Tokyo - More than 1,000 Japanese signed an online petition to legalize marriage between humans and comic-book characters launched by a man who wants to marry a girl from a poplar Japanese manga comic series.

Taichi Takashita said he wanted to collect more than 1 million signatures to present to the government to legalize marriage to two-dimensional characters.

As soon as the law was passed, he plans to marry long-legged manga character Mikuru Asahina.

Tokyo - Markets across the Asia-Pacific on Thursday saw the roller-coaster ride they have been taking in recent weeks make an upward surge with key markets jumping more than 10 per cent on news of an interest rate cut by the US Federal Reserve.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average ended trading up nearly 10 per cent after the US central bank's rate cut as well as boosted profit prospects for Japan's exporters as the yen weakened against the dollar.

Tokyo - Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso on Thursday announced a new economic stimulus package worth about 26.9 trillion yen (276.33 billion dollars) to battle the impact of the global financial crisis.

"The most important thing is to allay concerns about people's livelihoods," Aso said at a press conference.

The government stimulus package, the second since August, includes 2 trillion yen in financial assistance for all households to jump-start consumption and up to 6 million yen in tax breaks for housing loans for 10 years.

Tokyo - Mazda Motor Corp saw its net profit fall 45 per cent during the July-to-September quarter to 14.5 billion yen (147 million dollars) because of the yen's rise and the higher costs of raw materials, the company said Thursday.

The Japanese automaker reported operating profits of 32.4 billion yen during the second quarter, down 20 per cent from the same period a year ago, and sales of 803.7 billion yen, down 5 per cent year-on-year.

For the full year through March 31, Mazda revised its profit projections downward. It now expects net profit to drop 28.6 per cent from an earlier estimate to 50 billion yen, and operating profit to fall 21.7 per cent to 90 billion yen.

Tokyo - Nintendo Co slashed its net profit and operating profit forecasts for the fiscal year that runs through March 31 after a stronger yen offset robust sales of game consoles, the company said Thursday.

The Japanese gaming company revised its net profit down by 16 per cent to 345 billion yen (3.54 billion dollars) and operating profit by 3 per cent to 630 billion yen from its August estimates.

But Nintendo maintained its sales forecast for the year at 2 trillion yen.

For the first half of this fiscal year, the company said it saw its net profit rise 9.4 per cent from the same period a year ago to 144.83 billion yen.

Tokyo - Sharp Corp on Thursday reported a 35.3-per-cent fall in its net profit for the April-September period from a year earlier due to slow mobile-phone sales and price reduction in liquid-crystal-display televisions.

The Japanese home electronics company logged a net profit of 28.01 billion yen (287.73 million dollars) and an operating profit of 50.76 billion yen for the first six months of the business year that runs through March 31.

Operating profit fell 35.8 per cent year-on-year.

Sharp reported sales of 1.56 trillion yen, which was 4.8 per cent lower than the previous year's figure.