Article of www.examiner.com: TOKYO, Japan – Upon arriving at the Imperial Palace yesterday for a private lunch, President Obama shook the hand of Emperor Akihito and gave a bow.  The emperor did not return a bow. Later when he spoke to a group of 1,500, Obama referred to himself as “America’s first Pacific President.” Obama’s bow is similar to the one he gave to the King of Saudi Arabia in April at the G20 Summit in London.  The president received criticism for that bow since he showed reverence to a king.

Article of news.bbc.co.uk: Japan's Prime Minister Taro Aso has dissolved parliament and called a national election on 30 August, after gaining official cabinet backing. Mr Aso called the elections early after his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lost control of Tokyo's municipal assembly. Opinion polls suggest that the LDP could lose heavily to the opposition Democratic Party in the upcoming vote.

Article of www.slate.com: To this gaijin, Japan looks prosperous, clean, highly functioning. At Takashimaya, the high-end department store atop the central train station in Nagoya, shoppers line up in orderly queues before the 10 a.m. opening. But Japan seems to be in the midst of an existential crisis—in the first quarter it shrank at an abysmal 15.2 percent annual rate. In 10 days traveling through the country, I couldn't find anyone who thought the malaise would end soon.

Article of www.nytimes.com: BEIJING (AP) -- China warned Google and other popular Web portals Monday that they must do more to block pornographic material from reaching Chinese users, the latest in a series of government crackdowns targeting Internet content.

Article of news.yahoo.com: BEIJING – A strong magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck remote northwestern China on Monday, the U.S. Geological Survey said. There were no immediate reports of casualties. The quake struck the Qinghai province at a depth of 6.2 miles on Monday morning, the agency said. The USGS said the quake's epicenter was located 1,120 miles west of Beijing.

Article of news.yahoo.com: SEOUL (AFP) – A defiant North Korea on Saturday vowed to build more nuclear bombs and to start enriching uranium for a new weapons programme after the UN Security Council imposed sanctions over last month's nuclear test. The North, describing Friday's sanctions resolution as a "vile product" of a US-inspired campaign, said it would never abandon nuclear weapons and would treat any attempt to blockade it as an act of war.