March 17, 2014
“It was like a dream,” Sakie Yokota, the mother of North Korean abductee Megumi Yokota, said Monday after she and her husband, Shigeru, returned from meeting Megumi’s daughter Kim Eun Gyong for the first time. Megumi was abducted by North Korea when she was 13. The Yokotas met her daughter f...
A 2-year-old boy was found dead Monday morning in an apartment in Fujimi, Saitama Prefecture, while an 8-month-old-boy was discovered in the same apartment alive and rushed to the hospital. Investigators from the Kanagawa prefectural police are questioning a man in his 20s who was in the apartment...
Japanese and North Korean foreign ministry officials are expected to resume talks soon to discuss bilateral issues, including North Korea’s past abductions of Japanese nationals, according to government sources. The Foreign Ministry has also officially announced that the parents of Megumi Yokot...
MOSCOW (AP)—Investigators in Russia say at least 14 people in a village in the Far East have died of apparent methanol poisoning after drinking counterfeit liquor. Officials in the Krasnokamensk r...
The nation’s 10 major power suppliers said Monday they plan to install smart meters in every household by the end of fiscal 2024 through March 2025. The target date was brought forward by eight y...
NEW YORK (AP)—The surprises start right at the top of the NCAA tournament bracket: Virginia is a No. 1 seed. They keep going throughout the matchups. Last year’s national champion, Louisville, w...
NEW YORK (AP)—St. Patrick’s Day festivities were in full swing Sunday with the usual merriment of bagpipes and beer, but political tensions lingered in the northeastern U.S., where city leaders w...
SEOUL (AP)—North Korea fired 25 short-range rockets into the sea off its east coast Sunday in an apparent continuation of protests against ongoing U.S.-South Korean military drills, South Korean of...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP)—The goalie for Canada’s gold medalist women’s Olympic hockey team made her debut in the men’s Southern Professional Hockey League. Shannon Szabados had 27 saves, although...
NEW YORK (AP)—As workers tried to clear away the last of the rubble that once was two New York City apartment buildings, a pair of congregations gathered to mourn Sunday—one for its lost church a...
DUBAI (AP)—Dubai has reached an agreement with Abu Dhabi and the United Arab Emirates’ central bank to extend repayment of $20 billion of debt it incurred in the lead up to the global financial c...
The National Diet Library has started offering access to digitized rare books and journals at local libraries nationwide. So far, the national library has digitized 1.3 million out-of-print books, ...
This is the third installment of a new series based on interviews conducted in English in which prominent figures convey their message to Japan and the rest of the world. This installment features Koi...
HELSINKI (AP)—Thousands of people have protested against fascism in southwestern Sweden, calling for dialogue and tolerance. Left-wing and antifascist groups organized the demonstration in Malmo a...
This is the first installment of a new commentary series based on interviews conducted in English in which prominent figures convey their “message” to Japan and the rest of the world. This install...
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday he was very moved to hear that the parents of Megumi Yokota were able to meet with her daughter in Mongolia last week, 30 years after Megumi’s abduction to Nor...
SOFIA (AP)—Elena Radionova won her second straight gold medal at the world junior figure skating championships on Sunday, leading a medals sweep for Russia. The 15-year-old Radionova scored 127.3...
The resumption of formal contacts between director general-level officials of the Japanese and North Korean foreign ministries seems to be on the horizon, after the Foreign Ministry announced the mee...
SADO, Niigata—A pair of crested ibis siblings has started building a nest on Sado Island, the Environment Ministry has announced. The same pair hatched four chicks last year. The ministry’s Sado...
Relatives of people kidnapped by North Korea have expressed surprise at the first meeting between the parents of abductee Megumi Yokota and Megumi’s daughter in Mongolia last week. Although Shiger...
KINGSTON (AP)—A Jamaican juror has been charged with attempted bribery in a high-profile murder trial of top dancehall reggae star Vybz Kartel, police on the Caribbean island said Sunday. The Jam...
Japanese athletes who participated in the Sochi Paralympics cheer shortly after the closing ceremony on Sunday night in Sochi, Russia. Front row from left: Akira Kano, Mayuko Eno, Taiki Morii, Momoka ...
CAIRO (AP)—Egypt’s interim leader on Sunday said that the general public opposes the inclusion of the Muslim Brotherhood in the political process because he said it uses violence. In a wide-ran...
A powerful earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 6.2 jolted wide areas in the west of the nation early Friday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. The quake, which struck at about 2:06 a.m., ...
Today, many Japanese entertainers have multiple skills to add value to their profession. For Ayaka Wada, a member of teenage pop idol group S/mileage, art is her favorite subject, regardless of whethe...
Senior RIKEN officials bowed deeply during a Tokyo press conference Friday to apologize for the fact research articles about stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency (STAP) cells were written i...
Japan was seen as an international leader in the field of art in the 18th and 19th centuries—the middle of the Edo period (1603-1867)—when ukiyo-e artists produced numerous masterpieces. This was ...
OSAKA—The recent confusion regarding articles published by scientific journal Nature on stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency (STAP) cells may cause adverse effects on Japan’s studies of...
When Daisuke Takahashi arrived in Sochi on Sunday, determined to deliver his best performance at the Olympic Games, his parents were back in his hometown of Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture, planning to...
Japan and China, two East Asian regional powers, have been unable to hold summit talks since they started feuding with each other over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. Japan’s relations...
SOCHI (Jiji-Japan News)—Gold medalist Yuzuru Hanyu has given his exhibition program at the Sochi Olympics a theme: resurgence. The 19-year-old, who made history by becoming the first Japanese mal...
From April, “Onomato Pera Pera” will appear in the JN LearningLab Pages of the Japan News.
The following is a translation of the Henshu Techo column from The Yomiuri Shimbun’s March 6 issue. * * * Haiku poet Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) supposedly said, “Any 3-shaku-tall [e...
A few months ago I was on a business trip to Canada with some colleagues, and we ended up being invited to have dinner at a nice Italian restaurant with a friendly and engaging professor, whom I’ll ...
SENDAI—Clad in a brand-new, dark blue uniform, Iroha Ishikawa, 3, slipped past her mother who was trying to take a photo of her daughter with her smartphone, jumping around in front of the hina doll...
With his innovative presentation techniques, and a keen eye for beauty and political themes within daily life, German artist Wolfgang Tillmans has broadened the boundaries of photographic expression. ...
The Japan News has renewed its pages from the March 1 issue. The above is the new weekly schedule of main sections and articles in our print editions.
The Japan News is like no other English-language newspaper. Published by The Yomiuri Shimbun, the largest-circulation newspaper in the world, The Japan News is plugged into an extensive national and i...
