Tokyo  - Japan's parliament on Tuesday condemned what it regards a ballistic missile test by North Korea over the weekend.

The lower house also called on the government implement further sanctions against the Stalinist state and urged the UN Security Council to pass a resolution against North Korea.

Meanwhile the five permanent members of the Security Council in New York continued their tug-of-war over a resolution on what North Korea claimed was the launch of a communications satellite.

Tokyo  - Tokyo stocks ended Tuesday morning's trading modestly higher on optimism over the domestic economy and a rise in carmakers' shares caused by expectations for a resurgence in global demand.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average inched up 26.52 points, or 0.3 per cent, to 8,884.45.

The broader Topix index of all first-section issues was also up 4.49 points, or 0.54 per cent, at 835.46.

On currency markets at 9 am (0000 GMT), the dollar traded at 100.43-48 yen, down from Monday's 5 pm quote of 101.15-18 yen.

Tokyo  - Japan's foreign reserves exceeded 1 trillion dollars in March, thanks to gains in the appraisal values of its US Treasury bond holdings and euro-denominated assets, the Finance Ministry said Tuesday.

The nation's foreign reserves totaled 1.02 trillion dollars, up from 9.2 billion dollars in the previous month.

Japan held 905.53 billion dollars in foreign securities as of March 31 while its foreign currency deposits amounted to 84.2 billion dollars.

Tokyo  - Japan and Indonesia signed an agreement on bilateral currency swap to increase the amount from 6 billion dollars to 12 billion dollars under an initiative to stabilize the financial state of the South-east Asian region, Japanese Finance Ministry said Monday.

Under the agreement, Indonesia would be able to swap rupiah worth up to 12 billion dollars when short-term liquidity support is needed.

The blogging site focusing on video games, Kotaku has reported that Nintendo – the Japan’s leading manufacturer of video games consoles and Capcom – the Japan’s leading developer and publisher of video games, have come together to release the new Premium Edition Nintendo DSi console, called “Premium Edition Ace Attorney” in Japan.

According to Kotaku, the new Premium Edition Nintendo DSi console will be released, packed with the new Ace Attorney game-Gyakuten Kenji in May, 2009. The Phoenix Wright branded new Premium Edition DSi console is specially designed to satisfy Japanese gamers.