of an economic meltdown and a biting liquidity crunch that has seen the ...

In Sudan's sprawling Camp Kalma, people who fled the Darfur conflict are overjoyed at a pledge by the country's new authorities to finally deliver ex-President Omar al-Bashir to the International Criminal Court. Bashir, who was deposed in April 2019 following mass protests, has for the ...

More than 1,000 former U.S. Justice Department officials Sunday called for Attorney General William Barr to resign over his handling of the trial of a longtime adviser of U.S. President Donald Trump. The former officials, who served under both Republican and Democratic administrations, criticized Barr, ...

China's GEM Co. Ltd., best known as a recycler of batteries for electric vehicles and producer of cobalt chemicals used in them, said on Sunday it had been given a four-month licence to make disinfectant in coronavirus-hit Hubei province. The surprise addition to the product ...

The problems of international relations and foreign policy are too great to be left to governments alone.

Japanese policymakers nee to pay continuous attention to the changing situation in the Middle East.

A liberal arts education is crucial to the development of the skills required for success in Society 5.0.

The Democrats' impeachment effort has successfully energized Trump's base and fundraising but not their own.

As many of Japan's traditional crafts and industries hope to adapt to survive, more young designers are offering their creative help

Quiet green lanes, low-rise wooden houses, generations-old tofu stores, atmospheric temples, cycling grannies, small creative ateliers — and cats. Lots of cats. Yanaka, an east Tokyo neighborhood hugging the fringes of the JR Yamanote circle, is something of an urban time capsule, with its growing ...

More than a century ago, the skills of paper stencil textile-dyeing artisans made it possible to mass-produce kimono with vivid and intricate designs that previously could only be achieved by hand painting. Today, with fewer people wearing kimono on a daily basis, it has become ...

With data privacy being a huge issue, you may feel uneasy about hotels photocopying your passport. However, Colin P.A. Jones says the rule is more about bureaucratic culture than privacy.

Participation in one of Japan’s biggest annual sporting events will be limited to elite runners and wheelchair competitors.

Faculty behind the Nippon Sport Science University Coach Developer Academy (NCDA) program are confident that the "athlete-centered" culture it is fostering has made positive international progress since its 2014 inception. In collaboration with the International Council for Coaching Excellence, the grand vision of the NCDA ...

Most Olympians have to be singularly focused on a specific goal in their pursuit of excellence, but Naoko Ishihara's life outside the sporting realm gives her perspective available to few others. The 45-year-old shooter, who has all but booked her spot at this year's Tokyo ...

Defending ski jumping World Cup men's champion Ryoyu Kobayashi finished second on Sunday behind World Cup leader Stefan Kraft of Austria. On a day when the second round of jumps had to be abandoned due to strong wind, Kobayashi leapt 242.5 meters but got relatively ...

India will play a day-night test in Australia this year and another during England's visit in 2021, cricket board chief Sourav Ganguly said. The decision of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) follows January's meeting with a Cricket Australia delegation led by ...