An island resembling Charlie Brown’s best friend has been named the best island of 2013 by the Global Post, the Las Vegas Guardian Express reports. The island, which is located off the coast of Japan, is officially named Niijima, but has been known for some time as “Snoopy” because the shape is quite similar to the dog from the Peanuts cartoon strip.

Japan's population declined by a record 244,000 people in 2013, according to health ministry estimates. The ministry said an estimated 1,031,000 babies were born last year - down some 6,000 from the previous year.

Japan’s coast guard plucked a stranded Chinese balloonist out of the sea near the disputed Senkaku island group on New Year’s day after the man tried and failed to land on one of the islands. The man’s political affiliation and precise motive were unclear, but the coast guard said on Thursday that he told his rescuers he had been trying to reach one of the Japanese-administered islands, which are known as the Diaoyu in China.

Taken collectively, this body of evidence shows that nuclear radiation from Fukushima is affecting sea life in the Pacific Ocean and animal life along the west coast of North America in some extraordinary ways. But the mainstream media continues to insist that we don’t have a thing to worry about. The mainstream media continues to insist that radiation levels in the Pacific and along the west coast are perfectly safe. Are they lying to us?

Previously called Niijima, the volcanic island that first broke above the Pacific Ocean on November 20 has merged with a neighboring uninhabited island called Nishino Shima as it continues to expand. The small volcanic island sits about 600 miles (970 kilometers) south of Tokyo in Japanese waters, part of a chain of about 30 small islands called the Bonin Islands, or the Ogasawara chain.

Real wasabi, a.k.a wasabia japonica, is harder to get than high-quality heroin. Almost all of what's labelled wasabi is a cheap, pre-mixed concoction of green food coloring, horseradish, and Japanese hot mustard. You can buy the fake stuff in a toothpaste tube, rolled up in a wet ball next to some red dye number-40-marinated ginger and imitation crab roll in the 7-Eleven sushi case, or in powder form at mainstream grocery stores.

Sushi chain operator bought a single 507-pound bluefin tuna at auction for major cash.

Tokyo Electric Power Co, operator of the disaster stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant, has been in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons, one of them is the continuous leaking of radioactive waste water into the ground beneath the plant and into the Pacific Ocean.

The Sea Shepherd Fleet has located all five vessels of the Japanese whale poaching fleet, including the Japanese factory ship, the Nisshin Maru, inside the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. Sea Shepherd has also documented the illegal slaughter of Minke whales in this area.

Japanese culture can often lend to bizarre experiences like wine spas or eating dolphins while playing with dolphins at water parks. It's no surprise that cosplay restaurants, themed dining establishments where waiters wear costumes, have been met with great success. Maid cafes are an offshoot of cosplay restaurants, where Japanese women dress up as servants and call male patrons “master” to provide an intimate experience.

Police in Japan are questioning about 300 employees of a packaged-food maker whose products sickened hundreds of people after pesticide at 2.6 million times the permitted levels were found in frozen croquettes. Police are probing the factory and workers for evidence in the contamination of food made at Maruha Nichiro Holdings Inc. (1334)’s plant in eastern Japan, according to a Gunma prefecture police statement yesterday.

The Japanese government has promised to lend the United States half of the cost of building the first "Super-Maglev" train, reducing travel time between Baltimore and Washington DC to just 15 minutes. Tokyo is so keen to show off its technology that it will provide loans for half the estimated $8 billion (£5bn) cost of installing the tracks, Japan's Asahi newspaper said on Tuesday.

At least five people have been killed and 12 injured in an explosion at a chemical factory in central Japan. The blast occurred in the afternoon at the plant run by Mitsubishi Materials in Yokkaichi city, Mie prefecture. Maintenance crews were cleaning out a heat exchanger used in the production of silicon products when the blast happened, officials said.

A team of nuclear scientists in Japan said Thursday they plan to create a controlled reactor meltdown in a bid to learn how to deal with future disasters. The Japan Atomic Energy Agency said it was working on a project using a scaled-down version of a reactor which they would deliberately cause to malfunction at a research facility in Ibaraki, north of Tokyo.

Nuclear radiation at the boundaries of the stricken Fukushima power plant has now reached 8 times government safety guidelines, TEPCO has said. The firm has been struggling to contain radioactive leaks at Fukushima since the onset over the crisis in 2011. The levels of nuclear radiation around Fukushima’s No. 1 plant have risen to 8 millisieverts per year, surpassing the government standard of 1 milliseviert per year, reports news site Asahi Shimbun citing Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).

A Japanese whaling ship has stopped just outside Australian waters, according to seafaring activists who said they were being chased by the vessel. The Yushin Maru No 3, one of three Japanese harpoon ships, had been tailing the Sea Shepherd's Bob Barker vessel, members of the anti-whaling group said.

His may be one of the world’s more quixotic protests. Angered by what he considers the Japanese government’s attempts to sweep away the inconvenient truths of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Masami Yoshizawa has moved back to his ranch in the radioactive no-man’s land surrounding the devastated plant. He has no neighbors, but plenty of company: hundreds of abandoned cows he has vowed to protect from the government’s kill order.

You might not know me, but I’m famous. Until recently, I didn’t know I was famous either, and most days, even now, it’s hard to tell. In 2010 I published a novel, “The Serialist.” It did fine for a debut, which is to say well enough to warrant a second, but my daily life didn’t change much: I wrote, I ran, I hung out with my friends. Then a Japanese translation came out, and things got strange. My book won a major Japanese literary contest, which was nice. Then it won another. Then another.

The maker of classic American liquors such as Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark has agreed to be purchased by a Japanese company in a $13.62 billion deal that would create the third largest global premium spirits business.

It's been a quiet day in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, a large port city on the western coast of central Japan. Like PC users the world over, you've been playing whack-a-mole with update notifications. This time, it's a piece of free software that you're barely aware of on your computer. Up pops an update notice while you're eating a yummy piece of chocolaty Lotte Ghana left over from the holidays. While you're chewing, you click your mouse, approving the update.