June 08, 2012
IWAKI, Fukushima Prefecture--When Hajime Hiruta saw families filling up homes in a hamlet of this city, he felt he had finally saved the community from extinction. He expected the arrival of even more people seeking a tranquil rural lifestyle.
June 08, 2012
Tokyo's Edogawa Ward boasts the largest Indian community in Japan.
June 07, 2012
Even when he was in the hospital for cancer treatments, Prince Tomohito rarely wasted an opportunity to show off his sharp tongue.
June 07, 2012
A Nepalese man handed a life sentence for a murder he says he did not commit has finally won a retrial after spending 15 years behind bars.
June 07, 2012
This is a big election year in many parts of the world, and in Japan, one held on the night of June 6 at a jampacked Nippon Budokan in Tokyo was the talk of the town--and much of Asia, too.
June 07, 2012
KAMIYAMA, Tokushima Prefecture--In this tiny town in a mountainous area, employees from Dunksoft Co., a Tokyo-based web design developer, work in an 80-year-old house they have been renting since last September.
June 06, 2012
More than a year after the reactors first melted down, the cost of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, ensuing evacuations and an envisioned massive cleanup, is still impossible to comprehend in numbers.
June 06, 2012
Outspoken Prince Tomohito, a cousin of Emperor Akihito, died on June 6 at a Tokyo hospital after a long battle with cancer. He was 66.
June 06, 2012
Researchers at Riken and the National Cancer Center have developed a new method of diagnosing a specific type of malignant breast cancer by combining position emission tomography (PET) and a drug already used to treat patients.
June 06, 2012
LONDON--Drug-resistant strains of gonorrhoea have spread to countries across the world, the U.N. health agency said on June 6, and millions of patients may run out of treatment options unless doctors catch and treat cases earlier.
June 06, 2012
The education ministry plans to introduce an “early graduation system” that will shave off six to 12 months from the three years it now takes senior high school students to graduate.
June 06, 2012
FUKUI--Religious leaders from Buddhism, Christianity and other faiths are calling on a higher authority as they join the campaign against the restart of two idled reactors at the Oi nuclear power plant, operated by Kansai Electric Power Co.
June 06, 2012
Japan’s fertility rate was unchanged at 1.39 babies per woman in 2011, according to the health ministry.
June 06, 2012
A Japanese research agency has dropped a controversial public relations campaign aimed at educating women about nuclear safety that compared radiation to the screaming voice of an angry wife.
June 06, 2012
Japanese oppose nuclear power more strongly than they did while the tsunami-damaged Fukushima plant was still in crisis a year ago, according to a poll that found widespread dismay with the government's handling of that disaster and the ongoing recovery.
June 05, 2012
Although clouds ruined the spectacle in many parts of Japan, a partial lunar eclipse was visible in the clear skies over Sapporo, Hokkaido, on the night of June 4.
June 05, 2012
A man in Tokyo’s Machida city often wondered what happened to the woman who lived next door. She appeared happily engaged, was amiable and polite--and then abruptly disappeared with her “fiancé” on Dec. 28, 2010.
June 05, 2012
Armed with tantalizing new information and an apparent recent sighting, police are hot on the trail of the last fugitive of the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo.
June 05, 2012
KYOTO--Where scientists once believed that neutrinos have no mass, two separate research groups on June 5 presented findings confirming that these tiny particles do have some substance, a game-changer in particle and astrophysics.
June 05, 2012
KAWASAKI, Kanagawa Prefecture--As a single working mom, Hitomi Ishio often became frustrated at how hard it can be juggling a job while raising children.