AP - The mother ship in Japan's whaling fleet left Monday for the country's annual hunt in the Antarctic, the environmental group Greenpeace said, as anti-whaling activists vowed to disrupt the expedition once again after high-seas clashes forced an early halt last year.

AFP - Cash-strapped US auto giant General Motors Corp. said Monday it had sold its three percent stake in Japanese mini-car specialist Suzuki Motor Corp. for about 230 million dollars.

AFP - Japan's whaling fleet set sail Monday, environmentalists said, apparently on an annual Antarctic hunt likely to provoke fresh friction with anti-whaling countries such as Australia.

AFP - Japan has slipped into recession for the first time in seven years as the global financial crisis mauls its export-dependent economy, official data showed Monday.

AFP - A fire broke out at a nuclear power plant in northern Japan on Thursday, injuring one worker but causing no radiation leak, the operator said.

AFP - Japan's NTT DoCoMo Inc., chasing a share of the world's fastest growing mobile telephone market, said Wednesday it would pay 2.7 billion dollars for a 26 percent stake in India's Tata Teleservices Ltd.

Reuters - Japan's greenhouse gas emissions rose to a record high in the year to March, putting the world's fifth-largest carbon dioxide producer at risk of an embarrassing failure to achieve its Kyoto target over the next four years.

AFP - Japanese police plan to question a man on suspicion of illegally brokering organ transplant operations in China for Japanese patients, reports said Wednesday.

AFP - Japan's sacked air force commander on Tuesday defended his view of the country's militarist past and called for an overhaul of the pacifist constitution.

Reuters - A Japanese astronaut and mother of one has been picked as a crew member of the space shuttle Atlantis, Japan's space agency said Tuesday, making her the country's first mom to go into space.

AFP - Lawyers for the Japanese doomsday cult leader on death row for ordering a deadly nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995 have requested a retrial, a court official said Tuesday.

AFP - The US Embassy in Tokyo expressed regret over a delay in informing the Japanese government that a US nuclear submarine would call at one of its ports on Monday, the State Department said.

AFP - Japan's core machinery orders plunged at the fastest pace in a decade in the third quarter as the economy teetered on the verge of recession, official data showed Monday.

AFP - Japan's Crown Princess Masako, who suffers from a stress-induced illness, joined an official welcome ceremony for the first time in five years Monday to greet Spanish King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia.