Osaka, Japan News

Heavy hitters: Osaka Mayor T oru Hashimoto shares a smile with Takashi Shimada, one of the creators of the popular "Kinnikuman" manga series, as he presents Hashimoto with his portrait featuring the character during a courtesy visit Monday at City Hall.

In 2009, Italian fashion house Versace closed its four Japan stores and left the Japanese market, citing a need for the luxury brand to reinvent its image and restrategize its business operations.

BOND FORGED IN INK: Sandra Doubleday shows the first letter she sent to Sumiko Nishimura in 1962.

Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto, who heads Osaka Ishin no Kai , has pledged the party will support the bid by Japan to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement and pursue diplomatic policies centering on the Japan-U.S. alliance in the next House of Representatives election.

Holding "No Nukes" signs, people march demanding Japan abandon atomic power in Tokyo, Saturday, Feb.

Kansai's annual gathering of senior corporate executives concluded Friday with calls to consolidate the management of Kansai and Itami airports, extend the planned maglev line to Osaka, build a separate Hokuriku shinkansen line, and encourage qualified foreign professionals and more women to live and work in the region.

Indeed, chance seems to have pushed his life and artistic activity into unpredictable directions.

December 2011 visitor arrivals to the Northern Mariana Islands were up 6 percent compared to December 2010, according to the Marianas Visitors Authority.

Author Keiko Ochiai, journalist Satoshi Kamata and Nobel literature laureate Kenzaburo Oe prepare to speak to reporters in Tokyo, February 8, 2012.

Five halls of the Russian Museum in Kyiv will be provided for the solo exhibition of a famous artist for over a month The exhibition opening will take place on February 10.

KUALA LUMPUR: Sanyo Electric Co will cut about 140 jobs and close an aging solar wafer factory in Carson, California, as it prepares to start up operations at a plant in Malaysia.

Kazu Makino, the voice of veteran avant-garde rock band Blonde Redhead , was not what I expected an established indie star to be.

When I first moved to Osaka, I lived near Shinsekai - a rough part of town in the south.

Japan's trade minister said on Tuesday he had not set deadlines to resume operations at nuclear reactors after a media report said the government aimed to restart two reactors around April, the first since the Fukushima disaster almost a year ago.

Japan's biggest makers of TVs, phones and chips say they'll lose about $17 billion this year, about three-quarters of what Samsung Electronics Co.

The Happiness Realization Party demo protser on the opposition to tax increase and the resignation of Prime Minister Noda.

Panasonic Corp. almost doubled its annual loss forecast to a record 780 billion yen , the latest Japanese electronics company to predict weaker earnings because of Thailand floods and slowing demand for TVs.

Nagoya Mayor Takashi Kawamura and Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto have agreed to start policy consultations between their regional political groups on fielding candidates for the next general election and to seek a decentralization of power and other reforms.

UNCERTAIN TIMES: A man walks past an advertisement board of Panasonic outside an electronic shop in Tokyo.

It is with thanks to the grace of the Holy Spirit that James Wiese completes his time here on earth; he died on February 1, 2012, in Odessa, TX.