THE Group of Seven nations’ pledges of liquidity injections and exchange-rate co-operation may be ill-suited to addressing the concern at the heart of the past week’s stock market rout: another global recession.

An explosion at a nuclear power plant on Japan's devastated coast destroyed a building today and made leaking radiation the central threat menacing a nation just beginning to grasp the scale of a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami.

An explosion shattered a building housing a nuclear reactor today amid fears of a meltdown, while across wide swaths of north-eastern Japan officials searched for thousands of people missing more than a day after a devastating earthquake and tsunami.

A Japanese zookeeper was mauled to death by a tiger today while he was cleaning the animal’s cage, police said.