Yasuo Fukuda

Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that the United States is doing "everything we can" to help secure the release of three Japanese civilians held hostage in Iraq, and warned that insurgents may seize even more captives as the June 30 target approaches for the launch of a new Iraqi government.

North Korea has seen it all before: A U.S. administration looking for a foreign policy success in its waning days sets its gaze on Pyongyang in hopes of bolstering the president's legacy. As negotiations aimed at halting North Korea's nuclear program reopen in Beijing today after a nine-month hiatus, a central question is whether the communist regime will play ball with the Bush administration or punt until the next president enters the Oval Office in January. Odds are it will punt.

Japan on Thursday brushed off threats by Pyongyang that it would torpedo relations between the two countries unless Tokyo eased up on maritime restrictions against North Korean vessels. "We have conducted such inspections in line with our law," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda told reporters, adding that he hoped North Korea would judge Japan's newly tightened inspection procedures against the communist state in a "reasonable and cool-headed manner."

Taro Aso, an outspoken nationalist and avid fan of Japanese animation characters, was chosen Monday by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to become Japan's third prime minister in less than two years. Aso, 68, will replace Yasuo Fukuda, who quit this month amid lingering economic woes. Aso won in a landslide vote over several other candidates, including Yuriko Koike, the first woman to run for the nation's highest office.

Even as most of the world struggles with soaring fuel and food prices, two major issues facing President Bush and seven other leaders meeting here this week, many in Japan see an opportunity to shine during these tough economic times because of this nation's long-running conservation programs. Since the oil embargo crisis in 1973, Japan has done more than most nations to reduce its heavy reliance on crude oil and develop green technologies, whether battery-powered cars or solar panels.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi plans to visit China and South Korea in the coming days in an effort to allay fears that his nation is becoming more militaristic as it gears up to support a U.S.-led strike against terrorism. Koizumi also hopes to repair the damage caused by a controversial textbook's treatment of World War II and his own visit to a war memorial, which together put Japanese relations with the two neighbors on their worst footing in years.

Some of Japan's corporate heavy hitters have set aside their usual caution and begun to demand that senior politicians stop making pilgrimages to Yasukuni Shrine, saying the visits to the controversial Tokyo war memorial threaten crucial economic ties with China. "It's not good to continue with this irritating situation -- like having a fish bone stuck in our throat," Canon Inc. Chairman Fujio Mitarai told reporters last week upon assuming leadership of the powerful Japan Business Federation.

This week's deadly attack on Italian troops in Iraq is causing U.S. allies in Asia -- Japan and South Korea -- to have second thoughts about sending troops to help with security operations. Shocked by Wednesday's attack in Nasiriyah that killed at least 18 Italians, including 12 members of the Carabinieri paramilitary police, Japan said that it was reconsidering a promise to send its soldiers to Iraq and that the deployment, if it happens, would not be this year.

Akiko Tsuji, a 24-year-old businesswoman, hates having to renew her driver's license, get a passport or register an address change. Simple procedures in Japan often involve visiting several offices, and it's difficult to take time off from work, forcing her to go Saturday--with everyone else. She's exactly the type of computer-literate citizen the government wants to win over to its new citizens registry network.

Global financial markets were thrown into panic today in the wake of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Oil and gold prices soared in Europe, while stock markets there and in Latin America plummeted. In lower Manhattan, the home of major U.S. markets, commodity trading had just begun when the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center. Stock trading never opened. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt said trading in U.S.