Across Asia: Japan

Ex-aide faces charge

A former aide to Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama may be charged with falsifying political funding records, the Asahi newspaper said yesterday, a development that could dent support for the government in elections next year. If Hatoyama's Democratic Party fails to win a majority in the 2010 upper house it will have to maintain an awkward coalition with two small parties, with whom it differs on security and other policies, in order to pass bills smoothly.

The scandal has plagued Hatoyama since before the Democrats trounced the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party in August's lower house elections but analysts have said it was likely he would survive any fallout from it.