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.

AFP - Toyota sought on Monday to dispel fears about the safety of its electronics, but was put on the defensive when a Prius went speeding out of control along a California highway.

AFP - Japan's Honda Motor Co. said Tuesday it would build a second motorcycle factory in India, employing about 2,000 people, to meet surging demand in the fast-growing market there.

AFP - A Toyota Prius accelerated out of control on a busy California freeway on Monday before police intervened to bring the vehicle to a standstill, police said.

AFP - Japan's centre-left Premier Yukio Hatoyama Monday conceded voters are frustrated as he faced sliding approval ratings but denied plans for a cabinet reshuffle ahead of July upper house elections.

Reuters - Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, his party flagging in polls ahead of a mid-year election, promised on Monday to find a way to regain public backing but said he was not considering a cabinet reshuffle now.

AFP - The president of Mitsubishi Motors has not ruled out a future capital tie-up with France's Peugeot, reports said Sunday.

AFP - Japan plans to arrest a New Zealand activist being held on a whaling ship which he secretly boarded planning to make a citizen's arrest of its captain, a report said Sunday.

AFP - A senior US envoy has warned that ties with Japan could be "affected in many fields" if Tokyo missed a May deadline for solving a dispute over an American military base, Japanese lawmakers said Saturday.

AFP - Key US lawmakers looking into Toyota's problems with sudden, deadly spikes in speed asked the company Friday for documents backing up its position that electronic defects were not to blame.

AP - Located smack in the center of a crowded city, the Marine base on Okinawa is at the epicenter of a yawning rift between Tokyo and Washington, posing a challenge to the United States' most important alliance in the Pacific.

AFP - Japan's imperial palace said Friday a grandchild of the emperor had skipped school after suffering from anxiety over "the wild behaviour of a few boys," but denied she had been bullied.

AP - Japan's Princess Aiko, granddaughter of the emperor, has missed several days of classes because of bullying by boys at her elementary school, a spokesman for the royal family said Friday.

AP - Japan will not comply if a ban is imposed on international trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna, prized by Japanese for sushi, a senior official said after the United States threw its support behind the move ahead of a crucial vote.

AFP - Japan's biggest Internet forum, where anonymous netizens trade anything from cooking tips to death threats, has long been an anarchic zone of uninhibited free speech and a magnet for controversy.