By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun A popular shopping area in the Ueno area was packed and bustling on Dec. 29 with customers seeking fresh delicacies for their New Year celebrations as merchants e…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun SHIMANTO, Kochi Prefecture--An auspicious "golden" catfish has been on display at the Shimanto Gakuyukan aquarium since Dec. 28 that staff at the facility say tha…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun The government’s decision to dispatch Self-Defense Forces to the Middle East raises serious questions about the necessity and legal basis for doing so.

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun The Nuclear Regulation Authority on Dec. 26 released its first video of the destroyed interior of the No. 3 reactor building at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nucle…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun BEIJING--Researchers in Japan and China believe that an eighth-century Chinese epitaph was written by a visiting Japanese student, a valuable artifact that retrac…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun NARA--In preparation for the Toka-Ebisu Festival in January, apprentice shrine maidens here are busy learning the ropes so they can bring luck and prosperity--the…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun A star-struck former astronaut, a woolly mammoth and Hollywood actor Brad Pitt were involved in a real-life drama that may have ended with a possible embezzlement…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun A black market money changer was doing a roaring business at Vladivostok Airport in Russia's Far East on Dec. 20 as nearly 100 North Korean workers loaded up with…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun NAGOYA--A computer game company has offered a job to a third-year high school student from Bangladesh who overcame a language barrier and found an activity he cou…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun Japan is not alone among nations of the world in facing a massive shortage of helium gas. In case you thought, what's the big deal, the gas is only used for thing…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun Japan and the United States, aiming to beat China in the race to develop quantum computers, signed an agreement on Dec. 19 to partner on next-generation quantum t…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun Yoshitomo Nara, an artist known globally for his paintings of girls staring with their large eyes, wants people to think of refugees as individuals, not as groups…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun BEIJING--Shandong, China's first domestically built aircraft carrier, officially entered service Dec. 17 as a major prong in Chinese President Xi Jinping's strate…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun With the Trump administration withdrawing from a key nuclear weapons agreement and even contemplating the use of low-grade nuclear weapons, former Soviet Union le…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun When butterfly researcher Akino Miyagi entered an Okinawan jungle that served as a former U.S. military training area, she was shocked to find a slew of munitions…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun With just over seven months to go before the start of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, a ceremony on Dec. 15 at the new National Stadium offered a sneak preview of the ma…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun The promised "paradise of Earth" was anything but, as ethnic Koreans from Japan discovered after they took the first ship departing from Niigata Port for North Ko…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun If it is the central government's intention to wear down local opposition to a contentious U.S. military base project in Okinawa Prefecture by ignoring the displa…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun KYOTO--The Japanese public has given its verdict for the kanji character that best sums up events of 2019, and it is “rei,” the first character in the name of the…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun Japan will double its “wagyu” beef cattle output to 300,000 tons a year by fiscal 2035 to export more so as to offset declining domestic demand, the government sa…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun A young Vietnamese woman who once worked in Japan as a foreign technical trainee was one of the 39 people who suffocated to death in the back of a truck while try…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun Empress Masako turned 56 on Dec. 9 and expressed her appreciation for the enormous encouragement shown by the public in celebrating her husband Naruhito’s ascensi…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun The body of a Japanese doctor killed in a roadside shooting in Afghanistan arrived back home Sunday, with government officials on hand to lead a brief ceremony of…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun Police in Hyogo Prefecture have sent papers to prosecutors alleging an employee at Mitsubishi Electric Corp. induced the suicide of a rookie employee he was train…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun Japanese doctor and humanitarian Tetsu Nakamura was likely targeted in an ambush in Afghanistan on Dec. 4 aimed at driving off other support organizations and int…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun A search for rare butterflies led Tetsu Nakamura on a decades-long crusade that saw him providing medical care to patients and refugees in Pakistan and swinging a…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun A Japanese doctor with a long history of relief activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan was killed along with five others in an ambush on a road in eastern Afghani…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun FREMANTLE, Australia--Dockside tears and heartfelt farewells marked the Dec. 2 departure here of the icebreaker Shirase for Japan's 61st research expedition to An…

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun KURUME, Fukuoka Prefecture--Takao Ito combined his need for space, his model-collecting obsession and his fondness for drinking to create what has become a “holy …

By clicking above image, you can go to original article in The Asahi Shimbun SEOUL--North Korea will likely increase its missile launches toward the end of December as the year-end deadline approaches for a new denuclearization proposal fr…