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Declaring Japan has turned a corner in the battle to stabilize its tsunami-damaged nuclear plant, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced Friday the facility has achieved a stable state of “cold shutdown,” a crucial step toward lifting evacuation orders and closing the plant.

Noda’s announcement was intended to reassure the nation that significant progress has been made in the nine months since the March 11 tsunami sent three reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant into meltdowns in the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986.

But the plant 140 miles (230 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo remains vulnerable to problems, its surroundings are contaminated by radiation and closing the plant safely will take 30 or more years.

“The reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant have reached a state of cold shutdown,” Noda said. “Now that we have achieved stability in the reactors, a major concern for the nation has been resolved.”

Noda said he hopes conditions will improve quickly so that the people who have been displaced by the crisis can return home “even a day sooner.”

“There are many issues that remain,” Noda said. “Our battle is not over.”

The government’s official endorsement of the claim by Tokyo Electric Power Co. that the reactors have reached cold shutdown status is a necessary step toward revising evacuation zones around the plant and focusing efforts from simply stabilizing the facility to actually starting the arduous process of shutting it down.

But Noda acknowledged the assessment has some important caveats.

The government says Fukushima Dai-ichi has reached cold shutdown “conditions”_ a cautious phrasing reflecting the fact that TEPCO cannot measure temperatures of melted fuel in the damaged reactors in the same way as with normally functioning ones.

Even so, the announcement marks the end of the second phase of the government’s lengthy roadmap to completely decommission the plant.

Officials can now start discussing whether to allow some evacuees to return to less-contaminated areas _ although a 12-mile (20-kilometer) zone around the plant is expected to remain off limits for years to come. The crisis displaced some 100,000 people.

Noda said the government will step up decontamination efforts and will ready 1 trillion yen ($12.8 billion) for urgently needed projects next year. He also said 30,000 workers will be trained.

A cold shutdown normally means a nuclear reactor’s coolant system is at atmospheric pressure and its reactor core is at a temperature below 212 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius), making it impossible for a chain reaction to take place.

According to TEPCO, temperature gauges inside the Fukushima reactors show the pressure vessel is at around 70 C (158 F). The government also says the amount of radiation now being released around the plant is at or below 1 millisievert per year _ equivalent to the annual legal exposure limit for ordinary citizens before the crisis began.

Akira Yamaguchi, a nuclear physicist at Osaka University, said that the government’s definition of cold shutdown is disputable.

“But what’s most important right now is that there aren’t any massive radiation leaks any more,” he said.

Putting longer-term issues aside, he warned that much of the backup equipment installed at the plant since the crisis began is makeshift and may break down. He said winter cold could test their strength.

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TNK-BP, a Russian joint venture of British oil giant BP, said Wednesday it will invest up to $10 billion in developing Arctic oilfields.

The company, half-owned by BP and Russian billionaires, said in a statement that up to $10 billion will be spent on building infrastructure at the fields and a pipeline that will link them with the export pipeline.

Russian oil companies have been drawing up plans to move to the oil and gas-rich Arctic as mature fields in Western Siberia are getting depleted.

TNK-BP said an agreement with Russia’s pipeline monopolist Transneft will allow it to connect its Arctic oil fields to the export pipeline in Russia’s Far East mainly aimed at Chinese customers.

TNK-BP will be able to ship oil through the Zapolyaryev-Purpe pipeline, which is expected to be built by 2016 to become a key link between Arctic resources and the main east and westbound pipeline routes.

The company said it expects to start shipments from new fields in the Yamal region in 2015. Its fields in the region are estimated to hold 5 billion barrels of oil.

TNK-BP’s executive German Khan described in the statement cooperation between oil companies and state-owned Transneft as “one of the most important conditions for putting new fields into development and efficiently developing the abundant resources of the region.”

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Applause and cheers rang out after Unionized Boeing Machinists voted overwhelmingly to approve a four-year contract extension _ a deal that grants the company labor peace and likely ends a federal complaint that had become a hot topic for Republican presidential candidates.

Boeing promised that if workers approved the pact, the company would build the new version of the popular 737 in the Puget Sound region, while the Machinists said they’d drop their allegations that Boeing opened a nonunion assembly plant in South Carolina in retaliation for previous strike.

“This contract signifies jobs throughout the Northwest, throughout the region,” said the union’s aerospace coordinator, Mark Blondin. “The message of this contract is … Boeing is acknowledging we have the deepest pool of skilled aerospace workers in the country.”

Dozens union members sounded their approval with cheers Wednesday night as Tom Wroblewski, president of Machinists District Lodge 751, announced that 74 percent of voting members chose to approve the deal.

The union represents 28,000 workers in Washington, Oregon and Kansas.

Machinists went on strike in 2005 and 2008. The latter strike helped delay delivery of Boeing’s first 787, costing the company dearly.

“This contract will help secure a better future for our employees, our customers, our communities and our company,” said Jim Albaugh, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. “It reflects an effort on the part of the company and the union to find a better way to work together and achieve common ground.”

The deal guarantees Chicago-based Boeing a stretch of labor peace at a time when it badly needs it. Competition with European rival Airbus is tight, and looming budget cuts at the Defense Department are likely to cut into the company’s defense business.

In a lawsuit filed this year, the National Labor Relations Board claimed Boeing violated labor laws by opening the South Carolina line. The case became a political issue, with Republican presidential candidates using it to bash the Obama administration. South Carolina Gov cash advance. Nikki Haley and the state’s congressional delegation said the NLRB lawsuit threatened thousands of jobs and millions of dollars invested in the new Boeing facility in Charleston.

The labor board is an independent agency dominated by the president’s appointees. As part of the deal, the Machinists said they’d drop the matter. If the NLRB follows suit, it would remove a potentially damaging element for Obama in the 2012 campaign.

The deal extends the Machinists’ contract to September 2016. It calls for annual wage increases of 2 percent, cost-of-living adjustments, an incentive program intended to pay bonuses between 2 percent and 4 percent, a ratification bonus of $5,000 for each member, and improvements in the pension program. But it also would raise workers’ share of health costs.

Blondin said Boeing’s pension is the most generous in the country, and he hoped the fact that Boeing is retaining it for new hires would prompt other companies to do likewise: “As we all know pension plans have gone away,” he said. “We can get pensions back. They are affordable.”

Crucially for the union, it would ensure that jobs for Boeing’s updated 737 line _ the 737 Max _ stay in the Puget Sound region. Boeing said in July it was studying other locations for the new 737.

“It’s jobs for the people and not having to worry about a strike _ it’s beautiful,” said Gabrielle Rogano, a third-generation Boeing employee who works at a shipping and receiving center in SeaTac.

Wilson Ferguson, a delivery mechanic, wore a Santa suit as he helped count votes Wednesday night _ having come straight from volunteering to pose for photos with children of union members. The 24-year Boeing veteran has participated in the last four strikes, and said it’s a huge relief not to face another.

“Nobody wins, you never recover,” he said. “With this economy, it’s not the time to go on strike.”

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Markets were boosted again on Tuesday by hopes that the 17 countries that use the euro will finally come up with a plan to deal with their crushing debt crisis.

As the 17 finance ministers of the countries that use the euro converged on EU headquarters in a desperate bid to save their currency _ and to protect the global economy from a debt-induced financial tsunami _ investors were reminded of the urgency of the task at hand.

Italy’s borrowing rates shot up Tuesday to above 7 percent, an unsustainable level on a par with rates that forced the others to seek bailouts.

The fear is that the crisis _ which already has forced bailouts of Greece, Ireland and Portugal _ could engulf bigger economies such as Italy, the eurozone’s third-largest. If Italy were to default on its debt of euro1.9 trillion ($2.5 trillion), the fallout could spell ruin for the euro project itself and send shock waves throughout the global economy.

Though no specific details have yet emerged of what will likely result from a Dec. 9 summit of EU leaders, the ministers are thought to be discussing ideas that would have been taboo only recently: countries ceding fiscal sovereignty to a central authority; some kind of elite group of euro nations that would guarantee one another’s loans _ but require strong fiscal discipline from anyone wanting membership.

On Tuesday, finance ministers also were likely to discuss the options _ plus a possible way to boost the region’s rescue fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, at a meeting in Brussels.

“Global equity markets have started the week hopeful that EU policymakers are actually moving closer to resolving the eurozone debt and banking crisis, with hopes pinned on reports that France and Germany are planning a ‘fast-track’ updated Stability Pact to both tighten budget rules and provide fiscal policy oversight,” said Neil MacKinnon, global macro strategist at VTB Capital.

On Monday, stocks advanced strongly, particularly in Europe, with the CAC-40 in France up a massive 5 percent or so.

As a result, the gains Tuesday were not as marked but did provide some further evidence of the hopes that European leaders will finally get their act together in around 10 days time.

In Europe, Germany’s DAX was up 0.2 percent at 5,747, while the CAC-40 rose 0.5 percent at 3,026. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was 0.1 percent higher at 5,320. The euro, meanwhile, was up 0.4 percent at $1.3346.

Wall Street was poised for further gains, too, amid ongoing evidence of a strong start to the U.S. holiday shopping season. Dow futures were up 0.5 percent at 11,555, while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 futures rose 0.6 percent at 1,198.

Earlier, most Asian markets ended higher, with the Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo climbing 2.3 percent to close at 8,477.82.

Elsewhere in Asia, South Korea’s Kospi rose 2.3 percent to 1,856.52 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 1.2 percent to 18,256.20. Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan and Australia were also higher.

Mainland Chinese shares advanced, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index gaining 1.2 percent to 2,412.39.

Oil prices tracked equities modestly higher _ benchmark crude for January delivery was up 49 cents to $98.70 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

____

Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.

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By the time the sun rose Friday morning, exhausted shoppers were dozing, slumped over in chairs at area malls, surrounded by shopping bags.

It was one sign that the midnight Black Friday sales were a hit with many deal-hungry consumers who took retailers up on their promotions and literally shopped until they dropped.

By 8 a.m. Friday, marathon shoppers and sisters Tina Hamilton of Bridgeton and Lisa Gray of Overland had already been shopping for about 10 hours. They started at Walmart around 10 p.m., then went to a Target opening at midnight, followed by Kmart at 5 a.m. and then to West County Center.

You have to have a strategy, Hamilton said. And, apparently, a lot of endurance.

“Your body is so broken down after cooking all day and then you stood in line to get a TV that didn’t go on sale until midnight,” Gray said.

There were few signs of consumer backlash to the midnight openings other than some shoppers who showed up later Friday morning because they said they were unhappy that stores made employees work on the holiday.

Black Friday, considered the start of the holiday shopping season, is closely watched by economists because of the important role retail sales play in fueling the economy.

Last year, the Thanksgiving shopping weekend accounted for 12.1 percent of overall holiday sales, according to ShopperTrak, a research firm. Black Friday made up about half of that no fax payday loans.

Greg Maloney, chief executive of retail for commercial real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle, said he thinks this will end up being an even better Black Friday than originally anticipated. He saw more customers leaving the stores with bags in hand this year. The relatively good weather around the country helped, too, he said.

“It’s a great start to the holidays,” he said. “If I had to predict, I would say next year you’ll see most if not all retailers opening up (Thanksgiving night) and staying open all night.”

Sean Phillips, regional marketing director for CBL & Associates, which operates many shopping malls in the region, said the midnight openings seemed to be a big success for those mall-based stores with special doorbuster deals such as Macy’s, Victoria’s Secret, and Bath & Body Works.

“A lot of the stores I talked to this morning did think the midnight opening was going to help them meet or exceed their sales,” he said Friday afternoon. “They felt it brought in a lot of new sales.”

A record number of shoppers are expected this weekend. For three days starting on Black Friday, 152 million people are expected to shop, either online or in stores, an increase of about 10 percent from last year, according to the National Retail Federation.

The midnight sales seemed to draw more of a younger crowd

Business orders for long-lasting manufactured goods fell for a second straight month in October.

While much of the weakness came from a big drop in demand for commercial aircraft, a key category that tracks business investment spending fell by the largest amount since January.

The Commerce Department says that orders for durable goods fell 0.7 percent in January following a September decline of 1.5 percent. Orders for core capital goods, considered a good proxy for business investment spending, dropped 1 payday loans for bad credit.8 percent, the biggest decline since a 4.8 percent fall in January.

Manufacturing has been one of the strongest sectors in the economy in this sub-par recovery, but this sector slowed this year as consumer demand faltered and auto factories had trouble getting parts following the March natural disasters in Japan.

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ST. PETERS

TORONTO

They line up at soup kitchens by the thousands. Individual debt is rising, savings are eroding and many young people have simply given up, staying home without studying or even looking for a job.

They are Italy’s invisible poor, unseen by tourists, ignored by the country’s fat-cat politicians and living in a reality that’s a far cry from former Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s description of an affluent country where “the restaurants are full.”

Or in the words of Francesa Zuccari, who runs a soup kitchen in Rome: “There is another city out there where people can’t get to the end of the month.”

This is the Italy facing Mario Monti, the economics professor tapped to form an interim technocratic government after Berlusconi was forced to resign last weekend. International markets and the European Community decided the 75-year-old media mogul lacked the political clout to enact needed reforms to head off a debt crisis and get the economy moving.

On Tuesday, Monti won support from Italy’s two largest parties, but the question remains whether politicians will back his expected painful reform measures at the risk of social peace.

On the one hand, Italy’s elite manufacturers are girding for an increase in luxury exports and some wealthy Italians are looking to move their money into the real-estate markets in New York, Miami and Paris.

On the other, the state statistics institute ISTAT says 8 million Italians, almost 14 percent of the population, are living in “relative poverty.”

While tourists may not see the poor as they visit Tuscany’s rolling hills, Venice’s waterways or the Amalfi coast’s picturesque villages, they are increasingly visible on Italian city streets.

Many Italians have begun taking their money out of banks, fearing reports that measures to help fight the sovereign debt crisis might include deductions from bank accounts, as was done in the 1990s.

“They are putting it under the mattress, or even inside empty wine jugs in the cellars. We are a country of farmers,” said Elio Lannutti, president of consumer protection group Adusbef.

An American service organization in Rome asked its members to spend their Thanksgiving holiday next week making food packages for the poor. Zuccari said demand for food parcels had risen 20 percent in the last few years, with well-dressed Italians now joining immigrants in line.

Caritas, the Roman Catholic church’s charity arm, says growing numbers of families can’t meet a surprise expense of euro700 ($947) without turning to borrowing.

“What is really dramatic is the geographic division,” said Caritas’ Walter Nanni, pointing to figures that Italy’s south remains severely impoverished.

While only 18 percent of families in the Alpine province of Trento could not meet such an unexpected payment for medical expenses or car repairs, the figure rises to 48 percent in Sicily.

“The (south) shows in a particular manner growing signs of economic and social vulnerability,” Monsignor Mariano Crociata, secretary-general of the Italian Bishops Conference, said in an October report on poverty.

To be sure, Italy isn’t as bad off as Greece or Portugal, which are both in recession, struggling with high unemployment as they are being bailed out by international lenders.

But Italy’s prospects aren’t great either, particularly given its brain drain and policies that have pushed Italy’s underutilized youth even further to the margins.

A gerontocracy dominates Italy’s key professional posts, making workers even well into their 40s still considered up-and-coming. In the highest political circles, Monti is 68, Berlusconi is 75 and the president of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, is 86.

Many younger Italians in fields like medicine, science and technology leave for countries that have more professional opportunities and mobility.

And the prospects for those who have not left are eroding fast. The Bank of Italy this month reported that nearly one in four Italians under 30 _ a total of 2.2 million people _ neither study nor work.

The great majority of the Italian NEET’s _ short for “Not in Education, Employment or Training” _ live at home with at least one parent, and a full 25 percent are living in a family where no one is working, the bank said.

A university degree does little to alleviate their plight: A full 20 percent of college graduates are without a job.

Lawyers in Italy must do a two-year apprenticeship before taking the bar exam, and most firms take advantage of the requirement to get free labor out of the trainees. Among the measures being discussed to confront the debt crisis would be a requirement that internships are paid.

“At least with Monti there is some hope since he is not a politician subject to pressure from the lobbies,” said Francesco Bureca, who graduated from an elite school but can’t land a job.

But hardline leftists expect no improvement for Italy’s poor, even from the new government.

“The Monti government is born from a mandate of Confindustria (a powerful business lobby) and the banks,” said Marco Ferrando, leader of the tiny Communist Workers Party.

He called for new protests. Italy’s last major economic protest this fall ended in a bloody riot on the streets of Rome.

____

Barry reported from Milan.

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Italy’s borrowing rates spiked early Tuesday to their highest level since the euro was established in 1999 ahead of a budget vote in Parliament that could force the resignation of Premier Silvio Berlusconi.

With speculation over Berlusconi’s future swirling, the markets are focused in on developments in Rome, which has become the epicenter of Europe’s debt crisis. Berlusconi’s government is under market pressure to enact quick reforms to protect Italy from the growing sovereign debt crisis, but has been hobbled by a weak coalition and political gridlock.

What happens in Italy is a particular worry as it’s the eurozone’s third-largest economy. With debts of around euro1.9 trillion ($2.6 trillion), Italy’s debts are thought to be too big for Europe to bail out.

Higher rates would make it more difficult for Italy to rollover its debts and will mean they consume more and more of national income. Italy has over euro300 billion ($412 billion) to raise in 2012 alone.

By mid-morning, the yield on Italy’s ten-year bonds was up 0.12 percentage point at 6.66 percent, down from an earlier high of 6.74 percent. A rate of over 7 percent is considered unsustainable and proved to be the trigger point that forced Greece, Ireland and Portugal into accepting the need for financial bailouts.

The vote later looks like it’s on a knife-edge, with Berlusconi’s coalition showing signs of fracture. Italian news agency ANSA reported that Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti hurriedly departed from a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Brussels to return to Rome payday loan lenders in states.

In less tense times, the vote would have meant routine approval of the 2010 state accounts, but instead it has become a crucial test of Berlusconi’s survival as head of his 3 1/2 year-old center-right government. Last month, the vote of the same measure failed by one vote. Chamber whips were meeting a few hours before the vote to map out a strategy for the vote, which is likely to take place Tuesday afternoon.

Opposition forces were considering boycotting the vote so the numbers would more clearly show just how many deputies still support the government. If Berlusconi’s forces number less than 316 deputies _ or one more than half the number of the 630-member chamber, it would be plain that the media mogul no longer can count on a majority in the lower house of Parliament.

The government could still win the vote, by commanding more than half of those showing up to vote, but a dismal showing could show Berlusconi is too weak politically to continue to govern.

If he gets through Tuesday’s hurdle, Berlusconi has indicated he would put a vote next week on the anti-crisis measures to a confidence vote. If it loses that vote, Berlusconi would have to resign.

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