Japanese Farm Minister Attempts Suicide, Fate Unknown - Kyodo
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Text of report in English by Japanese news agency Kyodo  Tokyo, 28 May: Farm Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka attempted suicide in Tokyo on Monday, police sources said.  It is not immediately clear whether he remains alive.  (c) 2007 BBC Monitoring Newsfile.
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Japan is trying to agree on dates for  fence-mending summits between its new prime minister, Shinzo  Abe, and the leaders of China and South Korea, a senior  Japanese foreign ministry official said on Monday.
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New twist to investigation into food poisoning outbreak in Japan blamed on Chinese made dumplings after health minister says they may have been deliberately contaminated
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An executive allegedly involved in a bid-rigging scam that has been linked to the suicide of Japan's agriculture minister leaped to his death Tuesday, officials said. The deaths have added to the pressure on a government struggling against a series of scandals.
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Earlier Tuesday Japan&#39;s Justice Ministry rejected his demand to stay in the country, saying no justification had been found to grant him protection as a political refugee.
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Japan's health minister raised the possibility on Tuesday that someone had deliberately contaminated Chinese-made dumplings imported into Japan with pesticide in an incident that made 10 Japanese sick and sparked a food scare.
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Japan is trying to reach agreement on a fence-mending summit between its new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and China, and set a date for a similar meeting with South Korea, Tokyo's top government spokesman said on Monday.
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Japan&#39;s farm minister resigned on Monday  over illegal dealings at a farmers&#39; group he headed, public  broadcaster NHK reported, dealing a fresh blow to Prime  Minister Shinzo Abe just a week after he revamped his cabinet.
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Japanâs new agriculture minister resigned Monday, only a week after his appointment, because of a scandal involving misuse of farm subsidies.
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Japan's farm minister resigned on Monday over illegal dealings at a farmers' group he headed, delivering a fresh blow to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe just a week after he revamped his cabinet to try to revive his popularity.
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Japan&#39;s Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura has urged Islamic militants in Iraq to release a Japanese hostage, in an interview with the Arabic satellite network Al-Jazeera.
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Japan's agricultural minister died Monday after reportedly hanging himself just hours before he was to face questioning in parliament in a political scandal, officials said.
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A body found in Iraq cannot be confirmed as that of a young Japanese man taken hostage and the corpse has been sent to Qatar for identification, Japan's Senior Vice Foreign Minister Shuzen Tanigawa said.
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Japan's farm minister, Toshikatsu Matsuoka -- under fire for a series of political funding scandals -- has killed himself, NHK said on Monday.
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Japan's former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi is weighing a third visit to North Korea to persuade the communist regime to give up its nuclear ambitions, public NHK broadcaster reported.
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The support rate for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe&#39;s cabinet has dropped to a new low of 30 percent after his scandal-hit farm minister committed suicide, a poll showed Monday.
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&quot;There is a possibility that this is the body of the Japanese hostage, but it has yet to be identified,&quot; a ministry spokesman said on Saturday.