All 47 prefectural labor bureaus under the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare are found to have engaged in some form of irregular accounting practices such as logging expenses for staff travel never made, investigations by the government’s Board of Audit showed Saturday.

The bureaus misappropriated a total of more than 7 billion yen in the six years through fiscal 2004, they showed.

http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/386576

The ruling coalition has given up trying to pass a highly criticized bill that would make “conspiracies” to commit crimes a punishable offense, officials said Friday.

The “conspiracy offense” bill is intended to target organized crime, but critics say it is so vaguely worded that it could be used against ordinary citizens, unions and civic groups.

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200610070131.html