India, Japan Look To Ease Visa Rules To Boost Trade Last Updated: Dec 29 2009 7:05AM India and Japan agreed on Tuesday to ease visa rules within a year to boost trade between two of Asia's biggest economies that are also trying to broaden cooperation in defence and nuclear energy. Japan is among India's biggest aid donors and bilateral trade has only begun picking up in recent years with Tokyo easing sanctions it imposed after India tested a nuclear device in 1998.   India, Japan Look To Ease Visa Rules To Boost Trade Last Updated: Dec 29 2009 7:04AM India and Japan agreed on Tuesday to ease visa rules within a year to boost trade between two of Asia's biggest economies that are also trying to broaden cooperation in defence and nuclear energy. Japan is among India's biggest aid donors and bilateral trade has only begun picking up in recent years with Tokyo easing sanctions it imposed after India tested a nuclear device in 1998.   Japanese PM backtracks on US base relocation Last Updated: Dec 28 2009 7:09AM Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama says relocating entirely a controversial US airbase from southern Japan to Guam is "unreasonable". Mr Hatoyama says it wouldn't be practical to shift the whole base from Okinawa to the US-controlled Pacific Ocean territory.   Taiwan and China hold talks as protests persist Last Updated: Dec 22 2009 12:00AM TAICHUNG, Taiwan: Top envoys from Taiwan and China began talks Tuesday behind lines of barbed wire shielding them from protesters desperate to stop the island being sucked further into the mainland's orbit.  Chen Yunlin, the head of a quasi-official Chinese agency in charge of Taiwan, kicked off the trade talks in the city of Taichung, in the centre of the island which Beijing claims as its own.  "We hope this meeting will result in complete success," Chen said at the opening of the meeting with his Taiwanese counterpart Chiang Pin-kung.  The meeting is the fourth since Taiwan's China-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou assumed power in May last year and embarked on a programme of closer ties with the island's giant neighbour.   Cyclone Laurence lashes western Australia Last Updated: Dec 22 2009 12:00AM SYDNEY: Tropical Cyclone Laurence tore into Western Australia overnight, with winds of up to 215 kilometres an hour damaging some buildings but causing no injuries, officials said on Tuesday.  The storm had been at the highest rating of Category 5 when it ripped inland onto Eighty Mile Beach late Monday but has since been downgraded to a Category 3 though alerts remain in place for parts of the Kimberley/Pilbara coastline.  Western Australia's Fire and Emergency Services Authority said it would conduct an aerial assessment of the remote area via helicopter early Tuesday.  "At the moment we're having trouble contacting people in Wallal and Mandora and we just want to make sure that the reports we are currently getting that there is no loss of life or damage is correct," the authority's Les Hayter said.