JAPAN

Scandal Continues to Bubble: Japan’s stock market scandal continued to make waves last week. On Friday, the Finance Ministry rejected demands from opposition politicians that it publicly disclose the details of its investigation into the affair. Finance Committee members in Parliament’s upper house questioned Finance Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and other officials for about seven hours about the scandal, which involves 17 large and medium-size securities firms that paid favored clients $1.3 billion in compensation for stock trading losses they suffered. Seijun Murata, a Socialist lawmaker, demanded that the ministry release full details about each case of compensation to prevent a recurrence. Nobuhiko Matsuno, head of the ministry’s securities division, said the ministry could not disclose the contents of individual cases. He also refused to provide details about the ministry’s investigation into compensation by smaller firms.