apan’s ruling Democrat Party on Monday suspended power-broker Ichiro Ozawa for three months after he abstained from a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Naoto Kan, a report said.
DPJ Secretary General Katsuya Okada and other executives said they had made their decision after Ozawa repeatedly refused to follow the party line and back the centre-left leader, the Kyodo news report said.
Kan survived the opposition no-confidence motion last week that some rebel members of his own party had threatened to support, after appeasing his enemies by promising to step down but without …

BARCELONA, Spain — Novelist Haruki Murakami criticized his country’s pursuit of nuclear energy Thursday during his acceptance speech at the 2011 International Catalunya Prize ceremony in Barcelona, describing the ongoing crisis at the quake-crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant as "a mistake committed by our very own hands."

Murakami said Japan, as the only nation to have experienced the devastation and suffering from radiation through World War II atomic bombings, should have continued saying "no" to nuclear power.
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Thousands of anti-nuclear protesters marched in Japan on Saturday, three months after an earthquake and tsunami triggered the worst nuclear disaster in 25 years, urging the government to cut reliance on atomic power.Three reactors went into meltdown after the earthquake hit the Fukushima Daiichi plant in northeastern Japan, forcing 80,000 residents to evacuate from its vicinity as engineers battled radiation leaks, hydrogen explosions and overheating fuel rods.Company workers, students and parents with children on their shoulders rallied across Japan, venting their anger at the governments handling of the crisis, carrying …

Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda has voiced his intention to run for prime minister and lead the nation to recovery from the March 11 disaster, local media said Friday.
Noda, a 54-year-old judo black belt, has told close aides about his plan to succeed Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who currently heads the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, the Sankei Shimbun daily reported.
The Yomiuri Shimbun said Noda would run for the planned DPJ presidential election "if condition permits".
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Japan’s current account surplus plunged 69.5 percent from a year earlier in April, the finance ministry said Wednesday, as the March earthquake and tsunami badly hampered factory production.
While the drop was much smaller than falls of more than 80 percent forecast by economists, it was the smallest surplus for the month of April in 26 years.
The surplus in the current account — the broadest measure of trade with the rest of the world — fell to 405.6 billion yen ($5.0 billion) in April from 1.33 trillion yen a year earlier, …

Facing a summer power crunch, some Tokyo city government employees began working an hour earlier Monday to conserve energy amid shortages caused by damage to a tsunami-hit nuclear plant.City workers on the earliest shift will start at 7:30 a.m. and be allowed to leave at 4:15 p.m.By better exploiting the early daylight hours this summer, city officials hope to use less air conditioning and less office lighting at night."It should be a good thing, and it doesnt require any cost," Tokyos outspoken Gov. Shintaro Ishihara said Friday. "I think all …

The Environment Ministry plans to allow incinerating or burying rubble from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in the coastal and central parts of Fukushima Prefecture that could be contaminated with radioactive material spewing from a damaged nuclear power plant in the northeastern prefecture, ministry officials said Sunday.
While the ministry already allows 10 municipalities where contamination levels are low to handle debris under normal procedures, it has decided to expand the eased restrictions to other parts of the prefecture, except for the government-designated off-limits and evacuation areas
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Tokyo – The Japanese government more than doubled its estimate Monday for the amount of radioactivity released from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station and warned it could extend the exclusion zone around the stricken plant.
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said released radioactivity was believed to have totaled 770,000 terabecquerels over the period March 11 to March 16.
This was up from the 370,000 terabecquerels estimated in early April when the accident level was raised to 7, the worst level, putting it on par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in …

Pressure mounted on Sunday for unpopular Prime Minister Naoto Kan to step down soon and even a senior member of his own party warned the lameduck leader not to stay in office much longer.
Kan’s early departure would ease the way for a coalition with the opposition that could enact a bill enabling the government to issue more debt to fund this year’s $1 trillion budget and pass an extra budget to pay for rebuilding the region devastated by a March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
But it is far from clear whether …

President Barack Obama is pointing to problems in Japan and Europe as challenges for the U.S. economy, placing some blame on events abroad for a domestic recovery that is showing signs of slowing down.Government data released on Friday showed employers in May hired the fewest number of workers in eight months and U.S. unemployment rose to 9.1 percent, up from 9.0 percent in April.That bump is a political challenge for the president, whose re-election in 2012 may depend on his ability to convince voters that his economic policies have been …