National / International News

Google also agreed to delete the private data its vehicles collected while photographing streets. Google has faced similar issues in Europe, where the U.K. decided it had broken the law.

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Students from The Mary Erskine School in Edinburgh discuss the issue of their knowledge of politics and the right to vote.

Syrian rebels are locked in a fierce battle with government troops as they try to take back the Baba Amr neighbourhood of Homs.

The man behind the 3D printed gun has new plans to offer copyright-free access to a range of printable goods.

In Japan, farmers and fishermen are having a tough time making a living anywhere near the site of the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima two years ago. Many consumers are afraid products from the disaster region may be contaminated with radiation.

But one restaurant in Tokyo deliberately serves food from the area of northeast Japan hit by the tsunami and the radiation cloud. The restaurant is called Fukko Shien Sakaba, which roughly translates to “reconstruction supporting drinking place.” On a recent night, I found customers are drawn by a desire to help the disaster victims – and by 96 different kinds of sake.

The manager of Fukko Shien Sakaba pops open a bottle of sake and pours until the glass overflows into a saucer. His rowdy customers cheer on the drinker.

The sake comes from the Tohoku region of Japan -- the area hit by the tsunami and nuclear disaster. Manager Masahide Tateoka says the dishes on the menu are specialties of the region: “Like fresh Wakame seaweed, sashimi, soba-noodles … Fukushima is mainly known for hot-pot dishes, but also its distinctive Fukushima-ramen, and ika-ninjin, a squid and carrot dish. They’re all very popular.”

The restaurant has its own radiation detectors to make sure the food is safe.

In one room, a group of 10 people is drinking beer and sake and using chopsticks to cook seaweed in portable boiling pots.Everyone in this group volunteers in the disaster area. Some of them go every weekend. They’ve delivered food and Christmas presents to displaced people. They’ve planted cherry trees in ground scoured by the tsunami.

College student Naoki Tashiro organizes bus trips for volunteers: “What we do is look for the missing people and right now we can go into places that haven’t been searched before. And what happens is, we find things that remind you that there was a life there: big trees, beer bottles, a coffee can, tires, regular things, but with all this mud, and once out of three times we do find the people, the remains.”

Tashiro says he narrowly escaped being killed. He was scheduled to take a class on March 13th two years ago… but the building that held the classroom was destroyed on March 11th.

At the bar, a couple of men in business suits are sitting in front of empty dishes, getting tipsy on bowls of milky sake. Takashi Kuramochi says he’s mostly been drinking sake. He says sake from the area hit by the tsunami is delicious.

While we’re talking, his colleague, Toru Watajima, gets an alert on his iPhone: “Earthquake!”

The floor starts to sway like a moving subway car.  We get shaken for a good 20 seconds, and then Watajima’s cell phone tells him it was magnitude 6 in the neighboring prefecture.  

But they are already relaxed and back to drinking sake.

The guys say Japanese people are used to this sort of thing. But Kuramochi says the massive earthquake that stuck two years ago was different. He thinks the tsunami and the nuclear accident that followed were the biggest thing ever to happen to Japan, bigger than the atomic bomb. My interpreter translates for him.

“Yes, there’s 2 million people in Tohoku still suffering,” he says, “and I feel like if I want to have a drink and have a good time, why not come to a place to support the Tohoku areas of course, that’s why I come here.”

The restaurant doesn’t only serve food from the disaster area to support the farmers there. It also donates all of its profits to the region. Last year, it contributed 15 million yen. That’s $162,000 to try to help rebuild the cities devastated by the earthquake and tsunami. 

A Colorado judge enters a not-guilty plea for the man accused of killing 12 in a theatre massacre, after lawyers said he was not ready to plead.

The pound falls against both the dollar and the euro after figures show that UK manufacturing output fell by 1.5% in January.

The US space agency reports that its Curiosity rover has identified clay minerals on Mars - an important indicator of water in the planet's past.

Promoter and manager Frank Warren confirms Dereck Chisora has been issued with a new licence.

India summons the Italian ambassador to express its anger that two Italian marines charged with murdering fishermen have not returned to face trial.

House Republicans begin the latest round of US fiscal negotiations by unveiling a budget proposal that aims to cut through the social safety net.

A in the journal Health Affairs found that patients feel little personal responsibility for keeping health costs lower. They were also unlikely to accept a less expensive treatment option, even if it was nearly as effective as a more expensive choice.

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MPs reject Labour calls for a "mansion tax" on properties worth more than £2m to be introduced before the next general election.

Cardinals enter the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, where they will vote to decide who will be the next leader of the world's 1.2bn Roman Catholics.

Detectives are investigating the murder of a woman in Fife and the death of her ex-partner.

President Francois Hollande admits France's budget deficit this year will be higher than the 3% level it promised during last year's election.

Americans expect a lot from the president — any president. Modern presidents are believed to control the economy, when the reality is that they have fewer tools even to control Congress or public opinion.

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Italy's Vincenzo Nibali holds off the challenge of Britain's Chris Froome to win the Tirreno-Adriatico race.

A head teacher and his partner sacked by a private girls' school win their claims for unfair dismissal.

The photograph of a grieving father holding the body of his baby boy became the iconic photograph of Israel's military strikes in Gaza last November.

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