Japan's biggest Internet forum, where anonymous netizens trade anything from cooking tips to death threats, has long been an anarchic zone of uninhibited free speech and a magnet for controversy.

The Japanese site, www.2ch.net, does not ask for personal ID details and hosts unfiltered views, in contrast to most chat forums where registration and vetting have become the norm in a bid to keep discussion orderly.

But no-holds-barred messages also voice sexist, nationalistic and xenophobic sentiments, many targeting Chinese and Koreans.

South Koreans were furious recently when a writer said the mob killing of a Korean college student in February in Irkutsk was "Russia's good

A school director told reporters the princess had been frightened on Tuesday when a boy had run out of a classroom, which "must have reminded her of the rowdy behaviour of several boys in the past, who may have thrown things and made her uneasy", Kyodo says.

The negotiator, Masanori Miyahara, said in a telephone interview this week that Japan “would have no choice but to take a reservation” — in effect, to ignore the ban and leave its market open to continued imports — if the bluefin tuna were granted most-endangered species status.
“It’s a pity,” he said, “but it’s a matter of principle.”

A 32-year-old woman from Shandong province said that when she moved from Beijing with her husband in 2007, she was amazed at the freedom with which people in Japan could practice their faiths. She now worships at the churches in Kawaguchi and Ichikawa.
She recalled her college days in Shandong province, where she started going to a government-approved church. She was fed up with materialism in society and wanted to turn to "something spiritual."
Though her faith grew, she had doubts. The preacher often said during sermons, "Let us obey government leaders."

An anti-whaling activist from New Zealand is in custody on a Japanese vessel and will be taken to Japan to face charges after secretly boarding the ship as part of a protest, officials said Tuesday.
Peter Bethune, a member of the U.S.-based Sea Shepherd activist group, jumped aboard the Shonan Maru 2 from a Jet Ski on Monday with the stated goal of making a citizen's arrest of the ship's captain and presenting him with a $3 million bill for the destruction of a protest ship last month.

A Japanese television commercial featuring pop diva Namie Amuro and a group of men performing an indigenous Maori dance has drawn criticism in New Zealand, the Australian Associated Press reported Monday.

The ad for Coke Zero involves a dance between Amuro and a group of actors dressed in rugby jerseys apparently doing the ceremonial "Ka Mate Haka" dance. Te Ariki Wi Neera, a spokesman for the Ngati Toa tribe, the traditional custodians of the Ka Mate Haka, said the ad "sounds like crap."

Man arrested after applying for driver's license renewal while drunk

The magazine proceeds to make its case. An increasing number of students, it finds, are kanji-illiterate, ignorant of history, at sea in math, allergic to reading anything more serious than manga. As for the nation as a whole, 30 million Japanese, it says—roughly one-quarter of the population—don’t read a single book in the course of a year.

The "hanzaki holes" are a key conservation tool in a land where many rivers are now sculpted not by nature, but by the hand of man.

Kirin plans to launch a new brew, called 1000, that uses hard water and contains elevated amounts of calcium and magnesium to give it a distinctive flavor.
Asahi Breweries is to release Strong Off, which has a relatively high alcohol content of 7 percent and 60 percent less carbohydrates, whilst Suntory is using seven different types of hops into its new Relax beer-like drink.