Japan

TOKYO, Dec 26 (Reuters) - More than 100 domestic flights in Japan were grounded on Sunday due to heavy snow in the northern and western parts of the country, Japan's two biggest airlines said.

ANA Holdings (9202.T) had halted 79 flights as of 4 p.m. (0700 GMT), affecting about 5,100 passengers, said Hiroaki Hayakawa, an operations director for the airline.

Japan Airlines Co (9201.T) had cancelled 49 flights as of 4 p.m. (0700 GMT), affecting 2,460 passengers, a representative with the airline's operations division said.

TOKYO, Dec 24 (Reuters) - Japan's cabinet approved on Friday an annual budget of $940 billion that is a record for a tenth straight year, putting priority on the response to battling COVID-19 and the prime minister's aim of growth and wealth distribution.

The budget of 107.6 trillion yen ($941.55 billion) for the fiscal year that starts in April 2022 is Japan's biggest initial spending plan, underscoring a priority of reviving the pandemic-hit economy over returning to long-term fiscal health.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s Cabinet approved a record 5.4 trillion yen ($47 billion) defense budget for fiscal 2022 on Friday that includes funding for research and development of a new fighter jet and other “game-changing” weapons as Japan bolsters its defense capabilities in response to China’s growing military might and its tensions with Taiwan.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan announced Friday it won’t send a delegation of ministers to represent the government at the Beijing Games but three Olympic officials will attend, a mixed response to a U.S.-led move to boycott the games to protest China’s human rights conditions.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a regular news conference that “We have no plans to send a government delegation.”

TOKYO, Dec. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Japanese government will compile a draft budget for fiscal 2022 worth some 107.6 trillion yen (941 billion U.S. dollars), a record high for the 10th consecutive year, government officials said Wednesday.

The government plans to prepare more than 100 trillion yen (875 billion dollars) for general account spending for the fiscal 2022 starting in April, Kyodo News reported citing government officials.

TOKYO (AP) — The suspect in a deadly fire at a mental health clinic in Osaka last week might have studied the fatal 2019 Kyoto Animation studio arson while preparing his own attack that killed 25 people, police said Tuesday.

Osaka police have identified 61-year-old Morio Tanimoto as the prime suspect in Friday’s fire at the clinic on the fourth floor of an eight-story building in Osaka’s main business district of Kitashinchi. The blaze also left two people severely injured, including Tanimoto.

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese police on Sunday identified a 61-year-old man as a prime suspect behind a fire that engulfed a mental clinic in an eight-story building where he was a patient, killing 24 people who were trapped inside.

The government also announced plans to inspect tens of thousands of similar buildings nationwide. Authorities believe the massive death toll at the downtown Osaka building on Friday was largely because the fire made its only emergency stairway unusable.

OSAKA, Japan (AP) — Japanese police on Saturday searched the house of one of the patients at a mental clinic where a fire gutted an entire floor in an eight-story building, killing 24 people trapped inside.

An Osaka police investigator told The Associated Press that the man is a possible suspect. A small fire broke out about half an hour before the building fire at the man’s house, where a patient registration card was found, the investigator said.

TOKYO (AP) — Twenty-seven people were feared dead after a fire broke out in a building in Osaka in western Japan, fire department officials said Friday, and police were investigating arson as a possible cause.

The fire started on the fourth floor of an eight-story building in the shopping and entertainment area of Kitashinchi, Osaka city fire department official Akira Kishimoto said.

Twenty-eight people were affected, 27 of whom were found in a state of cardiac arrest, Kishimoto said. So far 23 people have been taken to nearby hospitals, he said.

TOKYO, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken agreed on Saturday on the need to fortify their countries' alliance amid a tougher regional security environment, a Japanese government official said.

Hayashi and Blinken held talks on the sidelines of a meeting of Group of Seven (G7) foreign ministers in the English city of Liverpool.