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Kyodo news summary+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) TOKYO, Oct. 13_(Kyodo) _ ---------- Japan vows $150 million aid to tackle food crisis, climate change WASHINGTON - Japan pledged Sunday it will provide a total of $150 million over the next five years to help African nations raise their farm productivity and to assist developing economies in tackling natural disasters induced by climate change. Naoyuki Shinohara, vice Japanese finance minister for international affairs, said in his speech to a joint panel of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund that the aid addressing a food crisis and climate change will be offered to developing nations through a trust fund set up at the bank. ---------- IMF chief confident of European financial rescue plan's efficacy WASHINGTON - International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn expressed confidence Sunday that a financial rescue plan worked out by European leaders will contribute to stemming the widening financial market crisis. "We have now a comprehensive response to the crisis and I think that the markets will reflect it," he said at a press conference in Washington, referring to the just-unveiled pan-European action plan for the crisis. ---------- Zoellick stresses need to recapitalize banks in poor nations WASHINGTON - World Bank President Robert Zoellick on Sunday stressed the importance of recapitalizing banks in developing countries that will likely suffer losses from the current global financial turmoil. "We've already started to see distress with some developing countries' financial institutions...Some of the small banks could be under stress, take losses and need recapitalization," Zoellick told a press conference after a one-day meeting of a joint panel of the bank and the International Monetary Fund. ---------- 15 euro nations compile action plan to tackle credit crunch PARIS - Leaders of the 15 euro area countries compiled an action plan Sunday to tackle the expanding financial turmoil in the region at an emergency meeting in Paris. It features capital injections into troubled financial institutions and government guarantees for interbank dealings. ---------- Fed OKs Wells Fargo's takeover of Wachovia WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve said Sunday it has approved major U.S. bank Wells Fargo & Co.'s takeover of troubled Wachovia Corp. after Citigroup Inc. terminated negotiations to acquire Wachovia. "The Federal Reserve Board on Sunday announced its approval of the application...by Wells Fargo & Co., San Francisco, California, to acquire Wachovia Corporation and its subsidiary banks," the Fed said in a statement. ---------- U.S. made concessions, N. Korea also conceded: S. Korea analyst, papers SEOUL - The United States made too many concessions in removing North Korea from its blacklist of terror-sponsoring states, but North Korea, faced with economic difficulties, also conceded in making the deal, a South Korean analyst and newspapers said Monday. "The deal (on delisting North Korea) is an exquisite readjustment of interests as the United States sought to gain a diplomatic achievement with a presidential election a few weeks away" said Cheong Seong Chang, director of the inter-Korean relations studies program at the Sejong Institute. ---------- Australian shares rally on gov't measures to guarantee all deposits SYDNEY - The Australian stock exchange rallied Monday after the government announced new measures to "maintain the stability" of the country's financial system. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced plans Sunday to guarantee all deposits for three years, with an additional guarantee for all wholesale term funding of Australian banks and Australian subsidiaries of foreign-owned banks. ---------- Asian stock markets show mixed reactions to G-7 action plan SHANGHAI - Major stock markets in Asia showed mixed reactions Monday to the action plan that the financial chiefs of the Group of Seven major economies issued Friday in Washington. Several major share price indexes went up Monday morning -- by 4.46 percent in Sydney, 2.83 percent in Seoul and 2.19 percent in Singapore, while others fell -- by 2.80 percent in Taipei and 1.28 percent in Shanghai. ---------- Autopsy conducted on Miura LOS ANGELES - The medical examiner's office in Los Angeles conducted a postmortem Sunday on Japanese businessman Kazuyoshi Miura, who committed suicide at a police detention facility there following his arrival from Saipan to face a trial over the fatal shooting of his then wife in Los Angeles in 1981. The office said it will announce the cause of his death in a few days. ---------- Approval rating for Aso Cabinet falls to 46%: Yomiuri TOKYO - The approval rating for the Cabinet of Prime Minister Taro Aso has fallen to 45.9 percent, down 3.6 percentage points from the immediate aftermath of its launch in late September, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported Monday. The disapproval rating rose 5.2 points from the previous survey on Sept. 24-25 to 38.6 percent, according to the major daily, which conducted the latest survey on Oct. 10-12. Copyright ? 2008 Kyodo News International, Inc. |