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Aso said the move was intended to shore up Japan’s economy amid the worldwide financial crisis. Aso said that the financial outlook is severe.

“The global financial crisis is almost certain to affect Japan’s real economy,” he said.

But he added that Japan’s economy is relatively stable.

“Our financial system is overall more firm than that in the West,” Aso said. “We understand that the most important thing is to assure the security of average households.”

Aso said the package – which will total 26.9 trillion yen ($273 billion) – will include 2 trillion yen ($20 billion) in fixed-sum benefits to households, meaning a 60,000 yen ($600) payment for a family of four.

In addition, there will be more subsidies for farmers and a cut in payroll deductions for employment insurance.

Tokyo stocks hit 26-year lows earlier this week and the surging Japanese yen is punishing the country’s exporters by making their products more expensive in the United States and other markets at a time when the crisis is slashing sales.

The new plan comes on the heels of an 11.7 trillion yen supplementary budget approved by parliament. That plan included help for fishermen and farmers to deal with high fuel prices, and assistance for part-time workers to find better jobs.

As the global financial crisis began to unfold earlier this year, Japan’s economy looked to be in good shape compared to other advanced nations, avoiding major bank failures and bailouts.

Sometimes this is entertaining; sometimes it can be offensive. So Microsoft has just been awarded a patent for technology designed to automatically detect and remove “undesired words or phrases” from all manner of digital communications, ranging from YouTube broadcasts to internet chat and songs.

The patent describes a system that listens out for phonemes (word fragments) likely to be part of a swearword. If it thinks it hears a forbidden phrase, the software either fades out the offending syllables or simply replaces the rude word with a similar-sounding but clean alternative lifted from earlier speech without a second’s delay.

With Microsoft’s software put in place by parents, children could listen to the most explicit rap music and hear nothing stronger than “gosh darn mother flippers”. Theoretically, the software could monitor thousands of digital TV broadcasts, radio stations and web chats simultaneously.

That’s all to the good, as long as the targets are “trolls” (internet slang for people whose aim is to disrupt the web community). There’s a danger, though, that it could go too far. Who’s to say that an overzealous Microsoft employee might not accidentally on purpose blacklist the names of rivals such as Apple and Linux?

Carl, a Florida native now living overseas, is afraid to move back to the United States. That’s because he can’t afford to pay his student loans.

Carl (who doesn’t want his last name used) stopped making his $450 monthly payments after his family incurred some unexpected medical expenses, and his $55,000 private loans went into default. That’s when the phone calls from debt collectors started, and Carl decided not to come back.

“It was made clear that if I ever came home, I’m screwed,” says Carl.

Today, he estimates his private loans are more than $70,000. Though he hopes to move home one day, for now, staying abroad is the only option he can see.

“If it means I have to live in exile from friends and family…well, that’s the breaks. So be it. But I won’t put my family in a situation where they are afraid,” he says.

Specifically the scary couple is soliciting proposals to achieve three broad goals:

-develop new quantum computing algorithms for hard computational problems;

-characterize the efficiency of candidate quantum algorithms;

-develop insights into the power of quantum computation and consider issues of quantum complexity and computability.

The announcement went on to say proposals for research should devise specific quantum algorithms to solve mathematically and computationally hard problems from such diverse fields as algebra, number theory, geometry, analysis, optimization, graph theory, differential equations, combinatorics, topology, logic, and simulation.

The Army said quantum algorithms that are developed should focus on constructive solutions for specific tasks, and on general methodologies for expressing and analyzing algorithms tailored to specific problems- though they didn’t say what those specific tasks were or problems exactly were.

Other specifics of that the NSA and Army are looking for are as follows:

“To characterize the efficiency of candidate quantum algorithms, metrics must be developed to quantify the performance of quantum algorithms relative to their classical analogs. The problems to which they are being applied must have well-defined inputs, and well-defined outputs, along with a well-defined statement of what exactly is being computed. A full accounting of all computational resources must be made including such things as numbers of qubits, numbers of quantum gates, amount of memory being used, amounts of classical pre-computation and post-computation, probability of success, and number of times the algorithm must be run.

Investigators should presuppose the existence of a fully functional quantum computer and consider what algorithmic tasks are particularly well suited to such a machine. A necessary component of this research will be to compare the efficiency of the quantum algorithm to the best existing classical algorithm for the same problem.”

The agencies went on to say they expect to award in March 2009 multiple, one to three year awards of less than $200K per year.

Quantum physics has long been an area of enormous government interest. In March, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said it was looking for innovative research proposals in the intriguing area of quantum entanglement — a developing component of quantum physics that looks at the behavior between atoms and photons that could ultimately play a key role in developing security, unbelievably fast networks and even teleportation. DARPA’s program, called Quantum Entanglement Science and Technology (QuEST) has the lofty goal of developing revolutionary advances in the fundamental understanding of quantum information science, DARPA said.

DARPA last month put out a research request it calls Mathematical Challenges, that has the mighty goal of “dramatically revolutionizing mathematics and thereby strengthening DoD’s scientific and technological capabilities.” The challenges are in fact 23 questions that if answered, would offer a high potential for major mathematical breakthroughs, DARPA said.

Tumbling commodities prices and weaker consumer spending are slowing inflation, which officials described as a “significant concern” at their last scheduled meeting in September. Tomorrow, the Commerce Department will probably report that the economy shrank at a 0.5 percent annual rate in the third quarter, the most since the 2001 recession, economists predict.

The Fed “will be very aggressive,” said Mark Gertler, a New York University economist and research co-author with Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke. “Inflation risks are off the table” and “the issue now is how bad the recession will be.”

He predicted the benchmark rate will be cut by half a point today, matching the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Bernanke and his team could push borrowing costs to zero by June if the credit crunch intensifies, Gertler said.

The Fed has already cut the benchmark rate from 5.25 percent in the past 13 months and created six lending programs channeling more than $1 trillion into the financial system. Banks are still reluctant to lend to each other and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index is down almost 36 percent this year, even after yesterday’s surge.

The FOMC is scheduled to announce its decision on rates at about 2:15 p.m. in Washington.

`Inadequate Growth’

“The predominant concern will be inadequate growth,” said former Fed Governor Lyle Gramley, now a Washington-based senior economic adviser for Stanford Group Co., a wealth-management firm. “If the economy shows additional signs of a deepening recession, I think the Fed will decide that the floor is not 1 percent.”

Global production of wheat, the most-consumed food crop, may drop 4.4 percent next year, said Dan Basse, president of AgResource Co. in Chicago, who has advised farmers, food companies and investors for 29 years. Harvests of corn and soybeans also are likely to fall, Basse said.

Smaller crops risk reviving prices of farm commodities that sank from records in 2008 after a six-year rally that spurred inflation and sparked riots from Asia to the Caribbean. Futures contracts on the Chicago Board of Trade show wheat will jump 16 percent by the end of 2009, corn will rise 15 percent and soybeans will gain 3 percent.

“The credit situation is worrying even the biggest and best farmers,” said Brian Willot, 36, a former University of Missouri commodity analyst who now grows soybeans on 2,000 acres in Brazil. “For the financially weak, credit has dried up completely. For the strong, credit has been delayed and interest rates are higher.”

The number of hungry around the world is at risk of increasing as the financial crisis cuts investment in agriculture and crops, said Abdolreza Abbassian, secretary of the Intergovernmental Group on Grains at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome. The total increased by 75 million last year to 923 million, the UN estimates.

Brazil Squeeze

“The net effect of the financial crisis may end up being lower planting, lower production,” Abbassian said. “More people will go hungry.”

In Brazil, the world’s third-biggest exporter of corn after the U.S. and Argentina, production may fall more than 20 percent because farmers can’t get loans to buy fertilizer, said Enori Barbieri, a National Corn Producers Association vice president. The nation’s coffee harvest, the world’s largest, may drop 25 percent for the same reason, said Lucio Araujo, commercial director at farmer cooperative Cooxupe, located in Guaxupe.

Borrowing costs increased and farmers struggled to get loans after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression made banks and grain processors, including Cargill Inc. and Archer Daniels Midland Co., less tolerant of risk.

Minnetonka, Minnesota-based Cargill and Decatur, Illinois- based Archer Daniels, the world’s largest grain processors, are among the crop buyers to halt financing for growers in Brazil, said Eduardo Dahe, who represents the companies as president of the National Association of Fertilizer Distributors.

Lending `Stopped’

Processors usually cover half the financing needs of farmers by accepting part of the future crop as payment. “No one is doing it,” Dahe said. “It’s stopped.”

In Russia, loan rates for farmers have jumped by half in some cases to more than 20 percent in the past few months, Arkady Zlochevsky, president of the Russian Grain Union, said in an interview earlier this month.

While the credit squeeze gripping emerging markets has yet to hurt the U.S., the risk remains, Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said Oct. 1.

“We certainly could see tight credit having an effect on agricultural production,” Schafer said in Washington. “The costs of farming operations today are huge, and that backs up to the banks that have balance sheets that are tight, it backs up to elevators that have credit stretched out.”

Farm Incomes

To be sure, farmers in the U.S., the world’s largest grain exporter, may have enough cash to avoid production cuts through next year because of this year’s record profits.

Net farm income will rise 10 percent this year to $95.7 billion, the U.S. Agriculture Department estimated Aug. 28. While farm debt jumped 7.7 percent last year to $211 billion, the total is 9.6 percent of assets, a ratio that the government forecast on Aug. 28 will drop to 8.9 percent this year, the lowest level since at least 1960, the earliest data available.

“I don’t see the crisis” for U.S. farmers, said Corny Gallagher, who helps oversee $20 billion in global agribusiness and food-product loans for Bank of America Corp. in Sacramento, California. “While commodity prices are down from their peak, they are still relatively high.”

Warning signs are appearing.

`Deteriorating’ Conditions

Global inventories of corn, wheat and soybeans before the harvest in the Northern Hemisphere next year will be the second- lowest since 1974, enough for 67 days of consumption, compared with 144 days of supplies in 1986, U.S. data show.

“Stockpiles are going to be extremely tight,” said AgResource’s Basse. “The world cannot afford any dislocation in production next year, or there will be a real shortage.”

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City said Aug. 15 that credit conditions in the second quarter, the most recent data available, “showed signs of deterioration” in the seven-state region that includes Kansas, the biggest U.S. producer of winter wheat. Loan-repayment rates fell for the first time since 2006 as wheat slid 7.6 percent in the quarter. Wheat lost another 41 percent since then.

“This year is going to be the best year ever and now we are looking at the potential to give it all back in 2009 if prices don’t rise above the expected cost of production,” said Mark Kraft, 49, who grows corn and soybeans in Normal, Illinois. “You have to hope that fertilizer, seed and land rents come down and the price of corn improves.”

Lower Prices, Higher Costs

Wheat fell to $5.1625 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade on Oct. 24, touching a 16-month low of $4.965. On Feb. 27, it reached a record $13.495. Corn fell 7.5 percent last week and touched a one-year low of $3.64 a bushel today, compared with a peak of $7.9925 on June 27. Soybeans fell 4.4 percent last week to $8.67 a bushel and are down 47 percent from a record $16.3675 on July 3. Rough-rice futures are down 41 percent to $14.685 per 100 pounds from $25.07, the highest ever, on April 24.

One 80,000-kernel bag of Monsanto Co. corn seed, enough for about 2.5 acres, rose 45 percent this year to $320, the same amount Midwest tenant farmers paid to rent an acre of land, Kraft said. A gallon of diesel for tractors averaged $4.47 in the third quarter, up 51 percent from a year earlier, according to AAA, the largest U.S. motorist organization.

The value of the collateral farmers use to secure loans — crops and land — is diminishing. Lenders are demanding more equity for farm loans used to run operations or acquire land and equipment.

Under the new “swap” arrangement, the US central bank will provide US dollars to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand in exchange for New Zealand currency.

“This facility, like those already established with other central banks, is designed to help improve liquidity conditions in global financial markets,” the Fed explained in a brief statement.

The goal is to spur banks and other financial institutions to lend more freely, something that will help the US and global economies.

The move was designed to restore trust in Iceland’s battered currency. After the announcement, the Icelandic krona traded internationally for the first time in a week.

The rate hike, which took rates to the highest since the Icelandic central bank began targeting inflation in 2001, came just a fortnight after borrowing costs were eased. Last week Reykjavik agreed a stand-by loan of $2.1bn (£1.33bn) with the IMF, but its prime minister said the country needs another $4bn.

Two weeks ago, the central bank cut rates by 3.5 percentage points to 12%. “This has come a bit out of the blue following the latest interest rate cut,” said Elisabeth Gruie, emerging markets strategist at BNP Paribas. “And it reflects a desperate attempt to restore a degree of confidence in the local market and restore trading in the Icelandic krona, which has been completely frozen.”

The island has been hit hard by the global financial crisis and three of its biggest banks have been nationalised.

The rate rise means that investors get a much higher return for putting money back into the Iceland’s crippled financial system.

“It is of overarching importance to restore stability in the foreign exchange market and support the exchange rate of the crown,” said the central bank, Sedlabanki.

Its governor David Oddsson said the rate rise was required before the IMF’s board signed off the package, which is expected to happen on Thursday.

Democratic state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson faces 40 years in prison after federal prosecutors outlined accusations that she accepted the bribes over an 18-month period in a money-for-legislative influence sting operation, prosecutors said. She had $6,000 in cash in her purse when she was arrested at her Roxbury home by nearly two dozen law enforcement officials, prosecutors said.

Photographs released by U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan showed Wilkerson stuffing 10 $100 bills into her bra at No. 9 Park restaurant last June. During another meeting with an undercover FBI agent two months later, Wilkerson took her granddaughter to accept a $1,000 kickback at the Fill-A-Buster restaurant, a famed political hotspot directly across the street from the Massachusetts State House, according to a 32-page affidavit filed in the case.

A federal complaint charges that Wilkerson accepted eight bribes totaling $23,500 over an 18-month period in exchange for her influence on Beacon Hill. Undercover agents posed as a property developer who wanted to build on state land, and another worked Wilkerson as a potential barroom owner willing to pay for a liquor license.

“She has a long history of acting as if she was above the law,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney John McNeil during Wilkerson’s initial appearance in court.

Wilkerson’s attorney Max Stern insisted that his client was innocent. He also accused McNeil of trying to “character assassinate” Wilkerson by bringing up her past problems with the Massachusetts attorney general and campaign finance officials.

Wilkerson -– the state’s only black state senator –- is a convicted tax cheat and a campaign finance scofflaw who has a long litany of legal problems that has marred her 15-year record as a lawmaker.

Australia’s All Ordinaries index was up a modest 2.9 percent, South Korea’s KOSPI gained 3.9 percent, and the Taiwan Weighted was up more than 2 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up 4.5 percent in late morning trading, and Singapore’s Straits Times posted a 1.8 percent gain.

The jolt in these markets followed the Dow’s dramatic 10.9 percent rally, a jump of 889 points, as bargain-hunters snapped up stocks beaten down in value by recent sell-offs. Tuesday’s performance was second only to a 936-point record rally two weeks ago and was the sixth-biggest percentage gain for the index.

The Standard and Poor’s 500 index gained 10.8 percent, and the Nasdaq composite added 9.5 percent.