Japan's emperor urges nation not to give up

TOKYO — Japan's Emperor Akihito spoke to the nation Wednesday in the first made-for-TV address of his reign, expressing condolences to victims of the massive earthquake and tsunami and urging the Japanese people not to give up.
Bowing and then speaking solemnly in a gray suit, he also voiced concern about the crisis at a nuclear power plant damaged by the disasters that has led to radiation leakage.
"I am deeply concerned about the nuclear situation because it is unpredictable," he said. "With the help of those involved I hope things will not get worse."
The historic broadcast underscores the gravity of the situation facing Japan. While Akihito makes annual televised speeches to crowds marking the New Year and end of World War II, he has never directly addressed the country on camera, according to the Imperial Household Agency.
Friday's quake-spawned tsunami devastated Japan's northeastern coast, and officials believe more than 10,000 people have died.
Akihito, 77, thanked those involved in disaster relief operations, including foreign governments, and urged an all-out rescue effort.
"We don't know the number of victims, but I pray that every single person can be saved," he said in the roughly six-minute appearance.
Japan faced a worsening nuclear crisis after authorities on Wednesday ordered emergency workers to withdraw from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant amid a surge in radiation, temporarily suspending efforts to cool the facility's overheating reactors.
Radiation levels fell later Wednesday, but it was not immediately clear if the workers had returned, or how far away they had withdrawn. The workers at the forefront of the fight — a core team of 70 — had been regularly rotated in and out of the danger zone to minimize their radiation exposure.
Meanwhile, officials in Ibaraki prefecture, just south of Fukushima, said radiation levels were about 300 times normal levels by late morning. While those levels are unhealthy for prolonged periods, they are far from fatal.
The emperor's message was not live but taped earlier in the day, the Imperial Household Agency said.

China Slows Nuclear Power Plans

BEIJING — China suspended approval on Wednesday of 28 planned nuclear power plants while it revised safety standards, making the surprise announcement after Premier Wen Jiabao met with top advisers to discuss Japan’s nuclear crisis.
The government said it was also requiring safety checks at all existing plants.
“We must fully grasp the importance and urgency of nuclear safety, and development of nuclear power must make safety the top priority,” the government said on its Web site.
The government also said that levels of radiation remained normal in China and that experts had concluded that the wind would scatter the radiation from Japan’s stricken Daiichi nuclear complex to the east over the Pacific Ocean, away from China. “This will not affect the health of our public,” the statement aid.
Three days ago, before the gravity of the nuclear disaster in Japan was clear, a top Chinese official restated China’s commitment to nuclear power.
“Some lessons we learn from Japan will be considered in the making of China’s nuclear power plans,” Liu Tienan, chief of China’s National Energy Bureau, said over the weekend. “But China will not change its determination and plan for developing nuclear power.”
China has been aggressively pursuing nuclear power as an alternative to oil and its main energy source, coal. Officials have said that 28 new nuclear plants had been approved, which would amount to roughly 40 percent of the plants now planned worldwide.
Construction has begun on 20 to 25 of the Chinese plants, according to industry experts and the World Nuclear Association, an international group that promotes nuclear energy. Thirteen plants are already in operation, according to the association’s Web site.

Anger over Japan nuclear exodus

The governor of the region at the centre of Japan's nuclear crisis has criticised official handling of the evacuation of the area around the stricken Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

Fukushima prefecture governor Yuhei Sato said: "Anxiety and anger felt by people have reached boiling point."
Engineers are racing to avert a nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima Daiichi, badly damaged by Friday's quake and tsunami.
The government has declared a 20km (12-mile) evacuation zone around it.
Another 140,000 people living between 20-30km of the facility were told on Tuesday not to leave their homes.
Mr Sato said centres already housing people who had been moved from their homes near the plant did not have enough hot meals and basic necessities such as fuel and medical supplies. "We're lacking everything," he said.
Japanese media have became more critical of Prime Minister Naoto Kan's handling of the disaster, and have accused both the government and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co of failing to provide enough information on the incident.
Thousands of people were killed in the 9.0-magnitude quake and tsunami. In a rare public appearance, Japan's Emperor Akihito has said he is "deeply worried" about the crisis his country is facing.

The atomic crisis has been caused by the tsunami wrecking back-up diesel generators which kept the nuclear fuel cool at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, 220km from Tokyo.

Workers have been dousing the reactors with seawater in a frantic effort to stabilise their temperatures, since the first in a series of explosions rocked the plant on Saturday.
Helicopters deployed to dump water on the facility on Wednesday were pulled out amid concerns over radiation levels in the air above the site. Reports suggest another plan is now under consideration to use water cannon.
Earlier, the plant's operators evacuated its skeleton crew of 50 workers for about an hour as ground-level radiation spiked.
And yet another fire broke out in a reactor, while steam billowed from another one.
The power facility has sent low levels of radiation wafting into Tokyo, spreading alarm in the city and internationally.
The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, Yukiya Amano, said developments at the plant were "very serious", as he prepared to head to the country to assess the situation.
'Unprecedented' Emperor Akihito went on live TV on Wednesday to make his first public comments on the disaster, and urged an all-out rescue effort.
TV stations interrupted programming to show the emperor describing the crisis facing the nation as "unprecedented in scale".
The 77-year-old - deeply respected by many Japanese - said: "I hope from the bottom of my heart that the people will, hand in hand, treat each other with compassion and overcome these difficult times."
Japan's titular head of state - who acceded to the throne in 1989 after the death of his father Hirohito - said he prayed that every victim would be saved.
He spoke as snow blanketed swathes of the disaster zone, where many survivors have little food, water or heat.
About 450,000 people have been staying in temporary shelters, many sleeping on the floor of school gymnasiums.

More than 4,300 people are listed as dead but it is feared the total death toll from the catastrophe, which pulverised the country's north-east coast, will rise substantially.

In other developments:

• After losing $620bn (£385bn) in the first two days of this week, Japan's stock market rebounded to finish Wednesday up by 5.7%
• France urged its nationals in Tokyo to leave the country or move south; two Air France planes were sent to begin evacuation
• Australia advised its citizens to consider leaving Tokyo and the most damaged prefectures
• Turkey warned against travel to Japan.

Tokyo detects "minute" amount of radiation

(Reuters) - "Minute levels" of radiation have been detected in the Japanese capital, Tokyo, Kyodo news agency said, quoting the metropolitan government.
They had found iodine and cesium but it was not immediately clear if it was linked to the damaged nuclear plant in the northeast.
It also said that radiation levels in Saitama, near Tokyo, were 40 times normal levels, quoting the local government.

Wall Street slammed; Dow falls nearly 300 amid Japan disaster

NEW YORK — Wall Street tumbled Tuesday, following Japan’s stock market sharply lower as the earthquake-shattered country faced an unfolding nuclear crisis.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell as much as 297 points in early trading, but was lately off those lows. The dollar strengthened and government bond prices rose, as investors flocked to the relative safety of U.S. Treasurys.
Earlier, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average sank a staggering 10.6 percent — more than 1,000 points — after a radiation leak was detected at a crippled power plant and residents were warned to stay indoors, sending global equities sharply lower in what could be a prolonged bout of turmoil for the world’s financial markets.
Tuesday’s drop marked the worst two-day rout for the Nikkei since 1987. It followed a 6 percent tumble Monday — the first trading day since a devastating earthquake and tsunami struck the northeastern coast, washing away towns and likely killing more than 10,000 people. Losses on Monday and Tuesday have sent the Nikkei spiraling downward 20 percent since the beginning of the year.
Fears of a nuclear catastrophe in Japan drove down U.S. equities. Wall Street was also looking ahead to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s policy meeting later Tuesday, when the central bank is expected to hold monetary policy on a steady course, even as lofty oil prices and increased uncertainty following Japan’s earthquake raises doubts about the global economy’s path.
In a statement due around 2:15 p.m. ET, policymakers are likely to nod to recent improvement in the economy while seeking to avoid any suggestion that they intend to cut short a $600 billion bond-buying program announced in November.
Fed officials will likely do so by beefing up their assessment of economic conditions while emphasizing just how far the central bank remains from its targets for both inflation and employment.