Seoul - Leaders from South Korea, Japan and China will meet next month to discuss the impact of the global financial crisis, Seoul presidential officials announced Friday.

South Korea's President Lee Myung Bak, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will hold talks in the Japanese city of Fukuoka on December 13.

Though the three countries have met previously on the sidelines of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Plus Three summit, it will be the first such meeting held separately from a multilateral international forum.

Tokyo - Asian stock markets took heavy losses Thursday, reflecting widespread gloom about US economic troubles and another bad day on Wall Street.

Japan's key Nikkei 225 Stock Average plummeted nearly 7 per cent, ending the day below the 8,000 level.

Traders said the sell-off was the result of mounting concern over the US economy, particularly the Big Three automakers' financial fate.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average tumbled 570.18 points, or 6.89 per cent, to close at 7,703.04.

The broader Topix index of all first-section issues also fell 45.15 points, or 5.46 per cent, to 782.28.

Bangkok, Nov. 19 : Ajay Chhibber, the head of the U. N. Development Program''s regional bureau for Asia and the Pacific, has warned of the prospect of social unrest in Asia because of the global meltdown.

He told the Washington Post in an interview here that the slowdown in major markets such as the United States and Europe poses fundamental problems for Asian economies that have used exports to fuel their extraordinary growth.

Chhibber said there are still 900 million Asians living below the World Bank poverty line, defined as an income of less than 1.25 dollars a day, Chhibber said, adding, "There are another 300 million who just came out of that group, so they are literally on the margin."

Hong Kong - The majority of consumers in Asia are skeptical about the motives behind companies that sponsor environmentally friendly initiatives, a global study published Tuesday claimed.

Most believed companies only sponsor green initiatives to improve their public image or to sell more products rather than because they cared about the environment, the study of green perceptions, attitudes and behaviour concluded.

Of the six Asian countries included in TNS Our Green World study, the Koreans emerged as being the most skeptical, with only 5 per cent of those questioned believing companies went green because they cared.

Taipei- Taiwan's former vice president Lien Chan Monday headed to Peru for the November 22 leaders' summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, becoming the highest-ranking envoy from the island to attend the annual event.

Leading a 13-member delegation of foreign and economic affairs experts and officials, Lien was to stop at New York for three days before flying to Lima on November 20.

Hong Kong - Scores of office workers were evacuated from central Hong Kong Monday as police detonated a suspected Second World War bomb unearthed on a building site.

The bomb was discovered on the site of the new government headquarters next to Victoria Harbour on Hong Kong island on Monday morning, police said.

Bomb-disposal experts were called in, the site was cordoned off and a section of the busy harbour-side road closed down while the detonation took place. No one was injured.

Hong Kong was heavily bombed throughout World War II as British and Japanese armies battled for control of the strategically located former colony.