Japan’s national sport of sumo wrestling is facing new allegations that senior wrestlers used mobile phones to fix matches.

Ten climbers died as strong winds and rain struck two mountains in northern Japan, police said today.

The blue tracksuit-clad Chinese security guards who have followed the Olympic torch around the world will not be welcome in Japan when the flame arrives here within days, it was reported today.

Police in Japan arrested a man who ran an internet suicide site for allegedly killing a woman who paid him to help her die, an official said today.

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe was hospitalised today for stress and exhaustion, a day after announcing his resignation, his doctors said.

Japan’s agriculture minister resigned today only a week after his appointment because of a scandal involving misuse of farm subsidies.

Prime minister Shinzo Abe took the blame for the humiliating defeat of his scandal-plagued coalition in Japan’s upper house election, but pledged to remain in office despite expected calls for his resignation.

A 6.8-magnitude earthquake hit Japan's north-west coast today, killing at least five people.

Japanese police today rescued a hostage 24 hours after she was taken captive by her ex-mobster husband in a shooting spree that killed one policeman and left three other people wounded, news reports said.

A court today acquitted a Japanese property developer over the death of a British bar hostess, but convicted him of a series of rapes and sentenced him to life in prison, a news report said.

Five human bodies were left to decompose in a house in western Japan, apparently because of a belief in resurrection.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has told a Chinese envoy his country has no immediate plans to conduct another nuclear test but that US policy towards Pyongyang will determine the future, a report says.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il told a Chinese envoy that while Pyongyang has no immediate plan to carry out another nuclear test, whether it will do so in the future hinges on US policy toward the country, a news report said today.

A surgeon is suspected of causing the deaths of seven patients at a Japanese hospital by removing their respirators, it was reported today.

Japanese police found three people collapsed inside a car in an apparent group suicide attempt, Kyodo News agency reported today.

Police in western Japan arrested a woman suspected of stabbing to death two young children who were found dumped on a roadside in a remote farming area.

Tokyo police arrested a 16-year-old high school student today on suspicion of stabbing his female classmate nearly 50 times, leaving her dead on her apartment floor, news reports said.

Okinawa’s governor today told Japan’s central government that he rejects a plan to build a US heliport on the southern island as part of a realignment of the American military presence there.

Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi’s stunning triumph in parliamentary polls has handed the leader a new mandate to harness his revitalised ruling party and turn promises into action for a range of sweeping economic reforms.

A suspected right-wing extremist vandalised a memorial for the victims of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima, scraping off a reference to Japan’s war effort as a mistake, officials and news reports said today.

The apparent kidnapping of a Japanese man by a militant group in Iraq will not affect Tokyo’s troop deployment there, Japan’s defence chief said today as officials vowed to make every effort to win his release.

The Japanese government convened an emergency session today following a media report that a body believed to be Asian was discovered in Iraq. It was not known whether the body belonged to a Japanese man held hostage by militants who threatened to behead him.

Seven Japanese affiliates of Goldman Sachs have allegedly evaded taxes by transferring 5b yen (€42m) in income to a Dutch company within the group, reports said.

A Japanese radical leftist group claimed it carried out an explosion this week near the Tokyo office of nationalist scholars who wrote a school history textbook criticised for whitewashing Japanese war crimes, local media said today.

At least 10 people were crushed to death tonight when thousands of revellers leaving a fireworks display surged onto a crowded footbridge in western Japan.