Japan's unemployment rate fell to 5.3 percent in September, the government reported on Friday, according to Kyodo news Service.

A strong earthquake struck off the south coast of Japan on Sunday night local time, "jolting Tokyo and wide areas of eastern Japan," the country's Kyodo news agency reported.

Two Japanese destroyers set sail Saturday on an anti-piracy mission off Somalia, the Japanese defense ministry said. The Japanese Cabinet approved the mission Friday. It marks the first policing action for the Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF), whose major overseas missions have previously focused on background support such as transport and refueling, Japan's Kyodo news agency said. The move comes after Somali pirates released a Japanese-owned vessel that was hijacked in the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden in November, according to a ...

A freighter with 16 crew members aboard may have sunk after colliding with a second freighter in the Pacific Ocean off Izu Oshima Island, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported Tuesday.

Japan's main opposition party will introduce a motion Tuesday to censure that country's finance minister after he appeared to be intoxicated at a weekend news conference at the G-7 meeting in Rome, the Kyodo News agency reported. Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa apologized for his behavior during a legislative committee meeting, but denied that it was the result of "heavy drinking," the agency said. Nakagawa said he had drinks on his flight to Rome and during the G-7 luncheon, but that ...