north korea is pulling a plug. more than 50,000 people will stop working at a joint industrial complex. japanese central bankers are following through on their pledge for bolder stimulus. officials plan to buy billions of dollars worth of bonds to get money flowing there the economy. operators say the latest crisis is under control.

officials say they have found no mu leaks in storage tank or radio active water. welcome to nhk world "newsline." first we again with the death of margaret thatcher. she led the country for 11 years. her legacy includes the privatization of dozens of state-run corporations. she also eased financial regulations and cut taxes. thatcher worked with u.s. president ronald reagan to counter the influence of communist countries. she was dubbed the iron lady for her uncompromising stance. a north korean official says his country is pulling staff from a project that has become a symbol

of inter-korean cooperation. 53,000 north korean workers have been working at the kaesong industrial complex. state-run media said officials will temporarily halt activities at the industrial park. the official claim that they have been abusing the complex for what he called provocations. he said the north would halt all difficult at the park. the first such operation since 2004. he said officials will decide whether or not to keep the complex open. they have added to tensions between the two koreas. last week they started to refuse to allow south korean workers to enter. a spokes person for the ministry of unification now says

officials have not seen any new signs that preparations have progress progressed. the unification minister said there were signed that preparations were under way. they were speaking to members of parliament. he did not elaborate. a spokes man said he was following up on remarks. north korea threatened japan with a missile attack for their decision to extend sanctions. this came in response to the third nuclear test in february. the ruling worker's party paper criticized it on monday. they said japan is following the

hostile policy of the u.s. toward north korea. u.s. military outposts in japan are included in a list of possible targets for missile attack. japan could pay a high price if they keep adhering to american policy on the north. north korea earlier named three bases as potential targets. officials say the the north has recently moved a mid-range ballistic missile unit to the east coast. >> they have made a lot of comments that have be rattling nerves. a professor at the national defense academy of japan and a retired lieutenant general. he notes that they have had to

further focus on the asia pacific region. >> we were very busy on issues. and north korea -- washington dc, and now the last two years. i think the americans are very serious about the provocation of north korea but in the meantime it may not be a good idea to react today. that may give credit to the provocation. so mixed kind of feelings for the americans. >> perhaps i'm sure that the americans may have a belief that

any bad behavior should not be rewarded. north korea may want to talk to americans, but in the future, more provocations may come. china has been criticized by the japanese americans, koreans, for china, and they had not been doing a fine job. but that's not true. the six party talks were initiated by chinese -- even though chinese have been doing, and what they have done may not be enough for others. this time, china should play an important role. and china has same interests in preventing the conflict.

preventing further proliferation of nuclear weapons. small or accidental things might cause real armed conflict between players. but throughout the process, we have to control the escalation. in that sense, we really need to share information between players. south korea, japan, and a u.s., china. bank of japan officials are following through on their promise to pop more money into the economy. they decided to purchase the longest ever amount of long term japanese bonds in a single operation. officials hope that will encourage more lending to

businesses. the boj decided to buy about $12 billion worth of bonds. it is ader approach to monetary easing pl officials said they will spend $10 billion on bonds with maturities of five to ten years. the rest for longer term bonds. investors will look to see -- it hit a record low last week before showing volatile fluctuations. the yield drifted down, closing the day a little higher at 0.525%. more about japanese government bonds, credit ratings agency moody says it will buy time, but it will not solve the country's strul economic problems. analysts said that the latest

central bank program will help boogs the credit rating of japanese bonds, but they warn unless japan turns it's economy around, their bond deals will likely go up. international investors are waiting to outline strategies for growth. the current account returned to the back in february for the first time in four months. officials said their initial estimates show a surplus of $6.5 billion. that included a surplus of $14.3 billion in income. the jump in investment income more than off set the trade deficit. officials said exports fell 3.5%. inports surged 11.5% as the

weeker yen raised the cost of natural gas purchases overseas. japan has relied more on it's power plants, most of the facilities are offline. australia and china have agreed to allow their currencies to trade directly with each other. it is part of their effort to boost trade and investment. >> julia gillard announced the deal in shanghai. the deal means that australian and chinese firms and individuals can save on conversion costs. >> this is a huge advantage for australia, not only for our big businesses, but also for our small and medium enterprises that want to do business here. >> the chinese government is promoting the use already. last year the amount of trade

reached about $120 billion. their business sentiment improved for a 5th straight month in march. cabinet office asked about 2,000 work ers what they thought abou the economy. the march confidence index stood up 4.1 points from the previous month. that's the same level set in march 2006. many workers say that manufacturing sectors sighted inprovemei improvements for the weaker yen. workers said they were worried about the higher prices of imported goods and materials as a result of the yen's decline. they also mentioned electricity rate hikes. the cabinet office said the economy is still picking up, and it noted that more workers are

increasing concerns stemming from the yen's fall. the number of bankruptcies fell for a fourth straight year in fiscal 2012. credit research firm says about 10,000 companies went under in the fiscal year that ended last month. the total amount of liabilities came to about $29.7 billion, down about 25% in the lowest last ten year. the decline is attributed to the one year extension of a law to help finance small companies. they showed a sharp decline due to an increase in public projects related to reconstruction efforts. officials in singapore have worked hard to make the island state a regional financial hub. they are worried it could lose

it's lure looking for new business opportunities. among their targets are japanese companies. nhk world reports. >> reporter: in march the singaporean stock exchange held a ceremony to mark the listing of a mid-sized firm from japan. it is the first japanese company to debut on the singapore exchange in 13 years. lawrence wong, the head of the stock listing division, played a central role, setting up the new listing. >> internationally investors always have their eyes on japan. because of the size, your economy, which is very large, the quality of the companies and the technology, which everybody acknowledge. >> reporter: a seminar on going public in singapore was held in

tokyo. representatives from around 70 japanese companies took part. wong attended the event to build face-to-face connections with japanese representatives. he emphasized some of the advantages of going public in singapore over japan. such as tax benefits, and short times. >> there is no sales tax in singapore. from the time they applied until they time they got approval, 3 1/2 weeks. >> reporter: singapore is now making an all-out effort to attract small and medium sized companies in japan. government officials are busy developing strategies to reach out to potential partners. >> so what i need you to do is start the search for the sectors that we are interested in, reach out to midsize companies. >> we want -- the sectors but before we go to the electronic

sector. >> reporter: the efforts are starting to pay off. some venture companies in japan are considering the move. this man has one such firm. two years ago, he launched a service that connects english language learners in japan with instructors in the philippines. the online lessons are popular, and the company has quickly grown to include 30,000 students. in the future, otake wants to recruit students in south korea, taiwan and other parts of asia. he believes singapore will be the best place to raise funds when his company is bigger. >> translator: there's no doubt

that the japanese market is big enough. but i think singapore has more potential. its markets are, and will continue to be, fast growing. >> these are the type of companies we take a midsize company that have certain technology, special services, that by itself is a world class. so by working together, it's a win-win situation for both the local companies, as well as the japanese company can explore a new business opportunity in the region. >> reporter: the government and the private sector in singapore are working together to attract japanese companies. they hope that japanese technology will help make singapore stand out among exchanges around the world. only time will tell if they are successful. nhk world, singapore.

here are the latest market figures. officials at the fukushima daiichi plant say that have

found no new leaks of contaminated water. it follows the discove last week that tainted water seemed out. tepco has been measuring radiation levels near the storage tanks. one of them leaked more than 120 tons of contaminated water last week. officials later found minor seepage from last week. trade and try minister discussed the problem. >> translator: make sure no contaminated water enters the pacific. don't let it go any farther. >> he said the facility will finish transferring the contaminated water to other tanks in three days. another person infected with the h7n9 virus has died and brings

the death to seven. 24 people in china are known to have contracted the flu. officials are working to find out how it spreads. chinese health officials and their kaunter parts say so far they have found no evidence that it can be transmitted from person to person. all of the infections to date are in people living in shanghai and three neighbors provinces. health workers found no evidence in worker to worker transmission in the people that came into contact with those affected. they will try to pinpoint how it is transmitted. authorities say say they will keep officials away of developments and they will continue providing information to the public. in 2003 the chinese government

was accused of trying to cover up a outbreak of sars. japanese lawmakers are struggling with a problem faced by law maerks in many countries. how to make electoral maps more fair. a poll suggests that people are split over the approach. 66% of respondents say they approve of abe's cabinet. but more people say he is now following through on his promises. half of all respondents say they need to tackle reform in their recession. it is a regulartively small population by one each. more than 34 respondents

approved, neither 40% say they approve nor disapprove. abe may be enjoying strong support, but he is under pressure to fix the system that brought him under into power. both disparity has been a problem ever since japan adopted the current electoral system in 1994. lawmakers agreed there would be three single seat constituencies. the remaining seats in the sijle seat system are divided in proportion to each prefecture's population. but some deep populated areas have somethinged to get more seats than the actual proportion. the supreme court demanded two years ago that the system be fixed. but the previous government failed to get too the root of the problem. take, for example, the election held last december.

the value of the vote in the least populous district was two and a halftimes that. and people across the country filed lawsuits after the election. judges across the country say that some results were either unconstitutional or in a state of unconstitutionality. two courts said the results of the votes were invalid. now prime minister abe is trying to push through legislation to reduce the maximum despairty to just below two, a difference the supreme court said is reasonable. opposition critics say this is still fair. they say members of the ruling coalition are putting off needed changes. they will decide on the matter by the end of the year. if they declare the results are invalid. prime men stir abe has to hold

another election. >> after a stormer and windy weekend, skies cleared up in tokyo, robert speta is here with more. we're seeing high pressure overhead, and it's bringing sta winds. you saw 140 kilometer per hour gusts here. still about 70 to 80 mile per ki -- it did bring some snow showers across eastern china. what this is going to be doing is bringing in these northwesterly winds with it and that will cool off the temperatures through the korean peninsula and through japan and it's caking up the yellow sand

coming out of the gobe here. that's not just bringing poor conditions as far as breathing out here, but it's also reducing the visibility where you see that very thick yellow stand blowing overhead. meanwhile, into south earn weas china, we have another system. it will drop just enough rain on top of the already saturated ground to create a problem with localized flooding. beijing at 13, minus 2 here, that's below your average for this time of year. tokyo is at 20, but seoul, you're starting to cool off after that low pressure pushes by, getting up to nine. let's get to the americas here. you see it pushing across much

of the northern portions of the u.s. here. this is already bringing in severe weather. this system here, it moves across kansas over the weekend. also some hail, now the next one is moving through, look at all of these lines. it is creating up to 100 kilometer per hour winds. so reducing the visibility, bringing blizzard like conditions, and we're bringing dry air to texas. a combination of factors coming together. we'll see a risk of isolated tornadoes, large hail, gusty winds and frequent lightning. the other thing it's doing is cooling temperatures off quite dramatically, actually. take a look at denver, 21 here your high for monday. going into tuesday, that will be minus six for your high. that is one of the reasons you that fuel, that intense storm

system here. even in oklahoma city you're dropping down into the single digits. let's talk about europe, cold weather across much of the north. a low brush area is moving through. this will bring rain showers with it. it could be heavy at times. but it's also going to be bringing in some warmer temperatures. gradually working it's way up into the mid-teens for you. the same thing farther east. by wednesday into thursday, you should be seeing it into the mid teens. here is the extended forecast.

that's "newsline" for this hour, i'm gene otani in tokyo,

thank you for joining us. have a great day wherever you are. .