Teenage girl band Babymetal pair rah-rah skirts and ribbons with metallic riffs to produce unlikely worldwide online hit Sprinkling a sugary coating of teen-idol pop on to the remorseless clamour of death metal sounds like a musical fusion best confined to the imagination of a record industry executive. But Babymetal, a trio of Japanese teenage girls, have paired rah-rah skirts and hair ribbons with...
10 - 14 March 2014: Catch up with our selection of this week’s development-related news, images and key reports Anna Leach ...
Here’s our weekly round-up of great city content we found online – from shipping containers turned into housing to decrepit amusement parks Marta Bausells ...
28-year-old will play Rita Cowan, who founded distillery with husband Masataka Taketsuru, in Japanese TV drama In six months' time, Charlotte Kate Fox will be a household name in Japan. In Scotland, whisky drinkers may well raise a glass in her honour. The 28-year-old American actor has beaten more than 500 other hopefuls to secure the role of Rita Cowan – a Scottish woman regarded as the mother of...
Japanese electronics company describes payments as 'premium for expatriates to compensate for different living environment' The Japanese electronics giant Panasonic has said it will give employees sent to China a wage premium to account for the country's hazardous air pollution, a possible first for an international company. The move was part of a wider deal reached in Japan's annual labour talks,...
Fronted by three dancing Japanese teens and sounding somewhere inbetween Skrillex and Aqua: the Babymetal craze is a perverse a pop confection but resistance is futile They do things differently in Japan. So much so, in fact, that despite my devotion to heavy metal and its attendant culture and values, the emergence and apparent huge popularity - their self-titled debut currently sits at No 4 on the...
British annual growth rate forecast to be 3.3% over first and second quarters, outpacing US, Japan, Germany, France, Italy and Canada Britain's recovery will be the strongest among G7 economies over the first half of 2014, according to the latest predictions from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The UK economy is forecast to grow over the six months at a speed that...
• Champions League tribute on third anniversary • Hiroshima players spell out fatal date – 11/3 The Japanese side Sanfrecce Hiroshima had an unusual and touching way of paying tribute to the victims of the 2011 Japanese tsunami. Tuesday is the third anniversary of the disaster when almost 16,000 people lost their lives, and after Tsukasa Shiotani put them into the lead in their match against Central...
Senior adviser to Tokyo Electric Power says controlled release into sea is much safer than keeping contaminated water on-site A senior adviser to the operator of the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has told the firm that it may have no choice but to eventually dump hundreds of thousands of tonnes of contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean. Speaking to reporters who were on a rare visit...
Japanese GDP expanded 0.7% in fourth quarter – down from an earlier estimate of 1.0% Sean Farrell ...
11 March marks the third anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The nearby city of Koriyama recommended, shortly after the disaster, that children up to the age of two should not spend more than 15 minutes outside each day ...
s thyroid gland, Toshiyuki Kamei refused to let parental fear get the better of him. The symptoms are not uncommon, and the probability that they will develop into something more serious is low. Yet Kamei can be forgiven for occasional moments of doubt: his daughter, Ayako, is one of almost 400,000 children who were living in Fukushima on 11 March 2011 – the start of the world's worst nuclear accident...
Dreamliner flight JL002 from Tokyo to San Francisco diverts after reported problem with hydraulic system A Japan Airlines flight from Tokyo to San Francisco has made an emergency landing in Honolulu, reportedly because of a possible problem with its hydraulic system. The pilot of the Dreamliner flight JL002, carrying 171 passengers and crew, decided to divert to Hawaii after a warning message about...
The Japanese government has issued a statement on how to regulate bitcoin, on the same day as 180,000 bitcoins linked to collapsed Tokyo-based exchange Mt Gox are transacted. By Alex Hern Alex Hern ...
Allah' in translated comic book could damage faith of Muslim youths and threaten public safety Malaysia has banned a translation of an Ultraman comic book after it referred to the popular Japanese superhero as "Allah", authorities said. The home ministry, which is in charge of domestic security and censorship, said the Malay-language edition of Ultraman, The Ultra Power contains elements that can undermine...
s notorious yakuza crime groups fell to an all-time low in 2013, slipping below the 60,000-member mark for the first time on record, police say. The National Police Agency credited its crackdown on the organised crime syndicates for membership falling to 58,600 last year, down from about 63,200 in 2012. Like the Italian mob or Chinese triads, yakuza syndicates are involved in activities ranging from...
In wake of MtGox closure, Japanese authorities look to regulate cryptocurrency, urging international co-operation. By Alex Hern Alex Hern ...
s Intangible Cultural Heritage list – a privilege formerly reserved for French cuisine. This should radically open up Japanese cooking and ingredients to food lovers and chefs around the world. "We're still on the first rung of the ladder to understanding it," says Heston Blumenthal, who regularly visits Japan for culinary meetings where the world's top chefs exchange ideas. "Unesco's listing of washoku...
s wartime enslavement of Chinese and South Korean women, shows just how much the past explicitly informs current relations As tensions between China, Japan and others in the region rise, observers could be forgiven for wondering which year this is, given the copious references to events dating back seven decades or more. Historical grievances have always played a role in regional tensions. But longstanding...
s review of statement recognising country's role in ordeal of 'comfort women' Yi Ok-seon was a 15-year-old hotel employee in Ulsan, South Korea, when a Japanese official and a Korean accomplice came to put her to work in a military brothel in occupied north-west China. For three years until the end of the second world war, Yi was forced to have sex with countless Japanese soldiers. Repeated injections...