JAPAN

The Bank of Japan kept monetary policy steady as expected on Tuesday, holding off on any further steps to help meet its new inflation target and boost activity ahead of a more thorough assessment of the economy later this month.

BOJ policy-makers voted to keep the central bank's key rate within a range of zero to 0.1 percent and to maintain the size of its asset-buying program at 65 trillion yen.

The Bank of Japan kept monetary policy steady on Tuesday, holding fire until a more thorough assessment of the economy at another rate review in two weeks that may show further action is needed to nudge inflation up towards its 1 percent target.

Asian shares eased Tuesday as investors cautiously awaited Chinese trade data to gauge whether the world's second-largest economy could achieve a soft landing, after a sharp slowdown in U.S. jobs creation clouded prospects for global growth.

Japanese phenom Yu Darvish of the Texas Rangers is set to make his Major League Baseball debut tonight against the Seattle Mariners.

North Korea is preparing a third nuclear test at the site where it carried out its two previous tests, South Korean media report. The news further complicates an already tense situation in the Korean peninsula, following the North's decision to go ahead with a rocket launch feared by its neighbors.

Japan's Sony Corp is cutting 10,000 jobs, about 6 percent of its global workforce, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Monday, as new CEO Kazuo Hirai looks to steer the electronics and entertainment giant back to profit after four years in the red.

Japan's Sony Corp is cutting 10,000 jobs, about 6 percent of its global workforce, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Monday, as new CEO Kazuo Hirai looks to steer the electronics and entertainment giant back to profit after four years in the red.

Sony will cut about 10,000 jobs, which equates to about six percent of its global workforce, by the end of the year. The move comes after an extremely poor annual forecast and the hiring of a new CEO, Kazuo Hirai, who looks to get profit out of the red for the first time in four years.

Toyota Motor Corp <7203.T> unveiled on Monday a new framework for vehicle development aimed at making its cars more appealing, while cutting costs by at least 30 percent through the use of more shared parts.

Depending on where you look, Asia's inflation is either benign or stubbornly hot.

About half the cuts will come from two moves the Japanese electronics and entertainment giant already announced -- the sale of its chemical-products business and the spinoff of midsize liquid-crystal-display operations to a venture with rivals Toshiba Corp. and Hitachi Ltd.

The count down has begun for North Korea's controversial rocket launch, which is scheduled to take place between April 12 and 16, any time between 7 a.m. to noon local time. North Korea has made it clear that it would not budge to the international pressure to halt the launch.

Consumer electronics and entertainment giant Sony is letting go 10,000 employees, a sixth of its total workforce, in an effort to concentrate resources on core business and bring the company back to black.

North Korea has warned that any country that shoots down the rocket it has planned to launch will have to face retaliation and merciless punishment.

Many a child at Easter has been puzzled by the mechanics of a rabbit laying eggs. While it's hard to logically dissect the origins of the Easter Bunny, other symbols of the holiday have some scientific significance.

From the Golden State to the Sunshine State take a tour of America's flowery springtime drives.

Hundreds more American Airlines flights were canceled on Friday at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in the wake of Tuesday's powerful tornado-riddled storm.

A ghost ship that has been adrift since the tsunami struck Japan last year, has been shot up and sunken by U.S. Coast Guard cannon fire.

A US Coast Guard cutter used cannon fire Thursday to sink a Japanese fishing vessel that got washed out to sea by the March 11 tsunami. The Ryou-Un Maru was sunken 180 miles west of the US and Canadian borders off Southeast Alaskan coast.

Asian shares eased Friday, when many markets were closed for the Easter holiday, as investors stayed on the sidelines ahead of key U.S. jobs data, avoiding risk after rising yields in weaker euro zone countries refueled concern about Europe.