From the News, Nation, Dawn, Pakistan Observer, Daily Times, Frontier Post, Nawa-i-Waqt (Urdu), Jang (Urdu) and daily Express (Urdu) newspapers                                                                            

17 January 2010

International News

Political

• Tokyo (Agencies) Japan and South Korea on Saturday brushed aside North Korea’s call for early talks on a peace treaty, saying they have no plans to lift sanctions unless it first makes progress in scrapping nuclear weapons   (The Frontier Post, p- 5)

Economic

• Tokyo (Reuters) The value of Japanese trust funds aimed at retail investors rebounded 18 percent in 2009 as global share prices and economies recovered from the previous year’s financial crisis, an industry group said on Friday (Daily Times, p- B4)

• Tokyo (AFP) The robust rally of Japanese shares in the past several weeks could hit a snag in the near future on worries about overheating, analysts said Friday (Daily Times, p- B4