corruption at the core. an independent panel reveals that several top executives were deeply involved in the olympus cover-up. welcome to "newsline," i'm michio kijima in tokyo. an independent panel has released a damning report on the cover-up at olympus. investigators looked into investment losses at the company in the late 1990s. the report accuses former top executives, including two ceos and the chairman, of being deeply involved.

the report says senior accounting executives set up overseas funds in 1998 to conceal enormous losses when olympus bet on the markets. senior executives transferred those losses overseas via a japanese investment company and bank accounts in lichtenstein and singapore. by 2003 olympus had transferred more than $1 billion in losses. in between 2006 and 2008, the executives hid most of the losses in acquisitions of other companies and overpriced consulting fees. the report says two former ceos, maasatoshi kishimoto and tsuyoshi kikukawa were involved and informed of the scheme. >> the core part of management was rotten and contaminated the parts around it. the situation was a worst-case example of japan's tribal corporate culture.

>> the former presidents denied involvement. michael woodford was the first to raise the alarms at olympus. he said the report was more detailed than he expected. >> very, again, as you would read through it, evident that the panel sees that the existing directors worked in an environment where there was no scrutiny. loyalty appeared to be to kikukawa and not to the company. existing directors should resign at the earliest possible opportunity. >> olympus dismissed woodford as ceo in october after he raised questions about transactions related to corporate buy-outs. nhk world's kaori nagao read through the report and she joins us with details.

so what does the report say about how olympus managed the cover-up? >> the panel concluded the cover-up began in the late 1990s. it became clear at the time that the japanese government was going to introduce new accounting standards. businesses would be required to disclose losses on the investments. panel members say, executives at olympic worried, that their business would be seriously damaged if they had to reveal those losses. so the report says, they hid them. >> you know, this scandal appears to go all the way up to the top, and what do the panel members say about how olympus

kept the scheme quiet? >> uh-huh. according to this report, the investigators say the former auditor, hideo yamada and former vice president hisami mori oversaw the cover-up. and the panel said they kept former presidents kikukawa and kishimoto apprised. both of them deny involvement. yet those leaders held on to power for years. no one could object to their decisions. internal checks and balances failed and the cover-up remained under wraps. the panel concluded that all executives who were involved in this fraud should resign and face the consequences. >> translator: the report has revealed that the executives and the auditors tacitly approved of the irregularities committed by some. the fate of the company depends on how much the top executives and board members can change their approach. >> so what happens next? >> olympus' new board is expected to meet on wednesday. they are expected to focus on whether the company, whether company accountants can finish their mid-term earnings reports by december 14th deadline. if they don't, olympus could be delisted from the tokyo stock exchange.

the company also faces delisting if tse decides it caused serious losses to investors. and, of course, we are waiting to see if this develops into a criminal case. authorities in japan and elsewhere have already started investigating. this case is putting pressures on other japanese companies to reflect on their own corporate governance. >> reporting for us tonight, kaori thanks. appreciate it. standard & poor's has placed nearly all eurozone nations on negative watch. the u.s. rating agency warned them their credit could be downgraded. the company's rated aaa, top rating, could lose their status. and that would make it harder for them to borrow money. s&p will reveal the sovereign debt of 15 eurozone nations

including germany and france. increasing bond deals are making it difficult for governments to raise funds. analyst it's pointed to a lack of unity in the nations in their efforts to calm markets. analysts say they will wait for results of an eu summit later this week and conclude their review as soon as possible. six countries hold a aaa rating. a maximum one notch is expected for germany, the netherlands, austria, finland and luxemburg. france could be downgraded two notches. s&p recently cut ratings for spain and italy. they could drop again by two notches. analysts usually conduct their credit reviews with 90 days. there's a more than 50% chance that 15 eurozone countries will have their ratings downgraded. france and germany demonstrated their leadership throughout the debt crisis. their leaders renewed efforts to shore up the euro. the countries are the largest

economies in the eurozone. french and german leaders say they are united in their determination to take all of the necessary measures to secured stability of the single currency bloc. their leaders agreed earlier to draft a proposal for a new european union treaty with tougher budgetary rules. french finance minister criticized s&p. he says the agency did not consider the new proposal. negotiators at the u.n.'s climate change conference are back at it today discussing how next we go to our bureau in bangkok. patchari raksawong joins us. we start with two deadly bombings in afghanistan, both explosions targeted shi'ite steve lyons more than 60 people have died. most of the victims were celebrating a muslim festival. one suicide bomb detonated in the heart of kabul around noon. officials say at least 60 people were killed and more than 100 people injured.

shortly after a bicycle bomb exploded near another shi'ite shrine. this one in the northern city of masari sharif. president karzai expressed his condolences to the families of the victims. he said was the first time a terrorist attack had taken place in afghanistan on such an important religious day. europe and the u.s. are mired in gloom but emerging economies can look forward to robust expansion next year. its forecast cover 14 countries in east and southeast asia. nhk world reports. >> reporter: it's predicted gdp growth of 7.2%.

it's .3 lower than the previous estimate. reflecting concerns about the global economy. it also cites slowing growth in china. the bank worries the overall rate of expansion of asian economies could slow to 5.4% if european credit problems spread. in flood-hit thailand growth is expected to be about 2% this year. this will likely rise to 4.5% next year as the country rebuilds from the disaster. the report notes investors may withdraw funds from asia as european banks tighten lending. the analysts say asian countries are in better fiscal shape than europe and u.s. with room for stimulus in difficult times.

more than four months have passed since thailand's flood crisis began. many areas are still under water. nearly 5 million people remain affected in the south of the country and around the capital. the government is struggling to drain the inundated neighborhoods and secure safe water supplies but the disruption to people's lives is taking its toll. >> reporter: trying to remove floodwaters from bangkok but the task seems never ending. water quality has severely deteriorated. there are fears infectious diseases may spread.

the government regularly send health inspectors to affected areas. >> translator: the water quality has grown so bad, even aquatic creatures can't live. >> reporter: this is a temporary clinic for people in inundated areas. many patients have skin diseases from coming in to contact with contaminated water. >> translator: i told my daughter to be careful but she got a skin disease while playing in muddy water. >> translator: if the water quality continues to worsen, i'm afraid more people will get infections. >> reporter: many districts are cut off. this area about 50 kilometers west of bangkok is still under water.

residents of flooded farms have to live upstairs and it's hard for them to get out. this man is one of them. his daughter was born a few days after the flooding started. >> translator: these are the bags of food dropped by government helicopters. >> reporter: the government provided baby formula as well but they can't feed their child without clean water. >> translator: i never expected this to happen. i don't know what to do. >> reporter: at this crisis center the pressure is on the thai government to ease the burden on people living in flooded areas and prevent infections from spreading.

and turning to indonesia, a volcanic explosion forced people to flee their homes. it is seen here erupting on monday. heavy rains washed lava and ash down the mountain side. the debris has blocked roads and stopped traffic. authorities closed the airport, whole neighborhoods had to be evacuated. residents only had time to grab a few possessions. there were no immediate reports of casualties. indonesia is located on the pacific ring of fire, that makes the country prone to volcano eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis. and that will wrap up our

bulletin. i'm patchari raksawong in bangkok. thanks. tokyo police have arrest ad two-time olympic judo gold medalist on suspicion of raping a female student from a college where he once taught. he won the gold at both athens and beijing olympic games after retiring from judo he was a visiting professor in southwestern japan. police say the suspect is accused of raping the teenager, a member of the college's women judo team at a tokyo hotel in late september. she had reportedly been drinking at a nearby bar with him and other members of the squad. he has denied the rape alleges saying the act was consensual. the college dismissed him late last month for what it deemed a sexual harassment of the student. cyclones, tornadoes, torrential storms, extreme weather events are happening more and more all the time.

experts think global warming may play a role. africa in particular has been battered by a spate of droughts and heavy rains. south africa, the venue of the u.n. conference on climate change is no exception. record rains hit durban just as the meetings were getting under way. at least five people died. now researchers from japan are helping the colleagues in south africa develop a system to forecast such events. nhk world's susumu kojima reports. >> i'm in a village south of durban. the unseasonal heavy storm recently damaged all these crops. villagers grow peppers, tomatoes and other vegetables here on communal farms. heavy rains last month pounded their fields, leaving their crops rotten. the rains were unprecedented

this time of year. they devastated farmers' livelihoods. >> translator: it's really painful. because we are never going to get money. we can't get anything. >> reporter: some scientists may be able to help. more than 70 south african and japanese researchers got together last year to minimize the damage from abnormal weather. they are developing a system to forecast weather, several months to several years ahead. on this day, scientists from south africa visited a japanese research institute to exchange ideas. researchers feed data into a computer to reproduce freak weather events from the past. >> we are sharing data also to

look at what happened exactly during this season in order to find the most suitable model to simulate these heavy rainfall events. >> recreating these events requires a lot of processing power. so researchers enlisted the earth simulator, one of the world's fastest supercomputers. >> japan has a very good facilities which enable them to simulate not only the ocean, but also the atmospheres of the world. now the benefit for south africa in this is that we can make use of this facility in order to forecast what might happen in the next season. >> researchers from both countries showed off their project last friday on the sidelines of the u.n. climate conference. they also demonstrated what the earth simulator can do. they projected videos of

typhoons, altered by the supercomputer to a curious crowd. >> it's quite nice. it's nice to know that my country can actually team up with super countries when it comes to technology and do something amazing. >> translator: my impression is that everyone is beginning to recognize how useful the simulator is in forecasting climate fluctuations and changes. and the status of global warming. >> reporter: the researchers won't be able to stop extreme weather events. still, many here hope they will help people in africa and elsewhere prepare for what might come. susumu kojima, nhk world, durban.

>> "newsline" is the place to turn to for the latest on japan post march 11. we have two segments offering two unique perspectives on the fallout. nuclear watch brings you insight and information on the impact of the crisis and the road ahead examines japan's efforts to recover and rebuild. don't miss nuclear watch and the road ahead on noous. >> engineers have carried out experiments near mountains. >> this facility is called e-defense. in tuesday's experiment at a research facility, engineers

created a 3.8 meter high using tons of rocket soil. but why? they are often built on narrow stretches of coastal land so the hill is representative of nuclear power plants across the country. more than half of nuclear plants are located near such slopes. the experiment starts. the hill was made to shake on the same wavelength as major earthquake that struck in 2007. and it does not collapse. >> the purpose of this experiment is to obtain data needed to calculate possible damage. i believe we were able to get a

worthy result. >> they plan to use data from the experiment. >> before we move on, children have received a little holiday cheer. >> 100 people dressed up as santa clause took to the streets. >> the more santas they spotted, the more presents they collected. it was an early taste of christmas for kids.

>> hi there. time to get you updated with all the weather news. we will see continuing on and off rain. chilly rain for much of japan as we head into the middle of the week. it will be focused over the sea of japan side of the country and su turning over to snow. also sea effect snows as the wind picks up all the moisture and dumps it up hooer. we have been seeing not much let up in the rain here particularly for the aern sea board.

it has been very windy as we head into wednesday as well. rough seas as well as the potential for high waves. 32 in manila. 14 in shanghai and tokyo should be maybe a little bit warmer at 12 degrees tomorrow. we are also seeing sub zero temperatures in the u.s. also seeing windchill warnings focused at the moment. it is going to be very dry here and lots of sunny skies here, too. but it will be bone chillingly

cold, too. out towards the east is where we see if wet weather. we have been looking at this heavy rain coming off of this for the last couple of days. all right. here are your temperatures. behind it the temperatures are just going to drop off very quickly. 1 degree for the high in winnipeg and 7 in seattle. okay let's go europe now. still very windy here. we're seeing continued wet weather here for much of the west. maybe that will be a few snow showers up towards the north of the uk and norway. most of this is going to be just

wet rain. cold rain, i should say, with the exception of some snow flurries. out towards the east it's a lot drier. the southeast we might see snow and ice in parts of serbia. generally starting to look a little drier for you. here is your ix tended forecast.

>> once again the top story at this hour. an independent panel has released a damning report on the cover-up at olympus. investigators looked into investment losses at the company in the late 1990s. the report accuses former top executives, including two ceos and the chairman, of being deeply involved. the report says the senior accounting executives set up overseas funds in 1998 to conceal enormous losses when

olympus bet on the markets. senior executives transferred those losses overseas via a japanese investment company and bank accounts in lichtenstein and singapore. by 2003, olympus had transferred more than $1 billion in losses. between 2006 and 2008, the executives hid most of the losses through acquisitions of several companies and overpriced consulting fees. the report says two former ceos, maasatoshi kishimoto and kikugawa were aware of the scheme and they informed the then-chairman, shimoyama. >> the core part of management was rotten and contaminated the parts around it. the situation was a worst-case example of japan's tribal corporate culture. >> former presidents, kishimoto and kikugawa have denied

involvement. former president, michael woodford was the first to raise the alarms at olympus. he says the report was more detailed than he expected.