Protests in Saudi Arabia are banned however it was the third protest this month by families and activists demanding information on the fate of people held for years on security and terrorism charges. Two-thousand special forces and 200 police vehicles were drafted in as the Saudi Arabian authorities showed their determination to prevent the spread of unrest inspired by uprisings across the Arab world.

Meanwhile Bahrain's main opposition groups have also eased their conditions for talks to end a crisis that has drawn in neighbouring Gulf armies and raised tensions in the oil exporting region. The groups, led by Bahrain's largest Shi'ite Muslim opposition party Wefaq, called on security forces to free all those detained, end their crackdown and ask Gulf Arab troops to leave so talks could begin.

A statement released by the party said: 'Prepare a healthy atmosphere for the start of political dialogue between the opposition and the government on a basis that can put our country on the track to real democracy and away from the abyss.'

The missiles targeted Libyan command and control centres, radar installations and surface-to-air missile sites. Libyan officials said the attacks were "barbaric" and causing civilian casualties. British Tornado GR4 jets from RAF Marham were poised to attack more sites with Storm Shadow missiles, which can be fired 200 miles from their target.

The Prime Minister held an emergency meeting with senior ministers and military officers. After a Cobra meeting he said British forces were in action over Libya. French combat jets were the first to attack on Saturday as they destroyed four tanks at 4.45pm - hours after 19 world leaders gathered in Paris to agree multinational action.

The Libyan dictator tried to wrong-foot the international community by declaring a ceasefire, while his forces kept up an onslaught on the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. In Paris Mr Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, led a summit that agreed to "all necessary action" in a move backed by the United States, a series of European countries and, crucially, Arab nations. Colonel Gaddafi was told to quit as:

• The first confirmed targets were an airport near Tajoura, on the outskirts of Tripoli, and an airbase close to rebel-held Misurata

• Up to 16 RAF Tornado ground attack planes were prepared to scramble from RAF Marham to destroy Libya's air defence system while eight Typhoons are set to patrol over Libya

• After returning from Paris, Mr Cameron held a meeting of the Cobra emergency committee with senior ministers and the Chief of the Defence Staff

• US forces - a total of 25 vessels - launched Tomahawk missiles in the Mediterranean

• Planes from Canada, Denmark and Spain arrived at bases near Libya and more air power was expected

• Russia broke international consensus to say it "regretted" action against Col Gaddafi

• The Libyan dictator's forces shelled rebel positions, leading to civilians fleeing from Benghazi

Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, said: "This is a moment of truth for the international community to end the slaughter of innocents in Libya. The Government is right to take strong and urgent action. Gaddafi has no one to blame but himself. Britain should stand in solidarity with the Libyan people."

He said Libya would exercise its right to self defence under article 51 of the United Nations charter, adding the Mediterranean and North Africa were now a battleground. "The interests of countries face danger from now on in the Mediterranean because of this aggressive and mad behaviour," he said.

"Unfortunately, due to this (action), marine and air targets, whether military or civilian, will be exposed to real danger in the Mediterranean, since the area of the Mediterranean and North Africa has become a battleground because of this blatant military agression."

He also called on Arab, Islamic, African, Latin American and Asian countries to "stand by the heroic Libyan people to confront this aggression, which will only increase the Libyan people's strength, firmness and unity". Shortly after Gaddafi's speech, a message on state television said Libya had decided to end its efforts to stop illegal immigration to Europe, citing a security source.

The food was taken from farms as far as 65 miles (100 kilometers) from the stricken plants, suggesting a wide area of nuclear contamination. The tainted milk was found 20 miles (30 kilometers) from the plant, a local official said. The spinach was collected from six farms between 60 miles (100 kilometers) and 75 miles (120 kilometers) to the south of the reactors.

Those areas are rich farm country known for melons, rice and peaches, so the contamination could affect food supplies for large parts of Japan. More testing was being done on other foods, Edano said in Tokyo, and if tests show further contamination then food shipments from the area would be halted.

"Initially, the biggest problem was treating all the people who had been caught up in the tsunami for hypothermia," he told The Sunday Telegraph in the hectic halls of the hospital. "After that, we were treating broken bones, cuts and bruises. But now, more than a week after the earthquake, many people are living in schools and gymnasiums," he said. "We are seeing cases of pneumonia, asthma and chronic bronchitis. There are also a lot of chronically ill patients who cannot get the medicines that they need, such as for diabetes."

With their defences lowered, the elderly are falling prey to enteritis, colitis, diarrhea and vomiting, Dr Yamai said. An estimated 452,000 people are living in evacuation facilities, while the death toll has surpassed 7,000. That makes the disaster the worst to befall Japan since the end of the war. So great is the strain on resources here that the Miyagi Prefectural Government has announced that it will permit the burial of victims without cremation.

Doctors and hospital staff are doing all they can to provide care to those most at risk, but they are short of medicines and personnel, while emergency services have not even been able to reach some of the most remote towns in the region.

Ishinomaki has no power, no running water, no fuel, precious little in the way of medicines. For the elderly, it also holds out little hope of a return to normality in the near future.

They were designed after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster by GIE Intra, a company owned by EDF Energy, which is masterminding Britain's nuclear rebuilding. A plane took off from Paris last night with 130 tons of the robot vehicles, some as large as tanks. Also on board were six EDF engineers who can control the robots from six miles away.

Tepco hopes to restore power to all six reactors tomorrow, which would allow the site's water cooling pump system to be restarted. Workers are also drilling holes in roofs to prevent gas explosions.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said he will file a complaint at the UN after Saturday's unusually large barrage. In a statement, Lieberman said the Palestinians "primary goal is destroying Israel." The violence comes amid increasing calls for reconciliation between Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his bitter rivals, the Islamic militant group Hamas. Abbas is seeking UN recognition for a Palestinian state by the fall and is currently lobbying for votes worldwide.

Hamas used force to disperse a reconciliation rally in Gaza. Some reporters were later beaten up, threatened and briefly detained. Israeli police spokesman Tamir Avtabi said Gaza militants fired 54 mortar shells at Israeli border communities within 15 minutes. He said two Israeli civilians were lightly wounded by shrapnel and residents were advised to stay at home or in bomb shelters.

Hayim Yellin, head of the Eshkol region where the mortars exploded, said they were of the same type as those intercepted on a cargo ship last week loaded with weapons Israel said were sent by Iran to Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. Hamas acknowledged it launched some of the mortars - an unusual move as the Islamic militant group does not usually take responsibility for such attacks. Hamas fears triggering another Israeli invasion similar to a three-week operation aimed at stopping daily Palestinian shelling two years ago that killed about 1,400 Palestinians.

Israeli police said the mortar barrage Saturday was the heaviest since that round of fighting.

One of the organisers, Zaid Ali, 22, a British-born Iraqi from Wembley, London, said: 'We're supporting the peaceful protesters and we're supporting them because they're seeking democracy. They want their rights - one man, one vote. We want the British government to put pressure on the Bahraini government to either give people their rights or run away and leave them alone.'

'Let them set up their own government, let them vote for who they want in their own government. They don't want dictators any more and that's simply what this is. The fact they are shooting unarmed civilians in the street and they have called in a foreign army to repress and attack their own people is completely unacceptable. We're also here to send a message to the British government, that it is a complete travesty that they are backing these dictators and makes an utter mockery of any notion that Britain stands in favour of liberation and democracy.'

But on Friday and Saturday something changed. Several thousand Syrians publicly gathered to cast off that yoke by calling for greater freedoms. The extraordinary protests took place across several cities; in Dara'a in the south, Banias, along the Mediterranean, in the capital Damascus at the renowned Umayyad Mosque, and in Homs - not to be confused with Hama, site of a merciless crackdown in the 1980s against the Muslim Brotherhood by Bashar's late father, former President Hafiz Assad. Tens of thousands of people were killed in that uprising, which still remains a potent reminder of the price of rising against the Assads.

It's unclear exactly how many people were killed on Friday in Dara'a after police opened fire on the crowd. Some media reports say six, others five. On Saturday, police in Dara'a reportedly fired tear gas at thousands of mourners taking part in a funeral procession for two protesters killed the day earlier, Wissam Ayyash and Mahmoud al-Jawabra. Mazen Darwish, a Syrian human rights activist just released after spending several days in custody, told the media that Dara'a has been cordoned. The police were letting people leave but not to return into the town.

Assad has moved quickly to tamp down unrest in Dara'a, according to Ayman Abdel Nour, a prominent Syrian dissident and former political prisoner who now edits www.all4syria.info from Dubai. The 45-year-old president has ordered the release of those detained in Friday's protests, and sent a high-ranking Baath delegation to offer his condolences. "Ten bodies were delivered to their parents," Abdel Nour told TIME. "It is the start of a Syrian revolution unless the regime acts wisely and does the needed reforms," he says. "It will continue in all cities, even small groups, but the brutality the regime will use - it will show its Gaddafi face, the one it has been trying to hide for the last 30 years after the Hama massacres," Abdel Nour says, referring to the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi.

US President Barack Obama condemned the violence, urging Mr Saleh to allow peaceful protests. In a statement, he said those responsible for Friday's violence "must be held accountable". Separately, France demanded an end to attacks "by security forces and armed pro-government groups... against people exercising their rights to free speech and demonstration", Reuters reports.

Yassin Noman, rotating president of Yemen's umbrella opposition group, was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying there was "no longer any possibility of mutual understanding" between the protesters and President Saleh, and he should resign. Another opposition spokesman, Mohammad al-Sabri, accused Mr Saleh of presiding over a "massacre".

A doctor treating the injured said "This is part of a criminal plan to kill off the protesters, and the president and his relatives are responsible for the bloodshed in Yemen today," he told the Associated Press news agency. Photographs from Sanaa showed bloodstained, injured people being carried through crowds on stretchers or in men's arms. Other photos showed a row of dead bodies, with injuries which appeared to be consistent with bullet wounds, laid out in a mosque.

Yemen is one of a number of countries in the region that have seen unrest since the presidents of Egypt and Tunisia were ousted in popular revolts. Thousands of people have turned out for regular demonstrations in cities including Sanaa, Aden, Taiz and elsewhere, calling for corruption and unemployment to be tackled and demanding the president step down. Some 40% of the population live on $2 (1.20 pounds) a day or less in the country, and a third face food shortages.

When it came down to the crunch, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle decided that Germany should side with China and Russia. Together, the three members of the United Nations Security Council abstained from Thursday's vote on a resolution to impose a no-fly zone on Libya. It is a curious political development, to say the least.

The trio makes for strange bedfellows. There is Germany, a democracy which puts great store in the rule of law and human rights, siding with a communist, one-party dictatorship and a country with a dubious track record on political freedoms. On the other side are Germany's traditional allies - the United States, France and Britain - not to mention parts of the Arab and African world. Lebanon had been one of the countries presenting the resolution, which was backed by the Arab League. Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have already said they would take part in a military operation, according to UN diplomats.

And despite the Libyan regime's move on Friday afternoon to declare a cease-fire - at least for now - and inviting international observers into the country, Berlin's move could have lasting repercussions. Although Berlin has not blocked military action by abstaining, the German government has marginalized itself. It is effectively telling its allies: You will have to deal with this one alone - we're not going to help you.

Workers also sprayed water on the No.3 reactor, the most critical of the plant's six. It was the first time the facility operator had acknowledged burying the sprawling 40-year-old complex was possible, a sign that piecemeal actions such as dumping water from military helicopters or scrambling to restart cooling pumps may not work. "It is not impossible to encase the reactors in concrete. But our priority right now is to try and cool them down first," an official from the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, told a news conference.

Even if engineers restore power at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, the pumps may be too damaged from the earthquake, tsunami or subsequent explosions to work. The first step is to restore power to pumps for reactors No. 1 and 2, and possibly 4, by Saturday, said Hidehiko Nishiyama, Japan's nuclear safety agency spokesman.

And in the rebel-controlled east, the government declaration was dismissed as a ruse or a sign Gaddafi was desperate. "We have to be very cautious. He is now starting to be afraid, but on the ground the threat has not changed," a French spokesman said. Britain, like France a strong advocate of armed action, said it would judge Gaddafi by "actions, not his words".

Turkey, an opponent of military action, said the ceasefire should go into effect immediately. "We decided on an immediate ceasefire and on an immediate stop to all military operations," Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa told reporters in Tripoli on Friday, after the UN Security Council passed a resolution authorising military action.

He called for dialogue with all sides. Gaddafi had vowed to show "no mercy, no pity" on Thursday, and rebels pleaded for foreign aid before time ran out.

The crisis was prompted by last week's huge quake and tsunami, which has left at least 17,000 people dead or missing. Japanese nuclear officials said core damage to reactors 2 and 3 had prompted the raising of the severity grade. The 1979 incident at Three Mile Island in the US was also rated at five on the scale, whereas the 1986 Chernobyl disaster was rated at seven.

Further heavy snowfall overnight all but ended hopes of rescuing anyone else from the rubble after the 9.0-magnitude quake and tsunami. Millions of people have been affected by the disaster - many survivors have been left without water, electricity, fuel or enough food; hundreds of thousands are homeless.

Fractured Fukushima

Reactor 1: Fuel rods damaged after explosion last Saturday

Reactor 2: Damage to the core, prompted by a blast on Tues, helped prompt raising of the nuclear alert level

Reactor 3: Contains plutonium, core damaged by explosion on Monday; roof blown off building; water level in fuel pools said to be dangerously low

Reactor 4: Hit by explosion on Tuesday, fire on Wednesday; roof blown off building; water level in fuel pools said to be dangerously low

Reactors 5 & 6: Spent fuel pool temperatures way above normal levels

It was passed as troops loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi advanced on the rebel-held second city of Benghazi. Before the announcement of the ceasefire, heavy fighting between pro-Gaddafi forces and rebels was reported to be continuing. Rebels said government forces had also been bombarding the western city of Misrata, and there are unconfirmed claims that this has continued despite the ceasefire announcement.

UN Security Council Resolution 1973 gave broad backing to taking military action against all threats to civilians, which could include bombing Colonel Gaddafi's forces on the ground if necessary. Ms Kussa said Libya, as a member of the UN, was "obliged to accept the UN Security Council's resolutions".

The ceasefire announcement came only hours after Colonel Gaddafi had insisted that the Security Council had "no mandate" for such a resolution, "which we absolutely do not recognise. This is not a war between two countries that permits the council to intervene," he said in an interview on Portuguese television. The UN Charter "does not permit interference in domestic affairs", he added. The Libyan military had previously warned that civilian and military activities in the Mediterranean would become "the target of a Libyan counter-attack" following any foreign operation.