backing the bailout. shareholders of japan's biggest utility approve an injection of public funds that will effectively nationalize the company. welcome to nhk world "newsline." tokyo electric power company has lost billions of dollars since japan's disaster disabled one of its nuclear plants, fukushima daiichi. it needs more money to stay afloat, lots more, so tepco shareholders have approved a plan to accept a government bailout. now the state owns more than three-quarters of the utility's voting rights. shareholders gathered in tokyo for their annual meeting. tepco is still dealing with a

costly cleanup and compensation payments related to the 2011 nuclear accident. >> translator: first, we, the entire board of directors, want to deeply apologize for the trouble and worries caused by last year's accident at the fukushima daiichi nuclear plant. >> executives outlined tepco's finances. they explained why the utility needs more than $12 billion in public funds to help turn things around. shareholders then approved a resignation of the current chair and president, quick to take responsible for the manage many of the company and fukushima accident. their replacements will soon take over. shareholders also agreed to fill the majority of the director positions with people outside the company. tepco is now ready to implement a restructuring scheme. the government as its main shareholder will be able to influence how the company rebuilds itself and compensates

people affected by the accident. for more we turn to chie yamagishi. tell us what the mood was like and what opinions did shareholders put forward. >> the meeting brought together more than 4,000 shareholders, they fired questions at the tepco executives for five and a half hours. shareholders questioned tepco's plan to restart a nuclear reactors in the service areas. it is one of the major points of the reconstruction plan. tepco says reactivating its reactors is necessary for costs for plants are squeezing its business. the company wants to restart them as early as next fiscal

year. nhk interviewed tepco's new president about this issue. >> translator: after verifying the causes of the fukushima daiichi accident, we would like to consider a restart of the nuclear plants. >> some shareholders voiced their opposition. >> translator: tepco officials do not have the right or ability to operate nuclear plants. moreover, the accident at fukushima daiichi has not ended and investigations into it are not over. i want tepco officials to think of ways to keep a stable supply of electricity while securing safety. >> after the fukushima accident, public concerns about nuclear safety are increasing. whether tepco can get approval from local residents and people across the country is unclear. >> we just been explaining that the government is now the majority shareholder of tepco. the company set to implement a new business plan under a new

management team. can the firm really rebuild itself? >> tepco has a massive amount of debt. its group net loss for the last business year stood about $6.2 billion. the firm hopes to reduce this mainly by increasing electricity charges this fiscal year. this april tepco raised power rates for its corporate clients by an average of 17%. it is now waiting for the government to approve its plan to increase rates for households as well by an average of over 10%. however, tepco faced protest about the rate hikes at public hearings. participants said the firm is not doing enough to cut labor and other costs. similar objections were heard

among shareholders today as strong opposition from consumers continues, it is not clear how much or when tepco will increase its charges. today shareholders approved the company's new management but we don't know if they can implement a new business plan. >> all right, thanks for that. and do keep us updated on this. u.s. bureau federal investigations headed up a sting. they say officers arrested 24 men in eight countries preventing about $200 million in possible losses. fbi agents set up a decoy website two years ago. they posed as hackers and

exchanged stolen account numbers and swapped information on how to create fake credit cards and breach data security walls. the fbi worked with police in the u.s., japan, britain and others. spokespersons say the sting operation stopped the use of over 410,000 stolen cards. they note it is the first time law enforcement agencies from so many countries worked. the group of hackers known as anonymous says its members attacked several japanese government websites. officials at the finance ministry were working away when they detected an intruder. the alterred page included a photo of an overseaed protest rally, a message proposing the restart of the nuclear plant in

japan. users had difficulty accessing it for more than an hour. the hackers alterred pages of the land misery, too. anonymous claimed responsibility for both cases. users had trouble accessing websites of the governing democratic party. anonymous released a statement monday protesting against the new copyright protection law. anonymous is a loosely linked group of hackers that communicate mainly through internet forums. hackers seem to be taking part in the group's activities. the group has attacked websites of governments and major corporations to oppose stricter controls. anonymous has voiced opposition to the suppression of free

speech. specialists are checking for security violations in the presence of viruses. >> translator: so far we have not detected any viruses coming from this incident and no confidential information was leaked. i have instructed all agencies to be alert and ready to take swift action. >> he says the government is ordering all agencies to include online security. as part of the effort a

presidential advisor is visiting japan on wednesday and held a seminar in tokyo. >> i am sure that japanese invest in something similar to those who are responsible. so these japanese investments -- >> reporter: the government official from myanmar spoke to over 500 japanese business people. myanmar is welcoming japanese companies in economic zones to serve as international trading hubs. business people from the southeast asian nation are hoping to learn technical know how from japan. >> i think this will be the

fastest. >> reporter: japanese investors were mostly enthusiastic about opportunities but did have concerns. >> translator: we have very little information that we are able to hear the background so it was useful. >> translator: there are many ways in which the applications of the laws are not clear enough. i want to improve this. >> reporter: the aim of the seminar was to attract more business investors but the investment rules for foreign firms are still hazy. an event like this one however is another step to the country's roads to informs. >> the government is planning to hold another business seminar in japan next month. the minister of commerce will attend.

bank of china opened a bank in taiwan. about 1,500 people attended the opening ceremony yesterday. the move is expected to spur investments from china to taiwan. >> translator: we would like to contribute to the cooperation between china and taiwan in trade and finance. we will offer financial services to organizations and individual customers. >> the branch opening is seen as a key step to allow direct exchanges without using the u.s. dollar as an intermediate yare. direct training started on june 1st. china is expected to step up efforts.

and now here are the latest market figures. syrian leaders are blaming rebel forces for a deadly attack on a pro-government tv station. gunmen stormed in and killed seven people. the country's state-run tv network reported that the attackers hit the head quarter channel believed to house a studio.

syria's minister denounced the violence as a an assault on the freedom of the press, fighting between government troops and rebels is taking place daily in almost every part of syria. the escalating unrest has left u.n. truce monitors to suspend their mission in the country. syrian president al assad says he will spare no efforts to ensure victory against anti-government forces. syria's state-run television showed president assad addressing his new cabinet. said all policies and sectors of society need to be directed at winning the war.

the arab spring uprising started in tunisia. they have a new government. he was a pro democracy leader and now the foreign minister. spoke during a visit to tokyo and talked about syria and the challenges tunesians face. says the situation in syria is becoming more complicated because president al assad is resisting political change. >> have conversation with syrian oppositions. they are following what is happening and following what happened in syria. people no longer accept any regime. they are very keen to have their dignity and their voices to be

implemented. >> says he hopes it reaches the islam world. moderate islamest party won last october. argues that the future of democracy in his country depends on whether the government to solve economic and social concerns that prompted young people to protest. >> we have to make our country more attractive to business and investment. we are very keen to invest in the human resources in tunisia, to provide more jobs and opportunities for the younger generations in the inner cities. >> he says they want the government to quickly improve their quality of life. >> the nuclear accident in fukushima led to major changes in disaster preparedness. more city and towns are carrying out emergency drills.

nhk world has just watched the latest exercise. he noticed a new sense of urgency. >> reporter: i'm on the island in nagasaki prefecture. the power plant is nearby. authorities are holding the first ever drill to evacuate residents from the island in the event of a nuclear crisis. the island is almost 30 kilometers from the nuclear power plant. the island is holding its first ever drill because of a change. since the fukushima accident, all people living within 30 kilometers of a nuclear plant have to prepared for disaster. the previous limit was 10 kilometers. wednesday's drill is a nuclear accident at the genkai plant triggered by an earthquake. all have to be evacuated off the

island. they are brought to a port where a boat is standing by. >> translator: we only have boats to get off of the island. this is a fact of life for island residents. >> translator: it's impossible to get all of the residents on one boat. >> reporter: the island only has one ferry with a capacity of 150 passengers. also they said they will make use of the island's fishing fleet to get residents to safety in an emergency. nhk world, nagasaki. priceless historical buildings are dotted around northeast japan. many were damaged or destroyed in last year's disaster.

the owners must repair the buildings themselves, like national treasures they are not covered by funds, that means they face demolition, one man is leading a project to prepare and preserve the buildings with private sector funds, but some worry the project could hamper reconstruction from the disaster. nhk world reports. >> reporter: fishing is in the blood of the people in the miyagi prefecture, the tsunami washed through their town last year and washed many of their boats away. it took away a lot of other things too. remnants of their past. some of the damaged historical buildings here have been left like this for more than a year. 40 historical structures were part of the sky line before the disaster. now most of them are either damaged or gone. the japanese government

designated five of them as national cultural assets. he grew up nearby and has seen many of them since he was a boy. now, he studies and teaches architectural history and conservation at the university of technology. in 2006, an earthquake shook historical structure to the ground on the indonesia island of java, he rushed in to help. and he's done that elsewhere in japan too. >> translator: i can't save people's lives but i can save history and culture. those are both important to people. >> reporter: the president of the brewery that's 106 years old.

he grew up in one of the historic buildings the company headquarters. the tsunami washed away the first floor. that sends the second floor crashing into the buildings next door. >> translator: when it rains, water floods in here. >> translator: more than a year has passed since the disaster. but no improvements have been made. i feel really sorry. >> reporter: it will cost more than $600,000 to repair his building. saito can't afford that on his own. last year he applied for a demolition permit.

what he was planning to do is made a secured promise of funding from an international funding group. then he explained how engineers could rebuild the missing first floor. then place the second floor on top of it. he convinced saito to save the building. >> translator: after talking to him, i'm relieved to find out that the repairs will be taking shape soon. >> reporter: saito and others hope to have city authorities include restored structures in the city plan for urban renewal. >> translator: we have lots of hardships now, but it will be too late in 50 or 100 years to regret the loss of historical structures. our descendants will be thankful

to us for preserving important architecture. >> reporter: he hopes to do for others what he's doing for saito. he said he hopes the buildings won't be just a part of the city's past, but also, of its future. nhk world, kesennuma. nothing like a sunny day during rainy season but some rough weather in the philippines. robert speta has more on that. we have tropical storm to the east pushing towards the northwest expecting to clip the coast right around thursday afternoon. currently winds at the center of circulation are at about 65 km

per hour up to about 5 feet. high waves could be seen here. you have the risk of storm surge pushing on shore. the heavy rainfall, the southwest monsoon will be across the south china sea here bringing rainfall risks and flooding and land slides as the moisture continues to pump on shore not to mention the fact we could be seeing high waves here. for the rainfall totals looking at up to about 150 mm across northern portions. plus down towards the south talking about the southwest monsoon moving on shore here. you could be seeing 100 mm plus. up towards the north you are also seeing some very heavy rainfall. 500 plus mm of rain has been reported here since last friday.

unfortunately in the last 24 hours you have seen about 89 mm per hour in a similar location on top of already saturated grounds. this is going to start to work its way off towards the northeast. it will be affecting tokyo on your wednesday and thursday and going into your friday bringing rainfall with it, as well. farther off towards the north you are still under extreme south. high temperatures up to 33 on thursday. tokyo at 34. manila a high of 31. in the americas debby is finally starting to get a move on here. currently it is a tropical depression. reports across much of northern florida. 350 mm of rainfall recorded there in jacksonville. this is the second highest rainfall total in this area been recorded over a span. good news, though, much better

weather will start from the west here. he is also coming in with high pressure. out towards the rockies dry weather in colorado springs there has been a fire blazing there forcing people to be evacuated. hot and dry weather there in denver with a high of 36. oklahoma city getting up to 31. look at phoenix at 44 and washington dc and atlanta you are not out of the woods either with your high temperatures of 31. europe you are seeing very hot weather today. a cold front is going to be moving through here bringing rain showers with it and thunderstorm activity will be seen towards france but with this cold front temperatures will be starting to cool down. paris with a high of 27. you look down there and madrid you had temperatures on your wednesday in the low 40s.

going into sunday expect the low 20s. here is your extended outlook.

we'll be back with more updates in 30 minutes.