JAPAN

The head of a nationalist Osaka school operator at the centre of a growing political scandal repeated last Thursday in sworn testimony in the Diet his earlier claim that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe donated 1 million yen (US$8,900) to the organisation. Yasunori Kagoike, chief of Moritomo Gakuen, reiterated that the prime minister’s wife Akie Abe gave him the donation on her husband’s behalf in September 2015. The prime minister has denied making the donation, which Mr Kagoike said was given toward the costs of building an elementary school on a plot of land purchased from the state in Toyonaka in Osaka Prefecture. Mr Abe has said he would resign if either he or his wife were shown to have been involved in the land deal.