News Headlines - 28 November 2013

▽BBC News - Japan's Nikkei index hits six-year high

Japan's main stock index has closed at its highest level for nearly six years, tracking overnight gains on Wall Street and buoyed by a weak yen. The Nikkei 225 rose 1.8% to 15,727.12 points, the highest level since December 2007. The index has surged nearly 50% this year after a series of aggressive moves by policymakers to help boost growth.

▽BBC News - Japan and South Korea defy China air zone rules

Japan and South Korea have both flown planes unannounced through China's newly-declared air defence zone, officials from both nations say. Japanese aircraft had conducted routine "surveillance activity" over the East China Sea zone, the top government spokesman said.

▽Is Shinzo Abe's 'new nationalism' a throwback to Japanese imperialism? | theguardian.com

The deepening confrontation between Japan and its giant neighbour, China, over a disputed island chain, which this week sucked in US military forces flying B-52 bombers, holds no terrors for Kenji Fujii, captain of the crack Japanese destroyer JS Murasame.

▽Japanese firm plans 250 mile-wide solar panel belt around Moon - Telegraph

Tokyo-based Shimizu Corp. wants to lay a belt of solar panels 250 miles wide around the equator of our orbiting neighbour and then relay the constant supply of energy to “receiving stations” on Earth by way of lasers or microwave transmission. The “Luna Ring” that is being proposed would be capable of sending 13,000 terawatts of power to Earth. Throughout the whole of 2011, it points out, the United States only generated 4,100 terawatts of power.

▽BBC News - Japan: Man swapped at birth wins damages

A 60-year-old man switched at birth from his rich parents to a poor family has been given compensation, it's reported. The Tokyo man will be paid 32m yen ($313,265) by social welfare corporation San-Ikukai, which runs the hospital where he was born in March 1953. Hospital staff mistakenly thought he was the son of a couple whose own baby was born 13 minutes later, says the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.