Japan

(Newser) - Of all the things initiated in anonymous online chat rooms, group suicide has to be the most macabre. David Samuels explores  why hundreds of Japanese adults, previously unknown to each other, have gathered to die together in small groups, often asphyxiating themselves in cars by carefully placing charcoal burners to...

(Newser) - The mayor of Nagasaki was murdered yesterday by a gangster affiliated with Japan's largest organized-crime syndicate. The assassin, who shot Iccho Ito twice in the back, reportedly was steamed that the city refused to pay for damages to his car after he drove it into a hole at a construction...

(Newser) - The Red Sox's $103-million man Daisuke Matsuzaka lived up to the hype last night, holding the Kansas City Royals to just one run on six hits in his Major League debut. In front of 200 Japanese media members, Matsuzaka dazzled the Royals hitters with a power fastball and his famed...

(Newser) - Nikoli, the Japanese publisher that turned sudoku into a blockbuster, has about 250 more where that came from, most of them unknown outside Japan. Founded by a college dropout with a horseracing habit, the company doesn't invent puzzles, it relies on its readership to submit ideas, as well as help...