Aug 13 - Japan's economy contracted, reinforcing views the world No. 2 may have slipped into recession after the longest growth run since World War Two.
North Korea and Japan have set guidelines for a new probe into Pyongyang's kidnappings of Japanese citizens, aiming to finish the investigation this fall and return all surviving victims, Japan's government said Wednesday.
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Japan's largest bank, said it would bid $3 billion to buy the remaining 35 percent of California's UnionBanCal Corp as it looks for growth beyond its softening home market.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Japan that Washington will not remove North Korea from a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism on Monday, Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said.
Toyota Motor Corp <7203.T> will raise prices of hybrid cars and commercial vehicles by 1-3 percent in Japan as early as this year amid soaring raw material costs, the Nikkei business daily reported on Monday.
Defending Olympic beach volleyball gold medalists Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor easily won their opener in the Beijing Games on Sunday, beating Mika Teru Saiki and Chiaki Kusuhara of Japan 21-12, 21-15.
Japan's Masato Uchishiba has won his second straight Olympic gold medal, pinning France's Benjamin Darbelet just seconds into their final match in the men's 66-kilogram division and bringing Japan its first judo gold of the Beijing Games.
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan marked the 63rd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki with a solemn ceremony on Saturday and a call for world powers to abandon their nuclear weapons.
For someone who grew up ashamed of her ethnic identity, they are powerful words. "You are beautiful just as you are. Don't be afraid," Mina Sakai sings to a young, enthusiastic crowd in the language of the Ainu, the indigenous people of northern Japan.
California prosecutors insisted Friday that a Japanese businessman can be prosecuted for the 1981 murder of his wife in Los Angeles even though he was acquitted of the crime in Japan.
