POLITICS New tourism minister Nariaki Nakayama wasted no time putting his foot in it. The day after stating that Japanese do not like foreigners and that the country is ethnically homogeneous, Nakayama apologized Friday and retracted his statements. (1) [THE JAPAN TIMES]

POLITICS Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda announced on Monday evening his resignation from the post at an emergency press briefing in the Prime Minister’s official residence, the Kantei.

POLITICS The United States will continue to press for the release of Japanese citizens abducted decades ago by North Korea as it seeks the resumption of disarmament talks with Pyongyang, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Monday. (2) [REUTERS]

POLITICS Australia will call for a complete halt to whaling this week at a meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Chile as Japan seeks permission to kill more of the animals, saying they eat too many fish. [BLOOMBERG]

POLITICS Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said Monday he is thinking about raising the consumption tax rate sometime during the next two to three years. [YOMIURI]

POLITICS The government has given up on re-submitting its nomination of Keio University professor Kazuhito Ikeo for membership of the Bank of Japan’s Policy Board during an extraordinary Diet session expected to convene in late August, government sources said Monday. [KYODO]

POLITICS Japan has indicated to member countries of the International Whaling Commission that it may resume commercial whaling if the IWC fails to alleviate tensions between the pro- and antiwhaling camps before the end of its general meeting a year from now. [THE JAPAN TIMES]

POLITICS Japan warned on Sunday it may impose harsher sanctions against North Korea if the communist state failed to meet its promise in a long-running row over its abduction of Japanese nationals. [AFP]

POLITICS The Japanese government will come up with measures on Tuesday to promote the household use of solar power systems by introducing subsidies and tax breaks from next year, it was reported on Sunday. [REUTERS]

POLITICS The Group of Eight finance ministers meeting closed Saturday with the adoption of a joint statement in which the nations agreed to make efforts to secure the stability and growth of the global economy amid increasing inflationary pressure caused by soaring oil and food prices. [YOMIURI]

POLITICS Members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party submitted a bold report Friday to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, calling for Japan to increase its foreign residents to up to 10 percent of the nation’s population in the next 50 years. [THE JAPAN TIMES]

POLITICS Japan will keep pressuring the United States not to remove North Korea from its list of terrorist-sponsoring states since there has been no major progress on resolving the abduction issue, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said Thursday. [THE JAPAN TIMES]

POLITICS Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama criticized the Asahi Shimbun newspaper for dubbing him the “Grim Reaper” after he ordered the execution of 13 death row inmates since he assumed office. [MAINICHI]

POLITICS Tokyo and Beijing announced Wednesday they have agreed on a plan to jointly develop gas fields in the East China Sea, shelving a thorny dispute that has plagued relations for four years. [THE JAPAN TIMES]

POLITICS No medium-term goal for cutting greenhouse gas emissions will be set at next month’s Group of Eight summit in Hokkaido, leaving the key issue for future negotiations at the United Nations, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda indicated Tuesday. [THE JAPAN TIMES]

POLITICS The government will earmark a special budget for measures to address the shortage of doctors in fiscal 2009 with funds taken from revenues currently used specifically for road construction. [ASAHI]

POLITICS The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry is considering allowing the rehiring of Social Insurance Agency officials with disciplinary records on three-year contracts at a new national pension organization, according to the ministry’s final proposals for the new organization. [YOMIURI]

POLITICS Under the floor of the international media center for July’s Group of Eight summit meeting at the Lake Toya hot-spring resort in Toyakocho, Hokkaido, lies a storehouse holding about 7,000 tons of snow wrapped in thermal insulating material. [YOMIURI]

POLITICS Japan appeared more cautious Tuesday in regard to its recent announcement that it would partially lift sanctions against North Korea as Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura stressed Japan will not take actions without first assessing Pyongyang is carrying out its promises, including reinvestigating past abductions of Japanese nationals. [KYODO]

POLITICS In a step toward diffusing a contentious dispute, Japan and China have agreed in principle to jointly develop the Shirakaba gas field straddling what Japan considers the border of the two nations’ exclusive economic zones (EEZs). [ASAHI]