The Japan Tourism Agency kicked off a campaign Tuesday to woo foreign visitors as a gesture of thanks for the global support that poured in after the March 11 disasters, agency Commissioner Hiroshi Mizohata said. During the “Japan. Thank You.” campaign, which runs until late April, posters and banners to express appreciation will be displayed at such places as major international airports,... 

Nineteen fifth-grade students from a public elementary school gathered Thursday to create works of art for elementary school students affected by last year’s Tohoku region disaster. After viewing a collection of portraits by Japanese children from the disaster-affected areas at the Japanese Information and Culture Center in Washington, the students from Thomson Elementary School spent an hour... 

There aren’t too many celebrity CEOs in the world. But without a doubt, Tony Hsieh is one of them. As CEO of giant online shoe and clothing retailer Zappos, Hsieh has grown the company from a fledging start-up in 1999 to the behemoth it is today. Amazon acquired Zappos in 2009 for a reported $1.2 billion and Hsieh (pronounced Shay) remained as CEO. In Australia running a series of workshops for... 

ALMOST three decades after he first feasted on corn-raised American beef as a visiting official from China’s hog-farming region of Hebei, Xi Jinping was set to return to Muscatine, Iowa today to sink his teeth into tenderloin, spring rolls and bacon-wrapped scallops. This time, he was to do so as the man destined to lead China, the world’s most populous nation and second-biggest economy,... 

American comic book “I Kill Giants” has won the top prize in the Japanese government-sponsored annual international award for manga, the foreign ministry said. The 2008 book, created by American writer Joe Kelly and Spanish cartoonist J.M. Ken Niimura, was awarded the gold prize out of 145 entries from 30 countries and areas, the ministry announced on Tuesday. It portrays a socially isolated girl... 

Jeremy Lin was an unknown a little over a week ago. How times change. The clock was running down, on the game, on the New York Knicks and on Jeremy Lin’s mystical streak that was, for a moment, teetering on the edge of disappointment. The seconds disappeared until Lin pulled up and launched from the three-point arc. The ball swished with a half-second remaining, setting off pandemonium at Air... 

When he learned that there are 150 acid attacks a year in Pakistan, plastic surgeon Mohammad Jawad went there to help repair the damage done to the victims. Now he is the subject of an Oscar-nominated film Zakia’s face looks as if half of it has been rubbed out. What’s left is one eye, half a nose and a mouth that can no longer smile. She seldom leaves the house, and when she does she wears... 

The U.N. Forum on Forests held a ceremony Thursday for the recipients of its Forest Hero award at U.N. headquarters in New York. The six people honored included Japan’s fisherman-turned-environmentalist Shigeatsu Hatakeyama, 68, from Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture. Hatakeyama is the founder and chairman of Mori wa Umi no Koibito (Forests are Lovers of the Sea), a nonprofit environmental conservation... 

Chocolates with positive messages have emerged as big sellers in Sendai for the first Valentine’s Day since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. At the Fujisaki department store downtown, chocolate gifts made with locally produced sake or honey and carrying messages of gratitude are gaining in popularity. “It is probably because consumers want to support products using food from disaster-hit... 

A magistrate has praised the actions of a man who stole a wallet and two mobile phones, then turned himself in to police when he found images of what he thought was child pornography on one of the phones, a court has heard. The man appeared in Ballarat Magistrates Court yesterday, where a suppression order was issued preventing his name from being published. Upon learning the man’s actions had...