US urges tough United Nations resolution

Pro-Gaddafi forces west of Ajdabiya, 16 March Pro-Gaddafi forces have been gaining ground eastwards along the coast
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Libya Revolt

* No-fly zone options
* Gaddafi's limited options
* Uprising in maps
* Eyewitness: Tripoli in fear

The US has said the UN should consider more than just a no-fly zone over Libya, amid Security Council division on a draft resolution.

US ambassador Susan Rice said a no-fly zone would only bring limited help. She hoped for an early vote on a draft.

Russia expressed concern at some of the implications of the proposals and put forward a counter-resolution.

Forces loyal to Col Gaddafi are taking ground from rebels, who say they fear "genocide" without swift UN action.

On Wednesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross withdrew from the rebel-held city of Benghazi, in eastern Libya, saying it feared an imminent attack by Col Gaddafi's forces.

Government forces say they have captured Ajdabiya, the last town before Benghazi, but the rebels deny this.
'Over in 48 hours'

The UN Security Council on Wednesday undertook lengthy and difficult negotiations over a resolution aimed at authorising a no-fly zone.

The US has previously been cool on the effectiveness of such a zone, but Ms Rice said further measures were now needed.
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“Start Quote

For days the US has held back, refusing to reveal its position - even to its allies...”

End Quote
Mark Mardell BBC North America editor

* Read Mark's thoughts in full

"The US view is that we need to be prepared to contemplate steps that include, but perhaps go beyond a no-fly zone, at this point, as the situation on the ground has evolved and as a no-fly zone has inherent limitations in terms of protection of civilians at immediate risk."

The BBC's Barbara Plett at the UN says the draft resolution contains controversial language authorising all necessary measures to protect civilians, which some interpret as permitting strikes against government ground forces if civilians are under attack.

She says that may have been what Russia's ambassador was referring to when he angrily declared that some members had introduced proposals with far-reaching implications.

Russia has strong reservations about military action, as does China, and instead offered a counter resolution calling first for a ceasefire.
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map

* Leaders flounder over no-fly zone
* UK wants UN 'leadership' on Libya
* Diplomatic options
* Is a no-fly zone possible?

Western diplomats said it was rejected because it lacked teeth.

Supporters of the draft resolution stressed the urgency of action and are pushing for a vote on Thursday.

Ms Rice said: "We will continue our negotiations early on Thursday, fully focused on the urgency and the gravity of the situation on the ground and it's my hope that we may be in a position to vote a serious resolution as early as Thursday. We're working very hard toward that end."

Pro-Gaddafi troops have been moving closer to Benghazi in recent days.

One of Col Gaddafi's sons, Saif al-Islam, has claimed Benghazi will be recaptured soon even if a no-fly zone is imposed.

"Everything will be over in 48 hours," he told Euronews.

Reports say Gaddafi forces have taken up positions outside Ajdabiya, only 160km (100 miles) from the rebel stronghold.
'Sterilised'

Tanks, artillery and warplanes have been bombarding Ajdabiya, but there are conflicting reports on whether it has fallen to the government troops.

The BBC's Jon Leyne in Benghazi says the situation there is getting more tense by the hour, and the calls for the international community to impose a no-fly zone more desperate.

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Yen hits record-high against US dollar as Nikkei falls

American and Japanese flags beside trading board A stronger currency makes Japanese exports less competitive and potentially hurts the economy
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Japan Earthquake

* Japan quake Live
* Q&A: Fukushima alert
* Shares rebound
* In pictures

The Japanese yen has hit its highest level against the US dollar since the end of the Second World War.

The yen climbed as high as 76.25 against the dollar in US trading on Wednesday. In Asia on Thursday, it was closer to 79.42.

The Nikkei 225 index shed 2.7% to 8,845.49 on concerns about the impact of a strong yen on exporters' profits.

G7 finance ministers have called a meeting on Thursday to discuss how to deal with global market volatility.

The G7 is a group of the world's seven richest nations, including the US, Japan, the UK and China.

Analysts expect the ministers to give Japan the go ahead to intervene in currency markets to stabilise the yen.

"It seems inevitable that the yen will be part of a broader discussion on stabilising global markets," said Alan Ruskin of Deutsche Bank.

"It would be nothing short of amazing if they fail to at least make some veiled threat of intervention," he added.
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“Start Quote

Apart from intervention, there isn't much to stop this slide and the dollar doesn't look like it's coming back soon”

End Quote Brian Dolan Forex.com

* Crisis damage to cut Japan growth
* Companies move staff from Japan

'Nervous'

Japan's Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda declined to comment on whether or not Japan would step into the market but said he would keep an eye on developments.

"I will be closely watching market moves today," he said.

The minister has blamed speculation for the yen's surge.

"Market moves have been nervous amid speculation, while trade has been thin," Mr Noda said.

Analysts have been blaming the strengthening of the yen on the repatriation of assets and foreign currency by Japanese insurance firms.
Cash injection

In an effort to ease market concerns and provide liquidity, Japan's central bank pumped 5 trillion yen ($63bn; £39bn) into the banking system.

This is the fourth such injection of funds by the Bank of Japan, taking its total funds inflow to 33tn yen.

Analysts say that given the current market situation and the strength of the yen, the central bank may now go a step further and intervene in markets to stem the currency's rise.

"Apart from intervention, there isn't much to stop this slide and the dollar doesn't look like it's coming back soon," said Brian Dolan, chief strategist at Forex.com.

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Japan steps up cooling operation

apan says it is stepping up efforts to cool reactors at the tsunami-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Army helicopters dumped tonnes of water to try to prevent a meltdown of fuel rods. Water cannon will join the operation shortly and it is hoped electricity will be restored soon.

Increasing alarm has been expressed in the US at the crisis.

The confirmed death toll from Friday's 9.0 magnitude quake, which triggered a tsunami, has risen above 5,000.

Police say 5,178 are confirmed dead and another 8,606 people are still missing.
'Deep condolences'

Japan's military CH-47 Chinook helicopters began spraying tonnes of water on reactors three and four at Fukushima, 220km (137 miles) from Tokyo, at 0948 local time (0048 GMT), officials said.
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Analysis
image of Richard Black Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News

Over the days of the Fukushima crisis, attention has switched from reactor building 1 to 3, to 2, back to 3 - and now, to 4.

Here, it is not the actual reactor that is causing concern. Instead, it is a pool storing fuel rods that had been taken out of the reactor when it was shut down for maintenance before the earthquake struck.

There have been reports that water levels were low; and now the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which has a team of experts advising in Japan, says the pool is completely dry.

This means the fuel rods are exposed to the air. Without water, they will get much hotter, allowing radioactive material to escape - and the NRC says radiation levels are probably extremely high, creating a danger to workers at the plant.

The company operating the plant has even warned of "re-criticality" - that a nuclear chain reaction could start among fuel rods in the now dry pool.

That would not cause a nuclear explosion but it would increase the release of radioactive substances.

* Surprise 'critical' warning raises fears

The aircraft dumped four loads before leaving the site in order to minimise the crews' exposure to radiation. On Wednesday, the helicopters were forced to abort a similar operation amid concerns over high radiation levels.

The BBC's Chris Hogg in Tokyo says the helicopters can carry an enormous amount of water but given the high winds it is difficult to know whether it has been dropped accurately.

Japanese government spokesman Yukio Edano said at a news briefing that nuclear experts were now investigating how effective the operation was.

Meanwhile, water trucks are on standby to spray more water on the reactors.

The operation was intended to help cool the reactors and also to replenish water in a storage pond with spent fuel rods.

Officials also said they were hoping that later on Thursday they would restore the power supply to the plant, which is needed for the cooling system and backup generators.

"If the restoration work is completed, we will be able to activate various electric pumps and pour water into reactors and pools for spent nuclear fuel," a spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Company, which runs the plant, told the AFP news agency.

US President Barack Obama spoke to Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Thursday local time amid increasing US fears over the crisis.

The US has now chartered aircraft to help Americans leave Japan and authorised the voluntary departure of relatives of diplomatic staff.

The White House said Mr Obama conveyed "deep condolences" at the loss of life and said Washington was "determined to do everything possible to support Japan".

On Wednesday, Greg Jaczko, chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), told a congressional energy and commerce subcommittee hearing in Washington that there appeared to be serious problems with attempts to cool the reactors.

"We believe that around the reactor site there are high levels of radiation."

He said it would be "very difficult for emergency workers to get near the reactors. The doses they could experience would potentially be lethal doses in a very short period of time".
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Fukushima Daiichi: What went wrong

* Reactor 1: Was first to be rocked an explosion on Saturday; fuel rods reportedly 70% damaged
* Reactor 2: There are fears a blast on Tuesday breached a containment system; fuel rods reportedly 33% damaged
* Reactor 3: Explosion on Monday; smoke or steam seen rising on Wednesday; damage to roof and possibly also to a containment system
* Reactor 4: Hit by a major blaze on Tuesday and another fire on Wednesday

* In graphics: Fukushima alert

US Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the situation appeared to be more serious than the partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania in 1979.

The head of the UN's atomic energy agency, Yukio Amano, is travelling to Japan in person to gather more information.

The US state department has urged Americans living within 80km of Fukushima Daiichi to leave the area - a much wider exclusion zone than the 20km advised by the Japanese government.

Mr Edano described the US approach as "conservative".

Britain has advised its nationals currently in Tokyo and to the north of the capital to consider leaving the area.

France has urged its citizens in Tokyo to leave the country or move south. Two Air France planes are due to begin evacuating French nationals later on Thursday.

In areas of the north-east badly hit by the tsunami, bitter winter weather has added to the misery of survivors, though more supplies are now reported to be reaching them.

The governor of Fukushima prefecture, where the badly damaged nuclear plant is located, has complained that evacuation centres lack basic necessities, including sufficient hot food.

About 450,000 people have been staying in temporary shelters, many sleeping on the floor of school gymnasiums.

The crisis has also continued to affect the markets - the benchmark Nikkei index fell 3.6% in early Thursday trading in Tokyo, shortly after the yen briefly hit the highest level against the US dollar since World War II.

On Wednesday, in a rare public appearance, Japan's Emperor Akihito said he was "deeply worried" about the crisis his country was facing.

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US cyber war defences 'very thin', Pentagon warns

Battle map on screen US officials say government and private systems are attacked millions of times per day
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Related Stories

* Cyber war exaggerated says expert
* Is cyber-warfare a genuine threat?
* Oil and gas firms hit by hackers

The US military lacks the people and resources to defend the country adequately from concerted cyber attacks, the head of the Pentagon's cyber command has warned.

"We are very thin, and a crisis would quickly stress our cyber forces," Gen Keith Alexander told Congress.

The US says government systems are attacked millions of times a day.

Disputes over budgets are holding up a new cyber protection system ordered by the Department of Homeland Security.

However, some argue the threat of cyber warfare is greatly exaggerated.
'Potential adversaries'

Gen Alexander, head of the US Defence Department's Cyber Command, told a Congressional Committee that he would mark as a "C" the military's ability to protect Pentagon networks, although he acknowledged improvements in recent years.

"We are finding that we do not have the capacity to do everything we need to accomplish. To put it bluntly, we are very thin, and a crisis would quickly stress our cyber forces," he said.

"We cannot afford to allow cyberspace to be a sanctuary where real and potential adversaries can marshal forces and capabilities to use against us and our allies. This is not a hypothetical danger."

US officials say cyber criminals, terrorists and other nations are getting better at penetrating state and private networks, whether to spy, to steal data or damage critical infrastructure.

But speaking last month, leading security expert Bruce Schneier told the BBC that the emotive rhetoric around "cyber warfare" did not match the reality.

"What we are seeing is not cyber war but an increasing use of war-like tactics and that is what is confusing us. We don't have good definitions of what cyber war is, what it looks like and how to fight it," Mr Schneier said.

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CIA contractor Ray Davis freed over Pakistan killings

Raymond Davis (file photo) CIA contractor Raymond Davis has reportedly already left prison
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Related Stories

* Lahore shootings fuel US-Pakistan row
* Behind the scenes of Pakistan's 'spy' shootings
* Raymond Davis and Lahore shootings - unanswered questions

A Pakistani court has freed a US CIA contractor after acquitting him of two counts of murder at a hearing held at a prison in Lahore, officials say.

Raymond Davis, 36, was alleged to have shot dead two men in the eastern city of Lahore in January following what he said was an attempted armed robbery.

The acquittal came when relatives of the dead men pardoned him in court.

They confirmed to the judge overseeing the case that they had received compensation - known as "blood money".

Under Pakistani Sharia law, relatives of a murder victim can pardon the killer.

Reports say about 18 family members of the two dead men were in court on Wednesday and confirmed that they wanted Mr Davis to be freed and pardoned because they had received "blood money".

The Pakistani media has reported that the families received 200 million rupees ($2.34m, £1.1m) but US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denied the US government had paid any blood money.

Protests against the acquittal took place in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. In Lahore demonstrators clashed with riot police near the US consulate.

Six people were injured and several others were arrested after police baton-charged the crowd.

In other parts of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad demonstrators set tyres on fire and disrupted traffic.

Cameron Munter, the US ambassador to Pakistan, said that he was "grateful for the generosity" of the families.

"I wish to express, once again, my regret for the incident and my sorrow at the suffering it caused," he said.

Mr Munter said that the US Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the incident.

Washington has always insisted that Mr Davis had diplomatic immunity and was acting in self-defence.

Faizan Haider, a lawyer representing the family of one of those killed, told the BBC that the "blood money" deal was done without his knowledge and that he was in detention when it was made.
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Analysis
M Ilyas Khan BBC News, Islamabad

It was high drama. For nearly seven weeks the media and the religious right in Pakistan waited for the indictment of Raymond Davis.

On Wednesday, they waited four hours for a session that normally would not last an hour. And then there was a burst of protests, not so much on the streets, but on the Pakistani TV channels.

The Raymond Davis affair touched a deep chord with the anti-US section of the Pakistani population and provided more fuel to an increasingly assertive religious right which organised demonstrations demanding that Mr Davis be hanged.

The issue also brought the US-Pakistan relations to their lowest point in recent years. Many thought that Mr Davis would be finally freed, but nobody expected this to happen so suddenly.

This is because nobody expected the families of the men Mr Davis killed to go for a blood money deal, an option which they had been rejecting apparently due to pressure from religious groups.

Although protests have now taken place, the religious lobby was initially unusually quiet on the issue. The fact that Mr Davis' release came under a clear Islamic law may be a reason.

"I was not allowed to participate in the proceedings of the case... and could not see or approach my clients," Asad Manzoor Butt said.

"I and my associate were kept under forced detention for four hours.

"If my clients have indeed signed a blood money deal, then this has been done behind my back and I don't know anything about it."

As recently as three days ago, relatives told the BBC they wanted justice not compensation.

Aijaz Ahmad, a cousin of Faizan Haider, said that eight members of his immediate family have not been traceable since news of the deal emerged.

"There is a padlock on their door. Their phones are all switched off. If they have done this then they have acted dishonourably," he said.

The immediate family of the other man killed is also reported to have gone missing.

Illegal weapons

The BBC's Orla Guerin in Islamabad said that Mr Davis - a former US special forces member - had already been released from jail but his exact whereabouts were unknown.
Protesters take to the street on Wednesday against the court decision The acquittal prompted protesters to take to the streets on Wednesday

She added that there were unconfirmed reports that he had already left Pakistan.

The deal to release him - made by the court sitting in his Lahore jail - ends a long-simmering diplomatic stand-off between Pakistan and the United States which had severely strained relations. It will come as a relief to both governments.

"The court first indicted him but the families later told court that they have accepted the blood money and they have pardoned him," Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah told Reuters.

"The court acquitted him in the murder case."

Ms Sanaullah said that because Mr Davis was already on bail in a parallel case relating to possession of illegal weapons at the time of the killings, there was no reason why he should not also be released in that case too.

Mr Davis was arrested immediately after he shot dead two men. He has said that he killed them in self-defence as they were trying to rob him.

A third man was run over by a US vehicle that came to the American's aid but there have so far been no charges in relation to that case.

Public anger intensified after unnamed US officials said that Mr Davis had been secretly working for the CIA at the time and questions are likely to remain as to what he was exactly doing at the time.

The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says it is not clear exactly how much blood money was paid to the families of the dead men.

Our correspondent, who visited the families recently in Lahore, says they had been under great pressure from right-wing religious parties not to accept "blood money".

Hardline religious parties have led protests across Pakistan against Mr Davis in recent weeks and were keen to see him punished.

The Jamaat-e-Islami has announced that demonstrations will be held in protest against the release on Thursday.

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Japan Devastated: Video of fires, landslides, stranded people

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Japan Earthquake: Helicopter aerial view video of giant tsunami waves

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