Japan to provide $17 bn in aid to Asian countries

October 7th, 2009 Japan: US troop review needed for sustainabilityTOKYO — Japan's new foreign minister said Wednesday he wants to review the deployment of U.S. troops in Japan to ease the burden on the people of Okinawa, where many U.S.

July 6th, 2009 US, Japan make progress on opening Japanese marketWASHINGTON — The United States says it has made progress in opening Japan's market to foreign investors. The U.S. trade envoy's office said Monday in an 86-page report that the countries were acting to speed up regulatory reviews for pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

May 4th, 2009 BALI - Developing countries in Asia should be able to rebound from the global economic crisis and reach 6 percent growth next year, the president of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Haruhiko Kuroda, said here Monday. Growth in the region was expected to fall to 3.4 percent this year from 6.3 percent last year and record growth of 9.5 percent in 2007, Kuroda said.

May 3rd, 2009 BALI ISLAND - Japan will establish an emergency fund of up to 60 billion dollars in the event of an Asian financial crisis, Japanese Finance Minister Kauru Yosano said Sunday. The fund is separate from the amount Japan committed to the Chiang Mai Initiative, a $120 billion regional foreign-exchange reserve pool, Yosano told a seminar of the Asian Development Bank's board of governors on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

May 3rd, 2009 BALI - Asian nations Sunday agreed on the make-up of a $120-billion regional liquidity fund designed to counter the global economic crisis. Finance ministers from the 10-member Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Japan, China and South Korea approved the key components of the scheme, including individual country contributions, Indonesian Finance Minister Mulyani Indrawati said.

April 26th, 2009 KOLKATA - Almost 70 percent of the world's terrorist activities occur in Asia and insurgent outfits operate across the globe from the sub-continent, according to a top security expert. 'As far as terrorism and security matters are concerned, the entire focus of global terrorism has shifted from Europe to South Asian countries.

April 15th, 2009 TOKYO - Pakistan Wednesday urged international donor countries to provide support as it tries to restore confidence in the nation's economy and security. 'We are here to ask political and economic support to restore confidence,' Foreign Affairs Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told a press conference in Tokyo.

April 14th, 2009 SINGAPORE - India's ace gofer Jeev Milkha Singh was Tuesday honoured with the honorary membership of the Asian Tour for his outstanding contribution to the game of golf in Asia and across the world. Jeev joins the exclusive club of Asian Tour honorary members which include Vijay Singh of Fiji and Korea's K.J.

March 19th, 2009 TAIPEI - Several Asian countries plan to jointly build a third Asia-Pacific undersea cable to bring faster Internet service to the region, Taiwan media reported Thursday. The countries plan to jointly invest $500 million to lay the Asia-Pacific Cable Network 3 (APCN3), according to the Economic Daily News and the Commercial Times, which cited unnamed Chunghwa Telecom Co sources.

February 23rd, 2009 PHUKET - Finance ministers from Japan, China, South Korea and across South East Asia agreed Sunday to broaden and increase a regional liquidity fund, in the wake of the global financial crisis. The three, plus the ten members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) penned an agreement at a summit in Phuket, Thailand, to 'multilateralise' the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) fund, and to increase it to $120 billion.

February 22nd, 2009 PHUKET - Finance ministers from South-East and East Asia met Sunday on the Thai tourist island of Phuket to try to come up with joint measures to tackle the effects on the region of the global economic slide. Although institutional investors in East Asia generally stayed away from the kind of financial instruments that led to the current economic crisis in the West, the countries of the region have already experienced dramatic falls in volumes of exports to the West, with further drops expected.

February 4th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Jeev Milkha Singh, Asia No. 1, and one of the hottest golfers from the region, favours a dialogue, rather than a confrontation between the Asian Tour and the proposed Super Series.

January 23rd, 2009 NEW DELHI - The announcement of a six-event professional golf series in the Asia-Pacific region - China, Australia and South Korea, with the possibility of Japan joining in - has set the stage for a potential conflict with Asian Tour that governs golf in the continent. The Professional Golfers' Association (PGA) of Australia, which has been keen on a Tour to revive itself as its own tour has failed to elicit interest, announced the series with six events, three of which will be held in China.

January 19th, 2009 CHENNAI - India made a winning start in the Asian junior squash championship team event that began here Tuesday. The Indian boys, led by Aditya Jagtap, Ravi Dixit and Paramjit Singh, outplayed Sri Lanka while the girls, who rested their top player Dipika Pallikal, came through 3-0 against Japan.

January 5th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The global economic turmoil poses a grave threat to developing nations even though their contribution to the cause of the crisis is negligible, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said here Tuesday. 'Given the magnitude of the global financial and economic crisis today, the developing countries may become its worst victims even though they were not the cause of the crisis,' Mukherjee said while delivering his address at the general session of the Afro-Asian Rural Development Organisation (AARDO).