Abe promises to reshuffle cabinet, leadership after LDP lets him stay PM

Gaining his ruling coalition's go-head to stay in office despite a historic election defeat, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed Monday to reshuffle his cabinet and his party's executive posts at "an appropriate time," and ruled out an early dissolution of the House of Representatives for a general election.

Earlier in the day, Abe's Liberal Democratic Party decided at a top executive meeting to allow him to remain as prime minister and the party's president, and the LDP and its coalition partner, the New Komeito party, reaffirmed that they will maintain their partnership and support the Abe administration.

"I will keep promoting reforms. I expect senior LDP officials to tackle the issue of money and politics more vigorously," Abe told the executive meeting, held a day after the LDP's crushing defeat in the Sunday's House of Councillors election.

The LDP also decided to discuss with the opposition bloc about convening an extraordinary Diet session for four days from Aug 7 after new members of the upper house were elected.

Speaking later at a press conference at LDP headquarters in Tokyo, Abe said, "It is the people's wish to have us reflect on the things we should reflect on and to refresh our minds. I would like to have a cabinet reshuffle and appoint new party executives at an appropriate time."

Asked whether he intends to dissolve the more powerful lower house, he said, "Two years are left in the House of Representatives' term and it is important to achieve things...but, of course, I'm thinking of holding a House of Representatives election at an appropriate time and go to the people."

The Abe administration is expected to face strong pressure to dissolve the lower house from the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, which topped the LDP to become a party with the largest number of upper house seats.

While the LDP-led coalition lost its majority in the upper chamber for the first time since 1998 in Sunday's election, it still has a comfortable majority in the lower house, which has greater legislative power and the final say on the state budget and the election of a prime minister.

Also brushing aside possible political confusion over legislative procedures and other matters in the Diet, Abe said he wants to seek cooperation with the DPJ by listening to its views on legislative issues.

Abe attributed the defeat to pension-related problems and scandals over political funds which involved cabinet ministers.

The prime minister admitted the election showed "the public does not feel enough" about the revision of the Political Funds Control Law that was passed in the last Diet session in addressing problems linking politics and money.

Shiga couple gets 7 years for fatally abusing 2-year-old daughter with steel bar, hot water

The Otsu District Court on Friday sentenced a couple in Takashima, Shiga Prefecture, to seven years in prison for fatally abusing their 2-year-old daughter by pouring hot water on her last year. Handing down the ruling on Kenta Nagasaka, 25, and his wife Chizuru, 26, Presiding Judge Hidenori Nagai said, "It was a selfish and shortsighted crime. The defendants do not seem to feel any compassion to their daughter while mental and physical pains she suffered are unimaginable."

According to the ruling, the couple, frustrated by their daughter Yuna taking too much time to eat meals, repeatedly hit her with a steel bar or poured hot water on her since late May. Yuna died July 5 due to septicemia resulting from burns.

Australian navy dives on sunken WWII Japanese midget sub

Australian navy divers collected a jar of sand Monday from next to a sunken Japanese World War II midget submarine now on the ocean floor off Sydney's coast. The sand will be presented to the families of two Japanese submariners — Sub-Lt Katsuhisa Ban and Petty Officer Mamoru Ashibe — who are believed to have died inside the vessel.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Environment and Water Resources said the sand was collected at the request of Ashibe's relatives and would be given to the families when they visit Australia later this year. The midget sub, which was one of three that took part in Japan's historic raid on Sydney Harbor, was discovered by recreational divers in November last year, following hundreds of false "discoveries," and ending almost 65 years of speculation. On the night of May 31, 1942 the M24 entered Sydney Harbor and fired torpedoes that missed the U.S. cruiser USS Chicago but exploded beneath the barracks ship HMAS Kuttabul, killing 19 Australian and two British sailors.