Ex-Mizuho credit exec Rekeda may face SEC lawsuit over dodgy CDO
U.S. regulators, as part of a broad probe of how Wall Street firms bundled mortgage-linked financial products as the housing crisis worsened, notified a former Mizuho Financial Group Inc. executive he may be sued for his role in structuring the securities.
Alexander Rekeda, who was previously head of structured credit in the Americas at Mizuho, received a so-called Wells notice in October informing him that Securities and Exchange Commission staff intend to recommend enforcement action against him for allegedly making misrepresentations about a collateralized debt obligation, according to his public broker filings.

A false spring in South Asia
From the armed coup that recently ousted the Maldives' first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed, to the Pakistani Supreme Court's current effort to undermine a toothless but elected government by indicting Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on contempt charges, South Asia's democratic advances appear to be shifting into reverse.
Nasheed's forced resignation at gunpoint has made the Maldives the third country in the region, after Nepal and Sri Lanka, where a democratic transition has been derailed. The Maldives, a group of strategically located islands in the Indian Ocean, now seems set for prolonged instability.

Micronesia to spend aid in Tohoku
Japan will extend ¥250 million in foreign aid to Micronesia for the purchase of industrial products from the Tohoku region, which was hit by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.
Micronesia will buy items using the aid from a list of products manufactured by small firms operating in 10 prefectures, including Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, that have been designated Tokyo as disaster-affected areas.

Hitachi unveils humanoid service robot
A new humanoid service robot that can communicate with people has the potential to work in hospitals and offices.
On Tuesday, Hitachi Ltd. showed media the EMIEW2, which can recognize objects based on an image database containing some 100 million items and determine its location in a room by cross-checking the data with photos taken by indoor cameras. It can also guide people to objects when asked.

Grandparents stifle grief to raise orphaned boy
In the three prefectures hardest hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake last March 11, 1,580 children lost either one or both of their parents, according to a health ministry survey of Iwate, Fukushima and Miyagi conducted at the end of last year.
According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry's poll, most of those children are being cared for by relatives.

Is the World Wide Web about to be 'closed'?
Within the tech community, there is much angst about whether the Web is about to be "closed." Will it be controlled by companies like Apple, Facebook, and Google, or will it remain "open" to all?
Will individuals be able to reach any content they choose? Will developers be able to serve users on any platform?

Obayashi planning nanotube 'space elevator' in 2050
A space trip using an elevator may come true in 2050, as general contractor Obayashi Corp. is planning to construct a "space elevator" stretching 96,000 km above the ground.
While the concept of such an elevator has been described in science fiction novels, the construction has become possible after the 1991 discovery of carbon nanotube, a lightweight material more than 20 times stronger than steel, the company said.

Lithuania follows nuclear path
While the meltdown crisis in Fukushima has raised awareness around the world of the dangers of nuclear power, Lithuania, with its limited natural resources, appears to have little choice but to rely on atomic energy to reduce its heavy reliance on natural gas from Russia.
"We now import about 70 percent of electricity from other countries to Lithuania," Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius said in a recent interview in Tokyo. "We do not have oil resources, gas resources and coal (resources). So for us, nuclear energy is an obvious choice."

Nagoya mayor won't budge on Nanjing remark
Nagoya Mayor Takashi Kawamura on Wednesday refused to retract his contentious comments about the veracity of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre and said he is ready to visit the city to explain his views.
Speaking Monday to a group of Chinese Communist Party members from Nanjing, Kawamura said he was skeptical about whether the Imperial Japanese Army actually raped and slaughtered thousands of Nanjing residents during the war.

Monkeys' Parkinson's woes eased via stem cells
Researchers have succeeded in improving the treatment of Parkinson's disease by using human embryonic stem cells to create nerve cells that produce dopamine and then transplanting the cells into monkeys' brains.
Four monkeys with Parkinson's disease — and previously unable to walk due to their symptoms — improved substantially after the human nerve cells were transplanted into their brains, reducing the shaking in their limbs and leading to some regaining the ability to walk, the research team, including Kyoto University professor Jun Takahashi, said Tuesday.

Fearing radiation, Naha cuts Aomori snow fete
The city of Naha, Okinawa, will cancel an event using snow from Aomori Prefecture amid concern that it might be tainted with radiation from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
The 600 kg of snow carried to Naha from the Aomori town of Towada — roughly 350 km away from the crippled plant — was proved safe after Naha checked it for radiation, city officials said.

Relief over another Greek deal
Greece and the European Union have reached another deal. A second bailout will avert a Greek bankruptcy, although the reprieve is likely to be only temporary. The harsh austerity measures that the EU is demanding as a condition of its aid, ironically, are likely to make it even harder for Athens to reach its debt targets. But the deal has bought Greece and the EU time to prepare for the next crunch and its potential to spill over into other parts of the union.
Both Greece and the EU have struggled with that country's solvency since the scale of its indebtedness became known a couple of years ago. (Creative budgeting hid the size of the country's problems from the Greek public, opposition politicians and the EU itself.) The prospect of bankruptcy and a subsequent contagion among other euro economies spurred the EU to inject $145 billion in May 2010, an effort that ultimately failed as restructuring measures could not put the economy back on its feet.

Hitotsubashi mulls five-month lag
A panel at Hitotsubashi University is considering a five-month lag between student enrollment in spring and the start of classes in fall to avoid changing the academic year from April and fall in line with the international norm, officials said Wednesday.
The idea may have an impact on other universities that are thinking of switching the start of their academic year from April to fall to facilitate the acceptance of international students.

Mazda plans to raise ¥230 billion
Mazda Motor Corp. announced Wednesday it will raise some ¥230 billion in March to expand its production capacity in emerging countries and develop next-generation technologies.
Mazda plans to issue up to ¥162.7 billion in new shares, including 1,099.75 million shares for a public offering and 119.25 million for private placement. The equity issues are expected to boost the number of its outstanding shares by up to 68 percent.

Proposed monument misses why we like Ike
Two coming developments, one dismal and one excellent, pertain to America's memory of a great man. One of several oversight panels soon will consider a proposed memorial to Dwight Eisenhower. The proposal is an exhibitionistic triumph of theory over function — more a monument to its creator Frank Gehry, practitioner of architectural flamboyance, than to the most underrated president.
Fortunately comes Jean Edward Smith's biography "Eisenhower in War and Peace," which demonstrates why the man's achievements merit a memorial better than the proposed one.

Cesium found 640 km off Fukushima in June
Radioactivity from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant disaster has been detected as far away as 643 km offshore in the Pacific Ocean.
Scientists say ocean water showed readings of up to 1,000 times prior levels of cesium-137 from the stricken Fukushima plant. But they say the new readings are far below the levels that are generally considered harmful, either to marine animals or people who eat seafood.

Auto parts maker Denso targets ¥4 trillion in sales in four years
Major auto parts maker Denso Corp. aims to expand its annual group sales by about a third in four years to ¥4 trillion under a new medium-term business plan starting in April, company President Nobuaki Kato said.
Denso, which forecasts group sales of ¥3.11 trillion for the current business year through March, will focus in coming years on developing and marketing parts for small cars in emerging markets, including China, Kato said.

Kuwait scraps nuclear power in light of 3/11
Kuwait is no longer pursuing nuclear power following the disaster in Japan, scrapping a plan last July to build four reactors by 2022, officials of a Kuwaiti government research body said Tuesday.
While a number of countries, including Germany, Switzerland and Italy, have decided to turn away from nuclear power due to the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant crisis, it is rare for a country that has signed a civil nuclear power cooperation agreement with Japan to do so.

Activist acquitted in assault in Taiji
A Dutch activist linked to radical antiwhaling group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society was acquitted Wednesday of assaulting a Japanese worker in the whaling town of Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, in December.
In his ruling on Erwin Vermeulen, 42, Judge Satoshi Shibayama said the Wakayama District Court could not rule out the possibility his accuser was lying and that "there remains doubt over the credibility of the testimony, which is the only evidence" in the case.

Pandas power rebound at Ueno Zoo
Tokyo's Ueno Zoo has already been visited by more than 4 million people this fiscal year, thanks to the arrival of two giant pandas from China that haved helped it top the mark for the first time in 19 years, zoo officials said Wednesday.
"At the current pace, we expect 4.4 million people to have visited the zoo by the end of March," one official said, noting the tally broke 4.05 million at the end of last month.

Woman in '70s held in Shibuya stabbing
A 61-year-old woman suffered serious stab wounds in the back and arm Wednesday afternoon in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward, and a woman in her 70s was later arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, according to police and fire officials.
The police are checking if the suspect, who claims to be from Fukuoka, is mentally competent to be held criminally liable, as she has made strange comments, including: "I got upset from being stared at," police officials said.

Transcripts sketch out NRC's 3/11 confusion
Transcripts of phone conversations immediately after the March disasters, released Tuesday by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, reveal the early sense of urgency and confusion about the crisis unfolding at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
The transcripts include lengthy discussions justifying NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko's controversial decision to urge Americans living within a 50-mile (80 km) radius of the stricken nuclear plant to evacuate. They show the decision was based in part on an assessment — now thought to be erroneous — that the reactor 4 spent-fuel pool at the No. 1 plant had been drained of liquids and its walls had "crumbled," in the words of one official, releasing radioactive elements into the environment.

Australia refrains from declaring support for TPP bid
Australia refrained from declaring support for Japan's participation in negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade initiative during the two countries' first preliminary talks Tuesday in Canberra, sources said.
While Australia indicated it would welcome Japan's participation in the multilateral negotiations, it demanded Tokyo introduce a high level of farm market liberalization, the sources said.

Koshu wine wins high praise from Paris sommeliers
Winemakers from Yamanashi Prefecture held their first tasting event of the Koshu variety Monday in Paris, winning high acclaim from local sommeliers for their extremely delicate taste.
About 100 sommeliers and wine experts took part in the event sponsored by Koshu of Japan, or KOJ, which is comprised of 13 wine producers in Yamanashi and other local business groups, with the aim of promoting in Europe their white wines made from Koshu grapes endemic to Japan.

Christchurch remembers quake dead
More than 10,000 New Zealanders and 90 people from Japan, some teary eyed, stood in silence at a Christchurch park Wednesday while police officers and firefighters read out the names of all 185 people who died in a devastating earthquake one year ago.
The reading was followed by two minutes of silence at 12:51 p.m., the minute the magnitude 6.1 quake struck. It destroyed thousands of homes and much of downtown Christchurch, causing $25 billion in damage by the government's estimate.