Tohoku, Japan News

I assumed the winter sky in Okutsugaru, in the western part of Aomori Prefecture's Tsugaru region, would be drab.

The newly inaugurated Reconstruction Agency, which the government considers the "command tower" for recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake, faces monumental challenges that need to be urgently addressed.

What a comeback! Eleven months after the tsunami ravaged Japan a collection of pictures reveal the incredible progress being made in the huge multi-billion pound clear up When Japan was hit with both an earthquake and tsunami in quick succession in March last year the images of devastation gripped the world.

Chocolates with positive messages have emerged as big sellers in Sendai for the first Valentine's Day since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Introduction of the Nikon D4 digital SLR in the US market has been delayed slightly, the company confirmed for us today.

The government's new Reconstruction Agency, tasked with rebuilding the area devastated by last year's March 11 earthquake, begins work on Friday.

The Reconstruction Agency finally made its official debut Friday, 11 months since the devastating Great East Japan Earthquake, and its mission is to speed up the process of rebuilding the Tohoku region.

A little less than a year ago, Sum 41 released "Screaming Bloody Murder," a self-produced, years-in-the-making album that was intended to subtly indicate a new direction for the erstwhile pop-punkers. But just when all the attention was supposed to be on the Ajax, Ont., band's new disc, it was instead focused on a disc of a different kind - the ... (more)

Last week, I spent several days cycling around the Hokuso countryside of northern Chiba Prefecture.

Japanese utility Tohoku Electric Power Co said its 446-megawatt gas-fired No.4 unit at its Sendai plant had resumed normal operations from 3 p.m. on Wednesday, earlier than its original plan for March.

More than 500 vehicles were stranded on a section of National Highway Route 279 in Yokohama, Aomori Prefecture, on Wednesday night after a large truck and a bus skidded and became stuck on the road due to a blizzard, according to police.

The mayor of a village near the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant declared Tuesday that local authorities would return in April, and urged residents who have evacuated due to the nuclear crisis to come back.

As 2011 dawned, leading Japanese geneticist Yusuke Nakamura was launching a cabinet-level innovation office that he hoped would spur the country's stagnant biomedical industry.

Mayor Yuko Endo of the village of Kawauchi near the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant called Tuesday for some 2,600 people to return home now that the radiation situation has improved.

Is the black float found on a Neah Bay area beach really from the Japan tsunami? Last Thursday, Tomoko Dodo, senior consul from the Consulate General of Japan in Seattle, visited the home of Arnold Schouten, a member of Surfrider Foundation, to see the float for herself.

ISHINOMAKI, Japan: Leaden winter skies lour on a coastguard boat as it cuts its way through the seas off Japan's tsunami-wrecked shores.

British insurer Lancashire Holdings raised its estimated exposure to an earthquake at Tohoku, Japan, by $42.2 million to a net loss estimate of $117.3 million.

Raising awareness: Environment Minister Goshi Hosono stands in front of a mountain of tsunami debris at a temporary storage site in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, on Saturday.

Municipalities are carrying out tests for radioactive substances on ingredients used in school lunches, but parents are worried whether their children are adequately protected as the tests are conducted in various ways.

A charity established by a talent agency to support reconstruction in the northeast expects to shoulder several billion yen of the cost of leasing giant pandas from China for a zoo in Sendai.