By Ruairidh Villar and Yuriko Nakao FUKUSHIMA | Fri Feb 10, 2012 8:28am EST FUKUSHIMA (Reuters) – On the snowy fringes of Japan’s Fukushima city, now notorious as a byword for nuclear crisis, Zen monk Koyu Abe offers prayers for the souls of thousands left dead or missing after the earthquake and tsunami nearly one [...]

Download image Sculpture made from 100,000 of the 2 million cranes folded during “Paper Cranes for Japan” campaign SEATTLE, Jan. 13, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Today, a massive sculpture will be unveiled in Japan‘s Sendai Train Station created from 100,000 paper cranes folded by children worldwide after the devastating March 2011 earthquake and tsunami—a sampling of [...]

TOKYO | Thu Jan 5, 2012 2:02am EST TOKYO (Reuters) – From small children to octogenarians, thousands came together in Tokyo Thursday for a new year’s battle of the brushes in an annual national calligraphy contest. In what has long been a ritual for the start of the year, people all across Japan write down [...]

By Orathai Sriring BANGKOK | Fri Nov 18, 2011 10:31am EST BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thailand’s worst floods in 50 years have hit tourism at the start of the high season, but the country has recovered quickly in the recent past from all sorts of scourges and some tour operators are hopeful a recovery might start [...]

BEIJING | Fri Sep 16, 2011 1:48am EDT BEIJING (Reuters) – First it was ping pong, then it was pandas. Now Tokyo and Beijing are turning to pop group diplomacy in an effort to soothe often tense ties. Despite the plethora of political problems between the two countries, China has warmly welcomed Japanese pop group [...]