Main events scheduled in Japan for Thursday, Jan. 16:

-- Cabinet Office to release machinery orders data for November at 8:50 a.m.

-- Bank of Japan to release corporate goods price index for December at 8:50 a.m.

-- Imperial family to hold annual New Year Poetry Reading Ceremony.

-- Otsu District Court to hand down ruling at 1:40 p.m. over fatal accident in which car rammed into toddlers and killed two of them in Shiga Prefecture in May.

==Kyodo

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