Tokyo- Toshiba Corp has signed a contract to engineer and build two nuclear plants in the southern US state of Texas, the Japanese company said Wednesday.

Toshiba would deliver the two reactors and other equipment while offering engineering work for the project managed by the South Texas Project Nuclear Operating Co, it said.

The reactors would be the first 1,400-megawatt advanced boiling-water reactors in the United States.

One was expected to start operating in 2016, and the other in 2017.

Tokyo - Japan logged the largest trade deficit on record in January as the global recession slowed exports, the Finance Ministry said Wednesday.

The nation's trade deficit totaled 952.6 billion yen (9.97 billion dollars) in January.

The trade balance showed a deficit for four months in a row, and the largest since the government began taking the data in January 1979.

In January, exports fell 45.7 per cent to 3.48 trillion yen from the previous year, and imports dropped 31.7 per cent to 4.44 trillion yen, the ministry said.

With the United States, Japan's surplus shrank 75.3 per cent to 132.8 billion yen. Exports fell by 52.9 per cent to 571.7 billion yen, and imports from the country by 35 per cent to 438.9 billion yen.

Tokyo - Tokyo stocks bounced back Wednesday after Wall Street's overnight rally.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average rose 115.35 points, or 1.59 per cent, to 7,383.91.

The broader Topix index of all first-section issues was up 7.58 points, or 1.04 per cent, at 737.86.

Exporters were helped by the US dollar's advance against the yen, as a weaker currency helps boost Japanese companies' earnings.

On currency markets at 9 am (0000 GMT), the dollar traded at 96.52-57 yen, up from Tuesday's 5 pm quote of 95.35-37 yen.

Washington - US President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso pledged to work quickly and closely together to address the world's economic crisis during the first meeting of a foreign leader at the Obama White House.

Obama and Aso will work to jump-start consumer demand and unfreeze credit markets ahead of a global economic summit in London in April, the White House said. Obama told Aso in a brief appearance with the press that hosting the Japanese leader as his first foreign guest showed the importance of the US-Japanese relationship.

Washington - US President Barack Obama held his first meeting with a foreign leader at the White House on Tuesday, telling Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso that US relations with his country are the "cornerstone" of security in East Asia.

Aso's visit shows the importance of the US-Japanese relationship, Obama said, as the two countries try to pull out of their worst recession in decades. The United States and Japan respectively boast the two largest economies in the world.