hillary clinton meets him for the first time. the secretary of state pledges to improve ties with myanmar after a half century chill. welcome to "newsline." i'm catherine kobayashi in tokyo. u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton is challenging myanmar to push ahead with reforms. she said the u.s. could upgrade

relations if they met certain conditions. they might get an ambassador after years without one if it makes further strides towards democracy. she's the first secretary of state to visit in 56 years. she met thursday with the president in the capital. she says the u.s. welcomes the pace of democracitization and will look at lifting sanctions. she's urging further steps to release political prisoners and end ethnic conflicts. clip ton says the u.s. will look at upgrading the level in me and march. she says discussions have been productive. >> i told the leadership that we will certainly consider easing and elimination of sanctions as we go forward in this process together.

>> very happy to meet you. >> clinton invited a pro-democracy leader for dinner. they plan to meet again during the day to discuss how to support reforms. our reporter is there and we asked why he is making this visit now. >> reporter: they welcome signs of democratization in myanmar, but she stress this is just the beginning. she indicated that united states would consider lifting sanctions if the reform efforts continue. clinton's visit shows the importance the obama administration places on the asia pacific region. at the same time, china is expanding its presence in this part of the world.

myanmar is a step towards democracy has provided united states with opportunity to reespecially gauge with the countries. from myanmar side, it has desire of more productive relationship with the united states. it sees that as a way of growing its economy. myanmar has been a close country and has been one of the poorest in the south asia region. they have resources like natural gas and a cheap labor force. for the government of myanmar, democratization is the means of getting sanctions lifted and encouraging investment from overseas. on friday clinton is planning to meet with pro-democracy leader. the meeting will be high profile

chan chance, she will want to move in step with united states to put pressure on the myanmar government to continue the reforms. the momentum towards democracy is being driven by international and domestic forces and is becoming increasingly irreversible. china has been urmging the united states to lift sanctions against myanmar. if has close ties with the southeast asian country. foreign ministry spokesperson commented on clinton's visit to myanmar. >> translator: all countries concerned should lift sanctions against myanmar and try to promote its stability and development. >> he also stressed the

importance of map taintaining relations. >> translator: both myanmar and china want to strengthen this cooperation and doing so will bring peace and stability to the reasoning op. >> it is strategically vital for china to meet the skyrocketing domestic energy demand. china has been supporting port construction and plans to build pipelines to import crude and natural gas from the mideast and africa. investors may be taking a bit of a breather this friday after big gains in global stock markets this week. the nikkei has just commenced trading. >> we saw a 4% gain wednesday. overnight thursday, the dow-jones industrial average dipped as investors took a step back ahead of the release of key

jobs data later today. let's go to ramin mellegard at the tokyo stock exchange. ramin, good morning to you. some key data out of the u.s. today. looks like markets are taking it easy after all that buying yesterday. >> definitely taking a bit of a breather there. very good morning to you. after the gains we saw nearly 500 points on the dow-jones industrial average, and that followed the central bank moves to help alert a global credit crisis a couple of days ago. but we saw a little pull back just on thursday. not a major move, just the dow down 26 points and the s&p 500 down 2 points and the nasdaq ending slightly higher. a bit of a mixed pitcher. see how we're kicking off this friday morning in japan. nikkei up 6 points. topix up. it has been around 5.5% for the

last four trading sessions. volume yesterday was the highest yesterday. some mow mep tum may be held in check until you get the all important jobs numbers later today in the u.s. we're going to keep an eye on the auto sales. sales domestically showed sales jumping 21.4% in november from a year earlier. in the u.s., auto sales figures showed a bit of a boost for the likes of toyota and nissan, and that's actually the first year on year sales increase for toyota in the last self especially months since the march 11th disaster. sales were up 6.6% for toyota and around 19% for nissan. honda, the most heavily hit from the thai floods and also hit production levels, honda showed a sales decrease of 6.4% in the

u.s. toyota's hybrid prius model showed an increase of 50% for november. fx levels slightly unchanged, just looking there. 77 yen. as i said, the market is waiting until key jobs numbers come out of the u.s. later today. so marginally higher this morning. back to you. >> good stuff, ramin. thanks. ramin mellegard from the tokyo stock exchange. french president nicolas sarkozy says france and germany will announce provisional revision to the eu treaty monday. it will be designed to tighten fiscal discipline among member nations. speaking in southern france thursday, sarkozy said the crisis in the euro currency needs a structural response and the foundation of europe must be

rebuilt. he noted revision is necessary to address uncertainty. for quicker decision making among eu members, more issues should be decided by majority rather than unanimous vote. meanwhile, in the european financial markets, investors bought government bonds of eurozone nations with excessive debt. this buying caused the yield on the italy bond to go beyond 7%. that's a level that makes it difficult for the naks to rebuild its public finances on its own. they took heart on announcement of concerted action by central banks to expand liquidity in the markets. it included the european central bank, u.s. federal reserve, and bank of japan. another positive factor was thursday's relatively smooth auctions of french and spanish government bonds. as a result, the yield on italy

ten year government bonds fell to 6.6% level. spain's yields dropped to 5.7% range, and belgium's levels declined to 4.8%. the yield on fran's bonds to the 3.1 range. it had been rising due to possible downgrade of its credit rating. greece ground to a halt after unions called a strike to protest new austerity measures. it's the first major strike since the cabinet of prime minister lucas papademos was inaugurated last month. employees at tax offices, courts and public transport participated in the 24-hour strike called by leading labor unions on thursday. in the capital athens, demonstrators carrying placards and banners marched through a central causeway. papademos formed a national unity government in a bid to implement belt-tightening steps. these were required by the eu for further financial support.

however, greeks are protesting the additional measures, as they are already suffering from a series of tax hikes. more public protests are expected. next wednesday, parliament will vote on a budget plan for the next fiscal year that will include further cutbacks. the u.n. meteorological agency has urged industrialized nations to help developing ones improve their weather forecasting capabilities. this would allow them to better prepare for natural disasters. the agency made the announcement at a news conference in durban, south africa, where the u.n. climate talks are under way. the secretary-general of the world meteorological organization, michel jarraud, said that abnormal weather linked to global warming has caused droughts and floods throughout the world. many countries have been badly damaged. jarraud said that some 70

countries around the world, mostly in africa, remain vulnerable to natural disasters because they lack basic weather monitoring equipment, such as rain or wind gauges. he emphasized they needed support from industrialized nations. japan has been working with south africa on a weather forecasting study in southern africa using japan's earth simulator, one of the world's fastest supercomputers. jarraud acknowledged that japan's contribution is indispensable. >> we expect that japan will play a key role in making us aware of the very advanced facilities of the earth's variabilities, which is making a very significant contribution already to climate science. foreign ministers from the european union are considering more sanctions on iran. they met to figure out what to do after protesters attacked the embassy inter and. they drafted a statement denouncing the storming of the embassy. they said it was a violation of

the vienna convention. the ministers deplor iran's decision to ekts pell the prinz. the foreign ministers discussed a recent report by the international atomic energy agent. the report indicates iran conducted tests for nuclear weapons development. they added 180 individuals and entities in a list that imposes asset freezes and travel bans. >> this is part of our on-going concern as a result of the report from the desire for us to see iran take seriously the international community's call for it to respect its obligations and to move away from pursuit of nuclear weapon technology. >> eu foreign ministers plan to study further sanctions against

iran at the next meeting in january. new measures may include oil embargo and freeze on the assets of iran's central bank. on this week's nuclear watch, we look at japan's expensive and risky fast breeder reactor program, once dubbed a dream reactor. it has become a headache of sorts. the public calling for it to be scrapped and the calls have grown larger since the accident at the fukushima daiichi nuclear plant. the government has been working on the development of fast breeder reactors since the 1960s. it says the reactors can produce plutonium from used uranium. the experimental reactor in central japan began to operate in 1994. a sodium leak caused an accident

and fire the following year. it was shut down. the public questioned the future of the next generation reactor named after the buddhist saint of wisdom. and last month, some members of a government panel said it would be difficult to win backing of citizens for resumption of operations. we asked our reporter to give us insight on the story. we asked him why japan needs fast breeder reactors. >> mostly become it has limited resources, securing long term energy sources has always been an issue for japan. last year, 14 years after the accident, the experimental reactor resumed operation. more accidents led to decision to shut it down again. it was the foundation of the program to put fast breeder reactors into practical use.

but nothing has been decided on its resumption. concern about the safety of atomic energy has gone since the fukushima daiichi accident. the government is reviewing its nuclear policy. the nuclear power minister says the future of the project should also be reviewed. >> translator: some of the equipment is obsolete and various troubles have delayed the start of its full fledged operation. i think the project has now reached a turning point. >> decision on this future is expected next summer. there are a couple of things to consider. one, the delay in the schedule. according to the original plan, first breeder reactors were

supposed to go into use between 1985 and 1995. but that timetable has been drastically revised. now the current status update is 2050. another factor is cost. the japanese government has already spent about $23 billion on research and development of first breeder reactors. some people say spending more on this project would be a waste of money. nitrogen is being injected into the pressure vessels of the fukushima's crippled reactors. tepco says that the inert gas will prevent another hydrogen explosion. in late october, tokyo electric power company found hydrogen accumulating in parts of the number two reactor at a density of up to 2.9%. since then, the operator has been pumping nitrogen into the containment vessel.

on thursday, it began injecting the gas directly into pressure vessels of the number one, two and three reactors to lessen the concentration of hydrogen. it's believed the density of hydrogen accumulating in the containment and pressure vessels is below 4%. above this level, an explosion could occur. tepco says the nitrogen injection will push out hydrogen and reduce its concentration. "newsline" is the place to turn to for the latest on japan post march 11th. we have two segments offering two unique perspectives on the fallout from the earthquake and tsunami. nuclear watch brings insight and information on the impact of the fukushima daiichi crisis. the road ahead examines japan's efforts to recover and rebuild. don't miss nuclear watch and the road ahead on "newsline." we have a special series, an

indian's india. >> thanks. we showed you interviews with leaders of the indian government. wednesday, the government said gdp grew as a smaller annualized rate of 6.9%. yet leaders we spoke to remained confident. today is the last of our series. you interviewed people on the frontlines of india's politics and economy. what do you think is the point there? >> i direct attention to the five-year plan that will start next year. i sat down with adviser and he is deeply involved in the plan. >> we are spending more money on hard indication, skill developments, primary schools, secondary schools, and really creating foundation for the

human resource that we need. in 12th plan, we will focus on creating public information infrastructure. we have programs to connect all of our colleges, universities to broadband network. we want to connect all our local governments to optical fiber and broadband. >> last year, china surpassed japan and became the world's second largest economy. what do you think about india? do you think they could surpass japan and become the world's third largest economy? >> he pointed out the idea of comparing gdp, gross domestic product itself, is obsolete to begin with. >> i believe we are going through a major transformation. structure transformation at a

global level. it, web, telecom has changed everything around us. in this kind of connected world, the earlier economic model built on disconnected world won't make sense. see, earlier economic -- there was boupd reese around nations, gdp, all of that. we must recognize in a globalized world, a lot of my friends in eu get all concerned because of the rise of india and china. so i remind them that in 1760, india was the largest economy in the world. >> now, you lived in india ten years ago. how do you feel things have

changed? >> i feel the indians in general are not only business leaders have become more self confident, but the country will go nowhere without enough unemployment opportunities for its population of 1.2 billion. after long struggle, indian economy should be following growth pass, people's mindset chapgd to putting it on the right track. >> thank you for your insight. now it is time for a recap of the latest market figures. tr >> thank you for your insight. now it is time for a recap of the latest market figures. ri >> thank you for your insight. now it is time for a recap of the latest market figures.

that's the latest in business. now back could catherine. >> i am trying to warm up after a cold commute. let's go to the global weather forecast. hello. time for your weather update. let's begin with japan. cold air is still with us. in tokyo, it was only 4 degrees, the coldest of the season. in addition to chilly weather, we are experiencing wet, very cold rain, southern half of the country experiencing very wet conditions. the rain will spread to this area in 24 hours. across the korean peninsula, a mix of rain and snow will develop into the weekend and as

for china, it will stay largely dry, thanks to a high pressure system. down to the south, it will say mostly wet across the philippines and wet at the northern end of the country. out west, central vietnam will continue to see on-going rain throughout the day. temperature wise dipping down to 8 degrees in tokyo, 11 in shanghai, 17 in hong kong. coming in 35 in bangkok with a chance of showers. heading to the americas. a storm in the four corners region with huge amounts of snow as well as strong winds. we are expecting 45 centimeters or more in arizona. the snow continues throughout friday. you notice that developing over the central plains friday. across canada, another roupd of snowy weather is moving to the eastern half of the country rgs

reaching ontario and northern rockies in the next 24 hours. temperature wise, expecting only 1 degree in denver, very cold. warmer than what we saw thursday. 4 degrees in chicago, 9 in oklahoma city. getting up to 19 degrees in los angeles. very strong santa ana winds are blowing here, raising the risk of wildfires. finally let's go to europe. very active low pressure system has been bringing wet and windy conditions across the scandinavian peninsula as well as finland and the associated front is producing rain from the baltic states to the northern iberian peninsula. rain could become heavy across belgium, france and spain, and in spain, you may see some snow in the higher elevations. the wet weather will continue to move eastward over continental europe friday. the british isles experiencing a

break in the rain, but it will turn wet again starting tonight. down to the south, thundershowers developing over northwestern italy. temperatures are looking like this. we are expecting 8 degrees in london, 9 in paris. 9 degrees in madrid. still warm in rome with 20 degrees, and 18 in athens. warmer than average in berlin with 11, and 6 degrees in stock home. that's it for me now. here is your extended forecast. blood pressure.

that's all for this edition of "newsline." i'm catherine kobayashi in tokyo. tokyo. do stay with us.

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