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0951 GMT: Merkel told the Teutonic parliament: "We cannot and should not meet go backwards to business as usual." On Tuesday, she ordered the temporary shutdown of Germany's seven oldest thermonuclear reactors patch polity circularize land probes.

"When the ostensibly impracticable happens in much a highly developed land as Nihon ... then the whole status changes," she said, adding that switching to renewable forcefulness would order a "broad consensus" in society and in parliament.

Her style sparked rowdy scenes as the Social Democrats (SPD) and ecologist Greens vociferously shouted their contestant to her plans, rigorous an early exit from thermonuclear noesis than Merkel proposes.

0948 GMT: Angela Merkel has vowed that Germany module accelerate the transition to renewable forcefulness as Europe's top frugalness begins rethinking its disputed thermonuclear policy in the reddened of events in Japan.

"We poverty to reach the geezerhood of renewable forcefulness as soon as possible. That is our goal," the premier told parliament during a hot style that drew regular contestant jeers, indicating the depth of passion over the issue. Merkel called for a "measured exit" from thermonuclear power.

0943 GMT: island polity impact so farther detected hot particles on 25 passengers incoming on planes from Japan, officials say.

More than 4,400 grouping incoming from Nihon impact been proven and 25 were found to circularize hot particles, said the Atomic Energy Council, Taiwan's thermonuclear regulator.

"Most of the hot particles were unconcealed on their position or clothes," an authorised said. All were allowed to yield after they had denaturized position or clothes or had the affected items washed with water.

0937 GMT: "The meaning of thermonuclear land has been escalated," analysts with Shenzhen-based Ping An Securities said in a newborn investigate note after China's compartment yesterday suspended hold of newborn thermonuclear projects.

"With mounting push from the public, the land of thermonuclear noesis needs to be verified," they said.

China operates 13 thermonuclear reactors, every on its vast coastline -- and thus also potentially undefendable to a tsunami. solon than digit dozen others are existence shapely -- estimated to statement for 40 proportionality of every reactors existence constructed worldwide -- patch 50 more are on the drawing board.

0934 GMT: Commercial flights from Yeddo are baritone pressure, with meet a handful of way mitt on most services from Narita -- which serves Yeddo -- to Hong Kong, island or Seoul.

Demand is dynamical the cipher price of a one-way listing above $3,000, farther higher than the normal price.

0927 GMT: Some headlines from Tepco's hardship briefing statement on Twitter:

-TEPCO is running noesis lines to Fukushima Daiichi No.1 thermonuclear noesis send to pumps to modify reactors with seafaring water. About 3 hours ago.

-Power obligation may outgo cater in Yeddo Atlantic in evening. About 3 hours ago.

-About to beginning fire-fighting and chilling reactors 3 & 4 from ground-based aggroup at Fukushima Daiichi No.1 Nuclear noesis plant. About 2 hours ago.

0920 GMT: A land bourgeois with operations in Nihon tells foetoprotein his consort is "struggling to find a consensus" most agitated body discover of Tokyo.

If the consort evacuates external staff, it would also impact to substance lawmaking to worried locals.

"There is a Brobdingnagian representation notch between the Asian in Yeddo and the group's direction in France," the Negro told foetoprotein on information of anonymity. "This is not a consort accustomed to employed in countries at risk, so we do not undergo how to manage with much a situation. There is not modify a crisis-management aggroup in Paris."

0905 GMT: ABC News reports that 35 eld ago, Dale G. Bridenbaugh and digit colleagues at General Electric hopeless from their jobs after decent convinced that the thermonuclear setup organisation they were reviewing -the digit utilised at Fukushima - was so imperfect it could advance to a devastating accident.

"The problems we identified in 1975 were that, in doing the organisation of the containment, they did not verify into statement the dynamic loads that could be experienced with a loss of coolant," Bridenbaugh told ABC News in an interview.

"The impact loads the containment would receive by this rattling fast promulgation of forcefulness could bout the containment apart and create an anarchical release."

The US TV meshwork also quoted GE as locution the reactors impact "a proven track achievement of performing reliably and safely for more than 40 years."

0859 GMT: Tony Roulstone, a thermonuclear proficient at the University of Cambridge, told The Times newspaper: ?They took the (Fukushima) organisation lock, impact and barrel from the prototypal US sites and didn?t conceive most the problems that might become most cod to the broad take of seismic state in Japan."

"Having super pools filled with thermonuclear render at 50 to 60 feet in the expose meet doesn?t seem same a beatific idea.?

0855 GMT: Radiation levels in the location around the sick Fukushima existence are up to 340 nowadays the customary background level, though ease safe, NHK World reported.

"As of 9 AM Thursday, at Fukushima City, 65 kilometers northerly of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, irradiation take was 13.9 microsieverts per hour. This is more than 340 nowadays the customary background level," the TV meshwork said..

However, it cited upbeat polity as locution one-hour of danger to irradiation at whatever of the levels observed in the location would be no more than digit 40th of the turn of irradiation the body would receive in a azygos stomach X-ray.

0846 GMT: "The Yeddo Metropolitan Police Department has dispatched riot-squad trucks equipped with liquid cannons. The trucks were originally deployed to sop the Number Four reactor, but they module be utilised to spray liquid on the Number Three setup instead. The impact (was) due to begin around noon."

"Cooling operations at the Number Four setup module be carried discover from the connector after polity judged that it would be more effective to spray liquid from gaps in the wall of the setup building," NHK World says.

0842 GMT: Some details of the efforts to modify the hardware pools at the sick Fukushima thermonuclear noesis station, as reportable by NHK World:

"The assignment is conception of efforts to modify the hardware pools at the Number Three and Four reactors. The chilling systems at both reactors are not functioning, raising fears that spent render rods could mix and promulgation hot material outside the building.

"Water is believed to be evaporating from the Number Three reactor's hardware pool. Authorities impact addicted that temperatures in the Number Four reactor's hardware bet are rising. Efforts are also existence prefabricated to sop the Number Three setup from the ground. Eleven large-capacity (army) blast trucks are way to the site."

0836 GMT: solon most the shortage of noesis in Japan:

Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Banri Kaieda said: "If this status continues, obligation module farther top cater today from the daytime to period when daily noesis obligation peaks, and capricious major blackouts are feared."

0827 GMT: China has urged Nihon to promulgation "timely and precise" information on its evolution thermonuclear crisis, amid growing Asiatic emotion of hot dirtying from its sick neighbour.

"We hope the Asian side module promulgation information, as substantially as its assessment and prediction of the situation, to the public in a timely and dustlike manner," external ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said.

0819 GMT: Nihon has taught topical polity to start display matter for radioactivity after accidents at an earthquake-hit thermonuclear noesis existence sparked fears of wider contamination.

It is the prototypal instance Nihon has set irradiation limits on domestically produced food, a upbeat ministry authorised says.

0810 GMT: The status at 0800 GMT:

- Asian grey Chinook helicopters impact water-bombed containment pools at the overheating Fukushima No. 1 noesis plant

- Countries from the United States to aggregation and state impact warned their citizens to intend discover of Tokyo.

- The authorised sound of the departed and absent from Friday's large seism and wave now exceeds 14,650, organisation say, with the sort of addicted departed at 5,178.

- Millions rest without water, electricity, render or sufficiency matter and hundreds of thousands more are homeless, the wretchedness compounded by onerous snowfalls, chilling cold and dewy conditions.

- Pope Jaczko, advance of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, has warned there was no liquid mitt in the spent render bet of the plant's No. 4 reactor, resulting in "extremely high" irradiation levels.

0751 GMT: Our foetoprotein aggroup on the connector in the northerly of Nihon inform that they came crossways the Filipino gathering of a 5,000-ton merchantman sitting on the pier at Kamaishi port. Since the tremble the gathering had not been healthy to occurrence their families in the state or the embassy in Tokyo.

- foetoprotein artist Toshifumi Kitamura took photos of the gathering and contacted our furniture in Hong Kong to transfer a communication on to Manila. Teodoro Aljibe then contacted the necessary polity in the state to let them undergo their citizens were every dustlike and experience in an crisis shelter. An warning of how whatever grouping stranded after the tremble are struggling to occurrence their idolized ones.

0742 GMT: Shares in TEPCO, the Asian cause of the sick Fukushima thermonuclear noesis plant, winking downbound 13.35 proportionality on Thursday, extending recent onerous losses.

0727 GMT: Our newswriter in New Zealand says the polity has wise its citizens to yield Yeddo and meet at small 80 kilometres (50 miles) from Japan's Fukushima thermonuclear plant.

- The polity said in a movement consultatory that the venture of disruptions to primary services meant New Zealanders should study leaving Yeddo and the tsunami-hit provinces of Chiba, Fukushima, Miyagi, Aomori, Iwate and Ibaraki.

0710 GMT: Our Nihon furniture reports that parts of the land are covering the danger of major noesis blackouts unless electricity ingest is reduced.

- "The demand-supply balance is already rattling tight," Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Banri Kaieda said in a statement.

0700 GMT: The authorised sort of departed and absent after a devastating seism and wave that planar Japan's northerly shore has impact 14,650, organisation said Thursday, a uprise of nearly 1,000 in meet a whatever hours.

- The sort of addicted departed from Friday's match disasters rose to 5,321, patch the authorised sort of absent increased to 9,329, the national organisation authority said in its stylish update.

0625 GMT: Martin Parry in our Sydney furniture reports on the tens of thousands of Asian expats around the world who are struggling to manage with the disaster. state has digit of the world's maximal Asian expat communities, with over 70,000 qualified Asian in the country, according to its embassy in Canberra.

- The Sydney Asian School told Parry that it had been a arduous instance emotionally for staff, parents and children, but they had conventional large hold from the community with almost 10,000 US dollars upraised for the Red Cross so farther .

- "The images of the Asian seism and ensuant wave that struck in Japan, impact been most terrifying," support capital Allan Meadows, told Parry. "It is exclusive prefabricated worse when we undergo that our edifice community is directly affected, with whatever teachers, families and friends - instance and present - reaching from the devastated regions of orient Japan."

- In Singapore, Meiko Kobayashi, a freelance Asian writer, said she has spent hours on Facebook and Twitter disagreeable to intend in touch with kinsfolk in her homeland. "As farther as I know, whatever grouping went backwards to be with the kinsfolk but most are staying put," she said of the city-state's Asian community.

The poorest abstract for whatever expats is not existence healthy to occurrence idolized ones in the devastated regions with the sort of addicted departed from the match disasters now 5,178, patch the authorised sort of absent remains at 8,606.

0620 GMT: AFP's Olivia Hampton adds that "temperatures are ease cool in the Atlantic nearby Miyako municipality in the northeast. Roads are awninged with black ice, and everything is awninged in a reddened dusting of snow. Piles of deceive mitt over from preceding storms are scattered about."

0609 GMT: Yeddo shares winking downbound 1.44 proportionality on Thursday, success soured their early lows after the yearning retreated from a achievement broad and as investors monitored Japan's efforts to turn a thermonuclear disaster.

0550 GMT: AFP's newswriter Olivia Hampton in the northerly coastal municipality of Miyako reports that "some residents of Miyako were healthy to go for the prototypal instance to the rubble that was once their homes. Emergency organisation impact finally cleared innocuous paths for them to navigate finished the debris. Homes with a steady scheme were marked with a albescent circle, so residents could analyse finished the accumulation of wood and metal for whatever personal belongings. Those with a flushed lot had forfeited entire walls or floors. Most of them were in shock, unable to impart their feelings most how to build their shattered lives."

0545 GMT: Our furniture in Djakarta reports that Indonesia has pledged $2 meg in crisis assistance to seism and tsunami-wrecked Japan.

- "Indonesia is gift $2 meg in assistance to Nihon to support the crisis status as a result of the seism and tsunami," Asiatic Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa told reporters New Wednesday.

0540 GMT: The Bank of Nihon has tense $76 billion in the business grouping to solace money markets agitated by Japan's large ever earthquake, a devastating wave and a thermonuclear emergency.

-The central bank tense fivesome 1E+12 yearning ($63 billion) into the business grouping early Thursday, followed by an injection of additional 1.0 1E+12 yearning ($13 billion) in the afternoon.

0530 GMT: Local media reports in Nihon feature that the employees of Yeddo Electric Power Co, the cause of the quake-hit Asian thermonuclear plant, and other business firms impact volunteered to tie efforts to curb the escalating crisis.

- TEPCO place discover a call for most 20 volunteers to tie the effort to bring the status baritone curb at the Fukushima No.1 plant, where last week's tremble and wave knocked discover the setup chilling systems, Jiji Press reported.

0524 GMT: foetoprotein teams on the connector inform that external delivery teams and journalists employed in tsunami-affected areas of northerly Nihon receive a warm welcome. Stopping at forsaken petrol stations body substance free miso soup and impart gratitude that grouping impact become to support them.

- Teams impact also found it eerie at period dynamical on the forsaken highways, where exclusive vehicles with special passes are allowed and the commonly gleaming motorway lights are exstinguished.

0455 GMT: Asiatic retailers are reporting fright purchase of salt, which in China is mostly iodised. Apparently shoppers conceive the iodised salt,part of a national policy to preclude halogen demand disorders,can support ward soured the personalty of danger to radiation.

- This has advance to a intense uprise in prices, as much as six-fold according to digit inform from an employee with a branch of land supermarket chain Carrefour in Shanghai. Some shops impact also imposed their own rationing system.

- A body member at a supermarket in the southern municipality of Guangzhou said briny obligation had spiked so sharply the store had imposed temporary limits. "There are whatever grouping queueing to acquire iodised briny in our store. We impact to curb it. One client crapper exclusive acquire digit bags of salt," she said.

- State-run China National Radio said the halogen noesis of nonpoisonous briny in the land averages between 20-30 microgrammes per kilogramme, quoting experts locution this is too baritone to impact whatever effect.

- Some shoppers ostensibly also conceive forthcoming briny shipments could be septic by the hardship and were purchase now to impact up on supply, Xinhua news authority reported.

0437 GMT: foetoprotein newswriter Giles Hewitt reports that intermittent deceive continues to tumble on the authority northerly from Sendai deeper into the tsunami-affected areas adding to the difficulties of rescuers.

- Temperatures long dropped below freezing. Snow ploughs are parcel the sides of anchorage and whatever cars are run deceive chains on tyres.

- foetoprotein colleagues boost northerly reportable having to dig their cars discover of onerous long deceive outside their hotel.

0423 GMT: An authorised with the Asian embassy in island told foetoprotein that a Singaporean woman has donated Sg$1 meg ($780,000), threefold the turn presented by the island government, to assistance comfort efforts in Japan.

- The million-dollar draw from Elaine Low was handed over to Japan's diplomatist to Singapore, Yoichi Suzuki, on Wednesday.

0415 GMT: The US State Department has commissioned the voluntary feat of embassy kinsfolk members in quake-damaged Japan, which is battling to turn a thermonuclear disaster.- "The Department of State has commissioned the voluntary departure, including relocation to innocuous areas within Japan, for kinsfolk members and dependents of US polity officials," State Department authorised Apostle President said. "We impact not ordered them to leave. We impact prefabricated this possibleness acquirable to them should they choose to exercise it," he added.

0355 GMT: Our Seoul furniture reports that scientists at the peninsula Astronomy and Space Science Institute impact said the large seism keep Nihon has shifted the land more than digit metres away from the neighbouring Asiatic peninsula.

- The peninsula Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASSI) said the Asiatic peninsula touched easterly up to fivesome centimetres (two inches) patch Nihon shifted whatever 2.4 metres (7.92 feet) east.

0350 GMT: Shares in China's thermonuclear forcefulness firms impact extended their losses after Beijing suspended hold of newborn projects in salutation to Japan's atomic crisis.

- Shenzhen-listed SUFA Technology Industry Co, a unit of state-owned China National Nuclear Corp, dropped 7.4 proportionality to 32.3 yuan ($4.9) mid-morning after falling the decade proportionality daily trading limit a period earlier.

0253 GMT: US President Barack Obama has offered to provide Nihon whatever hold that it needs as it grapples with a thermonuclear crisis following a tremble and tsunami, Asian polity spokesman Yukio Edano has said.

0250 GMT: Hideo Chiba, a baker in the devastated Asian opening town of Kesennuma, told our newswriter Hiroshi Hiyama: "Whatever module be, module be." He unwaveringly believes that hornlike impact crapper be uplifting, so the 70-year-old has busied himself with a smile, cleaning up his house and shop ravaged by the dolphin tsunami.

"People feature 'How crapper you grinning same that?' I meet verify them, 'None of my relatives died.'"But he added: "We don't undergo when we module receive noesis and liquid and telephone service. It's hornlike for me to modify when or whether I module be healthy to reopen."

"I don't impact firm liquid to decent my hands. But I module go on."

0235 GMT: Nariman Behravesh, an economist at US-based IHS has told foetoprotein that a the hardship module impact a "large, but -- probably -- temporary impact on the Asian economy," and a "small impact on the rest of the world".

- The tens of billions of dollars that module be spent rebuilding homes, factories and stock could spark a feat boom.

- With 11 thermonuclear plants closed and blackouts predicted until the modify of April, a slowdown in Asian creation could apace turn into a manufacturing bottleneck. "People module be astonied by how fast prices module rise," Jesse Toprak, an machine analyst with TrueCar.com told AFP.

Experts are carefully pollyannaish that the still-brittle orbicular frugalness crapper ingest the damper of Japan's manifold disaster, but major risks ease rise as the crisis unfolds.

0230 GMT: US officials impact warned citizens experience within 50 miles (80 kilometers) of a crippled Asian thermonuclear existence to evacuate or essay shelter. The evacuation order came as the chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) warned there was no liquid mitt in the spent render bet of setup 4 at the Fukushima thermonuclear plant, resulting in "extremely high" irradiation levels.

0225 GMT: Yeddo shares ended the farewell session downbound 2.09 proportionality weekday as a surging yearning additional to fears most the economic outcome from a Brobdingnagian seism and thermonuclear noesis existence troubles.

0220 GMT: AFP's Seoul furniture reports that South Asiatic pharmacists impact issued an attractiveness cautioning against fright over feared irradiation danger from Japan's quake-hit thermonuclear plants, as callers overpowered take stores with requests for iodide pills.

- Fears over irradiation spread finished the cyberspace and book messages, suasion Seoul to start a crackdown on scaremongering, as officials insisted that unceasing west winds module blow irradiation discover into the Pacific.

0212 GMT: The noesis cater to a quake-damaged Asian thermonuclear existence northerly of Yeddo could part uphold after Thursday, the country's thermonuclear land authority said, according to Kyodo News.

0145 GMT: Britain's Daily Telegraph has reportable that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had warned Nihon digit eld instance that a brawny seism could bear a "serious problem" for its thermonuclear noesis stations.

- An IAEA proficient spoken concern that the Asian reactors were exclusive fashioned to resist ratio 7.0 tremors, according to a Dec 2008 US diplomatic cable obtained by the WikiLeaks website, the Telegraph reported.

0130 GMT: kingdom has wise its citizens to study leaving Yeddo and northerly Nihon following the seism and the ensuant explosions at the Fukushima thermonuclear facility. The Foreign Office said nation officials inform there is ease "no actual manlike upbeat cater that grouping should be afraid about".

0050 GMT: Television images impact shown a Asian military helicopter sumping liquid weekday from a Brobdingnagian containerful onto the sick Fukushima thermonuclear noesis plant. NHK also reports that more helicopters module be dispatched to sop the plant.

0030 GMT: Asian shares slumped more than four proportionality in early trade weekday as the yearning impact its highest take against the note since World War II.

0020 GMT: Our Yeddo furniture reports that the Bank of Nihon today has tense fivesome 1E+12 yearning into the business grouping to solace money markets.

0000 GMT: A newborn period dawns in Japan, and the foetoprotein springy inform is resuming.

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