The Ministry officials said they expected the decision to be released within a week.

Ministry officials say they have been on the defensive for some time.

Nothing could have been further from the truth, ministry officials insisted.

"We sense what is coming," one senior foreign ministry official said today.

Ministry officials said the ratio would likely remain at the current level.

Some employees have already been arrested, according to ministry officials.

But ministry officials acknowledge that those steps have not worked.

Ministry officials could not be reached because it was a holiday in Japan.

From 1861 he served as a ministry official in Vienna.

"We can go our own way," a foreign ministry official was quoted as saying.