Tokyo  - Japan's economy shrank at an annualized rate of 0.4 per cent in real terms in the July-September period, the government said Monday.

The gross domestic product (GDP) fell 0.1 per cent during the three months from the previous quarter, marking the second quarterly drop, the Cabinet Office said.

Looking at the GDP for the July-September quarter, Japanese Economic and Fiscal Policy Minister Kaoru Yosano said Monday that the nation's economy is in a recession.

Kuala Lumpur - An elderly Malaysian man has remarried his ex-wife 53 years and several other spouses later, a news report said Monday.

Zakaria Seman, 71, and his blushing bride Essah Mat Yamin, 69, were married for the first time in 1952 at the ages of 15 and 13 respectively, but they divorced three years later.

However, love was rekindled 53 years later when the duo met at their only child's home recently, the Malay-language Berita Harian daily said.

Manila - A Filipino broadcast journalist was killed Monday in the southern Philippines in the sixth deadly attack against the media in the country this year, police said.

Aresio Padrigao, a commentator for local radio station DXRS, was shot to death by gunmen aboard a motorcycle in Gingoog town in Misamis Oriental province, 795 kilometres south of Manila.

Padrigao, a known critic of local government officials in Misamis Oriental, had just brought his child to school when the assailants attacked him.

Chicago, Nov. 17: U. S. President-elect Barack Obama on Sunday resigned as the junior Seantor from Illinois and told his constituency in a thank-you and farewell letter that he was ending one journey to begin another.

Recalling his time in community organizing on Chicago's South Side, his service in the state Senate, he quoted Abraham Lincoln, saying he wanted to take what he learned from the state to use at the White House.

Washington  - In his first interview as president-elect, Barack Obama called for help for the ailing US auto industry and for homeowners facing foreclosure amid the ongoing financial crisis.

Obama appeared on CBS' 60 Minutes news programme on Sunday in a wide-ranging interview that covered everything from terrorist threats to his relationship with his mother-in-law.

Washington, Nov. 17: A senior Republican leader has said naming Hillary Rodham Clinton as the next U. S. Secretary of State would be a good choice.

"It seems to me she''s got the experience. She''s got the temperament for it. I think she would be well received around the world," Fox News quoted Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, the U. S. Senate''s second-ranking Republican, as saying on Sunday.

"So my own initial reaction is it would be a very good selection," he added.