* Saturday: Despite desperate efforts to kick-start activity in the stalled markets, and re-instill investor confidence, Japan’s Nikkei continues to bear the blows of the economic crisis–this week, falling to ever new lows, following a 9.6% nosedive.

* Saturday: According to Japan’s financial minister Shoichi Nakagawa, in the face of Tokyo’s own financial market woes, Japan is currently in the proposing stages of a plan under the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to create emergency loans to various emerging nations, to assist in their rebuilding efforts in the wake of the crisis. On Friday, Japan’s new Prime Minister Taro Aso said that Japan is prepared to host a meeting of leaders from the Group of Eight major industrial countries and others if necessary, to deal with the widening global financial crisis in Asia.

* Friday: In hopes of acting as a go-between in facilitating inter-bank borrowing, the Bank of Japan moved to inject a record 4.5 trillion yen (roughly 45 billion USD) into the Tokyo market. This injection marked the 18th straight day of emergency operations (beginning on September 16th) by the BOJ.

* Friday: Time-honored Tokyo based insurer Yamato Life Insurance Co. filed for bankruptcy protection, the first Japanese agency of its sort to fail since 2001, and the eighth since the end of WWII. Yamato Life’s profile–nearly 270 billion yen (2.7 billion USD) in debt, was hurt by losses from investing in subprime mortgage-backed bonds and other securities like stocks, whose prices have plunged amid the global financial crisis, officials have said.

* Tuesday: At a national news conference, BOJ Governor Masaaki Shirakawa reported that the economic recovery timeline might be forced into a delay against initial expectations. He blamed the possibility of delay on part of additional time and attention being required for looking into the various downside risks.