Asia, Japan Earthquake | featured news

Japan’s sovereign-rating outlook was cut to “negative” by Standard & Poor’s as the nation’s reconstruction needs following last month’s earthquake will likely add to what’s already the world’s biggest debt load.

Toyota Motor Co may slip to No. 3 in the automaker production rankings behind General Motors and Volkswagen due to Japan's earthquake and nuclear crisis, which slashed local output by almost two-thirds in March alone.

Japan's shelters are still packed, with no firm word on when evacuees may return home. Cleaning up the most serious nuclear accident since Chernobyl is likely to take decades and cost Japan an untold fortune.

Japan's cabinet approved on Friday almost $50 billion of spending for post-earthquake rebuilding, a down payment on the country's biggest public works effort in six decades.

The death toll from Japan's March quake and tsunami rose to nearly 14,000 today. Robots sent into the damaged nuclear plant found record high radiation.

Most Japanese want a new prime minister to lead the massive rebuilding needed after last month's earthquake and tsunami, newspaper polls showed on Monday, as the head of government was again scolded in parliament for his handling of the disaster.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday that America would stand by Japan, saying she was confident the country will fully recover from its tsunami and nuclear disasters....

Japan's nuclear crisis is slowly stabilizing and the country must now focus on repairing the damage wrought by the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck the northeast coast a month ago, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said.

Toyota and Nissan they will resume production at all factories in Japan in mid-to-late April at about half their normal pace, joining Honda in an industrywide move to restart production halted by the March 11 earthquake.

Although the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is far from stabilized, evidence suggests that a complete meltdown is unlikely, Obama administration experts say. Meanwhile, a 7.1 aftershock rattles Japan, killing two and injuring more than 130.