Bangkok - Thailand's food exports to Japan rose 30 per cent last year, benefiting from the Japanese market's health concerns about Chinese imports, media reports said Sunday.

Thai exports to Japan in 2008 were valued at 100 billion baht (2.8 billion dollars) and could continue to rise this year if the Japanese market continued to be wary of chemical-contamination of Chinese food products, President of Thailand's National Food Institute Yuthasak Supasorn told the Thai News Agency (TNA).

Hamburg  - Japan are a win away from qualifying for the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa after beating Bahrain 1-0 in the Asian qualifying zone on Saturday.

There was also an important win for North Korea, whose 2-0 victory against the United Arab Emirates took them to the top of Group B, while Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia also kept alive their hopes of making it to South Africa with victories.

Tokyo - The Japanese parliament on Friday passed a record 88.5-trillion-yen (902.74 billion dollars) budget for fiscal 2009.

With the budget passed, Prime Minister Taro Aso was expected to order the government next week to compile an extra budget for economic stimulus measures for the year that starts on April 1.

The upper house earlier Friday voted down the budget, which includes 1 trillion yen in special emergency reserves, because the opposition holds the majority of the House of Councillors.

But the more powerful lower house, which approved the budget last month, takes precedence on budgetary decisions, according to the constitution.

Tokyo, Mar. 27 : Japan has ordered its military to destroy any part of the rocket that North Korea is planning to fire early next month should it approach Japanese territory.

A meeting of the Security Council of Japan approved the decision out of concern that debris from the missile - which Pyongyang claims is a launch vehicle for a satellite - could land on northern Japan, report The Telegraph.

Tokyo - Japan's consumer prices stopped their increase as a February's core index remained flat, making it the second straight stable month, the government said Friday.

The nation's key consumer price index (CPI), which excludes fresh food prices, remained unchanged in February year-on-year at 100.4 against 100 for the base year of 2005, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said in a preliminary report.

Tokyo  - Tokyo stocks extended its winning streak to end Friday morning trading higher after Wall Street advanced overnight on continued hopes of an improved economic outlook in the United States.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average inched up 83.22 points, or 0.96 per cent, to 8,719.55, as US companies posted better-than-expected earnings figures.

The broader Topix index of all first-section issues was also up 7.67 points, or 0.93 per cent, to 834.48.