Asia, Tsunami | featured news

Japan's cabinet approved on Friday almost $50 billion of spending for post-earthquake rebuilding, a down payment on the country's biggest public works effort in six decades.

The death toll from Japan's March quake and tsunami rose to nearly 14,000 today. Robots sent into the damaged nuclear plant found record high radiation.

Most Japanese want a new prime minister to lead the massive rebuilding needed after last month's earthquake and tsunami, newspaper polls showed on Monday, as the head of government was again scolded in parliament for his handling of the disaster.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday that America would stand by Japan, saying she was confident the country will fully recover from its tsunami and nuclear disasters....

Japan's nuclear crisis is slowly stabilizing and the country must now focus on repairing the damage wrought by the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck the northeast coast a month ago, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said.

Toyota and Nissan they will resume production at all factories in Japan in mid-to-late April at about half their normal pace, joining Honda in an industrywide move to restart production halted by the March 11 earthquake.

The Hawaiian islands may get a new and unwelcome addition in coming months -- a giant new island of debris floating in from Japan.

The U.S. government is sending some robotic help to Japan to help regain control of the tsunami-damaged nuclear plant....

Japan is starting to confront years of post-tsunami reconstruction along its northeastern coast, grappling with an estimated 18,000 people dead and  hundreds of thousands left homeless.

A suspected breach in the core of a reactor at the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant could mean more serious radioactive contamination, Japanese officials revealed Friday, as the prime minister called the country's ongoing fight to stabalize the plant "very grave and serious."...