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Arsenal expect to be without Wojciech Szczesny for six weeks after the goalkeeper dislocated his finger during the defeat by Barcelona on Tuesday.
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An earthquake measuring 8.9 magnitude hit the north of Japan at 2.46pm local time (0546 GMT).
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Will Mr Clegg disagree publicly with Mr Cameron more often? Nick Clegg has told Liberal Democrats to “hold your nerve” as he prepares to face activists rattled by sinking poll ratings and public anger at cuts.
The Lib Dem leader is seeking to rally his troops as his party gathers for its spring conference in Sheffield.
He is expected to tell them: “Don’t be cowed by what people are saying about us. Stick to the course.”
Police are preparing for up to 10,000 people to take part in anti-government protests in Sheffield city centre.
South Yorkshire Police have spent an estimated £2m on a “ring of steel” around the conference centre and have said they are looking into one report there had been a threat to kidnap Mr Clegg.
But the deputy prime minister is also expected to face hostility from members of his own party, with a motion tabled attacking Project Merlin, the government’s deal with the banks to increase lending as “weak and hard to enforce”.
Activists are also expected to voice their concern at the government’s planned shake-up of the NHS.
Mr Clegg sought to play down talk of conflict with activists an eve-of-conference interview with the Independent.
“We were right to go into government – we are doing the right things in government”
Nick Clegg Lib Dem leader
“People want to build this up into the Gunfight at the OK Corral,” said Mr Clegg. “It is not like that at all.
“Most people accept we want to see the NHS become more democratic. I am very much in listening mode.”
Mr Clegg is nevertheless expected to use the weekend in Sheffield to reassert his party’s independence, amid fears it is losing its identity in its coalition with the Conservatives.
In his Independent interview, Mr Clegg suggested he would disagree publicly with prime minister David Cameron on more issues.
He said he had told Mr Cameron he was talking “complete bilge” when the prime minister defended first-past-the post voting in the Commons on Wednesday, but added: “We were very good humoured about it. We mutter to each other. We were just joking. We disagree on this one.”
The party will be handing out pocket-sized cards to Lib Dem members containing a list of things the party had achieved in government, including civil liberties reform, tax cuts for the lowest paid and the “pupil premium” to channel cash to schools in deprived areas.
Mr Clegg told the Independent: “We are in this for the long haul. We are going to keep our nerves. We are not going to flinch.
“We were right to go into government. We are doing the right things in government.”
He added: “People have to hold their nerve, not lurch from one thing to the next.”
The newspaper quotes Mr Clegg, in rehearsal for his big conference speech on Sunday, saying: “Keep your head up high. Be proud of what we are doing. Don’t be cowed by what people are saying about us. Stick to the course.”
Mr Clegg, who is MP for Sheffield Hallam, has also faced criticism over his U-turn on student tuition fees and the axing of a grant to Sheffield Forgemasters.
But his Parliamentary aide Norman Lamb said the party would not be “in hiding” and planned to get out on the doorstep in Sheffield.
Some activists fear the party faces a hammering at English local elections on 5 May, but Mr Lamb told reporters earlier this week that the “the mood of the party remains good”.
The latest YouGov opinion poll for the Sun has put the Lib Dems on just 9%, trailing well behind their Conservative coalition partners on 34% and Labour on 45%.
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Prince Charles spent a term at Aberystwyth in 1969 An historic hall of residence at Aberystwyth University where Prince Charles stayed as a student could be replaced by a new £45m scheme.
Pantycelyn became one of the first halls for Welsh-speaking students in 1974, but the university plans to build a new development on farmland.
Up to 1,000 students could be based there and not just those from Welsh speaking backgrounds.
The Prince of Wales stayed at Pantycelyn for a term in 1969.
The new self-catering accommodation is earmarked for university farmland behind the Pentre Jane Morgan student village, and building work, costing between £40m and £45m, could start in autumn 2012.
The university said the project underlined its commitment to “improving the quality of the accommodation”.
“The university will be engaging with student representatives to ensure the new halls provide the living experience…future generations of Aberystwyth students will expect”
Rebecca Davies Aberystwyth University Pro Vice-Chancellor
University pro vice-chancellor Rebecca Davies said: “Aberystwyth offers one of the best student experiences in the UK.”
She said the project was the “biggest single strategic element” of its plan, underlying a commitment to improve accommodation, with an emphasis on self-catering, en-suite rooms.
“As the process unfolds, as well as working closely with the local community and planners, the university will be engaging with student representatives to ensure the new halls provide the living experience, in terms of social and technological facilities, that future generations of Aberystwyth students will expect.”
Aberystwyth Guild of Students and the Welsh language student body, Undeb Myfyrwyr Cymraeg Aberystwyth (UMCA), were unavailable for comment.
Plans to close Pantycelyn were first mooted in 2008. At the time there was speculation the building could be converted into offices for university staff.
Pantycelyn opened in the early 1950s, and became one of the first halls of residence for Welsh-speaking students in 1974.
The Prince of Wales stayed there when he studied at Aberystwyth University for a term in the spring of 1969.
The BBC’s One Show presenter Alex Jones was also a student at Pantycelyn, while the eminent Welsh historian John Davies was a warden there for 18 years.
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The quake was also felt as far away as Tokyo Asia stock markets and the yen have fallen sharply in response to a tsunami and earthquake in Japan measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale.
It struck only minutes before the 0645 GMT close of trading in Tokyo.
The dollar briefly gained about 0.5% against the yen to 83.275 yen, before snapping right back again.
The Nikkei index ended the day some 1.7% lower, but Nikkei futures fell 3% in after-hours trading in Singapore as the scale of damage became apparent.
The Tokyo market had already been suffering amid the turmoil in the Middle East, and closed at its lowest level in five weeks.
Across Asia other markets also fell.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped some 1.8% following the earthquake, and was down some 1.6% as of 0800 GMT.
David Cohen, a Singapore-based analyst at regional economic commentators Action Economics said although the yen had traditionally been “a safe haven for investors” during disasters in other parts of the world, they may now ditch the yen in favour of the US dollar.
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However, Arjuna Mahendaran, chief Asia strategist of HSBC Private Bank in Singapore, played down the risk of any long-term impact on the currency.
“Japan’s big insurance companies and pension funds have been bringing funds back into Japan,” he said. “And that has kept the currency strong. I think if the damage is too big, we could see them further liquidate their foreign assets and bring funds back to Japan.”
On the other hand, the quake is likely to hurt and already weak economy.
“In the short term, the damage could even knock off almost 1% of the country’s GDP,” noted Mr Cohen.
“Longer-term though, it will balance out, through the rebuilding exercise which will be positive for growth will all the construction taking place. It could turn positive in about 12 months.”
There will also be concerns about damage to productive capacity, Mr Cohen said, and industrial production may suffer as a consequence of the damage caused.
An oil refinery near Tokyo caught fire, causing a massive blaze.
Activity at the major port of Yokohama has been disrupted by the earthquake, suffering a loss of power at its terminal.
An oil refinery near Tokyo caught fire, causing a massive blaze “At the moment there are trying to get power back but it’s unlikely to happen today,” said Boon Lee Lur of shipping company Neptune Orient Lines.
The city Sendai in the north of Japan, which was the worst hit by the disaster, saw fires break out and its port overrun by the tidal wave.
But the city is much smaller than Kobe – which was hit by Japan’s last big earthquake in 1995 – according to Richard Jerram of Australian bank Macquarie.
“Transportation linkage is also less important [there], so [you can] assume the scale of disruption will be much smaller.”
The cost of clearing up the damage done could run into the billions, according to Mr Mahendaran, and that is likely to add further to the Japanese government’s ballooning debts.
But rating agency Moody’s was more upbeat about Japan’s capacity to deal with the quake.
“In a big economy like Japan, the impact of a natural disaster can be absorbed economically by the government and private insurance, so there will be no impact on government’s finances and therefore Japan’s sovereign rating.”
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A strike is under way across Pakistan’s southern Sindh province after a controversial court decision to remove the head of an anti-corruption body.
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A massive earthquake has hit the north-east of Japan, triggering a tsunami that has caused extensive damage. Seismologist Dr Roger Musson explains how it happened.
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UK factory gate inflation hits a 28-month high in February, fuelled by rising oil and food prices.
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The group announced a ceasefire in January The suspected head of armed Basque separatist group Eta has been arrested in northwest France, reports say.
Alejandro Zobaran Arriola was among four Eta suspects held in an operation by French police near the Belgian border, Spanish national radio reports.
Mr Arriola was described as the group’s “new military chief”.
Eta’s campaign for independence for the Basque region has cost more than 800 lives since 1968 but it called a halt to armed attacks last year.
Spanish newspaper El Pais said the arrests took place in Willencourt, west of the city of Arras.
According to AFP, the suspects were arrested late on Thursday in a house where firearms and documents were also seized.
Mr Arriola – known as “Xarla” – is Eta’s sixth military chief to be detained since Francisco Javier Lopez Pena was arrested in May 2008.
Eta has been coming under increasing pressure to lay down its weapons and, in January this year, announced that it would cease “offensive armed actions”.
But Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero rejected the declaration, saying he wanted the group to be completely disbanded.
Spanish authorities believe their campaign against Eta has crippled its operational capacity, with dozens of arrests – including a number of top leaders – made in collaboration with forces in other countries.
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Sadler’s Wells and the Barbican Centre are to collaborate for the first time to present a season of works by the late German choreographer Pina Bausch in 2012.
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UK embassy staff are investigating the situation on the ground in Japan and David Cameron has expressed his condolences to the Japanese people after the country was rocked by a massive earthquake.
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As eurozone leaders meet to try to find a way out of its year-long debt crisis, the Greek prime minister calls for action.
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The historians’ letter was organised by Tory MP Chris Skidmore A group of leading historians have voiced their opposition to altering the UK voting system while several senior businessmen have called for change.
Niall Ferguson, Anthony Beevor and Andrew Roberts are among those who say a switch to the Alternative Vote (AV) would harm democratic principles.
But the chairman of insurer Aviva and other executives said moving to AV would be a “victory for fairness”.
A referendum on the change will be held on 5 May.
In a letter to The Times, 25 historians argue that the current first-past-the-post voting system for Westminster elections is the product of a long fight for one vote for every man or woman in the country regardless of wealth, gender, race or creed.
They claim this principle of “equal votes” would be threatened by a move to AV – where voters rank candidates in order of preference and second preference votes given to the candidate with the least support are re-distributed after the initial ballot if no-one gains over 50% of first preference votes.
At the moment MPs are elected by the first-past-the-post system, where the candidate getting the most votes in a constituency is elected.
On 5 May all registered UK voters will be able to vote Yes or No on whether to change the way MPs are elected to the Alternative Vote system.
Under the Alternative Vote system, voters rank candidates in their constituency in order of preference.
Anyone getting more than 50% of first-preference votes is elected.
If no-one gets 50% of votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their backers’ second choices allocated to those remaining.
This process continues until one candidate has at least 50% of all votes in that round.
Referendum views: Yes campaign Referendum views: No campaign
The letter was conceived by the historian turned Conservative MP Chris Skidmore – the author of a number of books on the British monarchy – and not organised by the official No to AV campaign.
Its other signatories include the Regius Professor of History at Cambridge Richard Evans and the best-selling writer Professor Anthony Beevor.
“The cause of reform, so long fought for, cannot afford to have the fundamentally fair and historic principle of majority voting cast aside,” the historians write.
“Nor should we sacrifice the principle which generations of men and women have sought: that each being equal, every member of our society should cast an equal vote.”
At the same time, 11 leading businessmen have endorsed AV in a rival letter to the Daily Telegraph – in a move which was independent of the official Yes to Fairer votes campaign.
The signatories, who include Aviva chairman Lord Sharman, Home Retail Group boss Terry Duddy and top corporate PR executive Roland Rudd, said they were speaking in a private capacity.
AV would make MPs “work harder” to get elected, they claimed, as they would need to aim to secure a majority of voters’ support in their constituency.
“Parties would have to pay far more attention to the vast majority of people during election campaigns under AV,” they write.
The current system forced parties to “sacrifice stability for short-term electoral gain”, they add, and AV elections would give “greater legitimacy” to political parties.
“A vote for change on 5 May would be a victory for fairness, a break with a system of the past and a foundation for greater political stability. It would be good for the country and good for business.”
Voters will go to the polls in the first UK-wide referendum since 1975 on 5 May.
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Leaders of EU member states hold an urgent summit in Brussels on the Libya crisis, as pro-Gaddafi forces make major gains against rebels.
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HMS Ark Royal will be replaced with the new Queen Elizabeth Class carriers The axed aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal will be decommissioned at a ceremony later in its home base of Portsmouth.
The warship was scrapped after 25 years’ service as part of the government’s defence budget review.
It will leave the navy without the capability of launching fixed wing aircraft until replacements come into service at the end of the decade.
The vessel’s white ensign will be lowered for the final time at a special ceremony in front of honorary guests.
The ship’s last remaining 150 sailors on board will take part in the event in front of about 900 guests including families and former commanding officers.
Principal guest will be First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, who will inspect a guard comprising 30 ship’s company.
The service will be conducted by the ship’s chaplain, the Reverend Martin Evans, with music from the Royal Marines Band, Portsmouth.
“ I have been exceptionally proud to serve as her captain”
Captain Jerry Kyd
Captain Jerry Kyd, the last Commanding Officer of HMS Ark Royal, said: “Ark Royal has played a very important role throughout her history and has had considerable success in delivering carrier strike.
“For me, personally, I have been exceptionally proud to serve as her captain – my very first job after finishing my initial officer training 25 years ago at Dartmouth was in the then brand new HMS Ark Royal.
“It is therefore a great honour for me to have been her last captain.”
Ark Royal was built at the Swan Hunter ship yard in Wallsend, North Tyneside, in December 1978 and was launched by the Queen Mother.
She also accepted it into service in July 1985 and it was commissioned in November of that year.
The Queen bid farewell to the Royal Navy carrier at a ceremony in November last year.
Capt Kyd, who now commands sister ship HMS Illustrious, added: “I am only too aware that this famous ship and her iconic name mean a great deal to many people.
“Although Ark Royal will be decommissioned, the new Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers are vastly more capable and will provide the Royal Navy with an exciting future.”
Operations have included leading the UK’s naval forces during the invasion of Iraq, with a fleet of helicopters embarked.
The current ship is the fifth vessel to carry the name and has clocked up 621,551 nautical miles during its career.
The first Ark Royal saw battle in 1588 and smashed the Spanish Armada.
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