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Japan’s 10-year bonds rose for the first time in six days as the government lowered its assessment of the economy,nike running shoes  citing the nation’s worst earthquake and unresolved nuclear crisis.

Ten-year yields fell from near a two-month high after Economic and Fiscal Policy Minister Kaoru Yosano said yesterday the disaster’s effect on the economy has been larger than earlier estimated and the government raised the severity of the accident at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi power plant to match that of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. The Ministry of Finance will sell 2.4 trillion yen ($28.5 billion) of five-year notes tomorrow.

“It’s only natural that JGBs are slightly up on the day given how much attention the Japanese nuclear reading has received overseas,” said Makoto Kuroda, a strategist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Tokyo.

The yield on the 1.3 percent bond due March 2021 fell two basis points to 1.31 percent as of 3:18 p.m. in Tokyo at Japan Bond Trading Co., the nation’s largest interdealer debt broker.nike running shoes  The price rose 0.176 yen to 99.912 yen. Yields climbed to 1.335 percent on April 11, the highest since Feb. 17.

Ten-year bond futures for June delivery gained 0.13 to 138.75 at the afternoon close on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

A magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami that hit the nation’s northeast on March 11 left more than 28,000 people dead or missing, according to the National Police Agency. Three earthquakes of magnitude 6 or more have hit Japan in the past two days, along with a 5.4-magnitude temblor this morning, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

“Although the Japanese economy was picking up, it has shown weakness” since the March 11 disaster, the Cabinet Office said in its report today in Tokyo. A power shortage that resulted from a crippled nuclear facility, delays in resolving supply-chain disruptions and rising oil prices threaten to depress growth further, it said.

The Fukushima plant that was damaged in the tsunami has released about 10 percent as much radiation as Chernobyl, Japan’s nuclear safety agency said in a statement yesterday. The leaksnike running shoes  won’t be stopped in “a few days or weeks,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.

The gain in bonds was tempered before the Ministry of Finance sells debt tomorrow. The previous five-year sale on March 10 drew bids for 3.49 times the amount on offer, compared with a so-called bid-to-cover ratio of 3.56 in February.

“It’s difficult for investors to make moves before the five-year sale,” said Makoto Yamashita, chief rates strategist in Tokyo at Deutsche Securities, a unit of Germany’s Deutsche Bank AG. “The auction should go OK if it’s a reopening of the previous debt with a 0.6 percent coupon, but you never know what will happen.”

Taiwan Power Co., buy Reebok ZigTech which operates the island’s three atomic-power plants and is building a fourth, halted plans for additional reactors after an earthquake and tsunami crippled a nuclear plant in Japan.

Taipower, as the utility is known, canceled a tenderbuy Reebok ZigTech  to hire advisers for two more reactors to its No. 4 nuclear plant under construction, Chief Engineer Roger Lee said yesterday. The government has frozen a review of the state-run utility’s application to extend the life of its 33-year-old No. 1 plant, since the earthquake,buy Reebok ZigTech  which also sparked tsunami warnings for Taiwan’s northern coastline.

The S&P healthcare sector saw the strongest gains on Wall Street, rising 0.5 per cent, nike running shoes onlineafter Endo announced a $2.6bn acquisition for AMS, a maker of medical devices. The deal is set to close in the third quarter of this year and is expected to create $50m in synergies by 2013.

But in the wider markets, the S&P 500 index lost 0.3 per cent to 1,324.46, adding to the 0.4 per cent losses on Friday. The energy sector saw the sharpest losses following the IMF report which reduced its forecast for US growth in 2011 to 2.8 per cent from 3 per cent.

Cameron International, the oilfield services company, was down 3.5 per cent to $53.54 as oil prices lost ground while Baker Hughes lost 3.2 per cent to $69.31. The S&P energy sector was down 1.9 per cent.

The material sectors also saw strong losses with Freeport-McMoRan, the copper producer, falling 3.1 per cent to nike mens acg sandals 2011 $55.44 and Consol Energy , the coal miner, losing 4.2 per cent to $50.34.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed flat in the session at 12,381.11 while the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.3 per cent at 2,771.51.

Before the IMF report the markets were slightly higher with traders looking optimistically towards the upcoming earnings season. Over the next few weeks almost two-thirds of the companies in the S&P 500 will report their first-quarter earnings.

“We look set to have a very healthy earnings season,” said Kate Warne, market strategist at Edward Jones. “Although I think that there will likely be fewer earnings surprises than in recent quarters.”

Analysts are expecting that stocks on the S&P 500 will see earnings per share growth of 11 per cent in the first quarter from the same period a year ago, according to Bloomberg data. This is a significantly slower growth rate than the 36 per cent jump in the fourth quarter of 2010, but the growth is coming from a higher base.

Alcoa, the aluminium producer, reported earnings that topped analysts forecasts after the closing bell on Monday.

The company reported earnings excluding restructuring costs and other one-time items of 28 cents a share, topping the 27 cents expected by analysts. The stock was down 0.8 per cent to $17.77 ahead of the result.

This week will also see earnings reports by JPMorgan Chase on Wednesday and Google on Thursday.

There was more deal activity in the telecommunications sector. Level 3 Communications, the internet videobuy Reebok EasyTone online and communications network operator, said it had agreed to acquire Global Crossing, the IP solutions provider, in an all-stock offer valued at roughly $1.9bn.

The news sent shares in Level 3 up 18.1 per cent to $1.70 and Global Crossing up 68.7 per cent to $24.97.

In other deal news, Tyco International jumped 3.3 per cent to $48.72 following unconfirmed reports that Schneider Electric was weighing up a takeover offer for the maker of security systems.

Shares in NYSE Euronext, the largest exchange operator in the US, lost ground after its  Nasdaq OMXNasdaq OMX and the IntercontinentalExchange, which was intended to break up the planned merger with Deutsche Börse.

In a statement, the NYSE Euronext board said the deal with Deutsche Börse would “create substantially more long-term value for shareholders, and is significantly more likely to close”.

Shares in NYSE lost 2.9 per cent to $37.59. Nasdaq fell 1.5 per cent to $28.03.

Gold retreated as a rally to a record prompted some investors to sell and a tumble in energy prices, sparked by Buy nike running shoes onlinereduced economic growth forecasts from the International Monetary Fund, reduced inflationary pressures.

Immediate-delivery bullion fell 0.3 percent to $1,458.57 an ounce at 9:10 a.m. in Singapore after touching an all-time high of $1,478.18 yesterday. Gold for June delivery in New York lost 0.7 percent to $1,457.40, retreating from a record $1,478.

Crude in New York dropped 2.5 percent yesterday from a 30- month high and extended that decline today, losing 1.5 percent to $108.32 per barrel. The IMF said in a global outlook that the U.S. will expand 2.8 percent this year, slower than in 2010, and Japanese growth was cut to 1.4 percent from 1.6 percent.

“The rally of gold prices has a shaky footing as there have still hardly been any inflows into exchange-traded fundscheap nike mens acg sandals  and correction potential is building up,” Eugen Weinberg, head of commodity research at Commerzbank AG, wrote in a note. “A broader correction of commodity prices seems to be needed.”

Gold soared 26 percent in the past year and silver more than doubled as unrest in the Middle East boosted oil, Europe’s governments grappled with a sovereign-debt crisis and Japan was struck by a record earthquake. Assets held in exchange-traded products stood at 2,050 metric tons on April 11 compared with the record 2,114.6 tons on Dec. 20, data from 10 providers show.

Cash silver shed as much as 0.8 percent to $39.9287buy Fivefingers Kso-Vibram fivefingers Kso an ounce after reaching $41.9525 yesterday, the highest level since 1980. Spot palladium declined 0.3 percent to $775.13 an ounce, while platinum weakened 0.4 percent to $1,776.50 an ounce.

The head of Tokyo Electric Power Co. was refused a meeting with the governor of Fukushima,  nike running shoes onlinewhere the utility is battling radiation leaks from its atomic station at the center of Japan’s worst civilian nuclear disaster.

Masataka Shimizu, president of the utility known as Tepco, asked to meet Yuhei Sato while visiting the prefectural capital today and was turned down, company spokesman Kazuo Yamanaka said. The governor also declined a meeting on March 22.

Shimizu, 66, will visit Tepco’s offsite center for managing the Fukushima Dai-Ichi station and meet a national government official on his first trip to the city since an earthquake and tsunami damaged the plant one month ago. Protests were held in Tokyo yesterday as public anger over Tepco’s response to the crisis grows.

“Japan needs to investigate what happened and determine what actions should be taken at other nuclear plants and explain this to the Japanese people and the world,” said Tadashi Narabayashi, a professor of nuclear engineering at Hokkaido University. “That will help restore trust in nuclear power.”

Shimizu, discharged from hospital last week following treatment for hypertension due to the crisis, is making a second public appearance since the March 11 earthquake. He is due to meet Motohisa Ikeda, a vice minister from the trade ministry representing the national government in the prefecture, and will hold a press conference after the meeting in Fukushima city, about 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of Tokyo, according to Tepco spokesman Jun Nakagawa.

Tepco is using emergency equipment tocheap nike mens acg sandals 2011  cool reactors damaged at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi station after backup generators were knocked out by the tsunami.

The utility is trying to remove highly contaminated water that’s holding up efforts to get the cooling pumps working and prevent further explosions after blasts damaged reactor containment vessels, releasing radiation into the air and sea and tainting food.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan will address the nation later today, as the crisis enters its second month. More than 60 percent of voters disapprove of Kan’s handling of the nuclear disaster, according to a Yomiuri newspaper poll published on April 4.

The magnitude-9 earthquake, Japan’s strongest on record, and tsunami left about 27,500 dead or missing, according to Japan’s National Police Agency. The government has estimated the damage at 25 trillion yen ($295 billion).

Tepco has sought to cool reactors by dousing them with millions of liters of water. The utility delayed discharging water with low levels of radioactivity into the sea, Nakagawa said today, holding up plans to transfer more contaminated fluids from a trench at the station’s No. 2 reactor to a condenser.

About 60,000 metric tons of contaminated water lies in the basements of turbine buildings and trenches around the No. 1, 2 and 3 reactors, the company said last week. Tepco needs to drain the water to restore reactor cooling systems in the turbine buildings.

The tsunami rose to as high as 15 meters (49 feet) at the station, Tepco said on April 9. The base of the station is about 10 meters above sea level.

“Most of the area around the reactor buy Reebok ZigTech buildings and turbine housings was swamped,” the utility said in a statement.

Tepco said on April 8 that the station, which has six reactors and is about 220 kilometers north of Tokyo, wasn’t further damaged by a magnitude-7.1 aftershock on April 7.

Details were sketchy because telephone lines, internet access and electricity apparently were cut in the area. Army tanks and soldiers circled the city, preventing people from entering.

Protests erupted in Syria more than three weeks ago and have been growing steadily every week, with tens of thousands of people calling for sweeping reforms in President Bashar Assad's authoritarian regime. More than 170 people have been killed.

The government blames the violence on armed gangs rather than true reform-seekers and has vowed to crush further unrest.

Al Assad said on Sunday that the country is "moving ahead on the road of comprehensive reforms," the state-run news agency Sana said.

In recent weeks, Al Assad has answered the protesters with both force and limited concessions that have failed to appease an emboldened movement inspired by the Arab uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.

Several human rights activists spoke to the AP on Sunday, citing Baniyas residents who fled the city.

 Ammar Qurabi, head of Syria's National Organisation for Human Rights, said reports indicated that people had been killed and injured when security forces opened fire on a protest. Another activist, Mazen Darwish, said at least four tanks were deployed in the city, apparently to protect the oil refinery, which is the main point to export Syrian oil.

 "There are demonstrations throughout the city and people are chanting against the regime," said Haitham Al Maleh, an 80-year-old lawyer and longtime rights activist who spent years as a political prisoner in Syria.

Syria's National Organisation for Human Rights said one person was wounded in Baniyas, but there were no details.

The accounts could not be independently confirmed. The government has placed severe restrictions on news coverage and many journalists - including from The Associated Press - have been ordered to leave the country.

A key demand of protesters is an end to a decades-old emergency law that gives the regime a free hand to arrest people without charge.

But Al Assad has stopped well short of the protesters" cheap nike mens acg sandals 2011demands. Instead, he has promised to form committees to look into reform. Other gestures include granting citizenship to thousands of Kurds, the country's minority, and sacking his Cabinet.

Firing the government was largely symbolic, however, as the real power in Syria is concentrated around Assad and a tight coterie of family and advisers.

Also Sunday, the caretaker Syrian government eased foreigner's access to real estate in what appeared to be an attempt to attract foreign investment.

But those gestures have failed to appease a growing movement that is raising the ceiling on its demands for concrete reforms and free elections.

Warning

On Saturday, the Syrian Interior Ministry warned that the government will not tolerate any attempts to destabilise the country and disturb public peace under the guise of the right to protest.

The ministry in a statement said there was no justification for such acts since the leadership endorsed just demands of protesters. The statement came in the wake of protests in more than 15 towns and cities in Syria to mark a month of uprising in the country.

"Infiltrators and thugs, in addition to suspicious satellite channels" have been riding the wave of just demands of the protesters to destabilise the country. The ministry urged "citizens willing to practise their right of assembly to consider the changing facts into consideration and act accordingly".

The statement did not mention the steps the ministry was planning to take in case of further protests, but circles close to the government said imposing curfew is a looming possibility.

Protesters, however, rejected the statement and said that the thugs and infiltrators the government was blaming for the killing of protesters are the elements belonging to the government and there is no other explanation why thugs and infiltrators appear only during opposition protests.

"The parades of the government have never been attacked by thugs and the ministry did not explain why," a citizen from Daraa told Gulf News.

Ali Al Ahmad of Daraa said the people of the cityReebok ZigTech online and the surrounding villages and towns will not accept anything less than admitting responsibility for the victims and the bloodshed against the people in Daraa in the past month.

"Anything less than full responsibility and apology means that the situation in Daraa and the rest of the country will not be normal," he said.

Tribal culture

He said Daraa citizens have erected a tent for the victims of the massacre. "That means a lot in the tribal culture. People will not accept less than full revenge," he warned. Kurds in the northeast of Syria said they will support the uprising of their brethren in Daraa.

"The offer of citizenship by the government to more than 250,000, who enjoyed no citizenship since 1962, is their right and not a favour from the president. We don't want a citizenship without freedom. People of Kamishli and Hasaka will stand by their countrymen in Daraa," Hussain Darwish, leader of the Kurdish party said in a statement sent to Gulf News.

Meanwhile, the dissident leader of the largest of Syria's powerful tribes hit out at the authorities, telling AFP in Nicosia they had a final opportunity to avoid more bloodshed.

"There is still a last-ditch opportunity to avoid the bloodshed that the regime persists in causing," Al Bakkara chief Nawaf Al Bashir said.