welcome to nhk world "newsline." millions of households and businesses in japan are getting ready for a hot summer. and that means they're getting ready to cut back on their power consumption. no nuclear reactor are running right now. and more than a year after the fukushima daiichi accident changed safety standards, that hasn't happened in 42 years, that is. and that's why government leaders are asking people to save energy. cabinet members set voluntary saving targets.

they based their standards on electricity demand in 2010 when japan's summer was unusually hot. people living in the cities of osaka and kyoto are expecting to face the most serious short fall. kansai electric power serves the region. it relies heavily on nuclear energy. customers will be asked to reduce their usage by 15% or more. customers further south in kyushu will be asked to reduce their usage by at least 10%. utilities in neighboring areas will be urged to save 5% or more so energy can be diverted to kansai and kyushu. shikoku and hokkaido electric power companies will have reduction targets of at least 7%. cabinet ministers will review the standards if two reactors at kansai's ohi plant go back online. municipalities surrounding the facility are debating a government proposal to restart the units. a liquefied natural gas project led by japanese companies has begun in australia. australian prime minister julia gillard and japanese government officials attended a ceremony to

mark the start of the project on friday. japanese resources developer inpex has been leading preparatory work on the $33 billion project off the australian coast. >> we have worked together with a spirit of optimism. we came out of the global financial crisis strong. and it's investments like this one that are going to get us to the next stage. >> production of 8.4 million tons of lng a year is scheduled to begin in late 2016. about 70% of it will be shipped to users in japan through tokyo electric power company and osaka gas. the lng is expected to cover about 10% of demand in japan. it will help the country to secure a stable source of energy after the fukushima nuclear power plant accident in march last year. japan and the u.s. have launched a joint project for research and development on next generation smart grid electricity networks. it is a power network that uses

a combination of storage batteries and high technology to control supply and demand. >> one, two, three. >> the smart grid plan was unveiled by officials from japan's new energy and industrial technology development organization or nedo on thursday. a commercial building with a solar panel and in-house gas turbine was built to generate power. the smart grid will monitor the electricity used to determine low cost energy. the power generated can also be sold to utilities. >> translator: following the march 2011 disaster, efficient use of energy is becoming more important. i'd like japan and the u.s. to bring their technologies together. i hope that we can eventually export the system as well. >> the smart grid project will be conducted for a year and a half.

u.s. lawmakers are dacallin on government leaders to do something about the debris from last year's tsunami in japan that is floating across the pacific. tons of wreckage from the disaster are believed to be nearing the western coast of north america. >> the tsunami unleashed debris on an unprecedented scale, some 5 million tons were swept out to sea. while most quickly sank, noaa estimates 1.5 million tons of tsunami generated debris is still afloat and being driven by winds and currents toward the west coast of north america. >> begich said large quantities of fishing nets and plastic items are already washing ashore in the states of alaska and washington. lawmakers expressed frustration at the federal government's failure to lay out a plan to retrieve and dispose of the wreckage, cited complaints of residents of coastal communities. the lawmakers demanded the government provide information

before debris washes ashore. japan's government is also discussing what it can do to help clean up the debris. deputy chief cabinet secretary tsuyoshi saito told top ministry officials the issue will take on an greater urgency as more debris starts to reach the north american coast. saito told them to forget about conventional ideas and come up with feasible measures after consulting with u.s. officials. officials at a japanese government agency admit they pressured the nuclear safety commission six years ago to obtain a positive assessment of japan's aging nuclear plants. the revelations shed new doubts on japan's regulatory system. >> translator: the actions by the agency in charge of regulating japan's nuclear industry could have led people to believe it wasn't neutral. we need to reflect deeply on what happened. >> the events occurred in 2006

when the nuclear safety commission adopted tougher earthquake resistant standards for nuclear plants. the nuclear and industrial safety agency or nisa asked the commission to state that reactors built under previous guidelines were safe in earthquakes. officials said they were afraid some journalists and lawmakers would criticize the decision to keep older plants in operation. they say they also wanted to avoid civilian lawsuits aimed at shutting down reactors. nisa has been widely criticized since the accident at fukushima daiichi for failing to properly oversee the nuclear industry. the government has proposed setting up a new regulatory agency under the authority of the environment ministry. people in japan's northeast are focused on overcoming the challenges of the 2011 disaster. but it won't be easy. they have to rebuild homes, businesses, entire communities. we'll show you their struggles and their successes on "the road

ahead" here on "newsline." the maritime standoff between china and the philippines remains unresolved after more than one month. the philippines took steps to prevent the dispute from escalating on friday. we have the details from bangkok. activists plano travel by boat to the site of the standoff on friday, and protest against the actions of china, but philippine president benigno aquino stopped to intervene. kathleen ocampo reports. >> reporter: the president persuaded them to stop their planned anti-china protests at score borough shoal. >> now if it's the wisdom of the leadership it will make better to postpone it, then we have to support that also. >> reporter: the activists said the president told him their

protest would negatively affect negotiations with china. the standoff was triggered when the philippine navy tried to crack down on chinese fishing vessels. neither side seems able to make concessions to solve the situation. earlier this month, beijing criticized the philippines, they accused the government of encouraging anti-china demonstrations in manila. even so, the two nations are parentally looking for a way forward. this week, chinese government ordered its vessels to sustain fishing at the disputed site. manila reciprocated with its own measures to suspend official there. they intervening with friday's protest, president aquino wanted to avoid any further escalation of the standoff. kathleen ocampo, nhk world,

zumbares. turning to afghanistan now the war-torn country will be the subject of intense discussions at a nato summit scheduled to open in chicago on sunday. u.s. special envoy to afghanistan and pakistan mark grossman spoke to nhk ahead of the meeting. he stressed the importance of long-term financial support for reconstruction. nato countries are starting the long process of winding down combat operations in afghanistan. the chicago summit will discuss how to achieve that in the face of lingering violence. grossman says long-term financial aid is crucial, and he emphasized the role played by japan. >> japan is going to play a very important role between now and 2014, keeping up support for our afghan national security forces, for example, keeping focused on economic development. i believe these are all things japan will continue to do. >> nato members increasingly want to accelerate the

withdrawal of troops from afghanistan. washington apparently aims to replace that military power with financial aid from japan. the second largest donor to afghanistan, after the united states. and that wraps up our bulletin. i'm cholaphansa narula in bangkok. in aer central vietnam and avg ze injured. overnight bus av ionof

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hecomys ny' boom leor the fire e vement released its monthly report friday. nsptn is ring at a moderate pace. at largely because of robust auto sales driven by fofu eicnt vehicles. they also say exports are owg gnof pkip along with employment. but the analysts are warningpa n european debt crisis and with all of japan'sucarreactors off line as we mentioned aut the possibility of power shortages this summer. sreal i

japan rose for the second due in part to strong sales of clothing. thjan partment stores association says sales a stores across the country totaled nearly $6 billion last moh. that's up 1.3% from a year earlier. association officials say warmer weather pushed up sales of spring clothes, shirts and other light casual wrete rnnt cl z mmer fashion campaign to save on electricity also helped boost sales. sas hh odtsik luxury watches and jewelry grew for six months in a row. fialal ne that purchases by foreign tourists coretoheevs fo e rch disaster last year. looking ahead, however, they say the yen's strethndluin stock prices make the consumer spending outlook uncertain. japanese internet retailer rakuten has bought a stake in a u.s. social networking service

ntes rakuten is gearing up for its next stage of expansion inap for social networking services. rakuten summit investment funds spent about $100 million to buy iert heperator of the image sharing site. pinterest allows users to llt eir favorite photos and video clips from the internet, put them on their own pages and share them with others. its w e irmo pul networking site in the u.s. after facebook and twitter. rakuteal pnso iny create an online shopping platform for pinterest users. e veill boost sales for rakuten's internet mall. diplomats are trying to figure out a wayoto t violence in syria. they have slapped sanctions on damascus and sent in obsve. t nyfhe remain quiet about another conflict in the

reon the one in bahrain. protesters there have returned to t streets and once again they have run intoecity forces. sunni muslims make up about a third of the polaon yet sunnis have ruled bahrain for years, pushing down the majority shia population and the ia resentment is fueling the prests nhworld maged to go behind the scenes of one protest. he filed this report. >> reporter: night falls in the shia district of manama. the security forces are everywhere. shortly after 8:00 p.m., young people gather in the street. they set up barricades around their nehbhooeep the security forces out. within the hour, the riot police arrive. skirmishes break out. this time the clashes continue until 2:00 in the morning.

>> translator: the regime is oppressing us. we're just defending ourselves. >> reporter: the number of casualties is growing. this man was shot by the auoriewhe tin part in anti-government demonstrations. his family says that security forces burst into hospilnd interrupted his treatment. and this led to his death. >> translator: weer't even allowed to talk to the doctors. we don't even have the right to life. >> reporter: in the effort t restore calm, the authorities announced a package of reforms. it admitted that the crackdown on donrarsad been too harsh and prosecuted 50 members of security forces. the police were aus o torturing detainees to prevent further abuses during investigation, all questioning

will be recorded on camera. >> i believe that the reforms that we're doing is in fact strengthen the foundation of the society. >> reporter: the annual formula one grand pr re is one of the highlights of the calendar in bahrain. last year, it had to be canceled due to the stbaes this year, the race went ahead last month as scheduled. because foreign investors are being scared off, t gernmen was keen to demonstrate that the situation remains under control. however, the shia community opposed the decision. fighting in 30 different locations around the country, one person was killed and more than 60 people were injured.

>> translator: these protests will continue until bahrain becomes a democracy. >> reporter: despite t government's effort it restore calm, the protests and the crackdowns look set to continue. nhrld, manama. earlier i spoke with someone from the institute of energy economics japan. mr. hosaka, u.n. monitors are already in syria. why aren't we seeing the same kind of intervention in bahrain? >> yes, syria has long-standing ties with iran. the two countries have pursued anti-western policy for a long time. so pro american and anti-iranian monarchies had -- that made it easy for the west to put strong pressure. but western and arab leaders don't want the government of

bahrain to be overthrown. about rain sits in the center of the gulf. the western countries, use strategic locations to protect pro western and oil producing countries from the threat, from theegional super power like iran and iraq. the u.s. navy fifth fleet, for example, is based in mamana. >> what kind of impact is unrest having outside of bahrain? >> sectarian conflict in bahrain has already had a negative impact on making countries like saudi arabia, kuwait, which have a certain amount of shia populations. if shia gains power in bahrain, shia minorities in these oil rich countries would also like to have more influence, so they might be encouraged by what they see in bahrain. and iran has shia government and it would try to take advantage

of this situation. such as stability disrupts the markets. >> what do you think will happen in the coming months? >> political leaders will offer reforms, but these steps won't do much to address the shia frustration. this sectarian divide in bahrain has very deep roots. and there is unlikely to be any rapid improvement. i expect the administration will stay in place due to the strong support of its neighboring allies. >> all right, thank you, mr. hosaka. >> thank you very much. a windy day here in tokyo and some unsteady weather in other parts of japan for the weekend forecast for here and elsewhere. here is robert speta. robert? well, this evening, you have

been seeing some thunderstorms actually across much of northeastern honshu. but now good news this is starting to taper off, especially through overnight hours and high pressure is ridging in behind this. this big blue h here, this is suppressing any wet weather over the weekend, just looks like partly cloudy skies for most of japan. down towards the south, that stationary front here is still bringing heavy rainfall. this is bringing the risk of actually some flooding and landslides into taiwan and also over towards southeastern china where you have been seeing a copious amount of rain. any more is not welcomed here this is one of the wettest places on earth at this time and it looks like even a little bit of additional rainfall and in the guangdong province, up to 50 to 100 millimeters in next 24 hours this is upping the risk of flash floods. going through sunday it looks like low pressure area will be developing out of this and push off towards east, bringing heavy rainfall there towards the southern japanese islands. down towards the south, the philippines and indochina, widespread scattered thunderstorms are being reported out here as the southwest monsoon continues to kick in. there into portions of thailand, you've seen over 130 millimeters in just the past 24 hours.

some showers continue to move overhead. temperatures look like this, 33 in manila, hong kong, 28, beijing, high 20s. 27 to 24 in seoul and tokyo. let's look into europe. much of central europe, you're going to be seeing high pressure dominate here. it is bringing the risk of some fire weather. towards the west, fire burng in spain currently. i want to show you video coming out of there as some firefighters continue to be backed by about 13 helicopters, battling a wind fueled wildfire that ravaged 5,000 acres of land in the region. fire broke out on tuesday in northeastern catalonia region and forced about 52 people to be evacuated from their homes. and fortunately, as you can see here, rough terrain is dominating a region. this is exasperating the situation and making it that much harder to fight the fire. let's pull back the picture because of some good news on tap here. this low pressure area moving in

from the north, this is bringing some rain showers and expecting to see a wet weekend down here in northern spain. also extending out towards france, unstable weather will be persisting, bringing the risk of thunderstorms as well as gusty winds accompanying it. but some sunshine in central europe. we just mentioned that. and also unstable weather is persisting there in towards the southeastern portions of the balkans. temperatures look like this, though. warsaw, 20. moscow at 24 accompanied by sunny skies. london and paris, you're seeing it cool down as that low is moving to the south with only a high of 18 and 20. now, let's talk about what we're all excited about on monday, the solar eclipse. unfortunately cloudy skies in taipei and hong kong do look like they're going to be on tap here. you might see some breaks in the clouds, sun peeking through there. but unfortunately it looks like overcast skies at this time in the early morning hours. farther to the east, osaka and tokyo, much better, some sunny skies, looks like they're going to be developing here in the early morning hours. 7:30 is looking like it is going to be the optimum viewing time

in tokyo. make sure that you do use protection when you look at the sun. don't look directly at it, that would not be very safe at all. let's look across the pond because over towards the western portions of the americas, into the evening hours, that's when you'll be seeing it here. reno, at 18:30, accompanied by sunny skies. and towards arizona, where you've been seeing widespread wildfires, the smoke is not blocking out your sun here, you'll have clear skies as well here for your solar eclipse. now here is a look at your extended outlook.

we'll be back with more news in 30 minutes. i'm gene otani in tokyo.