News stories by Analysis by Suvendrini Kakuchi

The Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF4), starting in this port city on Tuesday, will examine why international donor assistance worth trillions of dollars spent over decades has failed to eradicate poverty.

As authorities struggle to control dangerous radioactive material spilling from the quake ravaged Fukushima nuclear power reactors, a more difficult question has begun to unsettle Japan - is the country’s post-war prosperity as invincible as was believed till now?

Currency and trade tensions may have grabbed the headlines from the two-day summit of the Group of 20 advanced and developed economies, but the bigger story is how the tables have turned and given developing countries a much stronger voice at the international negotiating table.

South Korea’s leadership faces a serious test when it hosts a summit of the Group of 20 advanced and developing economies this month, amid a currency war that is straining relations among its members.

Yet another Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit is around the corner, but questions remain about its impact on trade liberalisation more than 20 years after the forum was born amid grand visions of a world free of trade barriers.

China’s stepping up as the world’s second largest economy drives home to Japan the point that after decades of ruling the roost in Asia, it will have to share the leadership stage with new, powerful contender that is here to stay.

Economies ties between Japan and South Korea are becoming stronger by the day, and the neighbouring countries have also been collaborating more frequently on the cultural front.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s disastrous visit this week to Okinawa island, host to the largest U.S. military bases in Japan, has highlighted a rocky road ahead for the country’s much awaited change pledged by the postwar democratic and socialist government that came to power in August 2009.