Japan

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Overflowing water from a river floods a residential area in Nachikatsuura, Japan, on Sunday, Sept. 4, 2011. (AP Photo/Kyodo News)

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ASSOCIATED PRESS Yoshihiko Noda reacts before Japan's lower house elected him as the country's new prime minister at the parliament in Tokyo on Tuesday.

Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda bows after his election by party lawmakers as the new leader of the Democratic Party of Japan on Monday, Aug. 29, 2011, in Tokyo. Mr. Noda's election paves the way for him to be Japan's next prime minister. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)

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Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan (right) greets U.S. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. before their meeting at Mr. Kan's official residence in Tokyo on Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2011. (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye)

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Vice President Joseph R. Biden greets survivors of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami at a temporary-housing complex in Natori, Japan, on Tuesday, two days after making controversial remarks in Chengdu, China. (Associated Press)

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U.S. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. offers a bouquet of flowers to pay his respects to the victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Natori, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, on Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2011. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)

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Doves take wing in Nagasaki, Japan, on Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2011, during the annual ceremony to mark the anniversary of the world's second atomic bomb attack. (AP Photo/Kyodo News)

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James P. Zumwalt, charge d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, carries a wreath to an altar set up in Nagasaki Peace Park in Nagasaki, Japan, on Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2011, at the annual memorial to mark the 66th anniversary of the dropping of an atomic bomb on the city. (AP Photo/Kyodo News)

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**FILE** In this photo from March 24, 2011, a young evacuee is screened at a shelter for leaked radiation from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant in Fukushima, Fukushima prefecture, Japan. (Associated Press)

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Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda speaks to reporters at the ministry in Tokyo Monday morning, Aug. 8, 2011 before the beginning of the day's stock trading in Japan. Financial ministers from the Group of Seven economies, including Noda, held talks on world market stability as Middle Eastern markets tumbled Sunday in the first sign of investor fallout from a historic U.S. credit downgrade. (AP Photo/Kyodo News)

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James Blake returns the ball to Tatsuma Ito, of Japan, during a match at the Legg Mason Tennis Classic, Monday, Aug. 1, 2011, in Washington. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)

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International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Yukiya Amano inspects the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear-power plant in northeastern Japan earlier this week. Mr. Amano, on a weeklong trip to Japan, said that the nation's tsunami-damaged nuclear plant is steadily making progress to recover from the March disaster triggered by an earthquake. (Associated Press)

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY ROD LAMKEY JR./THE WASHINGTON TIMES Mr. McLaughlin, looking out the living-room window of the apartment he shares with Ms. Harbin, says an experience living alone in Japan, where he didn't speak the language, was like "living in a bubble" and made him depressed.

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South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan, top left, walks by his North Korean counterpart Pak Ui Chun, bottom center, as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto, center, prior to the start of ARF Retreat Session in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, Saturday, July 23, 2011. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

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ASSOCIATED PRESS photographs The U.S. team (above) contemplates what might have been after Japan won the Women's World Cup final Sunday in Frankfurt, Germany. Abby Wambach (below) gestures to the crowd after Sunday's loss.

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U.S. soccer players react after losing the Women's World Cup final to Japan on Sunday, July 17, 2011, in Frankfurt, Germany. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

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Japan's Homare Sawa and her teammate Saki Kumagai celebrate during the championship match between Japan and the United States for the Women's World Cup on Sunday, July 17, 2011, in Frankfurt, Germany. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

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Abby Wambach of the United States walks on the pitch after the U.S. lost the championship match against Japan for the Women's World Cup on Sunday, July 17, 2011, in Frankfurt, Germany. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

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President Obama, first lady Michelle Obama (right) and their daughters, Malia (left) and Sasha, watch the Women's World Cup soccer game between the U.S. and Japan from the Treaty Room at the White House in Washington on Sunday, July 17, 2011. (AP Photo/The White House, Pete Souza)

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Japan's Saki Kumagai (background) scores the decisive goal past U.S. goalkeeper Hope Solo during the penalty shootout in the final match for the Women's World Cup on Sunday, July 17, 2011. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)