The Bank of Japan predicted the recession would lead to a 3.1 percent gross domestic product contraction in the year ending in March 2010.

NEW YORK, Dec. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Newsweek's first ever list of the world's 50 most powerful people lays out a roadmap for how the world works today.

The Bank of Japan Friday cut its key interest rate to 0.3 percent from 0.5 percent, the first such cut in seven years, to boost Japan's sluggish economy.

The main Japanese opposition party on Tuesday backed the government's third pick for Bank of Japan governor, ending a stalemate that has left the world's second largest economy without a permanent central bank chief for three weeks in the midst of a global credit crisis.

Japan's upper house of Parliament Wednesday approved Masaaki Shirakawa as the next governor of the central bank, ending three weeks of political wrangling.