A man died after being hit by a train at Tokyo Station in an apparent suicide, police said.

At around 9:20 p.m. on Tuesday, a man was hit by a train on the JR Yamanote Line at Tokyo Station in Chiyoda-ku, local police said. He was subsequently pronounced dead.

Investigators suspect that the man jumped in front of the arriving train to commit suicide. Local police are trying to confirm his identity.

Services on the line were suspended for about 70 minutes following the accident. A train was cancelled and 36 others were delayed by up to 72 minutes, inconveniencing approximately 56,000 passengers.

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Gas stations started boosting petrol prices on Tuesday after petroleum distributors increased wholesale prices for July, increasing the cost of regular gas to over 180 yen per liter at some stations in Tokyo.

The increase, sparked by surging crude oil prices, has raised the possibility that the national average for gasoline prices will break past 180 yen per liter for the first time since 1987.

At one Idemitsu Kosan-managed gas station in Tokyo's Ota-ku, the price of regular gasoline was raised to 182 yen per liter shortly after 9 a.m. on Tuesday. The station's move came after the wholesale price increased by about 9 yen in the space of a month.

"The 180 yen mark is one passing point, and we are eying a price of 200 yen per liter this year. The money-saving desire among customers is getting stronger each day," a station official said.

Japan's Oil Information Center said that that the national average retail price of regular gasoline stood at 172 yen per liter as of June 23.

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OSAKA -- Labor authorities have reported former Nova Corp. President Nozomu Sahashi and the English language school chain to public prosecutors for failing to pay their employees.

The Osaka Labor Bureau sent documents to the Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office on Monday accusing Sahashi, 56, and Nova Corp. of breaking Labor Standards Law.

According to the labor bureau, Nova Corp. failed to pay about 105 million yen in wages to 400 foreign instructors and Japanese employees at the school.

The amount and the number of victims are a record high for a case of unpaid regular wages, excluding overtime-work wages and severance payment.

Sahashi has admitted to not having paid the wages, but denies that he did it deliberately.

"I was busy raising money using my personal funds," he told police.

According to police, in 2007 Sahashi failed to pay about 33 million yen in wages to 134 Japanese employees on Sept. 27, and around 72 million yen to 266 foreign instructors on Oct. 15.

Sahashi has already been arrested for embezzlement in the conduct of business for allegedly misappropriating a massive sum from the employees' welfare fund.

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TOKYO (AP) -- U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday he would soon visit North Korea following its recent declaration of its nuclear programs, and he urged nations negotiating with the regime to keep up the momentum in denuclearization talks.

"I have been discussing this with the North Korean authorities. They said they would welcome my visit anytime, but I would like to find out when would be the most opportune and appropriate timing," Ban told reporters in Tokyo.

The U.N. secretary general described North Korea's submission of a long-delayed declaration of its nuclear programs and the destruction of a cooling tower last week as "very encouraging," and said the countries involved in the process "should not lose this momentum."

The action by the North was welcomed as the completion of a key step in the six-nation talks that aim to permanently disable Pyongyang's nuclear programs. The other nations involved in the disarmament talks are the U.S., South Korea, Japan, Russia and host China.

In exchange, Washington will lift some economic sanctions against the North and said it would remove the country from a U.S. State Department list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Ban also said he hoped for a swift resolution of the long-running issue of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea. The abductions in the 1970s and 80s remain a high-profile issue in Tokyo, which has made settlement of the matter a condition for providing aid to the North as well as improving bilateral relations.

He said he hoped for dialogue between the two countries to "address this issue once and for all."

The U.N. leader said he would push for a 2020 midterm target for global carbon emissions at the upcoming Group of Eight summit to be held July 7-9 on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.

G-8 leaders have expressed support for cutting emissions in half by 2050, and are expected to reiterate that target at the summit.

Ban spoke at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo, at the end of a visit to meet Japanese government officials and business leaders. He will return to Japan for the summit after visiting China and South Korea.

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MIHAMA, Fukui -- A false missile alarm was announced through a local wireless system here due to a malfunction, local officials said.

Sirens rang from 58 speakers of the community wireless system in Mihama at around 4:35 p.m. on Monday, followed by an announcement, "We received information about a missile launch. There is a fear that a missile may land in this area."

Dozens of inquiries flooded the Mihama Municipal Government, and the local government made a correction announcement through the wireless system 10 minutes later.

According to the local government, an alarm for an emergency alert system inside the municipal government building broke down. The system had been installed in 2006 based on the Law to Protect the People.

When municipal officials repaired and restarted the emergency alert system, the malfunction occurred and the false alarm was sounded.

The city is home to three nuclear reactors operated by the Kansai Electric Power Co., Inc.'s Mihama nuclear power plant.

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Taspo cards designed to prevent minors from buying cigarettes at vending machines went into full effect in Tokyo, Okinawa and seven other prefectures on Tuesday, bringing all of Japan's prefectures into the system.

Under the system, people are no longer able to buy cigarettes from vending machines without taspo cards.

At one tobacco store in Tokyo's Minato-ku, a customer without a taspo card put money into a vending machine designed for taspo cards, but was unable to make a purchase, and looked puzzled.

"The number of cases in which people without cards buy cigarettes over the counter will probably increase," said a 62-year-old owner of another store nearby.

The taspo system was first introduced in Miyazaki and Kagoshima prefectures in March, and gradually spread across the nation. However, since people have to go to the trouble of applying for cards, providing photographs and identification, the system is still largely unused.

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A USB flash drive containing troop deployment maps used in Japan-U.S. military exercises, which had reportedly been lost by a Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) member, was actually stolen and dumped by another member, the force has admitted.

The 33-year-old captain stole the memory stick along with 2,000 yen in cash and a 10,000-yen airline coupon for shareholders from a colleague in mid-February last year.

The GSDF announced on May 24 last year that it had suspended the captain for 60 days for stealing the money and coupon, although it covered up the theft of the USB flash drive.

Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba justified the force's decision to withhold the loss of the flash drive.

"We feared that the information could further spread if some people searched for it (on the Internet)," he told a press conference after a regular Cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning.

In February last year, a lieutenant colonel at a GSDF unit in Itami, Hyogo Prefecture, borrowed the USB flash drive containing troops deployment maps used for Japan-U.S. joint exercises between Feb. 8 to 16 from the unit and lent it to a sergeant first class.

It went missing after the sergeant went home on Feb. 14, leaving it on his desk. The unit subsequently reprimanded the lieutenant colonel and sergeant for losing the memory stick.

In April last year, the 33-year-old captain who had been missing was found collapsed at a hotel in Takarazuka, Hyogo Prefecture, after swallowing a massive amount of medical drugs.

After he received treatment, the captain confessed to his bosses that he had stolen the memory stick and dumped it. GSDF police officers then arrested him for theft.

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The driver of a hired vehicle was found collapsed with a knife in his chest in an underground parking lot in Tokyo's Ginza on Tuesday afternoon, police said.

Police said the male driver was found in a vehicle in the parking lot at about 12:15 p.m. on Tuesday, collapsed with a knife sticking in his chest.

He was taken to a hospital unconscious, where he was thought to be in serious condition. Police said there was a high possibility he had been stabbed by an assailant.

Tsukiji Police Station officials said that the man was aged between about 50 and 60. The place where he was found was in the corner of a busy area about 200 meters east of JR Yurakucho Station.

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The average value of land that faces major roads across Japan increased by 10 percent from the previous year, reaching 143,000 yen a square meter, the National Tax Agency announced on Tuesday.

It was the third-straight year of rises in roadside values, which are used for calculating inheritance and gift taxes, the agency said.

While the rate of increase in the roadside value in major local cities was higher than the previous year, the rate decreased in the three major cities of Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. This indicates that the so-called "mini bubble" of skyrocketing real estate prices may be subsiding.

The highest roadside values increased in 25 major local cities where their prefectural governments are located. The figure was up by five compared to the previous year. Among them, the rate of increase in roadside values was up by 5 or more percentage points from the previous year in Sendai, Saitama, Chiba, Gifu, Shizuoka, Tsu and Kumamoto.

On the other hand, the rate of increase in roadside values for the nation's three major cities shrank by 5.7 percentage points for Tokyo, 2.4 percentage points for Osaka and 10.5 percentage points for Nagoya.

The average roadside values in Japan had been on the decline since 1992, following the burst of the bubble economy. A sign of recovery appeared in 2005, when roadside values started to rise in Tokyo. The rising trend continued for the nation's average roadside values by 0.9 percent in 2006 and 8.6 percent in 2007.

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KUWANA, Mie -- An elementary school boy suffered a broken right arm after a man suddenly shoved him to the ground on a street here, police said Tuesday.

At around 5:20 p.m. on Monday, a man approached a 7-year-old second grader from behind on a street in Kuwana, and told him to get out of his way, local police said. He then shoved the boy to the ground.

The victim fell down and suffered a broken right arm.

Investigators are searching for a suspicious man spotted near the scene, who appeared to be about 30 years old and was approximately 175 centimeters tall.

The scene is located about 250 meters east of Tado Station on the Yoro Railway.

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A man charged with arson has been slapped with a fresh arrest warrant on suspicion of trying to set fire to a Social Insurance Agency dormitory in Tokyo, police said.

The 42-year-old man, Kazuo Yamada, faces charges of attempted arson of an inhabited structure. He has reportedly admitted to the allegations against him.

"The Social Insurance Agency was causing nothing but scandals, so I started the fire," Yamada was quoted as telling police.

Investigators accuse Yamada of placing a cardboard box containing two plastic bottles of kerosene and three portable gas stove cylinders in the hallway of the agency's Musashino dormitory in the Tokyo city of Musashino at about 10 p.m. on Dec. 15 last year, and setting it alight. A caretaker put the fire out with an extinguisher.

Last month, Yamada was arrested and charged over the arson of an apartment in the Tokyo city of Kodaira. Since October last year, there have been about a dozen similar incidents in the Tama district and Tokyo's Nakano-ku and Suginami-ku, and police are investigating a possible connection between the incidents.

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A member of the Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) Middle Army Headquarters lost a USB flash drive containing unit deployment maps used in Japan-U.S. exercises, but the loss was covered up, it has emerged.

The memory stick, which was lost in February last year, contained maps showing U.S. helicopter and tank placements. However, the loss was covered up, and acting Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma and U.S. officials were not informed.

"I made the decision not to disclose the matter, but perhaps I should have reported it to the United States," said GSDF Chief of Staff Ryoichi Oriki, who at the time was Middle Army chief commander.

After information on an Aegis-equipped destroyer was leaked in March last year, U.S. officials are believed to have protested, asking why Japan, as an ally did not understand the importance of confidential information. In light of the leak, the response to the latest incident, which was covered up, is likely to gain attention.

About 4,800 GSDF and U.S. military members participated in the map exercises, which were held at GSDF Camp Itami between Feb. 8 and 16 last year. There were many tents set up at the camp, and computers and maps were brought in, with troops being moved to match envisaged enemy movements.

Sources close to the incident said that the USB flash drive contained the envisaged scale of enemy troops, and other undisclosed information used in map exercises, such as training maps showing the placement of GSDF and U.S. military helicopters and tanks. A GSDF lieutenant colonel handling information during training on Feb. 14 last year handed the memory stick to a sergeant first class, and asked for work to be carried out. After finishing the work the subordinate left the flash drive on a desk and went home. The next day, however, it was gone. SDF police searched for it, but it was not found.

The information on the storage device was classed as information requiring caution, and its loss did not warrant criminal charges. Officials were not required to report the loss to the Minister of Defense, but checks were not made with U.S. officials about information pertaining to the U.S. military, and it remains unclear whether the classification of information requiring caution was appropriate.

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SAITAMA -- A suspect in the murder of the South Korean operator of a barbecue restaurant in Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture, was arrested after being found at a pachinko parlor in Nagano, police said.

The 40-year-old suspect, Seiji Iwai, was arrested on suspicion of abandoning the corpse of murdered restaurant operator Kim Yun-hui, 69.

Iwai reportedly took on the job of renovating Kim's barbecue restaurant in May for about 3 million yen. However, he was quoted as telling police that trouble arose between him and Kim over a delay in payment.

Investigators accuse Iwai of hiding Kim's corpse under the bed in her room on the second floor of the building in which the restaurant was located on about June 16. He has reportedly admitted to the allegations against him and started to admit involvement in the murder.

Kim's body was discovered on June 18. Stab wounds that were believed to have been made with a small knife were found in Kim's abdomen and back.

Police said that several hundred thousand yen was missing from a safe in Kim's home. They are investigating the disappearance of the money over the possibility that the crime was a murder-robbery.

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Graffiti found on a Shinkansen bullet train carriage parked at a depot in Tokyo led to the suspension of the train's planned operation, affecting hundreds of passengers, railway officials said.

Police began investigating the case on suspicion of destruction of property.

According to railway officials, graffiti reading "Hack" in English was found on the side of a carriage of a Joetsu Shinkansen train parked at a train depot of East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) in Tokyo's Kita-ku at around 5 a.m. on Tuesday.

A driver who was inspecting trains at the depot found the graffiti and reported the incident to Takinogawa Police Station.

JR East suspended a train service on the Joetsu Shinkansen Line as it tried to erase the graffiti on the train that was to be used on the line, affecting about 500 passengers.

According to JR East, the graffiti -- which measured 1 by 4 to 5 meters -- was painted on the outside of the second carriage of the Shinkansen train in blue, red and white paint.

Officials suspect that someone painted the graffiti after 12:08 a.m., when the last train came into the depot on Tuesday.

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YAMAGUCHI -- A senior policeman has been reprimanded for losing his police handbook, which serves as his identification, at the end of last year, police said.

The announcement came on Monday after news organizations pointed out that Yamaguchi Prefectural Police had not disclosed that the policeman was reprimanded in May.

According to police, a senior policeman in his 30s at the Yamaguchi Prefectural Police's Chofu Police Station realized that he had lost his police handbook and reported it to his superior on Dec. 18 last year.

The senior policeman was quoted as telling police that he remembers having had the handbook in a pocket of his jacket until early December, but he doesn't remember when and where he lost the item because he failed to check on his belongings every day as all policemen are required to do.

"I thought my police handbook was inside my office desk, but it wasn't. I don't recall what happened (when I lost the handbook) and have no idea about the details."

Prefectural police issued an order to police forces across the nation on Dec. 21 to search for the handbook, but it has not been found yet.

A prefectural police representative said in a statement, "We will once again instruct all employees on the management of their police handbooks in order to prevent a recurrence."

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Mount Fuji was officially opened to the public on Tuesday for the first time this year, attracting many climbers.

At around 4:30 a.m., climbers at the summit of the nation's highest mountain were delighted to see the sun rising over a sea of clouds.

"It is the first time that I've seen such a beautiful sunrise. Tears swelled up in my eyes," said Kikue Shirakawabe, 60, a dietician from Tokyo's Mitaka, who was making her third trip to see the sunrise from Mount Fuji.

Staff members at mountain huts struggled to remove large amounts of snow from the trails at the eighth station and above for Tuesday's opening of the mountain.

The climbing season at the 3,776-meter-high mountain will last for about two months.

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TOKYO (AP) -- Tokyo Customs punished three of its officers Monday for secretly slipping drugs into travelers' luggage more than 160 times at Japan's main international airport to train drug-sniffing dogs, an official said.

The three customs officers had been planting drugs in randomly selected bags at Narita International Airport in Tokyo since September last year, Tokyo Customs spokesman Kazutoshi Takahashi said.

"We are deeply sorry that such acts have happened," Takahashi said. "The three officers apologized and explained that they did it in an effort to boost the dogs' performance."

The trio's monthslong practice was exposed following an embarrassing blunder in May.

One of the officers slipped a package of cannabis resin into an outside pocket of luggage belonging to a traveler from Hong Kong, but a sniffer dog failed to detect it, Takahashi said.

Once the officer realized the drugs had left the airport -- along with the unsuspecting traveler -- he panicked and informed his bosses.

Tokyo Customs then frantically sought help from airline and airport officials to track down the Hong Kong traveler at his Tokyo hotel and recover the more than 4 ounces (120 grams) of resin a day later.

"This embarrassing incident prompted us to investigate," Takahashi said. He insisted that the three had never unlocked or unzipped passengers' bags.

"They only placed drugs in (outside) pockets of luggage," he said.

Takahashi did not say where the officers had obtained the drugs in the first place.

The officer who lost the drugs in May is to be suspended from duty for three months, while two others will have their salary cut by 10 percent for three months.

The head of Tokyo Customs was also given a verbal warning for failing to oversee the operations, and eight other senior officers were either warned or given temporary pay cuts.

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TOKYO (AP) -- Japan will send military personnel to Sudan to join U.N. peacekeeping operations in the country's first military dispatch to the African nation, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said Monday.

Fukuda announced the move at a joint news conference with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who is visiting Japan as part of his two-week official trip to Asia.

"With regards to Africa, we will contribute self-defense force personnel to the headquarters of the U.N. mission in Sudan," Fukuda said, referring to Japan's military. He gave no further details.

Ban was quick to welcome the news, saying he appreciated Fukuda's offer as well as Tokyo's financial support for U.N. peacekeeping operations in Sudan.

But a Japanese defense ministry spokesman said no details have been decided on the mission.

Japan is restricted to peaceful activities by its postwar, pacifist constitution, but has a large military and is gradually becoming more assertive. The country upgraded its Defense Agency to ministry status last year.

Japan, a key U.S. ally in Asia, backed the U.S. invasion of Iraq and provided ground troops for a noncombat, humanitarian mission from 2004 to 2006 in the southern Iraqi city of Samawah, marking the first deployment of Japanese troops in a combat zone since World War II.

In Sudan's Darfur region, the U.N. estimates that up to 300,000 people have been killed and more than 2.5 million driven from their homes during five years of bloody attacks. Rapes, enslavement and other war crimes have been rampant.

Ethnic African rebel groups accuse the central Arab-dominated government of marginalization and discrimination. But Sudan denies backing militias consisting of Arab nomads who are accused of the worst atrocities in the five-year war.

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LIMA, Peru (AP) -- A former Peruvian spymaster whose misdeeds contributed to the collapse of Alberto Fujimori's government eight years ago told a top court Monday that the ex-president had nothing to do with two death-squad massacres he is accused of authorizing.

The testimony from former National Intelligence Service head Vladimiro Montesinos was one of the most-anticipated moments of Fujimori's six-month trial, and was carried live on national television.

Emerging from prison in an impeccable dark suit with a matching tie and handkerchief, Montesinos at times mocked the judges and lectured them on national security, while refusing to speak much about his own work in intelligence.

He did say, though, that neither he nor Fujimori bear "any responsibility" in the army death squad attacks that killed 25 people in 1991 and 1992 -- crushing some Fujimori foes' hopes that an already-imprisoned Montesinos would blame his former boss even if it meant further implicating himself.

Fujimori smiled several times while listening to Montesinos' testimony.

The two men once were so close that critics called them "twins," but Fujimori in recent years said Montesinos betrayed his trust. Montesinos defended himself at past trials by saying he had acted on Fujimori's orders. Today he reversed those statements.

Monday's hearing was the first known time Montesinos and Fujimori met face-to-face since a video leaked in 2000 showed Montesinos bribing a congressman. The tape helped bring down Fujimori's government, pushing both men into exile for years.

Montesinos, 63, is now serving up to 20 years for crimes including corruption and running guns to Colombian rebels. He faces a 35-year sentence in a separate trial if convicted of organizing the death squad.

Montesinos, who described himself as Fujimori's "subordinate," was only on the stand for a half-day. He told the court he would give no further testimony, so he could attend to his own pending case instead.

Fujimori, 69, is accused of approving the squad, and faces 30 years in prison if convicted of related homicide, kidnapping and grave injury charges. Both men say they are innocent.

Montesinos was reputed to have enormous power over the military and security forces during Fujimori's presidency from 1990 to 2000, crushing leftist rebel movements while using influence, bribery and blackmail to silence or bend critics to his will.

In a rare prison interview, Montesinos once dared Fujimori to return from self-imposed exile in Japan to face Peruvian justice. But on the stand Monday, he provided just what Fujimori needed when asked about the massacres.

"Neither Mr. Fujimori nor yours truly has any responsibility in these events," Montesinos said.

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KAWASAKI -- A 94-year-old man convicted of killing his bedridden wife when he became tired of looking after her was handed a suspended prison sentence in a ruling at the Kawasaki branch of the Yokohama District Court on Monday.

The man, Goichi Arai, a resident of Kawasaki, was sentenced to three years' imprisonment, suspended for three years.

In handing down the ruling, Presiding Judge Kenji Kadoya, criticized Arai, saying he tried to commit murder-suicide without taking realistic measures into account, such as discussing the issue with all of his family. However, the judge added, "Living through the remainder of you life in society to the fullest is an act of atonement toward your wife."

Referring to the issue of old-age nursing, which played a factor in the crime, the judge said, "The whole of society is not responding fully to the strains caused by an elderly person caring for another elderly person."

Due to his age, Arai was released after his arrest, and he entered the court supported by his family. The judge read out the ruling in a loud voice for Arai, who was hard of hearing, while Arai sat in the defendant's seat.

According to the ruling Arai took a gloomy outlook for his future due to tiredness from looking after his 87-year-old wife Masue, and strangled her in her sleep at their home at about 2:15 a.m. on Sept. 14, 2007.

Arai's wife had dementia, and she would sometimes cry out in a loud voice at night, the court heard. After killing her, Arai tried to commit suicide.

Lawyers for the 94-year-old had submitted a petition to the court from about 1,200 people, seeking a suspended sentence.

Supreme Court records show that the oldest person to be convicted of murder was a 96-year-old woman who was charged with killing her intellectually disabled son. In June 1998, the woman was handed a three year prison sentence in the Toyohashi branch of the Nagoya District Court. In an appeal in October that year, the Nagoya High Court sentenced the woman to three years' imprisonment, suspended for four years.

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SAPPORO -- The first G-8 University Summit, which is being held ahead of the G-8 summit in Hokkaido, got underway here on Monday, as university presidents from across the world discussed issues including global sustainability.

The presidents of 35 universities from 14 countries, including the eight G-8 nations, are participating in the university summit in Sapporo. They are due to discuss education and the creation of networks to realize and develop a sustainable society with the aim of achieving a solution to global environmental problems.

In an opening address, meeting chairman Hiroshi Komiyama, president of the University of Tokyo, highlighted universities' role in environmental issues.

"In order to achieve a sustainable society, universities are looked upon to provide vision for solutions to environmental problems and to provide education for the next generation, which will undertake that role (of achieving a sustainable society). Universities must serve as an intellectual core for that purpose," he said.

Universities participating in the summit include Yale University, Cambridge University, Peking University and other top universities from around the world. Japanese universities include the University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, Keio University, Waseda University and Doshisha University as well as Hokkaido University.

The summit will run until Tuesday, when a declaration will be compiled. This declaration will be presented to the G-8 leaders.

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TONDABAYASHI, Osaka -- A man was arrested on Monday morning after ramming his car into the municipal government headquarters here, leaving an official with minor injuries, police said.

Michio Igawa, 61, an unemployed man of Tondabayashi, stands accused of forcible obstruction of business. "I was upset with the insufficient social security benefits for my common-law wife," he was quoted as telling investigators.

Igawa smashed his car through the glass automatic doors to the Tondabayashi City Hall at around 9 a.m., investigators said. A city official suffered a cut to his leg from the fragments of glass.

He then attempted to light a PET bottle containing what appeared to be oil and threw it. Police subsequently found three propane gas cylinders in his car.

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IWAKI, Fukushima -- About 100 items that were retrieved after a fishing boat capsized east of Chiba Prefecture, leaving four dead and 13 missing, were unloaded at a port here on Monday.

The items were retrieved from the water after the 135-ton No. 58 Suwa Maru capsized in the Pacific Ocean east of the Cape Inubo lighthouse in Chiba Prefecture on June 23. They were brought back by seven sister vessels that returned to Onahama Port in Iwaki on Sunday.

At about 9 a.m. on Monday, Fukushima coast guard workers boarded the fishing boats and checked each item, including life jackets and fishing nets, and the items were photographed.

Among the items was a sandal bearing the name "Oikawa," believed to belong to 42-year-old crew member Toshikazu Oikawa, one of the four who was confirmed dead. There was also a pair of binoculars bearing the inscription "No. 58."

The items will initially be stored in a shipping company warehouse. On Monday, family members of the missing crew members looked on as the items were inspected. The wife of one of the missing members photographed items using her cell phone camera.

"They're from the boat that my husband was on," she said.

Tetsu Nozaki, president of Suya Shoten, the company that owns the No. 58 Suwa Maru, spoke on the incident at a news conference on Monday, one week after the accident.

"From time to time, I remember the crewmembers that died or are missing. That's all," he said, appearing sad. He said it was with much regret that the number of vessels searching the sea following the accident had been reduced from seven to two. He added that he wanted to continue to search for the missing members, even though the chance of their survival was growing thinner.

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NOBLESVILLE, Indiana (AP) -- Authorities have identified a Japanese man who drowned while kayaking down rain-swollen White River north of Indianapolis.

Shingo Takura, a 30-year-old Yokohama native who was living in Indianapolis, was a refugee resettlement specialist for Catholic Charities of the Indianapolis Archdiocese.

The Indianapolis Star reported that Takura was wearing a flotation vest as he was traveling downstream on Friday when he went over the Riverwood Dam at Noblesville.

Hamilton County sheriff's deputies say a kayaking partner had fallen behind Takura and arrived at the site only to find Takura in the water below the dam.

An autopsy showed Takura drowned.

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The average yearly income of Diet members rose by 1.39 million yen to hit 25.8 million yen in 2007, a report released by the House of Councillors and House of Representatives has shown.

It was the third year in a row for the figure to rise. By political party, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) ranked first with an average income of 30.51 million yen per member, topping the list for the first time since 1998, when the party was formed. The average yearly income in the party rose by 8.36 million yen per member.

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which had held the top spot for eight years in a row until 2006, fell to fourth place, influenced by a drop in sales of shares and real estate.

The major increase in the average income of DPJ members was largely influenced by Lower House member Yorihisa Matsuno's income of about 1.5 billion yen obtained through the sale of real estate. This income boosted the average for all Diet members. Although excluding Matsuno, the average salary for Diet members actually fell by 970,000 yen compared to the previous year.

The income of Diet members is announced each year under the law on the public announcement of Diet members' assets. A total of 475 Lower House members and 170 Upper House members who were Diet members throughout the year were subject to the announcement. The average annual income of Lower House members was 27.03 million yen, and that of Upper House members was 22.35 million yen.

The political party with the highest average income after the DPJ was the People's New Party, at 27.06 million yen, followed by New Party Daichi at 26.48 million yen, and the LDP at 24.75 million yen. Next were the Social Democratic Party (21.76 million yen), Komeito (20.41 million yen), and the Japanese Communist Party (19.89 million yen).

Seventeen Diet members had an annual income of 50 million yen or more. Those with a yearly income of over 100 million yen were Matsuno (1.54653 billion yen), Shinsuke Okuno of the LDP (135.35 million yen), and LDP member Seiichiro Shimizu (114.5 million yen).

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A murdered western Tokyo ramen noodle shop owner was stabbed and slashed more than 30 times, investigators said.

Local police suspect that someone who harbored a grudge against the victim, 45-year-old Toshiyuki Higashiyama, murdered him, noting that 600,000 yen in the restaurant's takings were not stolen and that the store was not ransacked.

Higashiyama, owner of the Ichifujiya ramen shop in Higashikurume, suffered numerous stab wounds and cuts to his face, chest and one of his arms, indicating that he tried to defend himself, according to investigators.

Higashiyama was conscious when an employee who was staying upstairs rushed to the first floor restaurant following the incident, but he did not tell the employee who attacked him.

Moreover, 600,000 yen in the restaurant's takings remained in a safe in Higashiyama's second-floor room, and his wallet and his cash cards were not stolen.

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A man jumped in front of an oncoming train at a railway station here Monday morning in an apparent suicide, police and the railway operator said.

At around 8:30 a.m., a man jumped onto the tracks of the Tokyu Railway Toyoko Line at Okurayama Station in Kohoku-ku, Yokohama, and was hit by an express train that was passing the station, local police said. He was pronounced dead.

Following the accident, services on the line were suspended between Musashi-Kosugi and Yokohama stations for about an hour. Twelve trains were cancelled, inconveniencing about 89,000 passengers.

The man appeared to be aged between 60 and 70, local police said.

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Police investigations into the murder of a 74-year-old homeless man at a park in the Tokyo city of Fuchu have uncovered four other incidents in surrounding areas in which homeless people were attacked.

Police said that a homeless man was attacked on a road in the neighboring city of Chofu in March, and two similar incidents occurred in Fuchu the same month. Another attacked occurred in the city of Kunitachi on June 20, bringing the total number of attacks to five.

Killed in the recent attack that occurred in a park under the Chuo Expressway in Fuchu was Masaji Fukuoka, 74.

Police said that in a separate attack shortly after 5 p.m. on March 6, a man wielding what appeared to be a steel pipe suddenly attacked a homeless man in his 60s who was living in a park under an elevated expressway in Chofu. The homeless man was hit on the head and was taken to a hospital in an ambulance with light injuries.

On March 5, the day before this attack, and on March 12, homeless men were hit on the head with what appeared to be steel pipes, suffering serious injuries.

All of the attacks occurred within a radius of about five kilometers, and police are investigating the possibility that one person was responsible for all of the attacks.

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A Tokyo Shimbun bureau chief has been arrested for kicking a man on a western Tokyo street over the weekend while he was drunk, injuring the victim, police said.

Hiroshi Nakazato, 47, chief of the Tokyo Shimbun Tachikawa bureau, was released after he admitted to the allegations. Police are poised to send an investigation report to prosecutors, accusing him of inflicting bodily injury.

The Tokyo Shimbun has expressed regret over the incident.

"The incident is extremely regrettable as he is in a position to represent the company in the Tama district (of western Tokyo)," a company official said. "We'll take strict punitive measures against him after getting to the bottom of the incident."

Nakazato kicked a 34-year-old restaurant owner as he passed the victim on a street in the Akebonocho district of Tachikawa at around 3 a.m. on Saturday, local police said. The victim broke his right little toe after he fell down.

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Police are set to raid more companies suspected of involvement in an eel mislabeling scandal, law enforcers said.

Hyogo and Tokushima prefectural police have questioned Akihiro Nakatani, 44, president of eel importing company Uohide in Tokushima and a 40-year-old section chief at the Kobe-based marine products wholesaler Shinko Gyorui, among others involved, on a voluntary basis. The two police forces earlier decided to search Uohide and Shinko Gyorui.

Investigators are also poised to conduct a search of a company in Takamatsu that repackaged imported eel into boxes for domestic eel, as well as another company in Kochi Prefecture that was also suspected of involvement in mislabeling and a few more firms.

The joint investigation team will closely examine documents to be confiscated in the raids and continue to question those involved as there are contradictions between statements made by Uohide and those by Shinko Gyorui.

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NAGOYA -- The body of a newborn baby girl has been found floating in a river here, sparking an investigation, police said.

At around 10:25 a.m. on Sunday, a 45-year-old man working on a boat moored in the Horikawa River in Minato-ku, Nagoya, found the baby floating in the river, and alerted the local office of the Japan Coast Guard (JCG), which in turn notified local police.

Police officers pronounced her dead at the scene. Local police launched an investigation on suspicion of abandoning a corpse and are expected to conduct an autopsy on her body to determine the cause of her death.

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OSAKA -- A fish dealer has been arrested for sticking a sewing needle into a fish fillet sold at a rival supermarket, police said.

Kazuko Yamamoto, 67, who runs a fish shop in Higashiosaka with her husband, stands accused of obstruction of business.

She told investigators that her shop was forced to move to another place about 25 years ago when the supermarket opened.

"I've had a grudge against the supermarket because our sales have declined (since it opened). I also pierced needles into meat and bread," she was quoted as telling investigators.

Local police are questioning her over her alleged involvement in 20 other similar cases that occurred at the supermarket.

Investigators on a stakeout at the Konomiya Supermarket's Mito outlet in Higashiosaka spotted Yamamoto sticking a 3.3-centimeter-long sewing needle into a fillet of mackerel at around 3:35 p.m. on Sunday, and arrested her on the spot.

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