Asia shares fall

Asian share prices fell Monday after Japan said its economy suffered its worst contraction in almost 35 years and G7 finance ministers warned the global turmoil was far from over.
Tokyo was down 0.38 percent after official data showed the economy shrank at an annualised pace of 12.7 percent in the three months to December, the worst performance since the 1970s oil crisis.
"We don't expect the global economy to rebound quickly. Instead, we expect it to continue deteriorating this year before slowly recovering," Jose Vistan of AB Capital Securities in Manila told Dow Jones newswires.
Sydney fell 1.2 percent in response to weakness in the resources sector while Hong Kong ended down 0.7 percent, led by falls in banking stocks ahead of annual results.
Singapore was down 1.3 percent, Seoul slid 1.4 percent amid growing jitters about US bank earnings and Manila was 0.2 percent lower.
Mumbai fell 3.42 percent after the government's pre-election mini-budget failed to boost investor sentiment.
Wellington was down 2.5 percent after a profit warning from key manufacturer Fisher & Paykel.
Going against the trend, Shanghai rose 2.96 percent, led by securities firms, which were riding high after last week's rally boosted trading volumes.
Investors across Asia were waiting anxiously to see how US markets would react to Congressional approval of a 787-billion-dollar economic stimulus package, with the sensitive "Buy American" clause toned down.
At a weekend meeting in Rome, the Group of Seven major economies called for "urgent reforms" of the international financial system and reiterated a bleak outlook for the world economy, after fresh data showed the eurozone recession deepening.