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BEIJING: A noxious cocktail of soot, smog and toxic chemicals is blotting out the sun, fouling the lungs of millions of people and altering weather patterns in large parts of Asia, according to a report released Thursday by the United Nations. The byproduct of automobiles, slash-and-burn agriculture, wood-burning kitchen stoves and coal-fired power plants, these plumes of carbon dust rise over southern Africa, the Amazon basin and North America but are most pronounced in Asia, where so-called atmospheric brown clouds are dramatically reducing sunlight in many Chinese cities and leading to decreased crop yields in swaths of rural India, says...

‘Developing Asia to record healthy growth rates’ Our Bureau New Delhi, Nov. 16 Asian Development Bank (ADB) does not expect a full-blown financial crisis in India even as it forecasts a lower economic growth of between 6-7 per cent for 2009, lower than the 7.8 per cent expected this year. “We don’t expect a financial crisis (in India) because of the fundamentals. The economic side has not worsened. Developing Asia will slow down but continue to record healthy growth rates,” Mr Rajat M. Nag, Managing Director-General, ADB, said at the India Economic Summit 2008 here on Sunday. He highlighted that...

TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- Japan -- the world's second-largest economy -- is in a recession, government officials announced Monday. Japan's Cabinet Office confirmed that its economy fell another 0.1 percent in its third quarter, following a 0.3 percent drop in the second quarter. The country's Gross Domestic Product -- second to the United States -- has fallen by 0.4 percent this year. Major indexes around the globe have plummeted over the last two months. The Russian stock market has lost 65.5 percent of its value since the start of the year. Stocks in Japan and the United States have been...

SEOUL: A Japanese cargo ship was seized by pirates off the coast of Somalia late on Saturday, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency quoted Seoul’s foreign ministry as saying on Sunday. The cargo ship was carrying 23 sailors, including five South Koreans, Yonhap said. Details on the pirates and the safety of the sailors were not immediately available, it said. Heavily armed Somali gunmen have seized more than 30 vessels so far this year, making the busy shipping lanes through the Gulf of Aden the most dangerous in the world. South Korea is considering dispatching a naval ship to the area...

Like millions of Americans, I watched the scene in Chicago's Grant Park on election night, as President-elect Barack Obama delivered his victory speech, with a real sense of hope that something fundamental was changing. A few hours later, I began receiving e-mail messages from friends in Europe who were overjoyed by the choice American voters had made.

AND NOW . . . amidst billowing clouds of fragrant, aromatic first- and second-hand premium cigar smoke. . . it is time for . . . that harmless, lovable little fuzz ball, the highly-trained broadcast specialist, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, from behind the golden EIB microphone, firmly ensconced in the prestigious Attila-the-Hun chair at the Limbaugh Institute of Advanced Conservative Studies, the Mandarin of Talk Radio, with talent on loan from G-d, at the cutting-edge of societal evolution, with half his brain tied behind his back — just to make it fair,...

Asia-Pacific stocks fell steeply on Thursday, following Wall Street lower, taking a negative stance over the US government’s decision to scrap plans to buy toxic assets, and further evidence that the US economy was deteriorating quickly. Intel’s revenue and margin warning made for a bad combination with the announcement by Best Buy, the US’s largest electronics retail chain, that a “seismic” drop in sales would hurt earnings, giving investors in Asian technology and exporter stocks additional reasons to sell. The news came just days after another electronics retailer in the US, Circuit City, filed for bankruptcy protection. The FTSE Asia...

They are anchored silently across the straits, stretching as far as the eye can see from Singapore's gleaming skyscrapers, and they are a stark illustration of the worst threat to business that veterans of the shipping industry have ever seen. Ships, immobile on the horizon, going nowhere. For an economy such as Singapore, it is the stuff of nightmares. According to senior industry figures, the complex network of trade credit that keeps imports and exports rolling through Asia and beyond has evaporated — suddenly — in a haze of mistrust. And as a result, cargoes are sitting on docksides throughout...

India and Japan's agreement in October to expand cooperation between the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), in the field of disaster management, has the raised the ire of a China fearful that the US is masterminding a powerful space alliance between its allies in the region. All of Asia wants to see improved regional disaster management capabilities, but the growing ties between ISRO and JAXA come just as India and Japan are devising an action plan to advance security cooperation. "China is concerned about the general effort of the US during the Bush...

The new Obama administration will seek to restore an international status quo that preceded the Bush presidency. This includes restoring ties with Europe, tightening the nuclear non-proliferation regime and possibly a restoration of China as the centrepiece of US policy in Asia. The question for India will be whether this is accomplished by reducing the international space that the country gained under Bush India is among the few dozen countries, largely clustered in Asia and Africa, where sentiment in favour of the United States actually rose during the administration of George W Bush. Nonetheless, more Indians favoured the election of...

The Liberal Democratic Party will call for such measures as lower taxes for corporations and low-income filers when its panel releases guidelines for revising the nation's tax code over the coming several years, the Nikkei has learned from Hakuo Yanagisawa, who heads one of the panel's subcommittees, the newspaper reported Sunday.

Futures

There aren't many things you can say for sure about the future amid the global financial meltdown. But here's one: All-American companies, from General Electric (nyse: GE - news - people ) to General Motors (nyse: GM - news - people ), are going to be looking halfway around the world to China and India as their best shots for improving profits in the coming year. With the American, European and Japanese economies hitting the skids, China and India are the only fast-growing countries big enough to make a difference to most companies' bottom lines. That's where multinational companies will...

Regional stocks jump on central banks' response China, Taiwan, Hong Kong cut rates; Seoul, Singapore, Fed agree to swaps By V. Phani Kumar, MarketWatch Last update: 12:46 a.m. EDT Oct. 30, 2008 HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Asian markets surged Thursday as investors went on a buying spree after central banks responded strongly to slowing economic growth and turmoil in financial markets by reducing interest rates or boosting liquidity of U.S. dollars. South Korean stocks rocketed and Singaporean shares extended gains into a third straight session after their central banks opened a swap facility with the U.S. Federal Reserve that will...

West goes cap in hand to the East for credit crunch help Gordon Brown fears that IMF will run out of money Philip Webster, Political Editor, and Gary Duncan, Economics Editor Europe turned to Asia and the Middle East for help yesterday as the financial crisis threatened to overwhelm Hungary and other ailing economies. After talks with other Western leaders, Gordon Brown urged China and the oil-rich Gulf states to come up with hundreds of billions of dollars to aid countries struggling to survive. Any help from the East is likely to come at a high price. China, Japan and...

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index rose a whopping 14.4 percent -- its biggest gain in 11 years -- to 12,596.29, a day after plunging more than 12 percent. South Korea's Kospi jumped 5.6 percent to 999.16.

Leaders from Asia and Europe on Saturday called for new rules and stronger regulation of the global monetary and financial system at the close of a two-day summit in Beijing as China assumed a new leadership role in the crisis. Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said the world's economic problems had become so massive that measures beyond the many billion-dollar bailout packages already announced might be necessary to avert further damage. "We are very glad to see that many countries have taken measures that have initially proved effective. But this is not enough given the current situation, and more needs...

World leaders pledge financial reform as gloom deepens 50 mins ago BEIJING (AFP) – World leaders vowed to overhaul the global financial system and China on Saturday urged tighter regulation after a week in which recession fears plunged stock markets into freefall. Asian and European leaders meeting in Beijing promised wide-ranging and effective reforms while UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon also called for quick and meaningful change. "Leaders pledged to undertake effective and comprehensive reform of the international monetary and financial systems," the 40-member Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) said in a statement released late Friday. "They agreed to take quickly...

Nikkei slides below 8,000, Kospi drops under 1,000 Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore, Taiwan also hit multi-year lows By V. Phani Kumar, MarketWatch Last update: 12:12 a.m. EDT Oct. 24, 2008 Comments: 218 HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Asian markets suffered further deep losses Friday, with indexes in Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Australia, Singapore and Taiwan dropping to their lowest levels in at least three years as fears of a global recession swept across the region. Japan's Nikkei 225 Average dropped below the psychologically-important 8,000-point level for the first time since May 22, 2003, while South Korea's fell under the 1,000-point...

Nikkei hovers above 8,000, Hang Seng below 14,000 By V. Phani Kumar, MarketWatch Last update: 11:14 p.m. EDT Oct. 22, 2008 HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Asian markets sold off Thursday on fears about the impact of a global recession, with South Korean and Japanese stocks plummeting as investors dumped shares across the board. Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 Average dropped to its lowest level in more than five years as exporters such as Mazda Motor Corp. and Nintendo Co. were hit hard by a rally in the yen and after steep losses on Wall Street overnight. In Hong Kong, the Hang...

No job cuts in India's IT industry: Infosys co-chair 22 Oct, 2008, 1304 hrs IST, IANS Print EMail Discuss Share Save Comment Text: TOKYO: There will be no pink slips in the Indian information technology industry as it has countered the impact of the current global financial tsuna mi well, according to Nandan Nilekani, co-chairman of Infosys Technologies. "The fundamentals in the information technology sector are strong. I do not see any job cuts," Nilekani, who is a member of a business delegation accompanying Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here, said on the margins of a meeting here. "At Infosys, we...

Nikkei tumbles more than 10% in regional sell-off By V. Phani Kumar, MarketWatch Last update: 10:26 p.m. EDT Oct. 15, 2008HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Japanese shares suffered a sell-off Thursday, sending the Nikkei 225 down by more than 10% at one point during the session, as investors rushed to dump equities amid fears about a U.S. recession and after stocks dived on Wall Street overnight. The Nikkei 225 Average dropped as much as 10.3% in mid-morning Tokyo trading, before recovering a little, as shares across the board were slammed. The benchmark ended the morning session 9.6% lower at 8,635.56, while...

http://finance.yahoo.com/intlindices?e=asia

European and Asian markets have rallied in response to efforts by world leaders to stem the recent financial turmoil. London's FTSE 100 index and France's Cac 40 index both jumped more than 5% - tracking earlier gains on Asian markets. Bank shares led the advance. Major central banks also made extra funds available and said they would take "whatever measures necessary" to end the crisis. EU leaders said on Sunday no big bank would be be allowed to fail. Banking shares were among the biggest gainers on London's FTSE 100 index, with Royal Bank of Scotland climbing 4.8%, Barclays up...

All are up, continue capitulation!!!

Singapore, China and Hong Kong most resilient in Asia, says Citigroup index. With the global financial market turmoil spreading far and wide, can India remain insulated from the crisis? If Citigroup’s Vulnerability Index is any indicator, India is among the most vulnerable Asian economies. In Asia (except Japan), China is the most resilient economy, while among Brazil, Russia, India and China (Bric) nations, India is at the lowest position, according to Citigroup’s Vulnerability Index. Citigroup cites India’s very high ratio of total external finance to forex reserves and high level of mobile capital compared to the reserves as the main...

Singapore on Friday joined other Asian nations in easing monetary policy as the economy slipped into recession for the first time since 2002. The economy contracted by 0.5 per cent in the third quarter from a year ago, based on preliminary data. The trade ministry cut its full-year growth forecast for 2008 to 3 per cent from a previous estimate of 4-5 per cent. On an annualised, seasonally adjusted rate, the economy shrank by 6.3 per cent from the previous quarter, after contracting by 5.7 per cent in April-June period, which meant that Singapore is in a technical recession defined...

The failing North Korean nuclear deal appears to have been saved from collapse after the United States agreed to remove the isolated dictatorship from its list of terrorist states. But the move has alienated the government of Japan, which opposes such concessions until Pyongyang has told the truth about Japanese citizens which it abducted during the Cold War. The fragile agreement on North Korean nuclear disarmament, finally agreed last year after four years of tortuous negotiation, had appeared to be in danger after North Korea threatened to reactivate the plutonium reactor where it has generated the material for an unknown...

Nikkei 225 8,142.16 -1,015.33 -11.09%

10% of market is now lost. Struggling. 8:45 p.m. Eastern USA, 9:45 a.m. Friday Tokyo

Japanese stocks tumbled Friday, with the two benchmark indexes slumping 7% or more during early trading on panic selling after Wall Street shares suffered deep losses overnight. The Nikkei 225 Average plummeted 7.4% to 8,483.77, while the broader Topix index fell 7% to 841.88.

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- North Korea announced Thursday that it is preparing to restart the facility that produced its atomic bomb, clearly indicating that it plans to completely pull out of an international deal to end its nuclear program. North Korea told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it was stopping the process of disabling its main nuclear site and barring international inspectors from the Yongbyon facility, the agency said. Pyongyang "informed IAEA inspectors that effective immediately access to facilities at Yongbyon would no longer be permitted," the U.N. nuclear watchdog said. North Korea "also stated that it has stopped...

BEIJING (Reuters) - Two Asian central banks followed the world's largest economies in cutting rates to contain the global financial crisis as a newspaper reported Washington was considering buying into banks to revive shattered confidence. Rate cuts from South Korea and Taiwan helped regional stock markets shake off some of the fear that dominated Wall Street even after Tuesday's unprecedented coordinated easing from the Federal Reserve and central banks in Europe, Canada and China. But investors remained deeply unsure about how much the joint easing would help. Money markets remained in a state of virtual paralysis and a report in...

Asian central banks cut rates By Kathrin Hille in Taipei, Tom Mitchell in Hong Kong and Song Jung-a in Seoul Published: October 9 2008 02:27 | Last updated: October 9 2008 04:16 Central banks in Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong cut interest rates on Thursday in steps that closely follow America’s and Europe’s policy response to the financial crisis. In an extraordinary policy meeting Thursday morning just two weeks after its last rate cut, which had reversed course following a four-year rate raising cycle, Taiwan’s Central Bank of China lowered the benchmark discount rate to 3.25 per cent from...

Down 722 - 7% and falling so far. Asian stock markets plunged Wednesday as recent steps by the world's major economies to fortify credit markets failed to stem escalating fears that the spreading financial crisis could spawn a global recession.

"The key issue is coordination of policies, since individual country policies aimed at shoring up confidence of domestic institutions can actually exacerbate systemic risk by altering relative risk between countries," said Ashley Davies, currency strategist with UBS in Singapore. "As such, a coordinated global approach by the major financial powers may be critical to containing the destructive aspects of global deleveraging," he said in a note.

Oct. 6 -- The Bank of Japan added 1 trillion yen ($9.6 billion) to the financial system as global subprime mortgage-related losses force lenders to restrict credit.

HONG KONG: Asian stocks fell 2-3 per cent on Monday, led by shares of exporters, after a hectic weekend in Europe as the financial crisis gathered steam there, knocking the euro to the lowest in a year. Concerns about whether the $700 billion rescue plan, which was approved by the US Congress last week, would be quickly implemented and whether it would be enough to shore up the economy left investors seeking safety in US and Japanese government bonds and buying yen and Swiss francs. Oil prices fell around $2 to just below $92 a barrel dragging down prices of...

ASIA MARKETS: Stocks Take Further Beating In Tokyo, Sydney By V. Phani Kumar Asian markets extended losses early Monday amid concerns about the global financial crisis, with Japanese shares down sharply on banks such as Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and exporters including Sony Corp., which fell below a five- year low. In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 Average slumped as low as 10,598.76 during the session to its lowest level since October 2004. The benchmark was recently down 3% at 10,605.12, taking losses into a third straight session, while the broader Topix index fell 3.3% to 1,013.34. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 shed...

Asian markets accelerated losses in the morning session Monday, down an average of 3 percent, after Wall Street notched up its worst week in seven years and more European governments were forced to shore up their banking systems in a bid to contain the spreading crisis. The Nikkei 225 Average [JP;N225 10660.27 -277.87 (-2.54%)] extended losses, down 3 percent, to a four-year low as exporters such as Canon were battered by a weaker dollar and growing worry about the global economy despite passing of a U.S. bailout bill. Automakers such as Toyota Motor slid along with Kyocera and other high...

Melamine Found in Chocolate Products From China South Korea's food watchdog has detected quantities of melamine, an industrial chemical, in chocolate products from foodstuff giants Nestle SA, Mars Inc. and South Korea's Lotte that were manufactured in China, Yonhap News reported Saturday. The Korea Food and Drug Administration (KFDA) said 2.38 parts per million (ppm) and 1.78 ppm of the toxic substance was discovered in samples of M&M's Milk and Peanut Snickers Fun Size products, respectively, from Mars Korea. A Kit Kat bar from Nestle Korea was also found to contain 2.89 ppm of melamine, the agency said. The...

Asian equity markets continued to fade on Friday, as investors awaited a vote by the U.S. House of Representatives on a financial rescue plan. Concerns about a slowdown in global growth pummeled commodity prices, with oil sliding below $94 a barrel, as analysts cut growth forecasts. But some predicted that a U.S. bailout would have a long-term inflationary impact on oil prices. Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 fell 1.4% to a three-year low of 10,996.98 points in early afternoon trading, with manufacturers extending losses after the U.S. released weak economic data Thursday, raising fears that the key export market is weakening...

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^AORD All Ordinaries 4,937.00 9:23PM ET Up 2.40 (0.05%) ^N225 Nikkei 225 11,998.08 9:24PM ET Up 104.92 (0.88%) Chart, More ^NZ50 NZSE 50 3,223.17 9:23PM ET Up 35.59 (1.12%) Components, Chart, More ^STI Straits Times 2,435.62 9:44PM ET Up 24.16 (1.00%) Components, Chart, More ^KS11 Seoul Composite 1,478.68 9:44PM ET Up 2.35 (0.16%) Components, Chart, More

OK folks, the first curtain goes up globally.9:00 a.m. local here Monday. 8:00 p.m. Sunday Eastern.Your mileage may vary.

It was a scene eerily reminiscent of the dark days of Asia's financial crisis in 1997. Long lines of panicked savers waited outside branches of Hong Kong's Bank of East Asia on Sept. 24 after rumors had started circulating the day before by cell-phone message that the bank was in peril because of its exposure to Wall Street's meltdown. Shares fell 6.9%. The run only lasted 24 hours, ending after the bank issued denials and threatened to take legal action against those spreading the rumors. BEA also won support from Hong Kong tycoons such as Li Ka-shing, who snapped up...

List of Nations Banning Chinese Milk Products Grows By VOA News 25 September 2008 South Korea is the latest nation to ban imports of Chinese dairy products after discovering Chinese-made snacks contained a chemical that has sickened thousands of children who consumed contaminated milk. The Korean Food and Drug Administration, KFDA, says tests on more than 100 products found the chemical melamine in two biscuit-type snacks. Officials ordered the products to be removed from store shelves and destroyed. More than a dozen governments in Asia, Africa and Europe have either banned or recalled Chinese dairy products since the scandal broke...

Today, this communism in Chinese society has not dissappeared even 30 years after Deng Xiaoping opened China to the world. While China's fortunes have greatly improved in the last few decades, there is still too much instability in this developing country and Chinese families often find themselves caught up in a frustrating cycle of comfortable prosperity and financial struggle.

Two fall sick after eating Chinese bean paste in Japan Sat Sep 20, 1:26 AM ET Two employees of a Japanese confectionery company fell sick after eating China-made bean paste in the latest apparent food scare here, police and the firm said Saturday. The workers at Marusei Honten confectionery in central Nagano prefecture noticed a strange smell like petroleum oil when they opened the five-kilogram (11-pound) package of red-bean paste on Friday, police said. They tasted it to check on the quality and felt sick soon afterwards, police said.

TOKYO (AFP) — The Bank of Japan said it poured three trillion yen (28.3 billion dollars) into money markets Friday amid continuing concerns over turmoil in financial markets. The Japanese central bank made an early injection of two trillion yen, followed by another one trillion later in the day. The BoJ has made emergency injections twice daily for the past four days, and the latest brings the total to 11 trillion yen since Tuesday.