hello and welcome to "newsline." it is september 1, at 9 a.m. in tokyo. incoming japanese lear will launch his new cabinet as early as friday. he was officially elected japan's 95th prime minister earlier this week.

on wednesday, he apoint the main upper house leaders by lawmakers at a meeting later in the day. he hopes to meet leaders of the main opposition parties on thursday. he is expected to ask for their cooperation in implementing his poll policies in the upper house. meanwhile, two factions led by former prime minister and former secretary-general met wednesday. the factions voted for notice rival in the party presidential election on monday. some of his gro said party unity will depend on whether noda acts in line with their wishes. he said he will closely monitor the policies before deciding whether to cooperate with him.

u.s. secretary-general congratulated noda on his new post and invited him to a summit meeting in new york later this month. u.n. source sources said there was a letter expressing hopes that he will show leadership in reconstructing areas hit by the march 11 disaster. and urged the japanese government to take part in u.n. peacekeeping missions. he will host a summit to discuss nuclear power in new york on september 22nd while war leaders are meeting at the u.n. headquarters for its general assembly. he said he strongly hopes noda will attend. he is expected to explain how the japanese government coped with the accident at the fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant. a senior north korean official is demanding re

reparations. meeting japanese reporters on wednesday -- >> translator: we will closely monitor the movement of japan's new cabinet. >> he said if the government takes steps to improve bilateral relations, north korea is ready to reciprocate. kim says the issue of the issue of his country's japanese citizens has been already settled. >> translator: our first priority is the issue of compensation for the past. north korea does not need to discuss the abduction issue with the japanese government any more. >> kim demanded that gentleman hemnes pay reparations for its colonization of the korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945. and the vice director criticized japan's ruling democratic party as taking a hostile stance against north korea. japanese companies and manufacturers were forced to use

less power this summer due to a possible electricity shortage in the aftermath of the march disaster. now, numbers are coming out that show the impact of these power shortages are power saving measures on the economy. we are joined now from the business desk on more on that. >> thanks, catherine. reduced by 0.2 percentage points due to those measures, factories and big power users in the regions around tokyo and the northeast were required by law it cut electricity use by 15% this summer. the aim was to come up with power shortages caused by the nuclear accident in fiek prefecture. the decreased usage of power in industrial power cut industrial production by about 11.7 billion in july and august. the power-saving efforts brought

a reduction of about 33,000 jobs. for the current fiscal year from march 2012, the japanese government forecasts the country's economy will expand only by about a half percent. it says voluntary energy saving in the western part of the country may add to the negative impact. on a brighter note, research institute says moves by consumers to replace their appliances with more energy efficient ones may have given the economy a slight boost. as market interest rates are falling, major japanese banks are cutting their fixed rates on home mortgages. the commercial banks will reduce loan rates with fixed periods of 2 to 10 years starting september. cutting rates by 0.05 to 0.1% from last month. tokyo mitsubishi and desuna will reduce rates by 0.05%. the u.s. economic slow down and european debt problems are raising concerns among investors. this is prompting them to shift

their invef frmts assets like stocks to low risk japanese government bonds. the move is pushing down the yield on the bonds which are a yardstick for long-term interest rates. the banks hope to promote home mortgages with lower rates to improve their earnings, which have become worse due to a decline in loans to businesses. and now let's get a check on the markets. u.s. stocks ended higher wednesday marking four straight session of gains. but august overall proved to be a negative month after volatility the "globe" al markets and fears of economic downturn. to see how stocks are kick off on the first day of september, here in japan, we cross over to the tokyo stock exchange. how are stocks trading? >> thank you. just looking at open willing levels for the nikkei, it did break above 9,000, that's the first time in 20 two weeks. just a touch below that right now, but nevertheless a positive

start for nikkei and topics. despite closing higher for five days in a row, the nikkei ended in august in the negative down around a thousand points. that is dew to the market downturn following s&p downgrade of u.s. credit rating as well as continued concerns and turmoil surrounding the euro zone debt issuees. we saw volatility in gold and oil prices and economic data out of u.s. and pointing to a downturn in the global economy. we did see gold shooting up around 12% with w ti crude oil prices falling around 7%. and all of that, there was volatility in currency markets and we saw a dollar yen with a post war high of 7595. a lot there for investors to take in for a very volatile august. now september also traditionally a is a volatile month as well. a lot of market players looking forward to upcoming earnings, economic data and also any government policies which may help boost the economies of

u.s., japan, and china. those will be closely watched. in japan, though, today, a bit of focus on auto sales as it is one of the first statistics to be released normally. we will have august new car sales later today as well as july steel exports and department store sales. sony is also going to be getting some attention as it enters the tablet industry, and this month it will be introducing its own device run on google's android system with competing against apple's ipad and others in this new frontier of highly popular tech gadgets. still, investors may be sidelined ahead of the appointment of the new cabinet and the recently nominated prime minister and with manufacturing as well as jobs data tomorrow. let's see if we end up for a positive for six day in a row on nikkei. we will see how that continues today. back to you. >> thanks a lot, ramin.

that was ramin from the tokyo stock exchange. now let's give you a look at some other market figures. that is all for this hour in business. back to catherine now. >> thanks very much. nationwide earthquake drills are taking place across japan today on the 88th anniversary of the great earthquake in 1923. government estimates suggest as many as 11,000 people could die if an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.3 strikes below the northern part of tokyo bay.

it talks about what might have if it occurs in the tokyo metropolitan area. a task force has been set up to gather information on the damage. following the march 11 earthquake and tsunami, the participants will practice how to transport relief supplies to the disaster hit areas. they will dry to drill for what happens when millions of commuters cannot return home when transportation systems are disrupted. the tokyo metropolitan government and other prefecture cities are also conducting drills. >> the march 11 disaster. the september 11th attacks. two anniversaries, one source of indepth coverage. join nhk world with japan, six months on and 9/11, defining a decade. beginning september 5. then sunday, september 11th, we will mark the anniversaries.

2:30 p.m. japan time for 3/11 disaster. 9:30 p.m. for the 9/11 attacks. local governments in northeastern japan are still struggling to remove debris from the march 11 earthquake and tsunami nearly six months later. the largest. a uncleared debris is in sshinomuki. there is some 23 million tons of debris. the ministry wanted cities and villages to remove all of the debris m residential areas to temporary storage by now. it says residential clearance is almost complete in 32 toastal cities and villages. except in the no-entry zone near the crippled fukushima plant. the goal is to completely clear the disaster-hit areas by the end of next march. 12 local governments accounting for about one-third of the total say less than half the debris has been cleared.

they say within problems with demolishing damaged homes and other structures are holding things up. the local governments say they need building owners approval for demolition and that they do not have enough personnel to do the work. many homeowners have asked for demolition to be postponed until they pick up belongs. >> translator: some owners want all of the debris cleared and others do not. we are grateful they are considering our feelings. >> translator: we have to carefully diantle the debris as survivors have a lot of feelings attached to them. >> specialist companies must also be hired to remove asbestos from damaged buildings. the ministry says it will provide assistance to the local governments. tepco announced a never before attempted plan to extract

melted nuclear fuel frods rod reactors from the fukushima daiichi plant. a panel of the energy atomic commission is discussing thousand decommission the plan's reactors. the first three stages are devoted to removing radio active materiales from the reactor's buildings to repair containment vessels and stop water leaks. they will put water in the vessels and take pictures to determine the amount of nuclear fuel that has leaked from rhett actors. in the final stage, the company planes it fill the vesseles with water and use robots to extract the rods. the operation has never been performed at nuclear plant. in the 1979 three mile island accident even though fuel rods similarly melted they were not extracted. tepco facees a tough challenges of coping with very high radiation and developing robots that can carry out the extraction.

six months after the march 11th tsunami tore up japan's northeast, most of the roughly 800 shelters in fukushima prefectures are closed as work on temporary homes make progress. but in miagi prefectures, many refugees still live in temporary shelters. a shelter at a high school gym shut its doors on wednesday. at one point, 1,300 people were staying there. now all of the evacuees have moved into temporary housing units. >> it was a big effort. it took a long time. >> most of the shelters in fukushima have also closed. the largest one shut down wednesday. about 2500 people lived in this building at one time. it got so crowded there was barely enough room for everyone to lie down.

>> i really hope i'll be happy living in temporary housing. >> it is a different story in myagi prefecture. authorities won't finish building 22,000 temporary housing units until mid september. about 3,700 people are still staying in nearly 140 shelters. 1,800 of those evacuees live. about 80% of the temporary housing facilities have been built so far but only about three quarters of them have been occupied. one problem is that houses are located in inconvenient areas. evacuees are avoiding them because they would have a hard time commuting to work and school. >> residents are worried about

paying for living expenses once they move out of shelters. self-defense voices ended their work on wednesday. thousands of personnel have been there since the march 11 quake and tsunami. the sdf deployed 107,000 personnel to fukushima and four earth prefectures after the disaster. there have been search and rescue and helped prepares mails at evacuation shelters. they paid major parts in trying to cool reactors at the fukushima daiichi plant by sprague watt frert air and ground. the deployment was gradually scaled back in line with needs of local residents and evacuees. about 200 sdf personnel. remain fukushima prefecture to

help decontaminate residents who returned to their homes near the plant last week. it's been 66 years since the pacific war came to an end. despite the passage of time, one man continues his search far batch of photograph efrs taken by a late friend that remained buried somewhere on an island in the south pacific. his search for these precious memories has opened his eyes to the fact that war maybe over but the scars ever war still remain. nhk world has this story. >> the u.s. navy in japan, giving a speech to former japan soldiers in tokyo. in the audience, he has made it his quest to fiend his friend's

photos. they were with the japanese naviship. after seeing action in the south pacific, the ship was sank in april of 1945. however, since the most military secret at the time, the fleet was extremely rare. u.s. commander was visiting a friend, so t.o. search for the photographs. >> it was a truly impressive ship. i mean, certainly one of the most powerful ships in the world in its time. i wish him great luck and great success. >> the photograph he is looking for were taken by man who died four years ago. he was photographer for the japanese navy and took many photos.

this is where he was stationed in the final stages of the war. with concern of the photos, he buried them at the war's end. he returned receive ra times after the war but failed it find his buried treasure. he decided it tick his friend's mission over. in july -- he came in search of the photos. he is accompanied by former soldiers and family members of the deceased soldiers. this is remainings of japanese tanks and remnants of the war. this is known as the isle of waves. in battle for control of the islands, some 60,000 japanese soldiers lost their lives.

he was in -- he once buried -- [ inaudible ] >> knowing that he will never get gsh- >> i buried him facing where we used to grow food because there was no food and he was starving. at least in thinks grave, i wanted him to be able to eat the potatoes that seemed almost ready to harvest 37. >> approaching a large tree, he

had buried. >> he starts digging. local residents help. they dig for a while but despite their efforts, they did not find any photos. during their visit, the group stops at a church in the village. they find a grave with a name of three japanese soldiers. and a war memorial. >> it amazes me how the japanese military fought in such a far away place. i can really feel how harsh this war was. >> paying a visit to the grave for the soldiers of the allied forces. after his return, he talks about

how soldiers on both sides were treated. >> the graveyard for the allied troops is neatly maintained and is park. in contrast the war memorial for soldiers is abandoned and covered with graffiti and moss. >>. [ inaudible ] ? the meantime -- [ inaudible ] as they were forced to fight far om home. nhk world. >> hi there. time now for your weather update. let's take a look at asia first of all. we have this typhoon moving slowly towards mainland japan.

there are very high waves along the coast here. its intensity hasn't changed a whole lot. maximum wind speeds, 120 kilometers per hour. it is starting to veer towards north, moving very slowly. still it looks like it was going to be aiming for western j pan, due to make land fall here by saturday morning and then move over to t.o. the sea of japan. very large storm system indeed. as i said, already bringing very high waves. waves could reach nine meters in western japan and producing a lot of heavy rain into central portions of the country as well over 200 millimeters reported in some of the areas and again in the next 24 hours, we are expect torrential downpours in parts of western and central japan. we are looking upwards of a hundred millimeters and over 400 mill meet cores fall in the next 24 hours. flooding is a big concern. especially in mid section of the country. they are also looking at swied spread thunderstorms as well.

meanwhile, we are looking at he rem napt, slow and southeast china. moving towards the province so more rain to come here, up to a hundred mill meeters is possible although that red is starting to weaken gradually. in terms of temperatures, about 31 degrees in hong kong today. up to 40 degrees, staying hot in southwestern china. 32 degrees in shanghai. toward the americas, severe thunder storms breaking out across the north. manitoba wab canada looking at strong storms to break out tonight. unseasonably cold air from the northwest as well. we could see the first snow fall up in the mountains of montana tonight. otherwise it does stay relatively quiet. little bit windy. many areas under rred-flag warn places like wyoming and north

dae coata. 93 in oklahoma city. 37 in houston. very warm in chicago as well at 34 degrees. now, let's take a look at europe then. lingering showers over towards the northern system, continuing to move very slow. nothing too severe is expected though. well find substantial rainfalling down in the southwest, heavy persistent rainfall places like portugal, western spain and lots of thunderstorms breaking out across into central southern france. isolated thunderstorms erupt across the alpine region. otherwise looking calm and quiet and eastern europe today we've and in vvienna. here is the extended forecast now.

incoming japanese leader will launch his new cabinet as early as friday. he was officially elected japan's 95th prime minister earlier this year. he appointed main upper house leaders of the governing democratic party. appointments were approved by dpj lawmakers at a meeting later in the day. >> he hopes to meet leaders of main opposition parties on thursday. he is expected to ask for their cooperation in implementing his policies in the opposition controlled upper house. meanwhile, two factions led by former prime minister and former secretary-general met late wednesday. the factions voted for rival in the party presidential election on monday.

some of the group said party unity will depend on whether he acts in line with their wishes. saying he will closely monitor the policies before deciding whether to cooperate with him. that's all for this edition of "newsline." thanks for joining us.