OFUNATO, Japan (AFP) - Japan said Monday it will dump over 10,000 tons of low-level radioactive water into the Pacific as part of emergency operations to stabilise its crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.

The announcement of the last resort measure came as the Bank of Japan said business confidence had plummeted since the earthquake and tsunami hit on March 11, plunging the country into its worst crisis since World War II.

The UN atomic watchdog chief Yukiya Amano, said that the three-week-old emergency, which Japan has predicted will last for months, meant an end to a "business as usual" approach...

7 injured as M6.4 Earthquake shakes Fukushima

National Jul. 31, 2011 - 05:30PM JST ( 35 )

TOKYO —

A strong 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck off northeast Japan’s Fukushima region, home to a crippled nuclear power plant, early Sunday, but there was no risk of a tsunami, seismologists said.

The tremor at 3:54 a.m. injured seven people but caused no damage to the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which was ravaged by a 9.0 quake and ensuing tsunami in March, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said.

In the city of Hitachinaka, a 60-year-old man broke his wrist when he was jolted off his bed by the tremor,...

Major disasters like the Japanese earthquake and tsunami or Pakistan's floods are likely to become more frequent, and global governments must prepare for an uncertain future, according to a British report.

Paddy Ashdown, a member of the British House of Lords and ex-United Nations high representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina, said rich nations must help poorer countries to build up their defences against disasters.

In a government report published Monday, he said scientists believe recent natural disasters were not an aberration, but "the beginnings of a new kind of future in which mega-disasters...