Japan said on Tuesday it had received approval from China’s government to purchase 65 billion yuan ($10.3 billion) in Chinese government debt in a move that can help Japan diversify its reserves away from the dollar and strengthen economic ties between the two Asian countries.
The timing of purchases hasn’t been set yet as Japan still needs to make some administrative preparations, but Japan is likely to start with a small amount and then increase purchases, Japan’s Finance Minister Jun Azumi said.
Japan will also consider the impact on financial markets when …

Minoru Mori, who was one of Japan’s most influential developers and built China’s tallest building, died March 8 of a heart ailment. He was 77.
Mori Building Co. officials confirmed the death but did not disclose further details, including the location of his death.
Mr. Mori, from Kyoto, co-founded Mori Building with his father, Taikichiro, in 1959 and became president in 1993, when Japan’s land prices were surging amid its “bubble” economy.
With his visions of a “vertical garden city,” Mr. Mori transformed Tokyo’s landscape with mammoth mixed-use development projects such as Roppongi …

KAMAISHI, Japan — Amid the grief of finding her mother’s body at a makeshift morgue in this tsunami-ravaged city last March, Fumie Arai took comfort in a small but surprising discovery. Unlike the rest of the muddied body, her mother’s face had been carefully wiped clean.
Mrs. Arai did not know at the time, but the act was the work of a retired undertaker well-versed in the ancient Buddhist rituals of preparing the dead for cremation and burial. The undertaker, Atsushi Chiba, a father of five who cared for almost 1,000 …

Japan gathered Sunday amid tears, prayers and a moment of silence to mark one year since an earthquake and tsunami killed thousands, and triggered the world’s worst nuclear crisis in a quarter century.
Throngs nationwide observed a moment of silence at 2:46 p.m. local time (12:46 a.m. ET), the exact time the earth shook on March 11, 2011.
At the main event at a Tokyo theater, hundreds bowed their heads in silence during the service.
“A lot of lives were lost … I feel the grieving families’ pain and I cannot express my …

Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko will attend a memorial service on Sunday for victims of last year’s March 11 disaster, the Imperial Household Agency said Friday.The emperor, 78, was discharged from hospital last Sunday after undergoing heart bypass surgery on Feb 18. He had treatment to remove fluid from his chest on Wednesday after becoming short of breath while walking and not showing much appetite. He has since been walking and doing deep breathing exercises as part of his rehabilitation.
Read the rest of the story: Emperor, empress to attend memorial …

Tokyo prosecutors on Wednesday charged Olympus Corp and six key figures in the $1.7 billion accounting fraud at the camera and endoscope maker, tightening their case in the investigation of one of Japan’s biggest corporate scandals.
Prosecutors charged ex-chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, former executive vice-president Hisashi Mori and former auditor Hideo Yamada with inflating the company’s net worth in financial statements for the fiscal years ended March 2007 and 2008, in violation of the Financial Instruments and Exchange Law.
Also charged were former bankers Akio Nakagawa, Nobumasa Yokoo and Taku Hada, prosecutors said …

Standing before fellow lawmakers in a recent appearance, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda urged on Japan’s “rebirth” in much the same way the nation rebuilt from the “burning fields” of a war-torn land more than 60 years ago.
It was one of several instances in which the natural disaster that struck Japan one year ago was compared with the man-made devastation of World War II. In the year since the monster earthquake last March 11 set off a chain reaction of tragic events, Japan has showcased how far it has rebounded from …

Shareholders of Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc, operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant in northeast Japan, are suing the utility’s executives for a record 5.5 trillion yen ($67.4 billion) in compensation, lawyers said.
The Fukushima Daiichi plant was wrecked by a quake and tsunami last March, triggering the world’s worst nuclear crisis in a quarter of a century and swamping the firm with huge clean-up, compensation and decommissioning costs.
In the biggest claim of its kind in Japan, 42 shareholders filed a lawsuit in the Tokyo District Court on Monday accusing …

One of Asia’s youngest self-made billionaires, 35-year-old Yoshikazu Tanaka looks the part of a young internet tycoon.
The Japanese founder and CEO of mobile social gaming business Gree arrived for his CNN interview wearing a hooded sweatshirt, ripped jeans and a pair bight red shoes. His personal wealth is valued at $2.2 billion so he can afford to wear whatever he wants to the office.
Gree has grown from Tanaka’s self-financed project into a company with a market value of around $7 billion. The share price is more than sevenfold what it …

When should dismay give way to distress?  When does disfunction trip into crisis?I really detest writing–much more thinking–like this, but the politics now prevailing in Tokyo are driving me to distraction.Being debated this week in the Diet are three urgent issues:  1 formal entry into TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks that would open Japanese agriculture to foreign competition, 2 proposed legislation to increase consumption tax from 5% to 10% by 2016 to fund Japan’s old age security system; and 3 the FY2012 budget, including authorization to issue new debt to …