Washington  - Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso said Saturday in Washington that he looked forward to working with US president- elect Barack Obama.

Speaking to reporters after a meeting of the Group of 20 nations to address the world economic crisis, Aso was asked about his thoughts on Obama.

"Obama-san?" he asked, before saying they had spoken over the phone since the November 4 election. And though it was difficult to know much about his personality from the brief discussion, Aso said that Obama appeared to show an interest in Asia.

Tokyo - Asian stock markets were in a downward spiral Thursday, tracking overnight losses on Wall Street and falling on persistent worries over a US recession.

The Tokyo stock market extended its losing streak with the Nikkei 225 Stock Average falling 456.87 points, or 5.25 per cent, to close at 8,238.64, a two-week low.

The broader Topix index of all first-section issues was also down 4.31 per cent at 837.53.

New Delhi - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called Thursday for focussed cooperation, especially in the area of maritime transport, in his opening remarks at a regional summit.

Top leaders and officials from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand attended the daylong summit in New Delhi of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multisectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC).

Islamabad - Gunmen on Thursday ambushed a car carrying an Iranian diplomat in north-western Pakistan and kidnapped the official after killing his guard, police and media reports said.

The diplomat was seized when he was travelling to the Iranian consulate in Peshawar, the capital of the troubled North West Frontier Province.

A police officer said the kidnappers intercepted the vehicle in the upscale Hayatabad neighbourhood and shot dead a police guard before whisking the official and his driver away.

Singapore - In the wake of the world-wide financial crisis consumer confidence has turned pessimistic across the Asia Pacific region, according to a survey released Wednesday by MasterCard.

From India to China, and Japan to New Zealand the urban middle class were more pessimistic for the first half of 2009 than six months ago, according to the latest bi-annual Consumer Confidence survey by MasterCard Worldwide released in Singapore.

MasterCard found that only Vietnam, China, India and Singapore of the 14 markets surveyed are optimistic about the first half of next year.