1.   The health ministry says it is forced to buy more expensive medicines from the big drug manufacturers because of international patent agreements.

2.   The ministry said that he had died of herpes of the brain.

3.   The Public Health ministry said it deeply regretted the error.

4.   The ministry has said it hopes to avoid compulsory redundancies.

5.   The justice ministry said yesterday, however, that because they had been held for more than two years without trial, they were released.

6.   Also today the ministry said it was banning Nomura from bidding on new sales of government bonds until the ministry decides how to punish the brokerage.

7.   Alternative transportation will be arranged, the ministry said.

8.   And the ministry said that if it agrees to a tax cut, it will raise revenue elsewhere to make up the difference.

9.   Apparently uncertain whether the United States would act unilaterally, Russia evacuated the families of its Iraq-based diplomats from Baghdad on Sunday, the emergencies ministry said.

10.   As part of the market-deregulation, companies will also be allowed to distribute dividends twice a year rather than once a year, the ministry said.