welcome to "newsline." it is monday, january 9th. a national holiday inn tokyo. i'm catherine kobayashi. iran says it will begin to enrich uranium, defying agreements not to. a nuclear enrichment plant will produce uranium with purity of 20% in the near future.

western intelligence agencies discovered the facility three years ago. located underground, the enrichment plant is well protected against possible military attacks from israel and other nations. the country is already enriching uranium at another facility in central iran. the activity to lead to production of nuclear weapons. iran has been transferring centrifuges to the new facility since last year. the latest move to advance iran's nuclear program is likely to cause tensions with the united states and europe. friction has been cropping up between china and the philippines over beijing's alleged intrusions into waters around the disputed spratly islands in the south china sea. the philippines government has lodged a protest. the foreign ministry of the philippines released on sunday a

statement saying that its military aircraft spotted a chinese navy ship and two other vessels near sabina shoal on december 11th and 12th. the ministry lodged a protest with the chinese embassy in manila saying the shoal and waters around it belong to the philippines and the chinese maritime activity violated its sovereignty. tensions continued to run high over the disputed spratly islands among china, the philippines and four other claimants. both the philippines and china have de facto control of separate shoals near the spot where the chinese vessels were spotted last month. u.s. republican candidates had a heated tv debate ahead of tuesday's key primary in the northeastern state of new hampshire. six candidates took part in the discussion in the state's largest city of manchester on sunday. former massachusetts governor mitt romney is leading the race after winning the iowa caucus last tuesday. >> we have a president that does not understand in his heart, in his bones, the nature of

american entrepreneurialism, and work. >> his rivals responded with criticism, not against obama but against romney. former senator rick santorum said romney's policy may lead to big government which conservatives oppose. he stressed he is against a public healthcare system such as the one romney launched in massachusetts. newt gingrich, another conservative said romney tends to back away from any change. >> this is their words, not mine, that governor romney's program was timid and more like obama. >> the debate exposed a clear distinction in views between moderates and conservatives in the party. a chinese man was arrested on sunday for throwing fire bombs at the japanese agency in seoul. video footage taken by a security camera has been released. the footage shows the 37-year-old man throwing fire bombs and then trying to flee the scene. police took him into custody on the spot. south korean police say he threw four cannisters out of 11 he

brought. the fire was put out immediately after, and nobody was injured. the attacker reportedly told police that his grandmother was a so-called comfort woman for japanese soldiers in world war ii, and he staged the attack out of anger towards japan for not having confronted the issue. police say the man also claims that he set fire to a gate at a tokyo shrine late last month. the site enshrines war dead, including some war criminals. the japanese government intends to install a large scale tsunami monitoring system on the pacific seabed to speed up its warning process. the science ministry plans to install an underwater cable in the nippon trench in the pacific ocean and will also place seismometers on the seabed and underwater tsunami detectors that use hydraulic pressure

sensors. the gauges will be installed by march 2013 in waters off the boso peninsula and sanriku coast. the march 11th earthquake occurred in this area, colored pink on this chart. the ministry says it will set up the equipment at more than 150 locations surrounding the epicenter zone by march 2015. separately the meteorological agency will install seismometers at three locations in waters about 400 kilometers off the northeastern coast sometime this year. data from the seismometers will be collected by satellites and used to detect a massive earthquake that is expected to occur east of the nippon trench in the pacific ocean. >> translator: the new system will enable the agency to issue prompt tsunami warnings with accurate data. i hope such realtime information will help people evacuate appropriately. japan will introduce a point

based immigration system to allow more foreigners with skills to become residents. after the system is set up, they can recruit more foreigners with knowledge to move into the country. the move meant to maintain the population. they will install that new system in april in line with a government decision made in 2010. the plan would give preferential treatment to university professors and people working in academic and research, doctors and other professionals with specific knowledge or skills. it also favors corporate executives and upper managers. education, work experience, japanese language proficiency and other qualifications will be evaluated by points. those that satisfy a certain total score will qualify for preferential treatment. if qualified, applicants can apply for permanent residency after living in japan for five years, instead of the usual ten years. they could also bring their own

domestic help to japan, a perk that currently only a handful of people can obtain. about 2,000 people are expected to qualify for preferential treatment each year, once the system is in place. now let's look at the latest in sumo. >> now sumo. the new year tourney is under way at the national sports arena. on the opening day on sunday, all eyes were on the newly promoted ozeki champion kisenosato. the 25-year-old kinsenosato is making his long-awaited debut as an ozeki. he told me his new year's resolution is to win his first championship, but the ozeki had better be careful because the man in front of him defeated him in the last competition. kisenosato takes command from

the start. he goes in for the kill but goeido slips away and rallies. he goes in for the kill, but the new ozeki keeps his cool and calmly thrusts out his day one opponent. another japanese hopeful is kotoshogiku is fighting his second tournament at rank of ozeki, also aiming to win the emperor's cup for first time. takekaze gets a deep left and inside grip. he stops kotoshogiku's charge. he executes an under-shoulder swing-down maneuver that works perfectly. kotoshogiku is the only one to bite the dust on the opening day. we can't forget the top dog yokozuna hakuho. he's been on the tear in recent years coming out on top in 9 of the last 10 tournaments. wakakoyu is making his debut at the sport's fourth highest rank. when the two practiced against each other in late december, wakokoyu was able to beat hakuho twice. but it's a completely different story when you face them in a real tournament. the yokozuna showed who's the boss.

that's the day one wrap-up. with 14 days to go, "newsline" bring you daily updates throughout the competition so please keep tuning in. now the world weather forecast.

that's all for this edition of "newsline." i'm catherine kobayashi in tokyo. tokyo. thanks for joining us. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com