AFP - Hundreds of mothers whose children attend pro-North Korean schools in Japan rallied on Tuesday, demanding that the government include them in plans to make high school tuition free.

AFP - Japan's centre-left government scored its first triumph in an otherwise dismal six months Tuesday when it pushed a signature campaign bill through the lower house of parliament.

AP - A strong magnitude 6.6 earthquake hit off the eastern coast of Japan on Sunday, rattling buildings across a broad swath of the country, including the crowded capital.

AFP - A strong, 6.6 magnitude earthquake hit northern Japan Sunday afternoon, but no tsunami warning was issued, US and Japanese authorities said.

AFP - Japan's coast guard on Sunday handed over a detained New Zealand anti-whaling activist to Tokyo prosecutors, who will decide whether to indict him for boarding a Japanese whaling ship.

AFP - Asia and Pacific nations vowed Saturday to fight emerging terror threats to commercial aircraft by boosting international security standards and measures, including screening technology.

AFP - Seven residents of a private nursing home for the elderly were killed in a pre-dawn fire in northern Japan on Saturday, police said.

AFP - A New Zealand anti-whaling activist was arrested in Japan Friday after a harpoon ship he boarded in Antarctic waters last month docked in Tokyo, greeted by police and nationalist protesters.

AFP - Japan's Crown Prince Naruhito Friday visited endangered rhinos at a game reserve in Kenya's Rift Valley before planting a tree here with Nobel Prize laureate Wangari Maathai.

AP - Japan's coast guard arrested an anti-whaling activist from New Zealand on Friday for illegally boarding a whaling ship last month in the latest incident in the ongoing battle over Japanese whaling.

AFP - A Japanese whaling ship with a New Zealand anti-whaling activist aboard on Friday sailed into Tokyo port where he was expected to face arrest for trespassing on the vessel, an AFP reporter saw.

AFP - A top US automotive safety official flatly rejected charges Thursday that his agency had bungled its handling of deadly Toyota defects or acted as "a lapdog" to the Japanese auto giant.

AFP - Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki thanked Japan's Crown Prince Naruhito Thursday for his country's support in programmes to combat climate change, the government said.

AFP - Japan's economy is recovering more slowly than previously thought from its worst recession on record, hobbled by stubborn deflation and weak domestic demand, government data showed Thursday.

AFP - Japan's economy grew at a slower rate than previously thought in the fourth quarter of 2009, new data showed Thursday, raising fresh concerns over the country's recovery from a crushing recession.

AP - EDITOR'S NOTE — Miles Edelsten is a senior producer for Associated Press Television News and has covered Japan for 10 years.

AFP - US investigators launched a probe Tuesday into a runaway Toyota Prius in California, a high-profile case that threatens to undermine the Japanese automaker's effort to repair its battered image.

AFP - The United States said Tuesday it did not expect serious harm to ties with Japan after the new center-left government in Tokyo lifted the lid on past nuclear and military deals with Washington.

AP - Japan confirmed Tuesday secret Cold War-era pacts with Washington that tacitly allowed nuclear warships in Japanese ports in violation of a hallowed postwar principle, effectively acknowledging that previous governments had lied about them for decades.