
ASEAN stocks are in for a good day, most have already reached our weekend targets bu the rally will take them beyond that towards new highs.
Wall Street moved u broadly as miners, energy offset MENA unrest.
US stocks hit session highs Wednesday as a rise in mining and energy shares offset worries about unrest in the [...]

TOKYO (Reuters) – Supply chain disruptions in Japan have forced at least one global automaker to delay the launch of two new models and are forcing other industries to shutter plants and rethink their logistical infrastructure.
Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) said on Wednesday it would delay the launch in Japan of two new additions to the [...]

SINGAPORE – Oil prices hung near $105 a barrel Wednesday in Asia as violent uprisings in the Middle East kept traders nervous about possible crude supply disruptions.
Benchmark crude for May delivery was up 4 cents to $105.01 a barrel at late afternoon Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract [...]

TOKYO – Japan’s government said the cost of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the northeast could reach $309 billion, making it the world’s costliest natural disaster on record.
The extensive damage to housing, roads, utilities and businesses across seven prefectures (states) has resulted in losses of between 16 trillion yen ($198 billion) and 25 trillion [...]

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Police say a roadside bomb has struck a donkey cart in northwestern Pakistan, killing the driver.
Police official Ghaffar Khan says Wednesday’s attack occurred near the city of Peshawar.
Police also say a roadside bomb struck a police patrol elsewhere in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Wednesday, wounding six officers. Police official Haleem Khan said [...]

TOKYO – Tokyo Water Bureau officials say levels of radioactive iodine in some city tap water is two times the recommended limit for infants.
The officials told reporters Wednesday that a water treatment center in downtown Tokyo that supplies much of the city’s tap water found that some water contained 210 becquerels per liter of iodine [...]

DHAKA (AFP) – Struggling West Indies need look no further than their manager Richie Richardson for inspiration when they clash with buoyant Pakistan in the World Cup quarter-final on Wednesday.
Richardson was captain when the West Indies overturned the form book in the 1996 quarter-final in Karachi and stunned South Africa, who had come through the [...]

By 9:30 a.m. local time on March 22, the emergency shelter at Saitama Super Arena, just north of Tokyo, had reached its maximum capacity of 500 volunteers. The other 1,500 do-gooders wanting to help the displaced people of Futaba, the town closest to ground zero of the earthquake- and tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, were [...]

HIGASHIMATSUSHIMA, Japan – Crows cawed overhead as tsunami survivors in devastated towns along Japan’s northeast coast buried their dead in makeshift graves en masse Wednesday as workers at Fukushima’s overheated nuclear plant struggled to cool down the crippled facility.
With supplies of fuel and ice dwindling, officials have abandoned cremation in favor of quick, simple burials [...]

TOKYO (Reuters) – Following are main developments after a massive earthquake and tsunami devastated northeast Japan and crippled a nuclear power station, raising the risk of uncontrolled radiation.
- Nuclear plant still emitting radiation but source unclear, says IAEA. The UN atomic watchdog says Japan has not given some information relating to one reactor.
- The United [...]