A new department will focus on Christchurch's recovery from its devastating earthquake but concerns are already being raised that locals will not have enough of a say as Wellington bureaucrats make calls on how to go ahead.

Plutonium has been detected in soil samples taken from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

A high profile property investor who was able to hire a crane to get car keys and clothes from his 13th floor penthouse has angered central Christchurch business owners...

A "worst-case scenario" tsunami for Auckland would swamp the Viaduct and make Devonport an island, a council report shows.

Police are half way through recovering thousands of cars from the Christchurch central business district devastated by the February 22 earthquake.

British Prime Minister David Cameron and his Chancellor, George Osborne, this week delivered a Budget that was unambiguous in backing business to lead the nation out of the economic doldrums.

More than 510 businesses, or 2000 people, have been granted access to buildings within the cordoned area.

A 6.8 magnitude earthquake in Burma has killed up to 10 people overnight.

Workers loaded trucks with boxes of bottled water to distribute across the city today after residents cleared store shelves following warnings that Tokyo's tap water had elevated radiation coming from Japan's tsunami-damaged nuclear complex

The Tokyo Water Bureau has warned parents not let their infants drink the city's radioactive water supply, with levels two times the recommended limit for infants.

Herald reporter Michael Dickison, who is fluent in Japanese, reports from a remarkably changed Tokyo.

Herald reporter Michael Dickison has been travelling through the devastation on the coast of Japan. Yesterday, he visited Sendai.

About 120 Christchurch business owners stormed the inner-city cordon yesterday.