Japanese Encephalitis Virus

Three more kids die of Japanese encephalitis, toll 332

Three more children succumbed to the killer Japanese encephalitis virus Monday, taking the toll in eastern Uttar Pradesh to 332, officials said.

“Of these, 305 are children and 27 adults,” an official spokesman told IANS.

As many as 1,942 cases of Japanese encephalitis were detected during the current monsoon season, when the virus spreads, the spokesman added.

The districts to be affected by the disease were Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deoria, Maharajganj, Sant Kabir Nagar, Basti, and Siddharth Nagar, he said.

K.P. Kushwaha, who heads the encephalitis unit at the BR Medical College in Gorakhpur that has become the nodal centre for dealing with JE said that they also received a lot of patients from neighbouring Bihar.

As per hospital records, about 250 patients admitted over the past two months were from Bihar.

Japan Nuclear Plant

Japan nuclear plant releases radioactive water.

Japan nuclear plant releases radioactive water into sea. Fukushima plant begins to discharge 11,500 tonnes of water into Pacific to make space for more highly contaminated liquid.

The operator of Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant has started breaking its own regulations by discharging 11,500 tonnes of contaminated water into the Pacific to make space for more highly radioactive liquid.

The release of water that is 100 times the legal limit is an unprecedented breach of operating standards, but it is considered necessary so workers can concentrate on containing more severe leaks.

The government justified the action as the lesser of two evils. Recent samples of contaminated seawater from the leak show radiation levels at 4,000 times the legal standard.

"We didn't have any other alternatives," the chief cabinet secretary, Yukio Edano, told reporters. "This is a measure we had to take to secure safety."

The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric, said it would discharge 10,000 tonnes of water from its waste treatment facility and a further 1,500 tonnes that have collected in pits outside reactors No 5 and No 6.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has been notified of the discharge. On a website update, it said the Japanese authorities explained the move was necessary "to have sufficient capacity to store highly contaminated water found in the basement of the Unit 2 turbine building".

Tokyo Electric estimates the potential additional annual dose to a member of the public would be approximately 0.6 millisieverts if they ate seaweed and seafood caught near the plant every day for a year. The annual permissible level for the general public in Japan is one millisievert.

Workers have been battling to control radiation leaks since the magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami crippled the plant's cooling system on 11 March, leading to a partial meltdown of the reactor.

Earlier attempts to cool the reactor by hosing water from fire engines and helicopters have left pools of contaminated water and flooded basements, hampering the containment operation and efforts to restart the cooling pumps.

Highly radioactive water is seeping from at least one point at reactor No 2, where a 20cm crack has been found in a concrete pit. It is thought to be leaking into an inflow conduit for seawater, but there may be other paths of contamination. Plant workers have started to dye the water a milky white colour so they can trace its route.

At the weekend workers tried and failed to plug the crack by using 80kg of highly absorbent polymer (more commonly used in nappies) mixed with shredded newspaper and sawdust. A previous attempt to use concrete had a similar outcome.

Edano said the situation must be stabilised as soon as possible because a long-term leak "will have a huge impact on the ocean".Critics of Japan's nuclear industry said the authorities were confronted with a dilemma that was unique in the history of nuclear power: whether to keep cooling the reactors and spent fuel or reduce the water being pumped into the plant, which is overflowing the capacity of the trenches.

"As a result of Tokyo Electric's desperate but failed efforts to cool the reactors, they are about to release perhaps an unprecedented amount of radioactivity into the environment," said Shaun Burnie, a nuclear consultant to Greenpeace Germany. "If the Japanese government were to take a cupful of this water and take it outside their territorial waters it would be illegal under the law of sea dumping convention."

As a temporary measure to ease the leak, Japan's nuclear and industrial safety agency has recommended the construction of an undersea silt barrier."A silt fence ensures that mud down deep doesn't seep through," said Hidehiko Nishiyama, Japan's spokesman on nuclear safety.

Officials said the situation is unlikely to be under control for several months. Independent analysts warn it might take years.

Giant concrete pumps are being sent to the area from overseas. The government has also asked Tokyo Electric to look into the possibility of covering the plant with sheets pinned to a steel frame.

But the more radioactivity that enters the air and water, the harder such countermeasures become. Tokyo Electric has said the plant will never recover and some areas are so contaminated that workers cannot get near them.

"I don't know if we can ever enter the No 3 reactor building again," Hikaru Kuroda, the company's chief of nuclear facility management, said on Sunday.

The situation dominated a meeting in Vienna of signatories to the convention on nuclear safety, which was supposed to prevent a repeat of the disasters at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl."I know you will agree with me that the crisis at Fukushima Daiichi has enormous implications for nuclear power and confronts all of us with a major challenge," Yukiya Amano, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told participants. "We cannot take a 'business as usual' approach."

Although the nuclear threat has yet to claim a life, it has overshadowed the severe humanitarian crisis faced by survivors of the tsunami, which killed 12,157 people and has left 15,496 missing. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their homes and millions are still affected by shortages of electricity.

Radiation spikes add to nuclear peril in Japan

Reporting from Sendai and Tokyo, Japan

Officials face another setback in their struggle to contain the Fukushima nuclear reactor crisis. In a rare address, Emperor Akihito says he is praying for his people.

A series of grim developments hit a shaken Japan on Wednesday, including reports that high-level radiation may have leaked from a second damaged nuclear reactor and that emergency workers were forced to temporarily scramble for safety.

The setbacks aggravated public fears that authorities might not be able to contain the expanding nuclear crisis.

Japan's chief Cabinet secretary, Yukio Edano, said radioactive steam might have escaped from the containment unit of a second reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 (Daiichi) plant 150 miles north of Tokyo. The announcement followed unsettling news that a midmorning surge in radiation had forced emergency workers to halt their efforts to try to avert a meltdown of three other reactors at the plant, work that included the crucial task of keeping water on the reactors' overheated cores.


The burgeoning crisis has imposed a deepening isolation on the earthquake- and tsunami-battered country, with foreigners fleeing in growing numbers, rescue crews mindful of exit routes and international flights being diverted from the capital.

Another quake, centered off the coast near Tokyo and given a preliminary magnitude of 6, jolted the capital shortly after Edano's announcement, further fraying nerves.

In a rare televised address that reflected the worsening situation, Emperor Akihito told his people not to give up hope and offered his condolences to the victims of last week's natural disasters.

"I pray for the safety of as many people as possible," said the 77-year-old monarch, seated in a wood-paneled reception room at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.

In the country's north, tens of thousands of residents within about a 20-mile radius of the Fukushima plant were essentially trapped indoors for a second day Wednesday, urged again by authorities to avoid going out unless it was an emergency. That confinement coincided with growing hardship across the quake zone, where temperatures have dropped and snow fell overnight.

"Yesterday, we ate a bit of rice and one egg," said Yoshiko Tsuzuki, 55, a homemaker waiting in a line outside a grocery store on the outskirts of the battered city of Sendai. "We're hungry. I want to buy water and anything to eat. We need everything."

It remained unclear why a nation renowned for its efficiency has been unable to marshal convoys of supply trucks into the disaster area, as China did after its 2008 earthquake. Though military vehicles were evident, few emergency supplies were seen on the major arteries from Tokyo into the hard-hit Tohuku region and other seriously affected areas.

Even in cities that lie well outside the quake zone, daily life was increasingly disrupted by rolling blackouts and the curtailment of Japan's much-vaunted transportation network, both of which will be key to restarting the engine of the world's third-largest economy.

Stock prices stabilized Wednesday after tumbling for two days, but there was deepening gloom over the long-term financial outlook after the worst earthquake in the country's recorded history, a concern even among people who have far more immediate and pressing fears.

"I'm worried in the long term about Japan's economy," said Yoshiko Konno, in her 60s, as she charged her cellphone at a community center in Sendai. "Just think of one example: oysters! Are Americans and Europeans going to want to import Japanese oysters if they think there is a danger of radioactive contamination?"

Five days later, the true scale of the disaster is still unknown. At least 10,000 people are feared dead, a tally that is expected to take weeks to finalize. About half a million others have been displaced by quake and tsunami damage or the evacuation triggered by the emergency at Fukushima, a once-obscure nuclear plant that is now the focus of worldwide attention.

The cause of a blaze that erupted earlier Wednesday at the Unit 4 reactor -- also the scene of a fire the day before -- was not immediately known. The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., known as Tepco, said radiation levels were too high for firefighters to get close.

Later, authorities said the blaze seemed to be subsiding on its own, as the previous one did. But hours later, public television broadcaster NHK showed live aerial video of a plume of white smoke rising from the reactor.

At the plant, desperate and improvisational measures have become the rule. Japanese Self-Defense Forces helicopters took off from a nearby base Wednesday afternoon carrying giant red buckets on a line used to scoop up seawater to douse the plant's Unit 3 reactor building. Tepco told nuclear safety officials they had no other way of cooling the reactor's fuel rods.

Nuclear safety officials had originally ruled out the possibility of using such a measure for Unit 4 because of the possibility of a hydrogen explosion like the ones that blew off the outer steel and concrete covering of Units 1 and 3. And Kyodo later reported that the helicopters were unable to drop water due to high levels of radiation.

Japan earthquake shakes Tokyo buildings 2011

Japan earthquake: 7.2 tremor shakes Tokyo buildings

An earthquake of 7.2 magnitude has struck off the coast of Japan, shaking buildings in the capital, Tokyo, and triggering a small tsunami.

The tremor was centred 168km (104 miles) from the east coast, north-east of Tokyo.

A 60cm (24in) tsunami reached the coastal town of Ofunato, with other towns reporting smaller waves shortly after the quake hit at 1145 (0245 GMT).

There are so far no reports of damage or injuries.

Japan is well-prepared for quakes which often hit the seismically active area.

An aftershock measuring 6.3 magnitude struck after the main quake, Japan's meteorological agency said, followed by a series of smaller aftershocks.

Some train services in the area were temporarily halted after the quake, but they were restarted shortly after noon.

Tohoku Electric Power said its Onagawa nuclear plant was operating normally after the quake and Tokyo Electric Power also said its power supplies were unaffected.

Tsunami in Japan after Earth quake

Tsunami hits north-eastern Japan after massive quake

A massive 8.9 magnitude quake hit northeast Japan Friday, causing many injuries, fires and a four-meter (13-ft) tsunami along parts of the country's coastline.

There were several strong aftershocks and a warning of a 10-meter tsunami following the quake, which also caused buildings to shake violently in the capital Tokyo.

TV pictures showed a vast wall of water carrying buildings and debris across a large swathe of coastal farmland.

Public broadcaster NHK showed flames and black smoke billowing from a building in Odaiba, a Tokyo suburb, and bullet trains to the north of the country were halted.

Black smoke was also pouring out of an industrial area in Yokohama's Isogo area. TV footage showed boats, cars and trucks floating in water after a small tsunami hit the town of Kamaichi in northern Japan. An overpass, location unknown, appeared to have collapsed into the water.

Kyodo news agency said there were reports of fires in the city of Sendai in the northeast.

"The building shook for what seemed a long time and many people in the newsroom grabbed their helmets and some got under

their desks," Reuters correspondent Linda Sieg said in Tokyo.

"It was probably the worst I have felt since I came to Japan more than 20 years ago."

Passengers on a subway line in Tokyo screamed and grabbed other passengers' hands. The shaking was so bad it was hard to stand, said Reuters reporter Mariko Katsumura.

Hundreds of office workers and shoppers spilled into Hitotsugi street, a shopping street in Akasaka in downtown Tokyo.

Household goods ranging from toilet paper to clingfilm were flung into the street from outdoor shelves in front of a drugstore.

Crowds gathered in front of televisions in a shop next to the drugstore for details. After the shaking from the first quake subsided, crowds were watching and pointing to construction cranes on an office building up the street with voices saying, "They're still shaking!," "Are they going to fall?"

Asagi Machida, 27, a web designer in Tokyo, sprinted from a coffee shop when the quake hit.

"The images from the New Zealand earthquake are still fresh in my mind so I was really scared. I couldn't believe such a big earthquake was happening in Tokyo."

Earthquake struck off Tokyo - Japan

Japan earthquake: 7.2 tremor shakes Tokyo buildings

An earthquake of 7.2 magnitude has struck off the coast of Japan, shaking buildings in the capital, Tokyo, and triggering a small tsunami.

The tremor was centred 168km (104 miles) from the east coast, north-east of Tokyo.

A 60cm (24in) tsunami reached the coastal town of Ofunato, with other towns reporting smaller waves shortly after the quake hit at 1145 (0245 GMT).

There are so far no reports of damage or injuries.

Japan is well-prepared for quakes which often hit the seismically active area.

An aftershock measuring 6.3 magnitude struck after the main quake, Japan's meteorological agency said, followed by a series of smaller aftershocks.

Some train services in the area were temporarily halted after the quake, but they were restarted shortly after noon.

Tohoku Electric Power said its Onagawa nuclear plant was operating normally after the quake and Tokyo Electric Power also said its power supplies were unaffected.

Food poisoning in Hokkaido schools.

Japan mass food poisoning fears in Hokkaido schools.

More than 950 schoolchildren have fallen ill at nine schools on Japan's northern Hokkaido island in a suspected outbreak of food poisoning.

Thirteen children are in hospital in the city of Iwamizawa; 48 teachers and other school staff also have symptoms.

The affected schools will remain closed until the end of the week.

The outbreak was so widespread because, like many cities in Japan, Iwamizawa operates large central kitchens which deliver food each day to many schools.

Three of these kitchens have been shut as well while an investigation is carried out.

The children began to fall ill last week after eating lunch of miso soup, salad and Japanese radish with minced meat.

In all 953 students have been affected but none is in a critical condition.

The health authorities in Hokkaido suspect a salmonella infection may be to blame but have yet to determine the cause of the outbreak.

Dave Lindahl Scam

Japan warns China on 'extreme nationalism'

Japan warns China against 'extreme nationalism'.

Japan China News Updates! apan has warned China that both nations must avoid stirring up "extreme nationalism" in their ongoing row over the detention of a Chinese sea captain.

The Japanese government said it wanted to use all possible channels to avoid any further escalation.

China responded by saying it would not meet Japanese leaders on the sidelines of a UN summit in New York this week.

Beijing has demanded the release of the skipper, whose boat hit two Japanese patrol vessels in disputed waters.

The BBC's Roland Buerk in Tokyo says Japan's government is trying to persuade China to take the heat out of the damaging row.

The Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshito Sengoku, said officials "should be careful not to arouse narrow-minded extreme nationalism", not just in China, but in Japan and other countries too.

Just hours later, the Chinese foreign ministry said a meeting between Premier Wen Jiabao and his Japanese counterpart Naoto Kan would be inappropriate.

The dispute began two weeks ago when a Chinese fishing boat collided with two Japanese patrol ships near uninhabited islands in the East China Sea which both countries claim, as does Taiwan.

The islands, which lie north of Taiwan and south of Japan's Okinawa prefecture, have rich fishing grounds and may have oil and gas deposits.

The boat's captain was arrested on suspicion of deliberately ramming the vessels.

When a Japanese court extended his detention on Sunday for a further 10 days, China severed senior level government contacts.

Meanwhile, 1,000 young Japanese due to travel to the Shanghai Expo this week were told by Beijing they were no longer welcome.

Striking a conciliatory tone, Mr Sengoku said regional growth depended on the relationship between Asia's two biggest economies.

But he said the case was a legal matter, and the government would have to win China's understanding of Japan's judicial and political system.

Read more >>

Japan Economy 2010 Goes slow down

Japan GDP figures show sharp slowing of economic growth.

Japan relies on exports for growth but the strong yen is making that more difficult

Economic growth in Japan weakened significantly in the last financial quarter, official figures show.

Between April and June this year gross domestic product - the sum of the nation's goods and services - grew by 0.1%, much lower than expected.

Analysts say the country's export-led recovery appears to be faltering as the value of the yen appreciates.

Germany and the US recently reported far superior GDP figures for the same period.

Germany registered a 2.2% rise, while the US economy grew at an annualised rate of 2.4%.

The BBC's Roland Buerk in Tokyo says Japan remains one of the wealthiest and most prosperous countries in the world, but the trajectory of its economy has been clear for years.

World Bank figures show that in the first eight years of this century Japan's economy expanded by just 5% while China's grew by 261%.

The GDP figures give further credibility to the widely held belief that China will soon overtake Japan as the world's second biggest economy.

That will become clearer early in 2011, when GDP figures for the whole of 2010 become available for each country.

Japanese shares closed lower after the announcement, with the benchmark Nikkei 225 index falling 0.6% to 9,196.67.

Read Full Story >>

Japan economy 2010

Japan economic growth slows down.

Economic growth in Japan weakened significantly in the last financial quarter, official figures show.

Between April and June this year gross domestic product - the sum of the nation's goods and services - grew by 0.1%, much lower than expected.

Analysts say the country's export-led recovery appears to be faltering as the value of the yen appreciates.

Japan's close rivals, Germany and the US, recently reported far superior GDP figures for the same period.

Germany registered a 2.2% rise, while the US economy grew at an annualised rate of 2.4%.

World Bank figures show that in the first eight years of this century Japan's economy expanded by just 5% while China's grew by 261%.

The GDP figures give further credibility to the widely held belief that China will soon overtake Japan as the world's second biggest economy.

That will become clearer early in 2011, when GDP figures for the whole of 2010 become available for each country.

Japanese shares closed lower after the announcement, with the benchmark Nikkei 225 index falling 0.6% to 9,196.67.

Dr Seijiro Takeshita, director of Mizuho International, said Japan's government had made a mistake in its policy choice.

"The problem for Japan was they were going for short-termism as far as policy was concerned. They were trying to put a bandage over a deep wound," he told the BBC.

"Private consumption didn't take off because our economy is still so dependent on external demand or exports.

"What they should have done is made much more transformation into the domestic side, which would have induced much more spending and most importantly created more jobs in the Japanese workplace."

Japan has relied on exports for growth, but the problem is that the yen has been rising, making Japan less competitive abroad, the BBC's Roland Buerk says.

For Full Story

Remembering Hiroshima

65th Hiroshima memorial heralds new world order.

One of the most popular pieces on display at Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Museum is a wristwatch; its hands frozen at 8:15, the exact moment in 1945 that an American B-29 bomber dropped its atomic payload over the city.

On August 6, 1945– 64 years ago today– the USA B-29 bomber, known as the Enola Gay, dropped the world’s first atom bomb, called “Little Boy,” over the city of Hiroshima, Japan. As a result of the bomb:

• 140,000 people were killed or died within an year from the effects of the blast and radiation;
• 35,000 people were injured;
• 62,000 buildings (nearly 70% of all buildings in the city) were destroyed.

Three days later, on August 9, 1945, the “Fat Man” atom bomb was dropped over Nagasaki, killing another 80,000 people. On August 15, 1945, Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers, ending the Pacific War and therefore World War II.

Survivor Masahiro Kunishige has long felt that progress in creating a world free of nuclear weapons was, much like the watch, halted.

That is why he, unlike other survivors, known in Japan as the Hibukasha, chose for years not to speak about his personal ordeal.

"The Hibukasha's campaign to denuclearise lacked momentum," he says. "But now the US president has expressed concerns and goals. That has changed everything."

Turning point

For Kunishige, Barack Obama's pledge, made last spring, to work to rid the world of its nuclear weapons stockpile was a turning point. It convinced Kunishige, that he too should start publicly speaking out.

"I used to be filled with bitterness, and wanted retribution ... I now believe working to rid the world of nuclear weapons is the best way to find that retribution," he says.

Kunishige was just 14 years old when the bomb was dropped. He and his classmates were tending to a wheat field when they were hit by a white flash. Those who awoke found that much of their flesh had literally melted away.

"We had to scrape off what remained. It felt like the top of a can, slicing through your flesh. It was so painful."

As Kunishige walks the grounds of the 30-acre Peace Memorial park, he thinks less of the past; his mood is one of determined optimism.

For the first time, the US and its second world war allies, France and Britain, will send delegations to the annual memorial.

"It is a small, but significant step forward," says Kunishige.

The arguments in the US against attending have often been that it is "politically incorrect" for allied nations who supported the bombings to be there. More hawkish defenders have insisted that visiting would lead people to forget that Japan was the aggressor, not the victim, in that war.

For image-conscious political strategists, the strongest argument for not having a presence has always been the quandary of contradiction; how to attend a ceremony dedicated to eliminating nuclear weapons, when ones nation itself continues to carry them.

Obama's pledge not only addressed such a concern, but has given this ceremony, Kunishige believes, greater meaning.

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World's oldest person, 114, dies in Japan

The world's oldest person, a Japanese woman on the southern island of Okinawa, has died a week before her 115th birthday, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Kama Chinen, who witnessed three centuries, died Sunday, according to Kaoru Shijima, a spokeswoman at her care facility.

Petite and gray-haired, Chinen spent her final years at a care center in Nanjo on southeastern Okinawa. She was born on May 10, 1895, according to the Gerontology Research Group , which tracks individuals of extremely old age.

Her family guarded her privacy closely, and details regarding her death were not released to the press — many Japanese newspapers didn't even give her name.

Chinen became the world's oldest known person when Gertrude Baines died in a Los Angeles hospital at age 115 in September.

The oldest human is now 114-year-old Eugenie Blanchard, a French woman born on Feb. 16, 1896, according to the research group. The group has validated 75 "supercentenarians" worldwide who are at least 110 years old, according to its website.

Japan has a high percentage of the world's centenarians, many of whom are from the southern Okinawa region.

There were more than 40,000 Japanese over 100 years old when the government released its annual report in September. Over 86 percent of them were women.

By 2050, Japan's centenarian population is expected to reach nearly 1 million, according to U.N. projections.

Japan still world's 2nd largest economy

Japan, China in Race to Be World's No. 2 Economy.

Retaining its position as the world's second largest economy, Japan's economy grew at a faster-than-expected pace of 1.1% in the last three months of 2009.

China, the fastest growing large economy, clocked a growth rate of 10.7% in the quarter ending December 31, 2009, bringing it within sniffing distance of surpassing Japan as the world's second largest economy.

The Japanese cabinet office today said the "island nation's economy, which is primarily export-driven, rose 1.1% in the fourth quarter of 2009".

On an annual basis, the country's gross domestic product (GDP) expanded at a much higher pace at 4.6%.

For the whole of 2009, the Japanese economy shrank 5% and is valued at 474.92 trillion yen (about US$5.1 trillion), according to official data.

Last month, China said its 2009 GDP was "33,535.3 billion yuan (about US$4.91 trillion), up by 8.7% at comparable prices".

Severely hit by the global financial meltdown, the Japanese economy has slumped into one of its worst recessions in recent history. This has brought down the GDP gap (in US dollar terms) between Japan and China to a narrow range.

Japan climbed out of recession in the June quarter of 2009 after clocking a growth of 1.3%.

Meanwhile, the better-than-expected Japanese growth in December quarter was mainly driven by better exports and the effects of stimulus measures.

In 2009, the Chinese economy expanded at a stunning rate of 8.7%, primarily on the back of improved domestic output driven by government stimulus and a tightly held yuan.

Despite the GDP rising at a good rate in the December quarter, the export-driven Japanese economy is expected to see sluggish growth in the near term.

Going by the latest figures, the Japanese economy witnessed zero growth in the September quarter of 2009. Interestingly, preliminary estimates had pegged the GDP to expand at 1.2% for that period. The figure was later revised to 0.3%.

To bolster the recession-hit economy, Japan had unveiled stimulus measures worth over US$130 billion.

Japan still world's second economy

February 15 2010 : Japan has held its title as the world's second-biggest economy after fourth-quarter growth beat expectations and kept the country just ahead of a surging China.

Real gross domestic product grew at an annual pace of 4.6% in the October-December period, the government said.

The average forecast of 15 economists polled by The Associated Press was annual growth of 3.4%.

Japan's nominal GDP for the 2009 calendar year came to about 5.1 trillion US dollars (£3.25 trillion), topping China's domestic output of 4.9 trillion US dollars (£3.1 trillion).

On the surface, the results reflect how Japan has benefited from government stimulus measures at home and around the world, which have bolstered global trade and persuaded Japanese households to boost spending. GDP, or the total value of the nation's goods and services, has climbed now for three straight quarters and looks unlikely to retreat this year.

Consumer spending, which accounts for about 60% of the economy, rose 0.7% from the previous quarter as shoppers took advantage of incentives on cars and home appliances. More confident companies are also starting to invest in factories and equipment.

"There is some brightness breaking through the clouds," Finance Minister Naoto Kan told reporters, according to Kyodo News agency.

The outlook, however, is hardly sunny as Japan prepares to lose its number two spot in global economic pecking order after the US - a position it has held for more than four decades.

Analysts predict that consumer demand will almost certainly decelerate, hindering growth in the months ahead. Exacerbating woes is a viscous cycle of falling prices and wages, along with a shrinking population and tax base.

However, China's red-hot economy is expanding at a furious pace. Fourth quarter growth jumped to 10.7%, bringing overall 2009 growth to 8.7%.