Japanese officials have unveiled draft criteria to question religious corporations a right stipulated by law. The move is considered a step toward an investigation into a group formerly known as the Unification Church.
The Culture Ministry presented the draft to an expert panel on Tuesday.
A senior member of Japan's main ruling party is asking two major opposition parties to quickly find common ground for new legislation involving religious groups.
Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Motegi Toshimitsu spoke to reporters on Tuesday about providing relief to former followers of the religious group that used to be known as the Unification Church.
Japan's Finance Ministry has released details of record recent currency market interventions by the government and the Bank of Japan. The ministry released daily records for the July-to-September period showing that all the buying occurred in a single day.
The government and central bank sold nearly 20 billion dollars on September 22 to buy more than 2.83 trillion yen in an effort to shore up Japan's currency.
Workers in Japan saw their wages go up again in September, but not by as much as inflation.
The labor ministry's preliminary figures show that the average wage for the month, including base and overtime pay, was 275,787 yen... or nearly 1,900 dollars.
The Japanese government is hearing from experts about its handling of former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's state funeral in September.
The government's decision to hold the state funeral for Abe received mixed reactions from the public, with some saying the legal grounds for staging such a state-backed event are ambiguous. Calls grew from both ruling and opposition parties to develop criteria and other rules.
Kabuki star Ichikawa Danjuro has started his first series of performances in Tokyo after assuming the centuries-old stage name.
The performances opened on Monday at the Kabukiza Theatre. Former Ichikawa Ebizo became the 13th actor to assume the renowned name of Danjuro.
In recent days, a growing number of people in eastern Japan have been testing positive for COVID-19.
The pace of the increase has been accelerating.
Japan's health ministry plans to deliver a Moderna vaccine targeting the BA.5 Omicron subvariant of the coronavirus, following the delivery of a similar vaccine made by Pfizer.
The ministry has approved Moderna's BA.5 vaccine. It says the vaccine is expected to be effective against the Omicron subvariant.
In Nemuro, Hokkaido, a funeral was held on Monday for Tomikawa Mei, one of the Japanese victims of the fatal crowd crush accident in South Korea last month.
The accident occurred in Seoul's Itaewon entertainment district.
In women's curling, Japan's national team has won the inaugural Pan Continental championships after they came out on top of a tight contest with South Korea.
Participants in the event were teams from countries and territories in Asia, Oceania and North and South America.
Japan's health ministry said 3,489 new coronavirus cases were confirmed in Tokyo on Monday.
The tally increased by 1,468 from the same day last week and was 1.73 times the figure a week ago.
A survey shows that nursing-care providers in Japan are going out of business at a record pace this year. Lingering effects from the pandemic and rising costs are blamed for the industry's ongoing troubles.
Tokyo Shoko Research says the number of failures in the nine months through September reached 100 for the first time since 2000.
Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio has expressed hope that the ruling-opposition talks will make progress on legislation to deal with the religious group previously known as the Unification Church.
Lawmakers of four parties are discussing key points to be included in bills to provide relief to people who say they were financially exploited by the ex-Unification Church. The bills also aim to prevent similar damage in the future.
Japan's education and culture ministry has drawn up draft criteria to ask questions to religious corporations -- a right stipulated by law but which has never been used.
The ministry has been working on the draft to launch an investigation into the religious group previously known as the Unification Church.