National May 28, 2021
Three missing as Japanese cargo ship collides with foreign vessel off Ehime
The Japanese ship had 12 crew aboard, and the missing three, including its captain, are Japanese nationals.
National Mar 21, 2021
Japanese fisherman exposed to 1954 U.S. nuclear test dies of pneumonia at 87
Matashichi Oishi was among the fishermen exposed to nuclear fallout when the United States conducted its largest-ever nuclear weapons test at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands in 1954.
National Sep 7, 2020
Pacific islands used in nuke tests urge people to remember history
The Marshall Islands were used for U.S. nuclear bomb tests in the 1940s and '50s.
Asia Pacific / Politics Nov 18, 2019
Marshall Islanders vote in election closely watched by Washington
Voters in the Marshall Islands went to the polls Monday in a general election that will determine who will lead the Pacific island nation's negotiations with the United States on the renewal of a regional security pact. The vote comes at a time of growing ...
Asia Pacific Aug 6, 2019
U.S. seeks to renew Pacific islands security pact to foil China
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday negotiations have begun with three Pacific island nations to renew a national security agreement that would help Washington counter growing Chinese influence in the region. Under the terms of the deal, known as the Compact of Free ...
Asia Pacific / Science & Health Sep 25, 2018
Marshall Islands marches toward zero greenhouse emissions by 2050
The Marshall Islands, an atoll-nation vulnerable to sea level rise from climate change, announced steps on Monday toward an ambitious plan to cut its greenhouse emissions to zero by 2050. The Pacific country became the first small island nation to present such a strategy to ...
National Dec 20, 2017
Occupation legacy: Marshall Islands residents use Japanese term for traditional handicrafts
by Ronron Calunsod
The tradition is theirs, but the name is Japanese. Loretta deBrum of the Marshall Islands Visitors Authority said that before the Marshallese adapted the Japanese word "amimono" to refer to handicrafts, they used the local word "monakjen." The Japanese word came into use while Japan occupied ...
National Dec 20, 2017
ICAN Nobel Peace Prize resonates in radiation-hit Marshall Islands
by Ronron Calunsod
The awarding of this year's Nobel Peace Prize to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons is resonating in the Marshall Islands, boosting hopes there will be no repeat of its exposure to radiation from nearly 70 U.S. nuclear tests from 1946 to 1958. "I ...
National Jun 5, 2016
Only Fukuryu Maru got health-damaging dose from 1954 H-bomb tests, ministry claims
No other Japanese ship was exposed to health-damaging radiation from the 1954 U.S. hydrogen bomb tests in the Pacific Ocean aside from the Fukuryu Maru No. 5, which was contaminated by fallout from one of the tests at Bikini Atoll, according to a recently ...
National May 27, 2016
Citizens of nuclear-bombed Marshall Islands yearn for Obama visit
As U.S. President Barack Obama visits the atomic-bombed city of Hiroshima on Friday, residents of the Marshall Islands — the Pacific nation used by the U.S. as a nuclear test site after World War II — have also begun calling for a similar visit ...
National Mar 18, 2016
Yoshio Misaki, chief fisherman of the Japanese trawler irradiated by a U.S. hydrogen bomb test in the Marshall Islands in 1954, died Thursday of pneumonia at a hospital in his hometown of Yaizu, Shizuoka Prefecture, his family said Friday. He was 90. Misaki was one ...
National Jan 8, 2016
Fukuryu Maru H-bomb victims incensed by latest North Korean blast
Three tuna fishermen who survived radioactive fallout from a U.S. hydrogen bomb test in the Pacific say they despair at the world's adherence to such weapons, days after North Korea claimed to have tested a device. "If (the bomb is) used, it is the end ...