AP - Increasingly unpopular Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso rejected calls Tuesday for his resignation, insisting he needs to steer the world's second-largest economy out of recession.

AFP - Japan plans to start exploring its seabed to harvest rare earth elements used in electronics, hoping to reduce its heavy reliance on Chinese imports, a government official said Tuesday.

AFP - A crew member on Japan's controversial whaling mission is believed to have fallen overboard in icy Antarctic Ocean waters, the fleet's operator said Tuesday.

AP - Japan said Tuesday it plans to ask Australia and possibly New Zealand and Chile to ban an anti-whaling protest ship from using their ports to refuel, heightening a cat-and-mouse game in Antarctic waters between Japan's whaling fleet and the conservationists.

AP - Two sushi bar owners paid more than $100,000 for a Japanese bluefin tuna at a Tokyo fish auction Monday, several times the average price and the highest in nearly a decade, market officials said.

AFP - Japan's unpopular Prime Minister Taro Aso faced a show of defiance Monday at the start of a high-stakes parliament session as a senior lawmaker threatened to leave the ruling party.

Reuters - Hundreds of jobless Japanese marched around parliament on Monday demanding work and housing as lawmakers began discussing measures to combat a worsening recession.

Reuters - A former Japanese financial services minister threatened to quit the ruling party Monday if his policy demands were not met, in the latest sign of Prime Minister Taro Aso's fraying leadership as he tries to revive the economy.

AFP - Japan said Monday it "cannot accept" China's development of a gas field near a disputed part of the East China Sea after Beijing insisted it was acting within its own waters.

AP - It is about as far from the Olympic sport of archery as it can get. The bow is taller than the person shooting it, and, to the uninitiated, it appears lopsided and unbalanced. There are no sights, no high-tech stabilizers.

AFP - Japan's unpopular Prime Minister Taro Aso signalled Sunday he would not call elections at least for a few months, pledging instead to tackle the worsening economic crisis.

AFP - A former Japanese MP who resigned after making accusations of government corruption that were never proven has jumped to his death from an apartment block, a police source said Sunday.

AFP - Japanese megabanks Mitsubishi UFJ and Mizuho Financial appear to have experienced a group net loss in the three months to December due to a plunging stock market, a major daily reported Saturday.

Reuters - Hardline anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd said it has been forced to temporarily abandon its pursuit of Japan's whaling fleet in the Antarctic while its ship refuels.

AFP - A South Korean woman barred from entering Japan last year passed through its immigration screening system by using tape on her fingers to fool a fingerprint reading machine, reports said Thursday.

AFP - Japan's Emperor Akihito made a rare comment on economic matters to call on the nation to unite in fighting its recession, in a New Year message released Thursday.

AFP - New Year travel plans were thrown out for nearly 140,000 people Monday after a computer glitch disrupted more than 250 of Japan's bullet trains, the operator said.

Reuters - North Korea threatened to stop taking apart its nuclear plant that makes bomb-grade plutonium unless Japan provides it with energy aid as part of an international disarmament deal, Kyodo news agency said on Monday.

AFP - Japan is likely to drop its attempts to buy state-of-the-art US F-22 Raptor stealth fighter planes since it expects the United States to stop producing them, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

AFP - Militant environmentalists said they had pelted stink bombs at a Japanese whaling ship in Australian waters in their latest bid to disrupt hunting of the protected creatures.