welcome to nhk world "newsline." i'm gene otani in tokyo. the u.s. secretary of state has called on the senate to ratify by the end of the year a treaty with russia to reduce nuclear arms. hillary clinton met republican senator richard lugar and other senators on wednesday before

deliberations on the s.t.a.r.t. treaty. >> some have suggested we should hit the pause button, that it's too difficult to do this to this degree. this is exactly what the american people expect us to do. >> president barack obama is facing an uphill battle enacting key bills before japan, when the new congress is inaugurated. in the recent midterm elections his democratic party lost control of the house of representatives and its seats in the senate were sharply reduced. it remains to be seen whether the obama administration can gain bipartisan cooperation to ratify the treaty. many republicans do not want to compromise with the government after their big election win. an american congressional commission has expressed concern that china's ballistic missiles can now reach all five u.s. air force bases in japan and south korea. the u.s./china economic and security review commission

released an annual report on wednesday. the report says china has substantially upgraded its ballistic and cruise missile capability. it says the missiles can now strike kadena base in okinawa prefecture, 650 kilometers from china, and yokota base in tokyo, 1,100 kilometers away. the report urges the u.s. military to reinforce its capacity to withstand a chinese air and missile assault on its regional bases. it says a missile defense system should be deployed to intercept ballistic missiles in cooperation with japan and south korea. >> over the past decade the chinese air force has acquired both foreign and indigenously produced advanced aircraft, weapons and equipment. >> the same u.s. congressional panel we just mentioned has also urged the government to label china as currency manipulator. the u.s.-china economic and security review commission made the proposal in its annual report released on wednesday.

the panel said china deliberately undervalues the yuan and harms u.s. exporters and import-sensitive manufacturers. the group argued that china falls under the category of currency manipulators as defined by the u.s. treasury department. their report also raises worries over china's use of rare earth minerals as a diplomatic tool. it says the country denies using rare earth exports for political reasons but its recent restriction on mineral exports to japan is also leading to global concerns. the panel says it will discuss china's rare earth exports as early as next year. iraqi president jalal talabani says he will not sign off on a death penalty sentence against former department prime minister tariq aziz. aziz was one of former president saddam hussein's most loyal supporters. last month he was sentenced to death for crimes against humanity after being convicted of persecuting shiite religious followers in the 1980s. but during an interview with france 24 television on

wednesday president talabani said he will refuse to sign a death sentence. he said he feels compassion for the 74-year-old aziz. some iraqis sympathize with aziz because they say he was not directly involved in atrocities against shiites. the vatican has also urged iraq not to execute aziz, who is christian. an international conference has opened to discuss fishing quotas for bluefin tuna in the atlantic and mediterranean seas. the annual meeting of the international commission for the conservation of atlantic tunas began in paris on wednesday with 48 countries and territories attending. at the previous meeting quotas for 2010 were set at 13,500 tons, a 40% cut from a year earlier. this year's delegates will decide whether to further slash quotas for 2 011 to help replenish bluefin tuna stocks depleted by overfishing.

at a convention on international trade on endangered species in march a proposed ban on international trade of bluefin tuna was voted down by japan and other nations. environmental conservation groups are expected to step up calls on japan to fulfill its responsibility as a major fishing nation and help rebuild the tuna population. japan's government says it will accept quota cuts if necessary and demand stricter measures to prevent poaching. >> translator: we want to make a recovery plan based on science. japan will make its own case for ensuring the recovery of stocks. european finance ministers will work out a financial rescue plan for debt-troubled ireland. the country is facing a fiscal crisis that may spill over to other parts of the region.

finance ministers from 27 eu member nations decided to help ireland after wednesday's meeting in brussels. the ministers also agreed to send officials from the eu, the international monetary fund, and the european central bank to ireland to assess the situation. the eu is trying to prevent the credit worries from spreading to portugal. the country's bonds have taken a hit in recent days. eu officials say the irish government will ultimately decide whether to accept financial aid from the union. u.s. housing starts notched a double-digit fall in october, casting a shadow over the nation's economic recovery. on wednesday the department of commerce said new home construction fell 11.7% on annualized terms from september to 519,000 units. far below the market forecast of 600,000. the decline comes as existing homes on the market are pushing down demand for brand new units. the temporary hold on home foreclosures also raising doubts of the future housing demands. it comes after it was revealed

that some major mortgage lenders mishandled some foreclosures. china's largest air show opened in the southern city of zhuhai on tuesday. it showcases the country's first commercial jet. about 600 companies from nearly 40 countries and territories are taking part in the show that is held every two years. a state-owned aircraft maker in shanghai test-flew its 90-seat airplane. this is china's first passenger jet that has been developed in the country. the company also unveiled a full-size prototype of a passenger aircraft with about 150 seats. the maker says it has achieved a 10% improvement in fuel efficiency for its -- for this aircraft size due to a lighter fuselage. the company received 100 orders for the 150-seat plane from six customers including chinese carriers on the day. china's fast-growing market for air travel is expected to need about 4,500 new passenger

aircraft by 2029. china is apparently aiming to show the world that its aircraft industry has advanced. this is an effort to promote sales of its passenger jets on the global market. willem kentridge is a south african artist who started his career asking himself how do we make sense of this world? he experimented with drawing, film, and doing theater, but each time he felt he failed. then he came up with a unique method of helping people see and understand societal change. yuko aotani spoke with the internationally renowned creator. >> reporter: an award-winning original artwork was presented at this year's kyoto prize ceremony. the artist fuses traditional drawings with modern visual media. his works are not just simple animations as they might appear here. the artist makes charcoal and pastel drawing on canvas, then erases some parts and overlays

another image. he repeats the act over and over, filming the process frame by frame. william kentridge calls his art stone-age filmmaking. you draw. you erase. frame by frame. why is it you take such time and labor-intensive way of creating art? >> the key for me in making the films is finding a strategy to make films where i don't know what i am doing. so there's never a script. there's never a storyboard. there's never a plan. there are one or two key images. and i'll start drawing those images and hope that while drawing those images other images will suggest themselves and the film will gradually form. >> so do you end up making something that you didn't intend to make in the first place? >> i do not start with a message. i do not have a message to give to the outside world. the hope is that when watching

the film there will be elements of it that people can pick up and relate to, that confirm thoughts, that show new but the one thing that kills the film dead is starting with a message and working backwards. at the end there may be something that the film says. but it's a disaster to start with that. so it's the opposite of the way one normally thinks of art working. >> you said it was stone-age art making. it's sort of an old style, too old style -- >> no, i think it's fine. no, i think the whole point about it is that you can see how something is made and you understand the agency of making. when you see perfect animation in large scale, feature films, it becomes invisible and you think you're seeing the natural world. it's like a computer. you just have to take it on trust. as opposed to a type writer where you can see the mechanics of pushing your finger, pushes

that lever, which hits that letter. and i'm very interested in that journey of understanding the route from a hand to your head. >> reporter: kentridge's work reflects the social circumstances of his native south africa. here he experiments in combining his drawing with real footage from the decades-long apartheid terror. >> the very crudely drawn, very crude cartoon animation, together with the archival footage, that was a question i had, not an answer. i had the question of how closely can one put these two different visual forms? the rough animation and the archival footage. without them destroying each other. so that was an experiment to see does it work. and in the end i think it does. one sees the archival footage clearly and one believes in the violence of the animation. so that's about kind of the violence of south african

society, but it's not a simple message that one wants to take out of it. >> i see. on the other hand, apartheid ended in 1994 and the success of the world cup football games this year has also given people images that we have sort of moved on -- >> yes. >> -- from the racial problems, as it were. >> you're right, that the society is very -- there have been extraordinary transformations since the 1990s. and the world cup celebration, it was like a big national party. but in the same way that a grand celebration and a huge wedding celebration is a wonderful thing, it doesn't in itself solve any of the problems around either a family or around a nation if it's a national party. >> and do you actually use those changes to reflect your art? >> i use those changes to give energy to the art, to give energy to the process of making the art. and so as soon as i think i've found an image which is clear,

there's always something much more bizarre, something much more strange, something much more revealing that's actually there in the streets around. so one tries to keep up with what happens in terms of the images but always fails. the interest in staying in the country has to do with being so connected to these different contradictions and the excitement of different -- of a society which is in change. >> thank you very much for your time today. >> good. thank you. >> lovely to meet you. >> thank you. a team of government specialists is on the pacific island of iwo jima looking for mass grave sites of japanese soldiers killed in world war ii. nearly 22,000 japanese soldiers died in fierce fighting with u.s. troops on the island near the end of world war in 1945. the remains of about 13,000 have yet to be found.

last month the team recovered 51 soldiers buried on the island. the latest survey was launched after japan's government found u.s. wartime papers. the papers refer to two mass graves on the island. one in the central area containing the remains of about 2,000 soldiers. another in the south with about 200. over the next week, the team will use the u.s. documents to search iwo jima, which lies about 1,200 kilometers south of tokyo. if the mass graves are found, they will be the largest discoveries in 40 years. prime minister naoto kan is launching his own blog on thursday to provide more down to earth information about his activities. the prime minister's office says the japanese language blog is dubbed "kan-full blog" a play on words indicating a re-energizing camphor shot in the arm. kan will post video images explaining how his cabinet is formulating and implementing policies. his aides and secretaries will also contribute comments and anecdotes.

the blog's first post featured kan's views on the outcomes of last weekend's apec summit hosted by japan and on the bilateral summits with china and russia held on the sidelines of the apec meeting. the blog will be updated weekly. a festival showing 75 animated movies from japan has opened in south korea. the five-day event organized by japan's cultural affairs' agency started in seoul on wednesday. the festival explores the history and diversity of japanese animated movies, which are popular in south korea and around the world. made between the 1960s and 2010, the movies include features by legendary cartoonist osam osamu tezuka and modern anime master hayao miyazaki. ♪ day one of the festival screened "tokyo magnitude 8.0," an animated film about a huge

earthquake which won a prize at last year's art festival, sponsored by the agency. tokyo university of arts has developed a new technology that uses laser to reproduce famous works of art. multidirectional laser beams are used to measure the precise size and shape of a sculpture or a statue. then a mold is produced from the data and the same material used in the original piece is poured inside. the method would make it possible to reproduce national treasures without touching them.

centuries-old trees have started toppling over in japan, some on the grounds of temples and shrines. it all started recently, and researchers have been trying to find out why. next we visit a zen temple where efforts are under way to keep these aged trees standing. >> reporter: mountains tower over ahei-ji on three sides. the building in fukui prefecture is the head temple of the zimbaru sect. reaching a height of 15 meters there are about 150 japanese cedar trees on the ground. among them are about a dozen special cedars called

godai-sugi. it's believed the temple's fifth head monk planted them during the 14th century. for the past 700 years, generations of monks have walked by these trees on their way to the temple for training. despite the trees' sturdy appearance, some have weakened. in april one godai-sugi split down the middle and toppled onto the roof of the bell tower. the inside of the trunk had rotted away and hollowed out. and in other parts of the country, sacred trees possibly over 800 years old came crashing down. an expert believes that the area's rapid urbanization affects the environment of the

temples and shrines even though everything appears normal. >> translator: as a result of urbanization the temperature has gone up and the air has dried out. the rapid change in the environment is happening all too soon for all those trees that have lived for centuries. i believe that the same thing is happening all over the country. >> reporter: is there any way to save the cedars of eiheji? the temple hired several tree specialists to find out. one godai-sugi was in very bad shape. this cross-section shows 70% of the trunk, the portion in red, had hollowed out. among the trees examined, 11 were damaged and of those three have to be cut down. before the trees are to be

felled the monks hold a service and chant sutras. as expected, the center of this trunk turns out to be rotten. realizing how serious this problem is, the temple is trying to protect the rest of the cedar trees from further damage. a specialist called a sorashi arrives to prune the tall trees. he scales one and cuts down dead and unwanted branches. this is the first time dead branches have been pruned from the top of this tree. >> translator: these cedar trees have been watching over thousands of zen monks for centuries.

eiheji is the place for teaching. so i think it should also take care of its environment. >> starting this month the temple has begun examining the tree environment more closely, checking for things like soil quality and wind velocity. let's now take a look at the latest market figures. ♪ ♪

hi there. time now for your world weather update again. well, across japan things looking quite unsettled just now along the west coast of the country and also out toward the east as well, but the rain should clear out by the end of the day, and we'll look for some sunshine to return later on. temperatures warming up nicely as well during the day and with similar conditions for the korean peninsula and for much of china. high pressure system firmly in control and that's going to help to feed warmer air into the region. there will be some showers working their way around the edge of this high pressure system, but nothing really to worry about. in southeastern asia, it is a different story. we're going to continue to see some more showers developing across the philippines, also for the malay peninsula, and then in and around central vietnam after fresh flooding and a landslide occurred. it looks like the threat will stay with you. more showers really affecting

this area. the heaviest rain is going to be occurring further towards the south, looking upwards of 100 millimeters in the next 24 hours but still more rain to come where it has been dealing with new floods and landslides, so you're not out of the woods just yet. taking a look at your temperatures then we've got 17 degrees in chongqing. cloudy skies. cloudy in chongqing as well and also cloudy day in beijing. 10 for your daytime high. let's head over to europe then. well, lots of rain to talk about. first of all, this powerful system over the atlantic has been really impacting the western side of europe since yesterday. it has been causing some flooding problems in parts of the uk. in fact, let's take a look at some footage now coming out of cornwall in southwestern england. severe flooding struck the region early wednesday, after heavy rains and gale-force winds really impacted the area. you can see a river has overflowed here, flooding the road.

the major rescue works are under way, and hundreds of people had to be evacuated as well as some people trapped in homes and cars. now, in terms of the forecast, it will stay quite unsettled throughout the night. most of that is going to be light rain, but we can expect some heavy rain to head into ireland tonight again, and then lasting into your thursday. some of that rain i'm afraid will be moving into the low countries as well, so belgium looking at some showers on thursday, and for central areas, too, dealing with lots of rain, especially across italy, watch out for those thunderstorms and very strong winds and flooding here cannot be ruled out either. in fact, we are hearing of flooding reports in kofu and in greece as well. over to the north high pressure system in control for scandinavia, keeping things generally dry and unsettled. it will be rather windy again in norway and showers moving into the baltic states, also into stockholm. so light rain here and light drizzle in warsaw as well

but still pretty mild out in eastern europe, 13 degrees in kiev. 17 in rome and we've got 10 degrees in london with sunny spells. all right, that's all from me just now. here is your extended forecast. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ once again, the headlines this hour, the u.s. secretary of state has called on the senate to ratify by the end of the year a treaty with russia to reduce nuclear arms. hillary met republican senator richard lugar and other senators on wednesday before deliberations on the s.t.a.r.t. treaty. >> some have suggested we should hit the pause button, that it is too difficult to do this treaty in a lame duck session. i strongly disagree. this is exactly what the american people expect us to do.

>> president barack obama is facing an uphill battle enacting key bills before january, when the new congress is inaugurated. in the recent midterm elections his democratic party lost control of the house of representatives and its seats in the senate were sharply reduced. it remains to be seen whether the obama administration can gain bipartisan cooperation to ratify the treaty. many republicans do not want to compromise with the government after their big election win. an american congressional commission has expressed concern that china's ballistic missiles can now reach all five u.s. air force bases in japan and south korea. the u.s.-china economic and security review commission released an annual report on wednesday. the report says china has substantially upgraded its ballistic and cruise missile capability. it says the missile can now strike kadena base in okinawa prefecture 650 kilometers from china and yokota base in tokyo 1,100 kilometers away. the report urges the u.s. military to reinforce its

capacity to withstand a chinese air and military assault on its regional bases. it says a missile defense system should be deployed to intercept blifltic missiles in cooperation with japan and south korea. that concludes this edition of "newsline." i'm gene otani in tokyo. we'll be back in half an hour with the latest news and weather.