. welcome to "newsline." it's thursday july 23rd. i'm catherine kobayashi in tokyo. a soy yus spacecraft has successfully lifted off. it's carrying a japanese astronaut and two other crew members. the rocket carrying the spacecraft was launched in kazakhstan at 3:02. it entered a planned orbit around the earth.

the astronaut is the tenth japanese astronaut sent into space. he'll stay on the iss for about five months where he'll wary out a number of experiments. they include looking at materials thought to be the origin of life floating in space. when the japanese ship docks in august he will work with a robotic arm and work with a fellow astronaut who will be at the ground control center. japanese government officials are calling on their chinese counterparts to resume talks on a pact to jointly develop gas fields in the east china sea. the two sides last spoke on the matter five years ago. officials in tokyo say they've confirmed china has built 12 new structures since 2013. and they've ibuprofened photos

and maps showing the structures and their locations. both decided to develop gas fields together. they later held talks on a treaty but talks were suspended after a chinese fishing boat connected with ships. china and taiwan claim the senkaku islands. >> translator: japan and china had agreed to make the east china sea a sea of cooperation and friendship. >> they are strongly urging china to resume the talks. a spokesperson has criticized japan. he reiterated his nation's position that its gas exploration is in undisputed waters under the country's jurisdiction. he says japan's actions are provocative. u.s. state department officials

say they also recognize china's increasing activity in the area. they say good relations between japan and china are beneficial for the u.s. and asia. and they said they'll encourage a cooperative approach to addressing the issue. officials at toshiba are having a busy week after an independent panel discovered the company had intensely inflated profits. now they have to answer to their investors. the ramin mellegard joins us from the business desk. what's the latest? >> a number of investors with issues could be building up. that's really the big focus. u.s. investors failed for compensation from toshiba and two of its former presidents in connection with the scandal. an attorney says other investors may join the suit which was filed with the court in california. the investor claims to have suffered huge losses from a

plunge in toshiba's share prices after the scandal came to light. phillip kim is representing the u.s. investor. he spoke with nhk and said that a third party panel had concluded there were connecticutaccounting irregular arts. >> there will be damages. and who's included in the case will be the issues. >> he mentioned the possibility of other investors joining the lawsuit. ? there are other law firms as well that are looking. i don't know what their response is, but, you know we did file the only case but other law firms are out there offen. >> kim said the third party panel's conclusion that toshiba's management had admitted sonbility would work to the investors' advantage. they try to avoid lawsuits that

waste amoney and time. the data in june remained in the red for the third month in a row. the me limb there in trade balance comes to more than 69 billion yen or $556 million. exports grew 9.5% in yen taermserms from a year ago. imports shrank 2.9%. imports of liquefyied natural gas declined. we'll see how investors are reacting to the trade figures. what are you seeing over there at the open? >> the trade figures were way below spimts. they were initially expecting a surplus, but the picture was completely dpifrp. so let's see how it tokyo

markets kicked off the day. it's actually a positive day today. the nikkei snapped a six day streak yesterday. but it's up half a percent nor the nikkei and for the topix. the dollar was trading around 123.9 yen. now it's above 124 yen. that's a little lift for the dollar. so with a strong dollar we'll continue to keep track of commodities with oil price still below $50 and gold prices getting rammed. another sec for wore' watching is the technology sector because yesterday three tech sectors weighed on stock markets in the u.s. and the nasdaq fell .7%.

a lot of attention is on facebook next week. >> speaking of technology disappointing earnings from apple as we saw earlier this week and it's still dragging stock markets low are. >> that's right. the technology is a problem for the market, because the tech sector is the mane area of growth. and apple disappointed investors with iphone sales last quarter, and apple has a lot of suppliers in's in's in asia. apple sold off suppliers. and your dollar is around 10923.

it's almost end of july, but going back to japan, in the first half of 2015 and tokyo markets outperformed their peers. so for more on this rally and the outlook, here's a report that i filed. in the first half of 2015 we saw the nikkei shoot up to its highest level if nearly two decades. japan was also the best performing market. the question is what's leading the rally and will it continue? . the nikkei kicked off the year pretty low but went higher and higher until it hit 20,900 a level we haven't seen in more than 18 years. >> hi, nice to see you. >> reporter: i spoke with goldman sachs. both the nikkei and topix saw quite a rally in the first half.

what boosted the rally and who were the main players in? i think had that combination of good fundamentals attracted valuations. and on top of that you had very significant inflows. interestingly not from your typical investor base which often is foreigners. but this time it was very much led by domestic investors, namely public pension funds as well as the bank of japan. so stock buybacks were a player. >> reporter: she says individual investors are starting to get back in the game. she says foreign investors are starting to get more confident in corporate japan. they're seeing increasing share buybacks, record profits and df dend growth. corporate governance reform is one of prime minister abe's key growth strategies.

>> i think with these top-down driven initiatives most investors outside of japan were rather skeptical, because this is something that sounds very good but they know the reality might be very different, which often is the case in japan. so it was kind of show me the money, you know, show heme the evidence that things are really changing. >> reporter: so the case has always been the weaker the yen the better for japanese stocks. recently we're seeing a bit of a die version. do you think it has broken down? >> we're now in phase two where we don't need additional weakness for the market to rally. why? because wages are finally growing again. because we don't have a consumption tax hike like we had last year. companies are earning record profits right now. that's going to encourage them to invest more. >> reporter: she aex pebting positives in the second half of

the year. such as increases in domestic wages and corporate earnings. on the down side she says a potential rate hike by the u.s. federal reserve could cause short term ripples in equity markets around the world. >> reporter: you recently upgraded japan in terms of the broader topix. how do you view the rest of 2015 to play out and also next year? >> we believe that the nikkei overall will be more range bound, between 1600 1700 on topixs. nikkei kind of 20,000 20,500 sort of range, because of those tug-of-war factors between now and the end of the year. but beyond this year i think there will be a more clear set of positives, like i outlined earlier on the earnings front, on the policy front, political front, i just think it would be more positive than negative factors playing in the first half of 2016 which should help

the nikkei rally to it 22,000 23,000. >> reporter: she suggests buying on any kind of weakness from now till the year end, as she expects stocks to rise even more in 2016. back to you, ramin. >> thank you very much for that from the tokyo stock exchange. the number of foreigners who visited japan in the first half of this year surpassed the number of japanese who travel aid broad. it's the first time in 45 years that this is happened. more than 9 million people visited the country between january and june. that's more than the number in the first half of any other year and up 46% from the previous year. the number of japanese who traveled overseas total about 7.6 million in the same period. foreign travelers are benefitting from the weaker yen

and easier visa requirements. the weaker yen is also discouraging japanese from going abroad. so that's it for business news at this hour, but i'll leave you with a check on the markets. on to other news we're following this hour. a group of demonstrators has

stormed the chinese consulate in sydney australia and brought down china's flag as a show of protest against chinese tibetans. eight people were arrested. a prominent tibetan monk died on july 12th. protesters say authorities refused to return the body to his family and have not disclosed details of his death. >> they don't know what exactly going on in tibet. everything they keep a secret. ? the japan government in exile says more than 140 people have burned themselves to death since 2009. they say it's to protest against oppression by the chinese government. myanmar's government resumed

talks with representatives of ethnic minority groups to put an end to a civil war that has lasted for more than 60 years. a nationwide cease-fire has been the ultimate goal of the president's administration. on the first day of the three-day talks on wednesday, government officials stressed the need to make a deal as soon as possible before the general election, which is scheduled for november. >> translator: there is a time limit for the government as preparations for the upcoming government will start in early september. so if we can't come to a concrete agreement within this period or before that time, the completion of a nationwide cease-fire accord will depend on the next government. >> translator: recently there have been some unfortunate incident caused by the government's military offensive. these have left the people in the region suffering from

physical and mental damage. as well as famine. so to find a political and military solution we ask the president and the army to be big hearted and magnanimous. >> in march, the two sides signed a draft cease-fire accord as thein sein looked on. it included federal assistance that would give minority groups a strong degree of autonomy. each troupe brought the draft back to its leaders with a view to signing a official peace accord. u.s. presidential candidate hillary clpinton is trying to attract middle class voters. she planned her campaign

strategy behind the scenes. tan den spoke with nhk washington bureau chief tanaka. >> reporter: tanden has been a long-time member of hillary clinton's inner circle and is now unofficially advising her on domestic policy. [cheers and applause] >> reporter: in her first major economic speech of the campaign clinton took the fight for higher wages for working americans at the heart of her agenda. she also pledged to tackle check inequality in the workplace. tanden took the helm from john podesta, former chief of staff in president bill clinton's white house.

it is widely believed that hillary has incorporated key policy recommendations put forward by kapp. >> the issue with income equality and the middle class challenges several years after the recession will be paramount concerns in the presidential debate. >> reporter: tanden recently visited tokyo and met with prime minister abe and other key government, business and labor leaders. they, too, she observed are facing some of the same challenges as the leaders in the u.s. >> in japan, you have really an unprecedented partnership between business leaders, the government and labor to address the challenges around wages, whether they bear fruit throughout thetry country is something that wore' till trying to find out, but the attempt and the effort is something that i think political leaders can

learn from here in the united states. >> reporter: if elected clinton would be the first female president in history. tanden believes that clinton's candidacy is vitally important to women who also hope to break through the glass kraeling. >> part of the glass kraeling really is work hours created a culture in the workplace in which, you know, you're supposed to be there at all hours which really has an additional pressure on women who are traditionally taking care of children. so i'm real excited about the opportunity for hillary to talk about these issues in detail. i think there is much more of a yearning today, and much more openness today for having a woman who breaks that final glass ceiling. >> reporter: when clinton was secretary of state, she supported a strong u.s./japan

alliance. tanden says if clinton is elected president that alliance will surely remain a foreign policy priority. families of japanese taken by north korea say they're disappointed and frustrated. a committee was set up with tasks including assessing the fate of the abductees, but they say he need more time to compile a report. >> translator: our goal is not to get a report from north korea. of course that process may pave the way for the resolution of the issue. our ultimate goal is the return of all the abductees who are waiting and suffering in north korea. >> his sister was taken in 1978. he called on the government to set a tougher stance.

their daughter was and ducked in 19 1977 at the age of 13. >> translator: we're getting old, if it takes much longer to get the abductees back, some of them will not be able to see their relatives. >> translator: we're twratsful for the support to get our loved ones back whatever it takes. >> they demanded that the government use every channel possible. lawmakers also urged the government to regent any reports that would not lead to the abductees coming home and called for stricter sanctions. they say north korean agents kidnapped japanese nationals in the 1970s and '80s. 12 are still missing. the coast guard crews have conducted a joint maritime drill. the exercise was carried off the coast of an island in the far east. a japanese patrol ship and six

russian patrol vessels took part in the exercise. it was based on a scenario involving drug smugglers who escaped from russia. the crews communicated by radio as they chased down the smuggler ship. the smugglers simulated setting fire to their boats and escaped on a boechlts the two crews worked together to put out the fire and practiced retrieving the smugglers from the sea. >> translator: we are able to operate together and transmit information in the drill. the experience will be very useful in future operations. >> japan's coast guard and russian border guards have carried out joint drills since 2001.

it's time now for a check of the weather. people in spain are experiencing extreme heat. they're also dealing with torrential rain and flooding. mai shoji joins us with more. >> gentlemen, good morning, kratz rin, catherine. you named it all. this is all taking place in one country. we have images just coming out from this area to show you what's going on. this is the wildfires that have also raged in the mid-summer weather across spain, destroying homes as shon in this video. the prolonged heat wave has killed at least one person this past week and forced more than a does to go to the hospital. the hot temperatures have also forced convective clouds triggers flash flooding. this developed in just 30 minutes. people are warned to be ready

for further flooding. this is the system responsible for the damage. it's the cold front swinging all the way down into the iberian peninsula. two air masses and cold fron swinging across this area is making for unstable conditions. we also have another report of a five centimeter in diameter hailstorm in spain. this is going to be happening again in the central areas. in fact, northern italy and southern germany saw at least 19 injures injuries. and there are two deaths occurring from the dangerous lightning in italy. this is likely to occur with frequent lightning and hailstorms. as for the temperatures, vienna's down to the low 30s. still 32 degrees with thunderstorms in the forecast. rome you saw the mercury rise

to almost 40 degrees in parts of italy. rome is going to be up to 38 for your thursday. heat is here in the eastern continental asia and maintained its intensity here in the, over the water, over the warm surface temperature. halola is still a typhoon and it's nearing the islands of okinawa. it may even move over the southern islands of okinawa prefecture. things will get very stormy on your friday afternoon, possibly making rain making effect across kyushu. we've already seen more than 600 millimeters across this area in the past few days. so no more rain is welcomed here. le weer he're seeing a cold front

making its way across japan. there are going to be thunderstorms accompanied with about 120 millimeters of additional rainfall. down towards the south, again, great instability continues across parts of southern china and into the hong kong area i want to show you this incredible image coming out from there. this is a massive tree that fell onto a very busy hong kong street. due to the severe storm, it caused damage to surrounding buildings on wednesday. emergency services worked overnight to remove the tree, but it looks like it waenssn't the first tree that fell in the past few days. actually the second tree. tokyo's looking at 30 degrees. i say 30 but that's still very hot and it's going to get even hotter throughout your weekend. so please watch out for heatstroke. i'll leave you now for your

extended forecast. and that wraps up this edition of "newsline." i'm catherine kobayashi in tokyo. thank you for joining us.

dr. lekutat: hello there and welcome to your health magazine, coming at you from the dw studios in berlin! bamboo is an interesting plant. it bends when there's a storm but doesn't break and springs right back when the wind drops.

this is a quality some people seem to have -- they just get through the trials and tribulations of life and make the best of things. this quality is something psychologists call resilience. the good thing is that it's a skill you can acquire. stay tuned to find out how. and there's more coming up in the show -- shoulder to shoulder -- when is an artificial joint the answer? song of the sp