mellow and welcome to nhk. it's thursday, october 31st. i'm catherine kobayashi in tokyo. lawmakers in washington have launched a new round of talks over something they've had difficulty agreeing on before. a panel of democrats and republicans will draw ground rules for services and but they are already staking out familiar

positions. party leaders agreed earlier this month as part of the deal to end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling. lawmakers approved a bill two weeks ago to re-open the government and avoid a default. and the approved a stop gap budget through the middle of january. panel members have until the middle of december so agree on a longer term plan and have to work towards easing automatic spending cuts that started in march. the chairman of the house of representatives budget committee, paul ryan and the chair of the senate budget committee, patty murray, called for compromise. but republicans and democrats are still wide amart on taxing the wealthy, cutting spending and other issues. some fear another government shutdown, if lawmakers do not find common ground. officials at the u.s. federal reserve say they'll continue the massive bomb buying program. the official also study whether the recent u.s. government shutdown had any affects on the

economy or job market. chinese authorities believe the ethnic uighurs were behind the bombing in tienemen square. china's central television said authorities detained five suspects on suspicion of colluding with the dead suspects. cctv said all five were captured within ten hours of the incident. judging from their names, all five detainees are believed to be wiegers. they announced quick police response. the media called the crash an act of well organized terrorism. they said a flag with a word implying islamic holy war was found. they stopped short of saying who

carried out the incident but left the impression it was wieger islamic extremists. chie 23450ez prosecutors told police they are officialry arrest a squaurn nails being held for reporting on corruption at a state-owned company. a correspondent for the new express newspaper was detained by police after his article was published. the newspaper demanded for two days that he be released. but it suddenly apologized to its readers after state run media report thad he told police that he had miss reported the story. the state run news agency said on wednesday that prosecutors gave the police permission to arrest him. he is accused of undermining the company's reputation. the police started their investigation in mid september and were able to collect enough evidence to detain the reporter. chinese bloggers are criticizing the way police handled the case and questioning the credibility of media reports. about air pollution control japan and china have been at odds recently over territorial disputes. but in some areas, they are still cooperating. a group of officials are in tokyo to learn how air pollution

was dealt with decades ago. nhk reports. >> reporter: six officials from beijing's environment department met with tokyo officials. >> translator: we set tokyo's standards as our goal in the field of air pollution. we're looking forward to getting many good results. >> reporter: air pollution in china, including the capital city hit unsafe levels earlier this month.

beijing has taken measures to cut the pollutant pm 2.5 by more than 25% by 2017. the plan includes the construction of a thermal power plant using natural gas instead of coal. they will also introduce eco friendly commuter buses. a tokyo environmental official explained what they have done to combat air pollution over the last 50 years. pollution caused by factory smoke and car exhaust in tokyo started to be a problem in the 1960s. it followed the country's rapid economic growth. citizen groups filed lawsuits against the government and car manufacturers, saying the pollution damaged their health. the government of tokyo introduced strict regulations for diesel vehicles in 2003.

officials banned any buses or trucks that exceeded the standards from being on the streets. there are more than 80 monitoring posts in tokyo, checking air quality. officials say the pm 2.5 has dropped 55% in ten years. in the meeting, a tokyo environment official said they want to share their experiences with their neighbor. >> translator: we would like to find the most advanced science technology in japan and then use it to reduce air pollution in beijing. >> reporter: delegates from beijing are scheduled to visit locations such as a pollution research center, an oil refinery and a car manufacturer in their

three-day visit. nhk world, tokyo. japan, china and south korea work together on disaster preparedness japan, china and south korea have agreed to further strengthen their cooperation in case of earthquakes, typhoons and other disasters. the deal came at a biennial ministerial meeting of disaster management officials. japan's minister said political issues exist among the three neighbors, but he said that should not affect overall ties, and they should cooperate unconditionally on disaster management. all three countries have experienced recent natural disasters. the delegates discussed their responses and signed a joint statement on future cooperation. they agreed to hold regular earthquake and typhoon drills and jointly study the causes of large scale natural disasters and response measures. the statement says the three countries will hold their next meeting in japan in 2015. tokyo hopes to hold its

highest level defense talks with south korea in two years. japanese officials want to warn ties deep frozen over disputes about history. minister of defense will meet with asian defense officials starting on november 11. officials are making arrangements for talks on the sidelines of the meeting. the two men are expected to confirm that japan and south korea will coordinate their responses to north korea's police particular missile and nuclear development. nishi is likely to push for talks. they are to push for a security treaty. the treat eye aimed at intelligence sharing was supposed to have been signed in june last year. they hope to strengthen coordination with the south korean side. they say they are concerned about the severe security environment in east asia.

managers of japan's crippled nuclear plant are getting closer to starting a long and risky operation. proper than 300 tons of spent fuel rods are being stored in a pool inside the reactor four building along with roughly 200 unused units. tepco officials want to be removing them in go a week, but the job lo be difficult. explosions rocked the building in march 2011 following the meltdowns at the plant. so engineers need to first check if debris damaged the rods.

then they will use a crane to remove the assemblies one by one making sure they don't get them caught in the wreckage. they hope to finish the work by the end of 2014. explosions rocked the building during the accident two years ago so engineers need to check if any debris damaged the rods and then they'll use a crane to remove them one by one and make sure they don't get caught up in the wreckage. managers say they hope to finish the work by the end of 2014. the other big job at the fukushimas involves the vast amount of radioactive water

being stored on site. the volume agrees every day and engineers are trying to get a complex network of pipes, cylinders and filters to work so they can get the decontamination process going. the advanced liquid processing system or a.l.p.s. is designed to remove most radioactive substances. our latest unstillment of "nuclear watch" has an inside look at how it functions and the problems that have plagued it. >> reporter: about 400 tons of groundwater seep into the buildings every day and gets contaminated. tepco workers have built more than 1,000 tents to store the tainted water but they filled 90% of them. about 440,000 tons of wastewater is being stored in the tanks around in the basements of some buildings. another 15,000 tons has accumulated in underground

tunnels. last march, tepco engineers started running a.l.p.s. on a trial basis. it can remove 62 radioactive substances from water. but it can filter out tritium, the system has three operational lines and it can treat 500 tons of water at full capacity. but a.l.p.s. has been dogged by a series of malfunctions that forced engineers to shut it down. in june, some pretreated radioactive water leaked from the system's stainless steel tents. salt and chemicals had eroded the containers leaving small holes. and in september, engineers halted a test run because of human error. a worker had left a rubber mat inside a tank following an inspection and the mat clogged the drain.

>> managers and glft leaders are pinning their hope on a.l.p.s. we outline the challenges they face. >> some of the programs with a.l.p.s. result from m malfunctions. other happen because of human error. over 3,000 people work every day to show the subcontractors they don't have good enough communication with tepco staff. this poor communication results in mistakes. they might just need to fix it. right now, workers are testing the system and they say they hope to get it in full operation by next year but they are already behind schedule. the government is helping tepco

install a more sophisticated system. once that is complete, the systems together will be able to treat 1,500 tons of water every day. tritium is hydrogen in terms of physical properties. it moves easily with water so if we get tritium inside our bodies, we generally experience fluids but there's no technology for taking tritium out of water. still, the government allows higher releases of tritium than -- it is better waste. some experts say water containing tritium can be released without harming the environment. as long as the substance diluted.

water treated by a.l.p.s. will still be for the time being. no one has come up with a permanent solution. radioactive substances to be removed by a.l.p.s. will also be stored on site. managers have not decided where they will dispose of those substances either. once a.l.p.s. is in full operation, the next big chance we'll be dealing with the tritium, it cannot remove. and managers will need to choose the final disposal sites for the treated water. japanese have won their bid to host the olympics in 2020. now they're turning their

attention to winning the events themselves. japanese athletes won seven gold medals last year at the london olympics. the people who oversee sport in the country have set a goal of winning 25 to 30 golds at the games in the tokyo. >> reporter: one place that has an effective program for finding and training young athletes the this area. the prefecture introduced its sports talent i.d. project ten years ago. the first step is to test each student's physical ability in areas like agility, stamina and reflexes. a top-scoring students in the prefecture are picked out for the skben sintensive training p. students from the fifth grade of elementary school through junior high school are tested in 28 different sports, both individual and team events, to

see which they might do best in at the international level. this girl is in her final year of high school and she's become an up-and-coming star in rifle shooting since disapproximatelying her talent at hitting a target 10 millimeters away. in january of this year, she displayed extraordinary concentration to win bronze at a youth tournament in australia. her prospects look good for the 2016 olympics in rio de janeiro and in tokyo four years later. >> translator: when i was young my mother used to say i couldn't sit still. when i'm shooting i need total focus. i never dreamed that i have visibility. i'm really surprised at myself.

>> reporter: the big transition came four years ago when she was in the second year of junior high. it was at a talent i.d. project meet that she first tried rifle shooting. she displayed uncanny accuracy from the start. after only a few training sessions, she surprised experts in the sport with her high scores. >> translator: that's a great store for your third try. you should take up rifle shooting. >> at the time, she was on her school basketball team and she was reluctant to switch away from her favorite sport. but after trying rifle shooting for a while, and doing well in tournaments, she decided to carry on with it. >> translator: now, i can imagine myself competing at tokyo olympics. and even winning a medal.

>> reporter: similar programs exist in other prefectures and cities but they are still at the local level. from next year, the education and sports ministry plans to divide the country into three regions, each with its own headquarters. connecting local governments like this should make the easier to spot promising young athletes. >> translator: by further improving the programs we hope we can find many more potential medalists out there. our number one aim to nurture our young athletes as a part team japan. >> reporter: the race is on and the click is ticking with just seven years to go until the tokyo olympics, the process of discovering and nurturing young sporting talent requires teamwork on the national level. >> all right. well, disaster prevention special ilss say a major earthquake expected to it will

central and western japan could be more devastating than predetected. a powerful quake in the trough ought dpl the pacific ocean would unleash towering tsunami and special ilss say more than 130,000 people could die in the western prefecture of osaka alone. that's much higher than previous estimates. nhk has this report. >> reporter: officials with the central government estimated that 323,000 people may be killed across a wide area of japan if a major earthquake occurs in the trough. but they raised the forecast to 1 33,000 and they assumed tsunami would inundate a larger area. this slows the central government flood projection. the panel projection is on the

right. the experts believe the flooded area could be three times larger. they say a powerful quake would trigger liquid faction at river embankment and cause more flooding. the fl new projections are raising concerns among people living in osaka. >> translator: the figure gives me the creeps. >> reporter: but they say this could be key to reducing casualties. the tsunami are projected to take 54 minutes to reach coastal areas of osaka prefecture. it would take them an 1:50 minutes to reach the city of osaka. the experts say if people start evacuating immediately after an earthquake, the number of deaths will be greatly reduced from more than 1 33,000 to fewer than 9,000.

the university professor heads the panel. >> translator: most of the effected peop-- affected people would survive if they had relevant information and knowledge. >> reporter: the osaka government plans to review its disaster preparations by the end of next march and it must first sfimt damage to power, water and infrastructure as well as the preof cour prefecture's economy. nhk world. it's time now for your market figures.

lots get a check on your weather. maya, good morning. a storm ask heading towards northern areas of the philippines and it seems people are already feeling its effects. what's the latest there? >> good morning, catherine and, yes, you're right. the residents here especially in the full means are starting to feel this very stormy effect from a severe tropical storm status and it looks like it could go across the northern edge of luzan and make its way over towards south china sea and intensify further into typhoon status. as of now it is a severe tropical storm so if it makes lawful in the northern tip of the area this afternoon it will maintain its intensity but after that, it could likely become a typhoon. its name is krosa and it's cambodian. a speed of 30 kilometers per

hour so the rain will not be accumulating so much. it's mover of a gust 44 kilometers an area. that combined with this rainfall up to about 200 millimeters will likely cause coastal flooding as well as mudslides so we'll keep a very close eye on this system as we progress through this week. to the north, widespread showers and the west will see snow rather than rain in the higher elevations and we really need the precipitation is in and around beijing where the air pollution is on the dangerous level again and the high pressure dominates much of northern china and the korean peninsula and much of japan today and we're looking at clear skies. beautiful autumnal temperatures. 20 for the high in tokyo and 19 degrees even down toward iwate with pleasant conditions. mountains here are beautiful with autumn colors.

leaves started to become golden and reddish a couple of weeks ago and the seasonal change is about ten days later than usual because the weather stayed warm until mid october. many hikers are enjoying the beautiful scene and the beautiful fall colors will continue until early next month. beautiful scenes coming up from there. now a move to europe. we've been talking about the savage of the wind storm that swept across northern half of the continent. looks like the gusty conditions and southern showers will continue across northern europe. and another incoming system with a sagging cold front will bring heavy downpours in and around london for the next couple of days. but to the south of us, high pressure dominates and blankets with sunshine and especially in vienna and in warsaw, at 12 degrees. let's move over to the americas. we have a halloween storm in the

central mississippi valley and all the way down toward northern mexico. a severe thunderstorms could even spawn tornados and large hail as well as damaging gusts so there could be damage to buildings as well as other structures here. to the north, all the way to the south, cooling cold air so some of these areas will see some higher elevations snow. to more than 2 million people are under flash flood watches here across the area especially in arkansas up to about 120 millimeters of rainfall is likely to the next 24 hours. so watch out for that. los angeles looking sunshiny at 25 degrees for the top. and winnipeg, just as 6. so a different story here. new york looking nice and fine with partly cloudy skies at 19 degrees. i'll leave you now for our extended forecast.

that is all for this edition of nhk. i'm catherine kobayashi in tokyo. thanks very much for joining us. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com

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