Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. almost tripled annual profit after an increase in passenger numbers and a surge in cargo volumes that made it the world’s largest international air-freight carrier. Net income jumped to HK$14 billion ($1.8 billion) from HK$4.7 billion a year earlier, the Hong Kong-based carrier said in a statement to the city’s stock exchange Wednesday. The airline also said it had agre

Translating legal documents from one language to another is anything but easy, and all the more so, given that less than clear-cut wording found in the original is often a source of legal dispute. It may be human to err in such a case.But a mismatch between figures in the original and the corresponding ones in a translated version is not a matter concerning translation. Such an error results from

Jang Ja-yeon, an aspiring actress, killed herself in March 2009, claiming that she had been forced into prostitution by her management agency. Those who had allegedly been provided with sexual favors included top business managers and news media representatives.Her suicide caused a public uproar, forcing the police to launch a seemingly extensive probe into the sexual slavery case. But the investi

Japaneses Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara has admitted in a meeting of the House of Councillors Budget Committee that he received political donations from a South Korean resident living in Kyoto.This is a problem that cannot be forgiven just because the amount of money involved was small or because he may not have received it intentionally.The Political Funds Control Law prohibits politicians from

It would take most of us a few dozen lifetimes to amass 2 million followers on Twitter. And yet Charlie Sheen managed it in less than a week.Last month, CBS Corp. discontinued the hit comedy show “Two and a Half Men” after Sheen’s public jousting with senior management over a binge that the wild-man actor has described as “epic” and “radical.” Since then, he has become one of the biggest names on

Japan’s relations with its immediate neighbors have taken a drastic dip in recent times. One major problem is the disputed territorial claims that Japan faces with China, South Korea and Russia.Japan controls Senkaku Islands (Diaoyutai in Chinese), a chain of islands also claimed by China and Taiwan. In early September 2010, Japanese patrol boats clashed with a Chinese fishing trawler near the isl

The 2012 presidential campaign is finally stirring to life, with would-be Republican candidates Haley Barbour and Mike Huckabee musing about whether Mitt Romney should be disqualified by similarities between Massachusetts’ Romneycare and Obamacare.As if on cue, President Barack Obama defended his health care overhaul in remarks to the nation’s governors by associating it with Romney’s, an embrace

LOS ANGELES ― A new analysis of survey data compiled by the National Endowment for the Arts since 1982 shows that blacks and Latinos have suffered from a collapse in arts education, and that their young-adult rates of arts attendance have declined far more than for whites.Childhood arts education “has played a vital role ... in developing a potential audience” for the arts, the researchers from th