The man behind a 2008 mass stabbing attack in Tokyo has been sentenced to death.

CAR plants, electronics factories and refineries shut across large parts of Japan as the earthquake rocked the country, buckling roads and knocking out power to millions of homes and businesses.

Japan confirmed that China’s economy surpassed its own as the world’s second largest in 2010 and said a late-year downturn was Japan’s first quarterly contraction in more than a year.

An unemployed Japanese man armed with a knife attacked school children and other passengers waiting on two buses outside a train station today in an incident that left 13 people injured.

Japan’s economy lost significant momentum last quarter as receding growth at home and abroad stunted its shaky recovery.

A strong earthquake hit near Sakhalin island in Russia’s Far East today, reportedly killing one person and sending small tsunami waves to northern Japan.

US military officials will seek to verify whether North Korea shuts down its nuclear reactor as promised and if it tries to move the operations elsewhere, it was announced today.

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe said today that his country will work closely with other countries to pressure North Korea to giving up its nuclear weapons if international talks on the impasse reconvene.

A JAPANESE woman in her 50s has given birth to a child she carried for her daughter, who was unable to conceive because she had her womb removed due to cancer, a clinic revealed yesterday.

SOUTH KOREA and Russia were yesterday stepping up efforts to prevent North Korea from carrying out a nuclear test.

Japanese stocks plunged for a second day today, bringing its two-day loss to nearly 6% amid investor jitters about a widening criminal investigation of internet start-up Livedoor Co.

A powerful typhoon lashed southern Japan, killing one person, injuring 15 others and forcing tens of thousands to evacuate as gale-driven waves hurtled against coastline defences and storm surges flooded seaside towns.

CHINA told Japan bluntly yesterday that it had nothing to apologise for after weeks of anti-Japanese protests, some violent, in cities across the country.

THE Japanese royal family is set to change its succession laws to enable the three-year-old daughter of the current Crown Prince to become the first Empress for 200 years.

A Japanese court has thrown out a lawsuit stemming from visits by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to a Tokyo shrine that honours Japan’s World War II dead, a spokesman said today.

POWERFUL typhoon Songda made landfall in southern Japan yesterday, pounding the region with torrential rains and high winds that forced evacuations, caused blackouts and brought public transport to a virtual standstill.

Up to four people died after a steam leak at a Japanese nuclear plant today.

Beleaguered Japanese car giant Mitsubishi Motors hid 26 defects in its cars from regulators to avoid issuing recalls for the vehicles, it admitted today.

A Japanese woman kidnapped by Iraqi militants last month said she backed Tokyo’s rejection of her captors’ demands that it withdraw its troops from Iraq or see her burned alive.

Police in Japan have identified the dismembered remains found in a beachside cave near Tokyo as those of British bar hostess Lucie Blackman.