Cisco announced the appointment of Edzard J.C. Overbeek to be responsible for the Japan theater effective August 13. Overbeek will replace Yasuki Kurosawa who is stepping down from the position for health reasons.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday he would not stop cabinet members from visiting a controversial war shrine this week on the sensitive anniversary of Japan's defeat in the World War II.

Japanese firm Inpex Holdings Inc. said Thursday (August 9)it is studying a plan to set up a major liquefied natural gas import terminal in Niigata Prefecture.

U.S. stock market indexes were down sharply in morning trading Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S & P 500 were down 1.3 percent while the NASDAQ fell 1.8 percent.

U.N. inspectors say the world's largest nuclear plant, damaged weeks ago by an earthquake in Japan, will be closed for "months or a year" while more checks are done.

Japan may fail to meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol to limit greenhouse gas emissions to 6% below the 1990 level by 2012, a government report said Friday. The report said Japan could reduce emissions by 3.3-4.5% at most.

From the Executive Director of Greenpeace's office in Japan, Jun Hoshikawa, comes this appeal to the government of Japan to maintain that country's constitutional renunciation of war:

More than 40,000 people gathered at the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima Monday to remember the victims of the first U.S. nuclear bomb attack in 1945.

Sony announced that it will invite 30 high school students from the cities of Beijing, Hangzhou and Chengdu to Japan in cooperation with the All China Youth Federation, China's largest youth group, as part of its "Sony Student Project Abroad (China) 2007" program. It is a 12 day program running from July 30th to August 10th.

Asian foreign ministers on Tuesday endorsed North Korea's commitment to shut down its nuclear weapons program and praised moves toward setting up an East Asian trade bloc to help the region compete with groups like the European Union.

Inspectors from U.N. nuclear watchdog agency are expected to join Japanese authorities in collecting information at a nuclear plant, which was quake-damaged. An official said on Friday that they will not oversee their work.

Japan has not ruled out buying its next-generation fighter jets from a country other than the United States, although it is still feeling out Washington on the possibility of purchasing the latest stealth F-22, a senior official said Thursday.