AP - Foreign ministers from wealthy nations welcomed North Korea's long-awaited declaration of its nuclear capabilities but warned Friday there remains a long way to go before the isolated Stalinist state can rejoin the international community.

AP - Group of Eight foreign ministers are condemning Zimbabwe's one-candidate presidential runoff, saying authorities there have made a free and fair election impossible.

AP - The world already knows that global warming is a serious problem and the time has come for politicians and experts to come together to map out a practical solution, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Friday.

AP - Master Japanese drummer Daihachi Oguchi, who led the spread of the art of "taiko" drumming to the U.S. and throughout Japan, has died after being hit by a car, an official at his ensemble said. He was 84.

Reuters - A Japanese mobile phone firm has halted an advertisement depicting a monkey as a political candidate after bloggers said the commercial was a racial slur against U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

AP - Police arrested a man for allegedly slashing a policeman with a knife Thursday in the same Tokyo neighborhood where a stabbing spree left seven people dead and 10 wounded earlier this month, a police spokesman said.

Reuters - Japanese athletes have begun a spartan, chopstick-free Chinese food training program to help them acclimatize for this year's Beijing Olympics.

AFP - A Japanese court on Thursday ordered the government to compensate local residents for noise pollution from a US air base on the southern island of Okinawa.

AFP - A moderate 5.3-magnitude earthquake shook northern Japan on Thursday, the Meteorological Agency said, nearly two weeks after a powerful tremor killed 12 people in the country.

Reuters - A Japanese warship steamed into a Chinese port on Tuesday, the first such visit since World War Two, in a military exchange aimed at putting relations between the former bitter enemies on a firmer footing.

AFP - Japan's Toyota Motor, in a close race with General Motors for the title of the world's top automaker, may suffer a decline in US sales for a second straight year, a top executive warned on Tuesday.

AP - Any U.S. decision to take North Korea off a list of terrorist nations should be linked to progress in solving the communist country's abductions of Japanese citizens, Japan's foreign minister said Tuesday.

AFP - Japan stepped up the search Tuesday for 13 fishermen whose boat capsized in the Pacific Ocean as three survivors returned safely to shore.

Reuters - 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.