Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso told his Israeli counterpart Ehud Olmert Wednesday to halt air strikes that have killed at least 390 Palestinians and injured thousands in the Gaza Strip.

Japan asked two Chinese research ships to leave disputed waters, the government’s top spokesman said today.

Japan’s coast guard asked the Chinese ships to leave waters near islands claimed by Japan, China and Taiwan in the East China Sea, Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura told reporters in Tokyo. The islands are known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyutai in Chinese and are controlled by Japan.

Most analysts acknowledge that a civil conflict in the strict military sense—with rival armies fighting over territory and national control—is unlikely. Yet a uniquely Thai version, featuring extreme political violence and dividing the nation into rich vs. poor, urban vs. rural, north vs. south and pro- vs. antiglobalization, has already begun to play out. Its salient aspects include a winner-take-all political culture, a rising authoritarian bent among the country's traditional elite and the erosion of democratic institutions. "Who will fight?

Thailand's prime minister resigned on Tuesday after weeks of protests closed the capital's airports, stranding 300,000 travelers. Protesters promised to lift their siege, and international flights were expected to resume Friday.

The resignation of Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat came after the nation's Constitutional Court dissolved Thailand's top three ruling parties for electoral fraud and banned him from politics for five years.

Thailand's leader attended a Buddhist ritual Monday, seemingly indifferent to a deepening political crisis that has paralyzed his government, shut down two main airports and stranded 300,000 foreigners in the country.

The crisis is draining millions of dollars from the country's economy even as Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat appears powerless to remove radical anti-government protesters who have occupied the airports for the past week. He has refused to send in police to evict them for fear of bloodshed, instead making weak pleas for the protesters to go home.

Matichon quotes PAD spokesman Anchalee as stating on the PAD stage that PAD will send people to surround Channel 3 as they are unhappy about the coverage of the PAD protests on "Reung Low Chow Nee" and the "attack" they came under this morning. This will affect Channel 3's coverage at the airport. They are revoking their accreditation.

Nearly 50 anti-government demonstrators were rushed to hospital early Sunday morning after a grenade attack on one of their protest sites in Bangkok. The attack comes on the sixth day of the anti-government occupation of Bangkok's two main airports, where demonstrators have been involved in minor clashes with the some 2000 police officers deployed there. Meanwhile, in the old quarter of the Thai capital, tens of thousands of government supporters were preparing to rally, raising concerns about a confrontation between the two opposing groups.

Thailand's government prepared to crack down Thursday on protesters occupying the capital's two airports, but vowed to resolve the standoff peacefully.

Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat declared a state of emergency around the capital's two main airports, which would allow security forces to oust thousands of anti-government protesters from the terminals.

Protesters swarmed Thailand's main international airport Tuesday, forcing the cancellation of departing flights just hours after their comrades opened fire on government supporters in a clash on the streets of the capital.

It was the boldest move yet by the People's Alliance for Democracy in a monthslong campaign to topple Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, whom it accuses of being the puppet of a disgraced fugitive predecessor, billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra.

Panasonic and smaller Japanese rival Sanyo said Friday they are starting talks on a buyout deal that would create one of the world's largest electronics companies as soon as year-end.

Panasonic President Fumio Ohtsubo and Sanyo President Seiichiro Sano shook hands at a news conference in Osaka, monitored by satellite TV in Tokyo, underlining their willingness to negotiate Panasonic's acquisition of Sanyo.

Brazilian Stenio Sameshima came to Japan last year with plans to make a bundle of money at the country's humming auto factories. Instead, he's spending a lot of time in line at employment agencies.

The 28-year-old is one of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of foreigners who are among the first laborers in Japan to lose their jobs as the global financial crisis eats into demand for cars, trucks and motorcycles, government officials say.

Japan's defence minister said today he will sack the air force chief of staff for saying that Japan was ensnared into World War Two by the United States and was not an aggressor in the conflict in Asia.

Japan stocks plunged, sending the Nikkei 225 Stock Average to the brink of 1982 levels, as Sony Corp. cut its forecast, Toyota Motor Corp.'s car sales fell for the first time in seven years, and the yen reached a 13-year high.

When the credit conflagration morphed into a full-fledged panic in financial markets this month, the major stock market that plunged the most was Japan's -- one of the countries least affected by the crisis.

Japanese stocks slumped Friday as panic-stricken investors dumped shares across the board after Wall Street stocks suffered deep losses overnight.

The Prime Minister of Thailand was forced to scale a fence and flee in a police helicopter yesterday as thousands of protesters barricaded parliament in the latest twist in the country's seething political turmoil.

Bangkok was braced for another night of unrest tonight despite the declaration of a state of emergency after one man was shot dead and scores were injured in street battles between supporters and opponents of the Thai prime minister, Samak Sundaravej.

To add to the crisis, a government commission ruled that Mr Samak’s People Power Party should be dissolved because of election fraud perpetrated last year by one of its leaders. If the order is upheld it could lead to a general election, Thailand’s fourth in four years, and further exacerbate the acute atmosphere of confrontation.

Nippon Steel Corp, JFE Holdings Inc unit JFE Steel Corp and other major Japanese steelmakers plan to jointly acquire overseas mining rights for iron ore in an attempt to minimize the impact of surging mineral prices, the Nikkei reported at the weekend, without citing sources.

The resurrection of a Marxist tome many had long consigned to the dustbin of Japan’s poverty-stricken past is seen as evidence of growing discontent in the world’s second-largest economy, which has shed many employee protections in a decade of profound restructuring. More than one-third of Japan’s workforce is part-time and millions more, especially the young, are learning how to live on shrinking wages and diminished expectations.