Japan Herald news Japan Herald news Rss feed

  • April sees Japan trade deficit jump to 879.9bn yen April sees Japan trade deficit jump to 879.9bn yen

    TOKYO - Japan's trade deficit rose substantially more than expected in the month April to 879.9 billion yen ($8.6 billion), which is a 70% jump over the trade deficit during the corresponding month a year earlier, the Finance Ministry said Wednesday.. The deficit, for the tenth consecutive month, was wider than what many economists had forecast. A survey from the Nikkei business daily ...

  • Japanese economy has begun to recover central bank

    Japan's central bank said Wednesday that it will continue pursuing its current stimulus program and that the country's economy "has begun to recover" thanks to a reversal in the decline of exports, which account for 40 percent of Japanese GDP. "Domestic demand remains resilient due to the effects of the monetary relaxation measures" and the recently-approved stimulus policies, the Bank of Japan ...

  • UN agency to open nuclear emergency preparedness centre in Fukushima UN agency to open nuclear emergency preparedness centre in Fukushima

    22 May 2013 150 Experts from the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are heading to Japan to launch an emergency preparedness and response centre in Fukushima, the coastal city devastated two years ago when a massive earthquake and tsunami set off meltdowns at a nuclear power plant. The IAEA, supported by the Government of Japan, will designate a new Response and ...

  • Nikkei’s nosedive Blame it on optimism

    Japan's growth spurt shows early benefits of Abe's policy gamble The last time Japan's benchmark index fell this sharply was in 2011, when Japan was hit by a devastating earthquake and tsunami, which sent the Nikkei tumbling 10.6 per cent. Before that, you have to go back all the way to 1987, when it fell 14.9 per cent.Thursday's decline follows numerous signs of rising ...

  • Japan and North Korea The frogman cometh

    The Yokotas have not lost hope FOR Shigeru and Sakie Yokota, their daughter seems at once far away and tantalisingly near. Megumi Yokota was kidnapped in 1977, at the age of 13, as she walked home from school. North Korean agents walked up the beach near her home and dragged her back to their boat. Her parents, now elderly, know that she married a South Korean who had also been abducted, and ...

Movie Review

Grease 2 [DVD]

Grease 2 [DVD]

There was a time when I might have tried to mount a vigorous defense for Grease 2, arguing that it is not nearly as bad as it is often made out to be. Following the original Grease, a Broadway hit and the most successful movie musical of all time, how could Grease 2 be anything but a disappointment? It lacked the star power of then-red-hot John Travolta, the chance to exploit ... ...

On Facebook

  • The Warning Signs Ahead of Nikkei Selloff

    A perfect storm of yen strength, a spike in Japanese government bond yields and new evidence of weakness in China's economy sparked a major sell-off in Japan's equity markets on ...

  • Al Saleh Calls for the Need to Activate Cooperation Agreements Signed with Japan

    Manama, May 23. (BNA) -- Shura Council Chairman Ali bin Saleh Al-Saleh has lauded the advanced level of the Bahraini-Japanese relations strengthened thanks to the support of the two countries' leaderships, recalling the fruitful results of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa's recent visit to Japan. This came as he received here the Bahrain-Japan Business & Friendship ...

  • Why Japans stock plunge unnerved Wall Street

    NEW YORK -- It took Japan's biggest one-day stock plunge since the tsunami in March 2011 to remind investors around the globe that even a white-hot stock market can cool in a hurry when information changes and investors get spooked enough to question their investment thesis. In a span of 24 hours, the perception of stocks as the only investment worth owning in a world of rock-bottom ...

  • Markets fall as Japan stocks slide

    23 May 2013 Financial markets around the world have fallen after Japanese stocks suffered their biggest slide since the country was hit by a devastating tsunami more than two years ...

  • No ones particularly sure why the Nikkei dropped 7 overnight

    Well that was fast. Japanese financial markets have experienced a stunning rise over the past six months, as a new government led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe introduced policies of aggressive Keynesian stimulus paired with equally aggressive monetary easing by the Bank of Japan. The surest, steadiest bet on global financial markets in that time has been on rising Japanese stocks and a falling ...

More Japan Herald news