EARTHQUAKE

Do host cities make money?

Japan reported Wednesday a rise in trade deficit in April compared to a year earlier as the nuclear energy crisis has resulted in the increase of oil and gas imports.

The 2,080-foot Tokyo Skytree, the world's tallest freestanding tower, opened to the public on Tuesday.

Yousuf Raza Gilani and Recep Tayyip Erdogan also vowed to significantly increase the volume of trade between Turkey and Pakistan.

The United States and Japan are leading a fragile economic recovery among developed countries that could yet be blown off course if the euro zone fails to contain the damage from its problem debtor states, the OECD said on Tuesday.

The Italian government will call a state of emergency on Tuesday in the areas affected by Sunday's 5.9 magnitude earthquake.

East Texas has again been hit by an earthquake in a region that has seen a small rash of quakes in the past year.

Emergency workers in northern Italy speedily built tent cities and makeshift shelters on Monday as aftershocks and tremors raise fear of further destruction.

A strong earthquake rocked a large swathe of northern Italy early on Sunday, killing at least three people and causing serious damage to the area's cultural heritage.

Far from the politics of Santiago and within eyeshot of each other are two projects that epitomize a growing divide in Chile: the $10 billion HidroAysen dam scheme and the proposed Patagonia National Park.

Cannes continues to garner bigger and bigger celebrities with each passing day. On day three of the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, stars like Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Salma Hayek and designer Giorgio Armani made their debuts in the French Riviera. The red carpet was not only glamorous, it was steamy, with celebrity couples - both rumored and official - cozying up for the photogs.

East Texas has been shaken this past week by two earthquakes, and the region's natural gas drilling could be what has triggered them.

The Japanese government is asking businesses and homes to conserve electricity during the summer in order to avoid blackouts, but efforts to restart nuclear reactors continue to encounter resistance by political opponents of the national government.

In 1999, Andrew Grove, then Chairman of Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), the No. 1 chipmaker, published a bestseller, ?Only the Paranoid Survive.?

Greek leftists rejected a last-ditch proposal by the head of state on Monday to put technocrats in charge of the country, as financial markets slid on speculation that political turmoil would force Athens out of the euro zone.

Northern Chile, was rocked by a 6.2-magnitude earthquake Monday in the strongest temblor to hit the South American nation since a 7.1-magnitude quake hit the country's central region on March 25.

Following Thursday's financial earthquake at JPMorgan Chase & Co., fingers are pointing to Bruno Michel Iksil, who recently boasted that he could walk on water -- suggesting the French trader's ego is as outsized as the nemesis in Melville's novel from which his nickname the White Whale originates. Whether or not Iksil's reputation will go from fearsome whale to Jonah after he's blamed for the storm and tossed overboard is not yet known.

Japan?s current account surplus fell 8.6 percent in March compared to a year earlier, thanks largely to higher energy costs, the country?s Finance Ministry revealed Thursday. A stronger-than-desired yen is also weighing on export growth and it makes Japanese goods less competitive.

Consumer electronics and entertainment giant Sony Corp reported Thursday a record net loss for the fiscal year ended March but pinned hopes on a restructuring strategy to return to profit this year.

Toyota Motor Corporation (NYSE: TM) reported a 30 percent drop in income for its fiscal year ended March 31, but the company is nevertheless making headway down the road to recovery from last year's earthquake in Japan and floods in Thailand as income for January-March 2012 increased by a factor of five.

Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp said Wednesday that its net profit for the three months ending March 31 surged five times compared to a year earlier as the car market picked up in the US.