Becoming world-class cost-control accountants for the 2020 Games will prevent future generations being hobbled with debt, writes Yuriko Koike

Japanese authorities were scrambling today to track travellers who arrived on the same flight as three people diagnosed with the country's first confirmed cases of swine flu.

Pesticide-laced Chinese dumplings that made at least 10 people sick in Japan and triggered a nationwide scare were probably poisoned deliberately, Japan’s health minister said today.

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.

Japan’s prime minister faced growing calls to resign today, a day after his coalition suffered a humiliating election defeat that claimed the job of his ruling party’s secretary general and may trigger a Cabinet overhaul.