Japan, Prime Minister | featured news

Japan's nuclear crisis is slowly stabilizing and the country must now focus on repairing the damage wrought by the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck the northeast coast a month ago, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said.

Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara told a news conference on Sunday he would resign following criticism for accepting political donations from a foreign national, the latest blow to unpopular Prime Minister Naoto Kan's troubled government.

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has told his Japanese counterpart Naoto Kan that a disputed stretch of islands in the East China Sea belonged to China, state media said.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan rejected China’s demand that Tokyo apologize for the arrest of a Chinese trawler captain.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan has a slight edge over powerbroker Ichiro Ozawa ahead of a party leadership vote next week, NHK public TV said on Friday, but with many party lawmakers undecided the outcome is too close to call.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Sunday that he will not resign, even as early results showed his Democratic Party heading for a major political setback in a midterm election.

Both the upper and lower houses of Japan's parliament elected Finance Minister Naoto Kan to be the nation's new prime minister Friday, following the resignation of Yukio Hatoyama from the post earlier this week.

Japanese television is reporting that Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama is meeting with parliamentary officials and is expected to resign.

Japan's prime minister said Tuesday that it will be impossible to move all parts of a key U.S. Marine base out of Okinawa, breaking with past promises to relocate the facility outside the southern island.

U.S. President Barack Obama headed into talks with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on Friday in which he will likely try to smooth strained ties as the allies adjust to a rising China.