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TOKYO - Aid groups urged Japan on Wednesday not to cut its official development assistance budget, following Tokyo’s decision to slash around 10 percent of foreign aid allocations for fiscal 2011 from the initial plan to raise funds for reconstruction after the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Representatives of the aid groups, who will attend a conference in Tokyo from Thursday on implementing the U.N. Millennium Development Goals on poverty reduction, called on Japan to maintain its efforts to help poor nations while pursuing its own recovery.