Tokyo - Japan's environment minister denied wrongdoing on Friday after a newspaper said his office appeared to have received improper funds, the latest embarrassment for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, three of whose ministers have quit over funding and election scandals since he took office in late 2012.
The Asahi newspaper said a branch of Abe's Liberal Democratic Party in Shizuoka prefecture, headed by Environment Minister Yoshio Mochizuki, collected ¥1.4m from a logistics company which had received government funds.
This would violate a law which bans a company from making political donations within a year of a decision to be awarded government subsidies.