wild kratts is made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ wild kratts hey, it's the kratt brothers. i'm martin. and i'm chris. and we've got a creature we want to introduce you to. a creature you need a big, thick leather glove to meet. a creature you need a little piece of meat to persuade to come over and hang out. now get ready to meet an animal from one of the coolest creature families in the world: the raptors. here he comes. oh! a harris hawk. a harris hawk. wow! what a cool creature.

oh, you are awesome. what a representative of the raptor family. he's got everything that makes a raptor a raptor. hey, let's take him through the raptor checklist. all right. many residents are beginning to feel like they're fighting a losing battle. floodwaters came within ten kilometers of central bangkok on wednesday. people living in the affected areas are doing everything they can to cope. some even poured garbage out of clogged drains to let the water flow. >> translator: our life has been seriously affected by the floodwater. we're in trouble, but i have no choice but wait until the water recedes. everybody just has to put up with the situation. >> two more major industrial zones have been placed on alert. they include the industrial estate in eastern bangkok.

the threat rose after the government decided to open a critical gate. residents of a neighborhood had demanded the gate be opened. they say their homes have been sacrificed to save the city center. the number of people killed nationwide jumped to 427 on wednesday. and with every passing day, the toll on thailand's people and economy is mounting. as the flood crisis in bangkok drags on, new concerns are surfacing. the latest problem comes from contaminated tap water. it's a threat to public health and also the city's economy. nhk world reports. >> reporter: this canal is connected to bangkok's main water-producing facility where water supplies would be generated to households. bangkok's tap water comes from the river, but the floods have

polluted it with mud and trash. the water around intake pipes are stagnant. the level of bacteria is so high that purification facilities can't cope. bangkok's residents have seen their tap water at home become cloudy. it has also started to smell. many households are storing water for emergencies, but the dirt is clearly visible. >> translator: water quality is not good, but we have no choice. >> reporter: restaurants have also been affected. this japanese restaurant owns a high-end filter to purify tap water for cooking. but now it's using bottled

water. the restaurant buys about 100 liters a day. >> translator: it's tough. we've got fewer customers, and we have to pay for our water now. higher costs, less income. >> reporter: japan is trying to help the thai government. tackle the crisis. it sent experts from the osaka water supply authority.tackle t. it sent experts from the osaka water supply authority. bangkok's water officials decided to use a chemical they are unfamiliar with to sanitize polluted water. the experts from japan advised them how much to use. >> translator: it's a very severe situation. we'll do our best to help the thai people. >> reporter: bangkok water officials say they have to turn off the city's tap if they find

toxic substances in the water supply. the government has warned that the crisis may last for weeks or even months, but new challenges are emerging every day. nhk world, bangkok. >> and other parts of southeast asia have also been affected by intense rain and floods with many casualties. but amid all the suffering, there have been some stories of hope, like this one. inside this little bird cage are some unlikely animals. a pair of leopard cubs who survived the floods in cambodia. a fisherman brought the newborn cubs to a wildlife refuge about three weeks ago. he discovered them inside a hole. their mother had apparently stowed them there to keep them safe from rising floodwaters.

>> translator: i think these animals were lucky that their mother got them out of the floods. then they met a kind person who brought them to the zoo. >> originally, there were three cubs. sadly, one of them didn't make it. but these two surviving sisters are on the way to a full recovery. once they're old enough to stand, they'll be united with the other leopard cats at the refuge. and that will wrap up our bulletin. i'm patchari raksawong in bangkok. the floods in thailand have been adversely impacting industry worldwide. japan's honda motor is being forced to adjust production at facilities around the world as deliverez of auto parts from thailand have been severely disrupted. honda suspended operations in thailand and malaysia last month. it plans to reduce production in japan, north america, india and

vietnam due to the parts shortage. the automaker says it will halt production in turkey later this month and reduce output in britain and brazil as well. the flooding will affect honda's production bases throughout the world, excludeing china. a downturn in the company's business appears inevitable. france and germany will try to persuade greece to accept the rescue package that eu leaders proposed last week. the greek government is saying it will hold a referendum on the debt issues. french president nak las sarkozy and german chancellor angela merkel tor have an emergency meeting on wednesday with greek prime minister george papandreou in france. papandreou suddenly announced on monday that greece would hold a referendum on the eu debt deal. his cabinet approved the plan on tuesday. but opposition parties have rejected the plan demanding general elections instead. it remains uncertain whether papandreou's government will survive a vote of confidence scheduled for friday.

the eu had originally planned to present the rescue measures for greece on thursday at the g-20 conference in cannes. the aim is to gain the cooperation and understanding of the other countries taking part. london's high court says wikileaks founder julian assange should be extradited from britain to sweden to answer sex crimes allegations. assange was arrested in britain in december of last year on suspicion of sexually assaulting two women in sweden. the swedish authorities issued a warrant for his arrest. on wednesday the london high court upheld a lower court decision to transfer him to sweden saying the swedish warrant is not necessarily unfounded. assange is considering an appeal to the british supreme court. >> i have not been charged with any crime in any country. despite this, the european arrest warrant is so restrictive

that it prevents uk courts from considering the facts of a case. as judges have made clear here today. >> wikileaks has so far published more than 250,000 secret u.s. diplomatic cables. last december, international credit card firms stopped processing donations for wikileaks. facing difficulty in raising funds, the group has been forced to temporarily suspend publication of secret diplomatic documents. workers at japan's damaged nuclear facility are picking up some alarming readings. they've detected a radioactive substance that could signal reactor two went into a temporary state of criticality. when nuclear fission occurs continuously. tokyo electric power company employees dedebted radioactive substances xenon 135 and xenon 133 on tuesday. they also found xenon 135 on

wednesday. radioactive xenon is produced during nuclear fission. the shelf life is five days and the other just nine hours. tepco workers poured a boric acid solution into the reactor on wednesday to suppress nuclear fission. spokespeople for the utility say pressure remains unchanged. the reactor's cooling process is continuing. they expect to achieve a cold shutdown at fukushima daiichi by the end of the year as planned. workers will keep monitoring the xenon levels in the number two reactor and checking the conditions in reactors two and three. tepco is asking the japan atomic energy agency to re-examine the situation because it might have detected a different substance that has similar characteristics to xenon. in addition tokyo electric said radiation levels near number two reactor were basically unchanged from the previous day.

the utility says the reading at a monitoring post located about 500 meters northwest of the number two reactor stood at 293 microseiferts per hour. it says the radiation level near the compound's west gate, about one kilometer from the number two reactor, was unchanged at 11.2 microsieverts per hour and no neutron radiation was detected there. readings taken at eight other monitoring posts around the plant on wednesday were also identical to tuesday's data. we asked nhk senior commentator noriyoki mizuno what he had to say. here's what he had to say through simultaneous interpretation. >> translator: it's not in a critical condition, but close monitoring must continue to

avoid criticality. melted uranium fuel is believed to be scattered everywhere in the number two reactor in the containment vessel. a neutron ray may be causing nuclear fission from time to time. so long as this reaction is localized and temporary, there's no need to worry about, but this time the location of melted fuel or the amount of water inside is believed to be creating a condition suitable for continuous nuclear fission. having said that, there's no change in the temperature of pressuring in the containment vessel. tepco is pouring boric acid solution to suppress nuclear fission, so it's unlikely the huge amount of radioactive substances will be released from the reactor. the government has been saying it aims to achieve a state of cold shutdown by the end of the year. it means bringing the temperatures inside the reactor under 100 degrees celsius with the release of radioactive materials substantially reduced.

but if nuclear fission occurs, even temporarily, new radioactive substances will be released, so it's difficult to declare that a situation has been brought under control. first and foremost, the condition inside the reactor must be grasped in detail. how much melted fuel still remains inside the reactor? how much of it has fallen into the containment vessel? is the fuel submerged in the water? those kinds of things. of course, we cannot see the inside of the reactor directly, so various computer simulations would help us grasp the condition to some extent. if we know that nuclear fission is likely, we can change the water injection method to prevent it from happening. the nuclear fission may be taking place in number one and number three reactors as well as they also have melted fuel. so we need to know the conditions of other reactors in detail.

>> that was nhk senior commentator noriyoki mizuno. waste water discharged into tokyo bay from a cement factory has been found to contained radioactive cesium at much higher levels than the government-set limit allows. the plant in chiba prefecture uses ash from incinerators in the prefecture to produce cement. the prefectural government says the plant operator checked waste water discharged from the plant into tokyo bay once in september and once in october. it found radioactive cesium at levels of 1,103 becquerels and 1,054 becquerels per kilogram respectively. the levels are 14 to 15 times higher than the limit set by the country's nuclear safety commission. the water had been used to clean filters which remove toxic materials from ashes. the operator stopped discharging the waste water on wednesday. the chiba prefectural government

has launched a survey of the sea water near the plant. a reactor at the genkai nuclear plant in southwestern japan has resumed power generation after nearly a month-long stoppage. it is the first reactor in the country to restart operation after the fukushima accident. the rezufltion at the number four reactor at the plant in saga prefecture took place on wednesday afternoon. it had halted automatically on october 4th due to a procedural error. the plant's operator kyushu electric power company restarted the reactor on tuesday. after getting the go-ahead from the government's nuclear safety agency. the company plans to gradually increase the amount of power generated and return to normal operation by friday. the reactor is scheduled to be stopped again in mid-december for a regular inspection.

today we'll feature renowned schoolar and japanese literature donald king, the professor emeritus from columbia university decided to become a japanese citizen after the march 11 disaster. last month he realized his long-cherished desire to revisit the temple in disaster hit iwate prefecture. nhk went with him. >> reporter: he first visited as a young man 56 years ago. he returned again a few weeks ago. this june, unesco added the temple to its list of world heritage site.

>> reporter: his experience in japanese literature and culture spans more than half a century. he has translated a variety of literature works from classic to modern novels. he felt inspired by a poem. he decided to make the same pilgrimage as the one made by the poem's author matso basho. he has had a deep affinity for it ever since. could you share your candid reaction to the temple? >> i felt enormous relief. at first the news of the earthquake, the tsunami and then the atomic leakage, everything was unspeakably bad. and there was no room for saying

whether it was still all right. of course any damage to the temple even very, very minor damage is unfortunate. one would like to have the building stay as it was first built and as it stayed over the centuries. >> reporter: keene decided to obtain japanese citizenship after the earthquake on march 11th. he wanted to show his loyalty to japan and his thanks. he arrived in japan in september to stay for good. >> the fact that other countries abroad, the united states and europe and so on, the impression of the japanese people has gone up enormously because of the patience and the decency everyone feels the japanese are

not only bearing up under the terrible disaster, but they have behaved in an absolutely model way. there's no account of looting. nothing indicates anybody. so i think that this fact, this new feeling of the importance and the bravery of the japanese will have a powerful effect in the future. it will no longer be thought the japanese are hard to understand and so on. people will now think that the japanese have behaved in an extraordinarily good way. >> reporter: keene says he's committed to help survivors rebuild their lives. do you think that japan can recover from this disaster? >> i think it's because of my

experience in seeing tokyo in 1945. in a remarkably short period of time, tokyo was revived. it's a question of whether people have the bravery, which i think they have, and also the help from other japanese and from people in other countries too to enable them to make this revival possible and to make the tohoku region even more attractive, even more memorable than it was before. for an outsider to give them sufficient warmth and help, but the japanese are famous for getting over terrible disasters. >> reporter: keene says he's spellbound by the culture here. he hopes he can make a

significant contribution. "newsline skwts the place to turn to for the latest on japan post-march 11th. we have two segments offering two unique perspectives on the fallout from the earthquake and tsunami. "nuclear watch" brings you insight and information on the impact of the fukushima daiichi crisis, and "the road ahead" examines japan's efforts to recover and rebuild. don't miss "nuclear watch" and "the road ahead" on "newsline." thanks for watching "newsline." i'm james tengan. up next, rachel ferguson with world weather. hi there. time to get you a check on the weather as we head on into thursday. across asia, things are starting to get a little bit wet. we're talking about up in towards northern parts of china. we've got this low pressure system also down towards the south.

showers are moving out of the mountains and coming down in towards the southwest. this is going to be heading up, in fact, in towards eastern parts of mongolia as well. generally staying dry at the moment for the korean peninsula, but you are going to start to see showers moving on in into your friday. thursday should be staying mostly dry. the same goes for japan. a holiday coming in tomorrow and it should be fairly settled across much of the country with temperatures a bit above average as well. shanghai region seeing a few showers. taiwan also going to be seeing those showers. heavier rain though is going to continue across parts of luzon here in the philippines. strong winds coming in from the northeast as well will make the seas quite rough. high waves, also the possibility of localized flooding perhaps in lower lying areas. as we head into indochina along the eastern coast, we still see those showers again. this is the northeast monsoon. the heavier of the rain will be in across parts of malaysia and

southern parts of thailand are also seeing continued moderate showers. all right. thursday temperatures, 23 in tokyo. 22 in seoul. and 14 in beijing with just 2 for the high in ulaanbaatar. 17 in chongqing. 28 so a hot day in hong kong but not as hot in the tropics. manila and bangkok both in the lower 30s. north america. a big st this is bringing some snow right across colorado at the moment. it's going to be heading up in towards the great lakes. you can see where that low pressure is. once it starts to head in towards the east, so the eastern half of the plains, it will turn over to rain and maybe a mix of some snow showers, sleet and rain for you as well. but while we're seeing the snow across the four corners, it's going to be very, very windy as well. so blizzard-like conditions possible. maybe reduced visibility. think about that if you're going to be driving in the area. you can see just how windy this high pressure coming in behind the storm is. and those gusts down in the southern plains are going to be getting up to about 100 kilometers an hour.

there's yet another system coming in from the pacific northwest. this one brings some showers to the coast and mountain snow. so that's the sierra nevada and cascades getting their first snow of the season. all right. temperaturewise 27 in houston. 18 degrees in oklahoma city. your low is going to be 1 degree. so it's going to be a really sharp drop when we see that storm coming in. just 1 degree for the high in denver, meanwhile. 12 degrees in seattle. 29 in los angeles. and out in the west coast of california, continuing to see the potential for fire weather there. low humidity and strong gusty winds. all right. talking about gusty winds, we have a big storm coming into western europe. you can see it right here. it's going to be a big mess. heavy rain as well. particularly the focus on the southwest. so we're talking about spain of course portugal and southern parts of france. potential for flooding here and very windy.

you can see the long cold front coming in and all those isobars very close together showing you how windy it is going to be. so stormy out west. looking fairly good out towards the east in fact. but we will continue to see some showers for eastern turkey. and the potential for some sleet, in fact, in van, which was effected by the earthquake last sunday. okay. temperaturewise we are seeing moderate temperatures out towards the west. 19 in paris. 17 london. 16 in madrid. but you have the storms. out towards the east and central locations it should be mostly dry and fine, but temperatures a bit on the chilly side. here's your extended forecast.

before we say good-bye, we

would like to show you an old-fashioned winter fair in tokyo. many japanese people visit the fair to get ready for the new year. the annual winter event is under way in downtown tokyo. the fair is held each november at shrines dedicated to the gods of business success. the fair in osuka dates back to the 17th century. about 200 stalls sell hanmade decorative rakes. believed to rake in good fortune for the coming year. the rakes are flamboyantly decorated with stuffed toys, lucky charms, images of celebrities and this year, messages of encouragement for quake-hit northern japan.

thanks for watching "newsline." i'm james tengan in tokyo.