WORLD IN BRIEF : JAPAN : Leader Says He Won’t Visit War Shrine

Japan’s new prime minister, Morihiro Hosokawa, has said he will not visit a controversial war shrine Sunday, the 48th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II. “There have been many controversies over this in the past and I must be very careful,” Hosokawa told a televised news conference in Kagoshima, in southern Japan. “Therefore I will refrain from making a (shrine) visit.” The Yasukuni Shrine in central Tokyo enshrines the spirit of Japan’s 2.6 million war dead, including wartime Prime Minister Gen. Hideki Tojo and five other so-called Class A war criminals.