welcome to "newsline." it's friday, june 24th, 9:00 a.m. in tokyo. i'm catherine kobayashi. the japanese government will hold a meeting on sunday in westerst japan to explain about safety in the area. the meeting will be the first of its kind since the accident at the fukushima daiichi plant. since the accident most nuclear power plants in japan have halted operations. restarting the reactors in genkai saga prefecture has the backing of the local mayor but the prefectural governor is

maintaining a cautious stance. at the meeting it will be explained by the nuclear industrial safety agency. the meeting will be broadcast live on cable tv and the internet. the governor, however, has been criticized for its decision to choose only around seven residents to participate in the meeting. many local people are saying this will severely limit the wide range of opinions needed. a group of doctors has found that the estimated level of accumulated internal radiation exposure for people living in fukushima prefecture exceeded three-any he will sieverts. doctors say the level is not a health risk but advising people not to eat vegetables grown in levels where raid yigs levels are high. the researchers include doctors who have provided medical care to atomic bomb survivors. the group conducted aal sis on the food and urine of 15 residents in iitate village

andkawa ma ta village, about 40 kilometers from the fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant. they estimate residents have been internally exposed up to 3.2 millisieverts in the two months since the nuclear accident. >> translator: radioactive substances accumulate much more by eating or drinking rather than inhaling. i advise people to refrain from eating vegetables grown in the area where high levels of radiation are detected. >> parents and teachers in fukushima prefecture are skeptical about the government set level of exposure to radiation for children especially in relation to outdoor activities. they fear children's health may be affected by radioactive contamination from fukushima daiichi. the education ministry released a report to the nuclear safety commission on thursday concerning school yards at 55

locations, where high levels of radiation had been detected. it also reported that after the topsoil was removed at 41 locations, the radiation level dropped to 0.5 microsieverts per hour on average. the report also said that all locations had radiation levels under the government set 3.8 microsieverts per hour but many parents and teachers in the prefecture are skeptical about the standards set by the government. they say exposure to 3.8 microsieverts per hour is too high compared to the long-term reference level recommended by the international commission on radiological protection. all schools continue to limit outdoor activities from one to three hours per day. fukushima prefecture has decided to distribute dosimeters to about 280,000 children. with parents, they will be able to monitor their radiation exposure caused by the accident at fukushima daiichi. voices of parents expressing

concern about their children's health have been growing louder. the prefecture said on thursday it will give dosimeters to children ranging from infants to junior high school students. some municipalities in the prefectures have already distributed dosimeters to children to monitor radiation exposure. the prefecture will provide financial help to those municipalities. >> translator: i'm glad we'll get them as soon as possible, i hope. now to our new segment here on "newsline," "nuclear watch." every week we'll be bringing you the latest information and analysis on the crisis triggered by the accident at fukushima daiichi. today we're going to take a closer look at one of the most pressing problems at the damaged nuclear plant, the decontamination of radioactive waste water.

more than 110,000 tons of highly contaminated water is believed to have accumulated in the basements of the plant's reactor and turbine buildings. the amount is increasing by about 400 tons a day because freshwater must be injected into reactors to keep them cool. tokyo electric power company has been testing a system to decontaminate the water. if it works, tepco plans to recycle the filtered water back into the reactors to keep them from overheating, but the company's been facing unexpected problems. tepco tried running the decontamination system last friday but after five hours, it was forced to halt the process because of a sharp rise in radiation levels around the u.s. made equipment for absorbing radioactive cesium. then on tuesday tepco began another test run that had to be halted. this time a pump that sends water into french made decontamination equipment shut down automatically. >> translator: the system has

been proven to decontaminate water, and it will be successful. >> tepco is under pressure to get the decontamination system working. facilities to store radioactive water at fukushima daiichi will soon reach capacity and could overflow. earlier michio kijima spoke to nhk world's commentator noriuki mizuno. mr. mizuno, why is it so difficulto run the decontamination system in a stable manner? >> translator: this is the first facility in the world for decontaminating water with such high concentrations of radioactive substances. the contaminated water has reacted with coolant water that is leaking so the water contains high levels of radioactive cesium and other radioactive substances. such contaminated water has never been treated in japan before, so tepco built a water treatment system combining technology developed by u.s. and french companies. the u.s. technology is based on

the contaminated water treatment procedures that was developed for the 1979 three-mile island nuclear accident. the french technology is the one being used at the spent fuel reprocessing plant. both countries have expertise but this combined system is the first in the world, so operators are still not familiar with it. however, in the test run, there have been many glitches but none of the glitches have been disastrous so far. the system seems capable of bringing down contamination levels to 1/10,000 and operation rates will increase gradually so it's important that tepco learns from the lessons learned during the test runs and apply it to the full operation. >> translator: more worrisome is a possibility of highly radioactive water overflowing to the outside of the compound. what measures are necessary to prevent that? >> translator: tepco has said that if the system does not

start working soon, the contaminated water may overflow by july 5th, at earliest, so it's a very precarious situation. so tepco needs to prepare for the worst-case scenario where other problems may prevent the full-scale start-up for the system and as countermeasures what tepco is doing is decreasing the water injected into the reactors but in the reactor of unit 3, as a result of reducing the injected water, the temperature is rising so it's difficult to reduce further the amount of injected water and another option is to prevent overflow by transferring the contaminated water in a tank which is set up to store low-level contaminated water. so that's a possibility. but this tank is exposed above the ground so if highly contaminated water is put in it,

there'll be high levels of radiation emitted from the tanks so if problems occur, workers will not be able to go near it. but it is not acceptable to drain contaminated water into the sea, so if worse comes to worse, this is an option and should be taken into consideration and safety factors considered. >> translator: tepco aims to resume the operation of the system as soon as possible. how does this halt impact on the future timetable? >> translator: this decontamination system is vital to achieving the target of stabilizing and cooling the reactors and bringing the situation under control. it is like a lifeline and needs to be operated stably and even if it operates smoothly, we need to be prepared for unforeseen events. one such event would be the japanese rain season. we have the rainy season here when the seasonal rain front becomes active and chancesf rain increase.

and the meteorological agency in japan announced on june 21st that the total region where fukushima is located had entered the rainy season, so over the next month there may be heavy rainfall. and for units one and three the roofs of the reactor buildings have been blown off by a hydrogen explosions. so rain may pour in increasing the amount of contaminated water, so this needs to be factored in. tepco is preparing to put a tent over the reactor buildings to cover the entire building, but this will not happen in time because this is a lot of work, so they need to consider all sorts of measures like pile up sandbags and cover walls so that the rain water will not enter in from cracks in the building near the ground. >> translator: thank you mr. mizuno. that was nhk world's commentator noriyuki mizuno reporting for us tonight. "newsline" offers the latest information and insights into japan's ongoing crisis on "nuclear watch." every thursday night at 8:00 and 11:00 and friday mornings at 8:00 japan time.

we turn to ai uchida with the latest in business news. oil consuming nations have stepped up efforts to help the world economy. >> absolutely, catherine. the international energy agency has agreed to release oil from emergency reserves. this move will make available 60 million barrels of petroleum over the next month. the iaea consists of 28 major oil consuming nations, including japan and the u.s. higher oil prices have dampened economic growth since january. the political upheaval in north africa and the middle east is mainly to blame. the iaea announced the plan on thursday. it gained aagreement from its members to release oil ahead of the summer holidays. gasoline consumption is expected to rise in the northern hemisphere at that time. emergency oil reserves haven't been freed up since 2005. observers say the decision is meant to appease the united

states. gas prices there are hovering at high levels. the iaea was founded in response to the oil crisis of the 1970s. it obliges its member nations to set aside emergency reserves of crude oil and gasoline equivalent to the amount they import in 90 days. following the iaea's annoyancement of the plan, crude oil futures in new york dropped to the $89 level per barrel at one point on thursday. now let's turn to the markets to see how japanese stocks are trading. for that we're joined by yongghi kang from the tokyo stock exchange. good morning. how are things looking this thursday? >> reporter: good morning to you, ai and thank you very much for that. it is the last day of trading this week and so far, japanese stocks are trading higher. let's take a quick look at how the nikkei is doing so far on this friday morning. the nikkei average as you see on your screen there in the positive recovering the 9600 mark at the open and the topix moving in positive territory.

obviously the biggest economic event this week was the meeting of u.s. fed policymakers which ended on wednesday. there were no major surprises on the monetary policy front. however the fed did lower this year's and next year's growth forecast for the u.s. economy and market focuses once again back on global economic conditions, and in fact, concerns over the health of the world economy became a major factor in trading overnight. adding to that bass a drop in crude oil futures, prices which you mentioned earlier. the dow finishing at 12,050, down 0.5 or 59 points. the nasdaq finished in the positive 2686, up 0.2% or 17 points. jitters about the greek debt

situation are easing somewhat and bargain hunting could provide some support as investors may see that prices are starting to look pretty attractive at these levels. turning to currencies, ai, the yen weakened against the dollar in europe mid to upper 80 yen level. concerns over the global economic outlook and falls in u.s. stocks limited the yen's downside. we're now seeing the dollar trading in the mid 80 yen range. the yen extended its gains against the euro after economic eurozone economic data. the single currency is trading in the upper 114 yen range. that's the picture from here. back to you. >> thank you very much for that, that was our reporter yongghi kang from the tokyo stock exchange. french finance minister christine lagarde visiting washington sought support for her race to become the next chief of the international monetary fund. >> i believe that the fund

should be more responsive, certainly more effective and more legitimate, and that clearly entails many potential improvements but also a continuation of a trend of reforms that has been undertaken by my predecessor. >> the imf summoned lagarde and mexican central bank governor augustin carstens. the imf is expected to select a new chief by thursday. this comes after former leader dominique strauss-kahn resigned after being indicted for alleged sexual assault. so far lagarde is seen as the favorite. she is receiving wide support. on the same day, lagarde held talks with u.s. treasury secretary timothy geithner. after the meeting the treasury department said in a statement that geithner considers lagarde an excellent candidate with strong leadership skills. the department also said that

the two discussed the current situation in europe including the greek debt crisis. japanese companies in households are struggling to come out of the unprecedented disaster in march as pessimistic views prevail, can japan regain its strength? our market reporter robert jefferson spoke with deyog deyogi musha for his outlook. >> we'd like you toive us your analysis, what economic factors appear to not be so good given the yen is strong and stock market continues to be lackluster. >> i think we are experiencing a serious pain 4r after the earthquake with serious destruction of production capacity and alsoafter the earthquake with serious destruction of production capacity and also cut of electric supply. i think we are in the process of sharp recovery, restoration is

now in the process. with the earthquake our production has declined 20% from the peak of february to however, we are now seeing a sharp phase and we will see maybe 20% from the bottom coming september. so maybe we will see a steep recovery coming forward. >> there are many experts on japan who seem to have negative views as far as japan's future. share with us our long-term outlook for the gentleman. knees economy. >> i tend to think it is seriously overstated and we have a lot of positive factors going forward and the most important factors has been, is that we have been suffering very serious deflation, which is the by-product of sharp appreciation of the japanese currency. the japanese to be very strong, the japanese are very expensive

compared to the rest of the world that, provides the sharp downward pressure of wages the last two decades. talking about the yen, the stop of the yen appreciation, it is remarkable last march we have experienced that sixth time of the g-7 coordination intervention, which the minister of finance never expected. the reason i think is very important and the most important reason is that global authorities especially u.s. authority really needs japan for a strong recovery of economy so that we gain japanese presence in east asian region so that it creates a very strong i think counterpart with china. >> you mentioned intervention in the currency markets.

what do you think the central bank and the government should do now to revitalize the japanese economy? >> i think the much aggressive monetary easing so that the depreciated japanese currency so that it pushes pressure to japanese financial assets including real estate. that kind of turnaround is so important for bank of japan responsibility. however, current bank of japan doesn't think that it is responsibility. i think we need to see change of the mission. >> that was ryogi musha president of musha research. now let's get you a recap of the latest market figures.

okay, that's going to do it in business for this hour. back to catherine. >> thanks very much, ai. time to check on some of the stories we've gathered from broadcasters around asia now. we begin with this item sent by cctv china. hundreds of ships are stranded in china's longest canal because of problems with the drought in a peak irrigation season.

on wednesday the depth of water in the beijing hongxia grand canal was 1.2 meters lower than the minute navigable level. fleets of ships waiting to navigate the canal extend for 22 kilometers with some ships held up for about a week. maritime authorities are limiting the entry of heavily laden ships at points upstream in an effort to ease the problem. the thai government urged exporters to improve the quality of their vegetables to reassure european importers. the appeal comes after the european union threatened to ban thai products if contaminated items were found five times in a year and halted exports of vegetables in recent months to ensure that only high quality produce is exported to europe. a senior government official said in bangkok on thursday that authorities will enforce new food safety regulations. low income earners in the

west malaysian state of selengur opened the one malaysian people's shop which offers 250 items 40% less than average and operates from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. the prime minister said the store was the first in what will become a national chain in bulk buying and simple packaging cut the price of its products. hello there. time now for your weather update. first taking a look at asia, lots of clouds building over the region, to the south we've got these tropical storms that have been with us for the last few days, and then over towards the north, very active frontal system stretching across the region here from eastern china through the korean peninsula

into northern japan. here we could experience heavy rain over the next 24 hours especially up into western tohoku up to 200 millimeters is possible so increasing risk of flooding, landslides but thundery, quite wet across south korea and areas around shanghai as well. southern coast of china, tropical cyclone haima maintains strength, made its way across the laijo peninsula, expected to move across northeastern vietnam by tonight, downgraded into a tropical depression. so overall staying very stormy and wet for the next couple of days for hainan island, guangdong and vietnam upwards of 200 millimeters of rain over the next 48 hours, so flooding is definitely a concern here. across the philippines for luzon and western versailles experiencing strong southwest monsoon because of this tropical storm mary in the region, a

large system. this is moving in a northerly direction, heading towards taiwan and bringing some very high waves, strong winds in the area as well. could be reaching the area by saturday morning, as a severe tropical storm so watch out for high waves as well as torrential rains around sakichima island as well. temperatures staying hot in central china. 34 degrees in chongqing. 34 degrees in shanghai and 33 in tokyo today. now across north america, chances of severe storms again over a wide area especially out towards the east as this strong low pressure system moves slowly into eastern canada here, bringing widespread rain as well as thunderstorms along the eastern seaboard toward the southeastern u.s. new system from the west bringing heavy rain to western canada, turning quite stormy across montana, idaho and the dakotas. renewed flooding risk as well. stays hot in the south, 35

degrees in houston and cool in the northwestern corner. 17 in seattle with cloudy skies. now for europe, the mediterranean holding on to that warm sunshine so looking summery out here, spain, portugal, all the way into greece but just to the north, central and eastern europe will experience severe thunderstorms again for germany a cross the alps and also into parts of eastern europe, exriencing outbreaks of heavy thundery downpours. across scandinavia unsettled but nothing too severe and out towards the northwest starting off on a sunny note across the british isles and holding on to the dry weather throughout the day but by the evening hours we'll start to see steady rain moving in from the west. 19 degrees in london today, 21 in paris, hotting up to 33 in lisbon and another hot day in athens at 35 degrees. here is your extended forecast now.

and that wraps up this edition of "newsline." i'm catherine kobayashi in tokyo. do stay with us. we'll be back with more of your

updates at the top of the next hour. w@x/