EARTHQUAKE

Octogenarian billionaire investor Warren Buffett arrived on his first visit to Japan on Monday, fanning speculation about his possible investments in the country's battered stock market.

Al Weiwei, Chinese contemporary artist and leading political activist, has been facing new investigations for allegedly spreading online pictures of nudity.

A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.5 jolted the Ibaragi Prefecture near Tokyo on Sunday, Japanese public broadcaster NHK said, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injury.

Talk show queen Oprah Winfrey is moving on to her next chapter, going out of the TV studio to meet and chat with celebrities on their own turf.

Honda Motor Co's Canadian unit will start manufacturing its CR-V compact sport-utility vehicle in Canada early next year, Japan's No. 3 automaker said on Thursday.

In what appears to be a rapidly developing trend, Chinese visitors to the United States are being noticed more for the flash of their newly-bought designer bags than that of their Nikons. Tiffany & Co. (NYSE:TIF), Coach, Inc. (NYSE:COH) and Ralph Lauren (NYSE:RL) are just a few of the companies in the luxury retail sector that have recently noted how higher revenue at their North American operations has largely been boosted by Chinese shoppers on vacation.

The newlywed royal couple of the “Himalayan Kingdom” made their visit truly official as the duo dressed in Bhutanese natural dress.

Upscale apparel and accessories retailers have been consistently outperforming the rest of the retail market, as they've been able to simultaneously roll back discounts and increase sales. A spike in sales for the most expensive of offerings, and at branded outlets, belies a more sinister reason for the surge: growing income inequality.

The decibel level in the small, bunker-like rehearsal room is ear-shattering and every loose item in the space is shaking as if an earthquake struck.

He always seems to know where to look, Roger Ebert wrote of what Werner Herzog does in Into the Abyss. The film is the German director's evenhanded, understated and powerful examination of a senseless triple murder in Texas, which sent one man to death row and another to life in prison.

The current economic rebound could be short-lived, given the continued strength of the yen currency, the global economic slowdown and the floods in Thailand.

The world's leading economies are all heading for a period of slower growth, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said on Monday, highlighting signs of weakening economic activities across the board.

A 6.3-magnitude earthquake hit off the coast of Indonesia, in the Molucca Sea around at 1:05 p.m. local time. It was centered 42 miles southwest of the town of Labuha on the island of Pulau Bacan.

Stock index futures pointed to a mixed open on Wall Street on Monday, with futures for the S&P 500 flat, Dow Jones futures up 0.2 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures down 0.2 percent at 0945 GMT.

The Japanese economy came back to life the first time in four straight quarters, posting a 1.5 percent growth in the July-September quarter. According to data released by the Cabinet Office, the annualized growth of the economy was an impressive 6 percent.

President Barack Obama told China Sunday that the United States was fed up with its trade and currency practices, as he turned up the heat on America's biggest economic rival at an Asia Pacific summit.

President Barack Obama told China on Sunday that the United States was fed up with its trade and currency practices, as he turned up the heat on America's biggest economic rival at an Asia Pacific summit.

Japan's economy rebounded from an earthquake-triggered recession in the third quarter by expanding 1.5 percent, a pace that is likely to slow down though as a strong yen and weak global growth darken the outlook.

A massive explosion at a military arms depot near the Iranian capital Tehran on Saturday killed 17 Revolutionary Guards and wounded 15, a representative of the elite fighting force told the semiofficial Fars news agency.

During the first media tour of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan since its devastation in March, journalists on Saturday were not allowed to get close to the heavily damaged reactor buildings or even to leave the tour bus.

Only Italy could produce a leader like Berlusconi.