hello there and welcome to newsline. it's tuesday, september 8th. i'm catherine kobayashi in tokyo. the president of the ruling democratic parauncontested. registered candidacy at the party headquarters on tuesday. his term in office is set to expire at the end of this month. he expressed resolve to press ahead with economic policy. >> translator: our mission is to maintain a cycle of the economy so people across the nation is feel the improvement and

deflation and promote steady growth to achieve a strong and sound >> he said he is committed to fulfilling responsibility to address challenges such as revitalizing rural areas, japan's ageing society and diplomatic agendas. his sole contender was widely seen to be the former chair of the party's general counsel. failed to secure the recommendations of the 20 lawmakers and prerequisite. the first president in 14 years to be reelected without a vote. he was given a second chance to leave the country after his party's victory in the lower house election in 2012 since then he has taken up a list of pressing issues, both foreign and domestic. >> reporter: abe lead the

democratic party in the 2012 election. he hammered out a package of economic policies dubbed abenomics. >> translator: let's do the best we can to revive the economy. >> reporter: abe had six months to convince voters. he and his ruling coalition members swept to victory again in the election for the upper house. abe said he gained the voters to push ahead with economic policies. abe faced challenges with the foreign policy. exactly a year after taking office, he made a surprise visit to the shrine which honors japan's war dead. chinese and south korean leaders criticized abe for the visit. they are angry those remembered include military and leaders convicted of war crimes. it took until last november for abe to sold the summit talks

with the chinese president but several pressing issues including the increasing assertiveness at sea remain to be discussed. changing national security policy has been abe's long-standing desire. his cabinet approved a change in the way previous administrations had interpreted the contusion. that includes allowing the country to exercise its right to collective self-defense. abe says the security situation surrounding japan has changed, so he wants japan to be able to defend the country with what it has close relations under an armed attack in certain conditions. government officials submitted a package of related bills to the diet in may. abe says that ruling party

leaders must make more effort to gain public understanding. >> nhk world has been following ins and outs of japanese politics for years. you watched the ldp leadership race three years ago when abe faced off against four other lawmakers but seems he didn't have much competition. >> that's right. one senior member indicated until recently she was considering a run. the former head of the party's general counsel. she said her candidacy would give the party an opportunity to discuss serious issues and that choosing the leader through a vote would lead to political stability but she wasn't able to assemble enough recommendations. she belongs to no faction and that made it difficult for her to get wide spread support within the the party. there are seven factions within the ldp and the leaders of all of them through their support

behind abe and he won backing by individual lawmakers in each group. >> what explains his broad support? >> well, i think many ldp lawmakers saw no reason to try and feel that rival candidate three years ago. abe lead the ldp to a landslide victory in the lower house election clearing the way for the party's return to power and since abe became prime minister, the ldp won majority in two other national elections, so ldp members say abe as someone who steered the party back to strength and ensured stability. we can also imagine faction leaders hope support can be rewarded with cabinet posts or other positions for allies and this is an important time for the party to show a united front. members of the diet are discussing national security bills put forward by the abe administration. and not even supports them. the legislation would expand the role of japan's self-defense

forces and allow the country to exercise the right to collective self-defense. some ldp lawmakers have said the party can't afford to be divided at a time like this. >> now that abe is set to be reelected, what comes next? >> his focus for the time being will be passing the package of national security bills. he said that happens during the current session of the diet. getting the bills passed is one of abe's goals for a long time. the diet session is due to end in less than three weeks but opposition lawmakers remain fiercely opposed to the legislation and say there hasn't been a thorough debate, and they vow to stand together to keep the bills from passing. >> and we'll of course continue to follow that story here on "newsline." thanks very much. we move on to other stories we're following. migrants and asylum psycseekers

continue to flow into germany. 20,000 people arrived over the weekend. many refugees arrived. the site has been the gateway for people from syria and other conflict zones. german authorities agreed to accept the migrants after stranded for days. the german government decided to span 6 billion years to help municipalities open refugee shelters. >> translator: we will accept refugees actively, but all of the eu members should cooperate in helping them. >> most migrants are heading to germany because of its stable economy and open door immigration policy. more than 400,000 people have arrived in the first eight months of this year. germany's acceptance of migrants stirred a backlash from the public causing growing for the government to curb the inflow of

foreigners. two eu nations pledged to cooperate to tackle the migrant crisis. the leaders of france and germany, rather france and britain will take in about 20,000 migrants. france has unveiled plans to accept 24,000 refugees over the next two years. britain has pledged to take in up to 20,000 people from camps near the syrian border over the next five years. >> it is absolutely right that britain should fulfill its moral responsibility to help refugees as we've done so proudly throughout history. >> he said priority should be given to children and orphans but expressed he doesn't want to encourage the dangerous journey so he would provide a safe route for those who qualify for refugee status. the eu officially proposed a plan to take in 160,000 refugees and enter full fledged talks at

a meeting of internal aphysical therapies ministers next monday. now japanese officials have found economic growth was considerably higher than they first expected. you have the figures for us, what are you seeing? >> a lot of focus on growth pig gurs, obviously. just to give you perspective, officials said the the economy showed negative growth of 1.6% during the april to juniper i didn't do and now they have just adjusted the figure upward. the people at the cabinet office say second quarter gdp contracted 0.3% from the previous three months. that works out to an annualized negative growth of 1.2%. the annualized figure is up 0.4% points from the preliminary result released last month. let's see how tokyo investors

are reacting to the gdp figures and we go standing by at the tokyo stock exchange. good morning. so what reaction are we seeing following the revised gdp figures? okay. we seem to be having a technical difficulty there with mayu. we can come back to that. now moving on, we'll have a look at what financial authorities in china are moving to stabilize share prices there. we've seen a lot of volatility, obviously. they are considering a way to automatically stop trading after prices swing beyond a certain range. now officials at the shanghai stock and changes and china

financial few teuture exchange the announcement. the circuit breaker would halt trading of stocks that make up the index. trading would be suspended for 30 minutes if the index rose or fell 5%. transactions would be halted for the rest of the day if fluctuation topped 7%. the index consists of 300 key stocks listed on the shanghai exchanges. since mid june, there have been days when the csi 300 plunged more than 5%, the largest one-day drop was more than 8%. tokyo has no shortage of entertainment venues so competition is fierce. it may become more so as businesses rethink the model in an effort to lure more visitors or new visitors, as >> reporter: the horses at this

tokyo track ran until nearly 9:00 p.m. spectators can follow the action in the cool evening breeze. for people more interested in eating than racing, the complex offers about 50 restaurants where they can spend their time and money. there is even a family barbecue area but the number of visitors decreased. ten years ago, more than 10,000 people a day came to this track. that number has dwindled to fewer than 6,000. so the tracks operator is moving beyond the normal customer base trying to attract increasing numbers of foreign tourists. since april, promotion begtion s

have been published. the company begun offering korean and english language classes for security guards. its teamed up a bus company to arrange tours for chinese people who make up the largest share of foreign visitors. >> translator: in china, we don't have places like this. it's a real treat. >> translator: the racetrack is only 20 minutes from tokyo international airport. our strategy is to combine the excitement of horse racing with japanese dining and colorful lighting displays. we want to make the place more enjoyable for foreign visitors. >> reporter: here in central tokyo, office buildings have

been erected so the number of corporate workers is on the rise. this aquarium reopened in july with a revamped business strategy. the managers are hoping people on their way home from work will stop by for some after hours socializing. at 5:00 p.m. the color scheme takes on a more relaxed tone to create a suitable adult atmosphere. the dolphin show changes, too. the cheerful child-focused commentary is gone. there is even a bar for thirsty

patrons. >> it's great to be able to have a drink while you're looking at the fish. >> translator: we're open new mexico 10:00 p.m., the age group changes from day tonight. we're trying different approaches at different times to attract more people. >> reporter: the operators believe the key to success is attracting new kinds of customers day or not. and they are hoping to give more typical destinations a run for their money. and we apologize for the technical difficulties earlier for the tokyo stock exchange. we come back to mayu yoshida but for now, that's it but i'll leave you with a check on the markets.

researchers in japan are trying to unearth a hidden problem. there are many cavities beneath the earth surface that could cause sinkholes and a particle from space is thought to hold the secret to finding them. nhk world has more. >> reporter: in march a hole appeared in japan. >> translator: a hole opened up, a really big one. >> reporter: incidents like this often occur in the region. almost 400 sink holes have formed in the last 20 years in local people can't hide their

fea fear. >> translator: if an earthquake hit, i would probably be buried alive. >> translator: these sink holes occur where there were big cole minutes and 1950s this kind of coal was larged in mily mined a of them are just five meters below ground. the best way to deal with the problem is to fill them in before they collapse but most of the companies think the mines no longer exist so it's difficult to locate them. how can they be find?

they find the neons. neons can be seen in a testing device that uses dry ac they can go through any substance including rocks and concrete but it passes through dense matter than through aspac. but characterizing the direction and neurons passing through, you can determine the size of the structure of the interior. >> translator: using this technology, you can discover the inner streak tour of something like a value kolcano. >> reporter: he used neons to experiment to detect the structure and that the structure he placed a special film that can detect neurons, neurons fall

through earth from all directions, not just from dir t directly above. neurons from a range of 90 degrees can be detected by the shape of a film it's just under 30 centimeters long. here are the results, large hallow below the bridge is shown in red. using this method, he put the film deep on the ground and measured the muon's penetrating the earth and says it's now possible to detect the location of tunnels much more easily than before. >> translator: there are many undiscovered tunnels out there. if we can find them, i think we can prevent sink hole disasters. >> reporter: the group partners with a geological company and begun testing for practice l use. there are high hopes that tiny particles resolve the big

proble problem. >> fascinating. defense officials from japan and southeast asia nations are looking to tensions in the region. they agreed to seek peaceful solutions to issues such as china's increasing maritime activities. they came to an agreement on unilateral acts that attempt to change the status quo in the region and said such moves would affect peace and stability. some officials called for bolsters multi national rules agreed on by top naval officers and others said air forces should adopt similar policies. thailand's prime minister said the country will hold an election around spring 2017 delaying a turn to democracy and made the announcement monday one day after a counsel rejected the draft of a new constitution.

nhk world reports. >> reporter: once more has to go through the process of drafting the constitution and the election originally expected for september next year will likely be delayed. in may of last year a military crew made political turmoil. the draft constitution was written under the government. the draft contained provisions to deal with another round of potential political confusion and disfunction. the text would enable a known pa parliament to become prime minister and national stability being disrupted within five years after constitutions enactment. the committee would have included military leaders it's authority would have superseded

the powers of the legislature and administration. the draft came under fire from the media and some politicians. one of the members said the counsel had to avoid the possibility of the draft being voted down in a national referendum. thailand's efforts to create a new constitution are back at square one. the nation still has a long way to go before running to full fledged fledged democracy. all right. ist time for a check on the weather. robert speta joins us with details. >> yes, actually, catherine, we're seeing the fall rainy season and this has just been dominating japan through southern china for the last several weeks it almost feels like here and the cloud cover is

bringing that rainfall and now on top of that we have what is the 18th named storm system of 2015 towards the south. this is tropical storm. this is on the low end of the spectrum, winds 65 gusting to 90 and not quite the typhoon intensity but a big rainmaker out here. still enough to toss items towards tokyo into the region and the we would see as much as 450 millimeters of per acceptation especially to the right side of the system where the moisture continues to come on shore on top of this, we have seen the lingering rain system

so the ground is saturated. tokyo, have an umbrella. enough to cause problems with rainfall, tuesday, wednesday, thursday and nagoya wet and windy conditions, gusts well into tropical storm strength, similar towards osaka and kagoshima and also the korean peninsula on the left side of the storm, the side where you don't have moisture coming on shore and we got dry air filtering in. so stunny skies for you and maye even in down towards the southern japanese islands and fairly descent weather in the forecast. also by the way, kilo towards the east, a big wave maker. korea and northeastern china, we still have that front down

towards the south so hong kong, showers in your forecast. in india, i want to mention because we still have the southwest monsoon towards bangladesh. 50 to 80 millimeters for several locations out here but we actually did see the frequent lightning since this past weekend, at least 19 gas causals due to lightning. an aspect of thunderstorms, that's why we call them thunderstorms that are dangerous. if you hear thunder, head indoors. t stay indoors until the storms subside a storm moving towards the east but this brought heavy snowfall, one of the heaviest snowfalls thus far this season around washington.

that storm is now towards the east bringing severe weather across the central plains, several tornados have been reported in nebraska and that will continue to push. there is a risk of severe weather and also down towards the south, this front is pulling in the moisture so parts of florida looking at the precipitation and then all that warm air surging north so look at the temperatures, new york, d.c. into the 30s. i'll leave you now with the extended outlook.

and that wraps up this edition of "newsline." thanks for staying with us.

announcer: this is "euromaxx highlights." and here is your host, regulate -- meggin. host: a very warm welcome to another "highlights" show coming to you from our studios at berlin's brandenburg gate. let's see what we have lined up for you this time around. culture vultures head for the edinburgh international festival, piet mondrian's works influence artists to this day, and explore the fascinating swiss canton of fribourg. we start off today's show in scotland, where the month of august is dedicated to culture on all levels. the edinburgh festival, which includes the well-known fringe, is the largest arts fest in the world.