{"id":179542,"date":"2026-09-01T11:33:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T02:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/?post_type=news&#038;p=179542&#038;lang=en"},"modified":"2026-09-01T11:33:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T02:33:12","slug":"fukuoka-plans-end-to-assembly-group-subsidies","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/en\/news\/fukuoka-plans-end-to-assembly-group-subsidies\/","title":{"rendered":"Fukuoka Plans End to Assembly Group Subsidies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fukuoka Prefecture has budgeted up to 12 million yen annually for 13 voluntary groups formed by prefectural assembly members. The groups include Japan-US, Japan-Korea and Thailand friendship leagues, with subsidies covering expenses such as travel, meetings and entertainment. The payments have continued since at least 1987, while the assembly secretariat says clear selection criteria were never established. The secretariat concluded that the arrangement was inappropriate and did not disburse the fiscal 2026 allocation. It now plans to abolish the subsidy program. <strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/news.web.nhk\/newsweb\/na\/nb-5010035106\" target=\"_blank\">NHK Fukuoka<\/a> \/ <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ntv.co.jp\/n\/fbs\/category\/society\/fsb0b19937d7ec407394c7da7dd3d37770\" target=\"_blank\">FBS News<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/fnn_fukuoka-prefectural-assembly-office_2026_cl.jpg?resize=1400%2C860&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"1400\" height=\"860\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-178010\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/fnn_fukuoka-prefectural-assembly-office_2026_cl.jpg?w=1400&amp;ssl=1 1400w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/fnn_fukuoka-prefectural-assembly-office_2026_cl.jpg?resize=300%2C184&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/fnn_fukuoka-prefectural-assembly-office_2026_cl.jpg?resize=1024%2C629&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/fnn_fukuoka-prefectural-assembly-office_2026_cl.jpg?resize=768%2C472&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><br \/>\nPhoto: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pref.fukuoka.lg.jp\/somu\/graph-f\/2023summer\/kengikai\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Fukuoka Prefecture<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Get Fukuoka and Kyushu\u2019s top stories delivered to your inbox. The Now is Fukuoka Now\u2019s free biweekly newsletter featuring local news, events, culture, business, and community updates in English. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/en\/mailmagazine\/\">Subscribe to The Now<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Summaries based on public content, errors may occur during translation. Images credited independently. Send feedback using <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/en\/contact\/\">this <strong>form<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fukuoka Prefecture has budgeted up to 12 million yen annually for 13 voluntary groups formed by prefectural assembly members. The groups include Japan-US, Japan-Korea&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30292,"featured_media":178010,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","tags":[],"class_list":["post-179542","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","location-fukuoka-prefecture","news-category-politics","en-US"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/179542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179542"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}