TOKYO – Japan has launched a new government office to address immigration and other issues involving foreign nationals, more than 340,000 of whom are Filipinos, as political debate over their presence intensified ahead of the recently concluded Upper House election.

TOKYO – For decades, they lived in silence across the Philippines. Elderly people born of wartime unions between Japanese fathers and Filipino mothers, abandoned by history, and invisible to policy. Now, for the first time, Japan is extending a hand to bring some of them home.

TOKYO – Across Japan, Catholic faithful, government leaders, and survivors of wartime atomic bombings are mourning the death of Pope Francis, who passed away April 21 at 88 from a stroke and heart failure.

MANILA – The Philippines joined the world in mourning the death of Pope Francis, the beloved head of the Roman Catholic Church, who died peacefully on Easter Monday, April 21, at the Vatican. He was 88.