Here is the world in 2050, as imagined by the U.S. Census Bureau: India will be the most populous nation, surpassing China sometime around 2025. The U.S. will remain exactly where it is now: in third place, with a population of 423 million . And declining birth rates in two of the world's most economically and politically influential countries, Japan and Russia, will cause them to fall from their current positions as the 9th and 10th ...

The door to the Swallowtail opens and there stands Saionji, a good man and as skilled a butler as has ever buttled. He takes our coats and bags and shimmers away, leading us down the corridor, past gilt mirrors, Monet prints and bursting bouquets, to our table in the Swallowtail's elegant tearoom. I move to sit, but my footman, Mikami, has already materialized, easing me into my chair. "Good day, princess," he says to my dining companion — and ...

After a 15-year economic eclipse, a stream of good news is finally brightening the outlook for Japan. Banks have started to lend again, companies to hire and invest, and consumers to spend. Things are so good, in fact, that the Bank of Japan has just declared victory in its epic battle with deflation. The country has the world's second largest economy; its recovery will have implications around the globe. It's worth remembering how Japan got to where it is now. The ...

Seven/Eleven Japan, with over 13,200 stores nationwide, is among the many forward-looking companies helping set the pace for change within the nation's energy policy. The convenience store chain plans to spend over $123 million to switch to energy efficient LED lighting at about 6000 outlets in Tokyo, and will install solar panels on roofs of 1,000 stores around the country over the next few months. This would not only save 125KW a day per store but also ...

For the second time in three harrowing days, a hydrogen explosion at one of Japan's crippled reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant blew the roof off a containment building — this time on Monday morning at reactor unit No. 3. Eleven workers at the plant were injured, and the force of the blast apparently damaged a pump that workers had brought in to douse the reactor's fuel rods with seawater — the stopgap method they are ...

Apart from some miracle rescues, Japan has seen little good news in the month since catastrophe struck. Thousands of bodies have yet to be recovered, hundreds thousands are homeless, the nuclear crisis lurches on, and the government response, while industrious, has been less than fully effective. There is one bright spot, however: Japan's monarchy — at 2,500 years, the oldest in the world — has been shaken, at least temporarily, out of its cloistered existence. On March ...

— Workers used a milky bathwater dye Monday as they frantically tried to trace the path of radioactive water seeping into the ocean from Japan's tsunami-damaged nuclear plant. The crack in a maintenance pit discovered over the weekend was the latest confirmation that radioactivity continues to spill into the environment. The leak is a symptom of the primary difficulty at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex: Radioactive water is pooling around the plant and preventing workers from powering up ...

The 9.0 quake that hit Japan on March 11 was powerful enough to shift the earth on its axis and make it spin a little faster, shortening the day by 1.8 millionths of a second. It shoved the island nation one parking space to the east. But what felt like the end was just the beginning. The sturdy buildings that survived the quake were ravaged by the wave that followed. The three-story wall of water dissolved coastal towns, dry-docked boats ...

Oil prices dropped below $100 a barrel Monday after a massive earthquake and tsunami devastated northeastern Japan, denting demand for crude from the world's third-largest economy. Officials estimate a 33-foot wall of seawater triggered by an 8.9 magnitude quake off the coast of northern Japan on Friday killed at least 10,000 people and severely damaged the country's energy infrastructure. The benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average fell more than 6 percent Monday. "This disaster has in effect temporarily ...

Markets can be merciless, bloodlessly processing available information to price assets appropriately. In the aftermath of Japan's triple disaster — an incomprehensible 9.0 earthquake, an incredible tsunami that killed thousands and the resulting damage at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear works — its stock market fell more than 14% before regaining some ground on March 16. A massive loss of wealth attended a grievous loss of life. With Japan facing short-term damage to its economy, all Japan-related assets have been written ...