Stockholm  - US researcher Yoichiro Nambu and his Japanese colleagues Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Masukawa have won this year's Nobel Prize for Physics, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced in Stockholm on Tuesday.

Their discoveries were linked to describing the smallest building blocks in nature and nature's order, the academy said.

Tokyo - The Bank of Japan decided on Tuesday to keep its key short-term interest rate unchanged at 0.5 per cent as uncertainty spread over the future course of the world's second-largest economy amid global financial crisis.

The policy board of Japan's central bank voted unanimously to forego an interest rate hike at the end of a two-day meeting.

The Japanese economy "has been sluggish against the backdrop of high energy and materials prices and weaker growth in exports," the bank said in a statement.

Tokyo - The Bank of Japan (BOJ) pumped 1 trillion yen (9.69 billion dollars) into the money market Tuesday to ease disruptions amid the global financial crisis.

Japan's central bank conducted the emergency measure for the 15th consecutive business day since the US investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc filed for bankruptcy on September 15.

The bank's move came after the Tokyo market plunged to a five-year low, which sent the key Nikkei Stock Average index below the 10,000 mark Tuesday.

Tokyo - Stocks in Tokyo continued their downward c

Tokyo - News about the latest emergency package to save Germany's real estate financier Hypo Real Estate Holding AG could not clear the gloomy atmosphere in far-away Asia. It was the same with the bail-out package for US financial institutions approved last week.

It was no longer the banking crisis alone that caused deep concern in Japan and other Asian countries. The biggest fear now was that the financial disaster would develop into a global crisis with catastrophic results for all sectors of the economy.

Tokyo  - Japan's key Nikkei 225 Stock Average fell to a four-year low Monday on worries about the financial crisis, despite US Congressional approval of a Wall Street bail-out.

The benchmark Nikkei index was trading midday (4:43 GMT) at 10,434.17, down 503.97 points, or 4.60 per cent.

The broader Topix index of all first-section issues fell below the psychological marker of 1,000 points for the first time since December 2003.