-- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com hi, there. with being to "newsline." it's thursday, septeer 2nd, 8:00 a.m. in tokyo. in washington, u.s. president barack obama has met israeli and palestinian leaders on the eve of direct peace talks. during a meeting on wednesday with israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu, obama

condemned wednesday's killings of four jewish settlers. >> united states will be unwavering in its support of israel's security. we will push back against these kinds of terrorist activities. >> oba said he would not allow extremists to derail the peace process through violence. in a separate talk with palestinian president mahmoud you abbas, obama praised him for condemning the incident. they will resume direct talks on thursday for the first time in 20 months. obama wants an agreement within 12 months. but difference its over on the construction of jewish settlements and other issues are likely to weigh heavily on the upcoming negotiations. three scesse bombs have blasted a shia muslim procession in eastern pakistan, killing at least 20 people and wounding more than 150.

the explosions occurred in la hor on wednesday night as thousands of minority shias were marching through the city in memory of their historic leader. security authorities say they suspect suicide bombers in the crowd were to blame. sunni extremists are believed responsible for killing more than 80 people in attacks in may. the target of the attacks was a minority group originating in india. the leaders of jant japan ad the european union should begin negotiations to conclude an economic partnership agreement. japan's prime minister naoto kan met his spanish counterpart in tokyo on wednesday. he said the agreement would be indispensable for the economic development of japan and the eu nations. kan agreed and stressed the importce of an ely srt to talks.

>> a team of experts from the u.s. space agency nasa has advised chilean officials to be honest with the 33 miners trapped deep in a mine about how long it is likely to take to get them out the ur-member team met chile's health minister and other officials in the country's capital santiago on tuesday. speaking to reporters after the meeting, the nasa experts expressed concern over the miners' weight loss. they say the priorities include increasing the miners' calorie intake, getting them on a regular sleep schedule, and at the request of the chilean government nasa dispersed a team to share knowledge gleaned from prolonged stays in confined areas by astronauts on space

missions. chilean workers on monday ben drilling a shaft to rescue the trapped miners and reportedly managed to excavate eight meters. about 1% of the target depth in a little less than 24 hours. japanese prime minister naota kan has been in the top job for less than three months. a powerful member of his ruling democratic party wants take over. former dpj secretary, ozawa, is running against kan in the party's leadership election. >> translator: it's hard for me to imagine ozawa sitting on the budget committee as a minister. i just can't. >> translator: kan says he can't

imagine me sitting on the committee. but more than 20 years ago i was there, fielding questions as a minister. >> the two candidates traded jabs on wednesday at a joint news conference and outlined their policy ideas. >> translator: in order to rebuild the japanese we need politics ledd by both the people and politicians. >> translator: it's about time to get rid of all types of politics associated with money scandals. >> the democratic party's election victory last year ended more than 50 years of almost unbroken rule by the liberal democratic party. but thdpj suffered a major setback in july's upper house election. its internal power struggle has japanese people talking. >> translator: although i had high expectations of the dpj, i can't trust either kan or ozawa now. kan is powerless and ozawa

hasn't been accountable for his money scandal. >> translator: i feel deep anxiety about surviving day to day as i have no regular work. i hope a candidate who can provide permanent employment for the youth will be elected. >> the dpj leadership election will be held on september 14th. now earlier, we spoke with nhk's world political commentator. >> what are the policy differences between two contemporaries? >> the main difference between kan and ozawa is whether the dpj should revise its pledges the party made last year. kan wants to revise those pledges because he thinks they are simply not affordable. initially the dpj proposed funding its pledges by discontinuing unnecessary public works projects and renewing

other budgetary items. but it couldn't find enough places to cut. now kan wants to put off benefits in full skcale, for example. on the other hand, they want politicians to keep their promises to the public, no matter what. he wants to provide child benefits at full scale. he also says enough money can be fod to finance the pledges without raising the consumption tax. he believes that the government should force bureaucrats to cut more wasteful spending. >> the rivals differ on foreign spending too, right? he's what they said about the u.s. futenma air station in oak that you youa. >> translator: we can't go ahead with the existing plan before the people of okinawa are against it. we must come up with a new solution thatoth okina and the s. can aee to.

>> translator: if the government doesn't continue with the existing plan, the unstable situation would have an adverse effect on the domestic and international communities. >> what's your take on their comments? >> he puts a priority on the japan/u.s. alliance, among other things. he wants to uphold the agreement with the united states on the relocation of the futenma station. >> you're talking about kan, right? >> yes, sorry, kan. the base is supposed to be moved within the same prefecture. although local governments and residents are strongly opposed to that decision. ozawa is against the relocation plan. he said it will destroy part of okinawa's environment. he believes japan should have more ecorelationship with the u.s. and the base should be moved outside of okinawa, even

outside of japan. ozawis more interested in strengthening ties with asia too. his high-profile visit to china last year shocked the u.s. he led a large delegation to meet chinese president hu jintao when relations were tense because of the relocation issue. >>wa probably i would clash again if you consider the policy differences. but they did it work closely together to bring their party to power, right? >> uh-huh. >> let's take a look at where they stand in japanese politics now. kan made a name for himself when he was health minister. he disclosed files the ministry said didn't exist. they said the government was responsible for allowing hiv-infected blood products for being distributed. the public praised kan for fighting against bureaucrats.

ozawa was a liberal democratic party member. he rose quickly within the party and became its secretary general at the age of 47. the relationship between ozawa and kan started in 2003. ozawa left the governing party and joined kan's democratic party. ozawa wanted to form a two-party political system in japan. three years later, ozawa and kan fought against each other for the party's leadership. ozawa won the race. they believed he had more political skill. >> translator: we want regime change. so let's join our hands to achieve it.

we must work hard and do our best. >> translator: many lawmakers expect ozawa to play aa leadership role party. ey president. >> reporter: after three years as leader, ozawa was forced to step down over a political funding andal. hatoyama replaced him.victory i election in august 2009. it ended the ldp's almost half assistant of rule. ozawa went on to become the dpj secretary general. but in june, political funding scandals again forced ozawa to resign, together with prime minister hatoyama.

with hatoyama gone, kan took over, becoming japan's fifth leader in just four years. right away, kan tried to distance himself from ozawa to show the public that the party was determined to keep politics clean. >> translator: azozawa had bett be keep for a while. it will be good for ozawa himself, the democratic party and japanese politics. >> what could be the possible outcome of this leadership election? >> well, kan is a lot more popular than ozawa among japanese people. so as far as votes from local supporters go, kan will be able to win a lot more votes than ozau youa. but when it comes to votes from the 412-rtylawmers, owa seems to be in the lead so far. he has his own faction of 150

lawmakers. former prime minister hatoyama, who supports ozawa, has a group of about 60 lawmakers. ozawa can also count on the support of a group of former social democrats. as for kan, he's being backed by his own faction of around 50 lawmakers. transport minister whoontrs 40 lawmakers, and the finance minister, who leads 30 lawmakers, both support kan. but it's still early days. many believe that the race is too close to call. >> if ozau you ozawa loses, tha mean the status quo will continue. >> i don't think so. many party makers are worried that a head-on clash between kan

and ozawa will lead to a dpj breakup. some of ozawa's followers hinted that ozawa would leave the party if he lost this election. >> thank you. all right. well, from an economic viewpoint, what can we expect from the upcoming election of the democratic party leader? ron madison has more with our economic reporter. >> we had a lot come out today in this kind of head to head between the two candidates. in fact, they were both talking about measures thewould te to combat the current economic slump. let's take a listen. >> translator: because of the lack of resources, what we are saying -- we have been saying is that of course we have to cut waste. but by doing so, we should be able to find funding for the programs that we pledge to

implement. that's what we promise to the people. and we must realize, fulfill the promises. otherwise we won't be able to solve the problems we face today. >> translator: i think that by offering jobs, then we can lead economic growth. and so they can pay tax, so this will lead to the fiscal reconstruction. and if they are involved in the care and the nursing care for our children and elderly and then we can realize aery good welfare society. >> kan and ozawa talking about how they would handle the severe unemployment problem. how severe is it? >> it's reached 5% in july. this rose 1.0% compared to the

previous month. job terminations rose. kan proposed measures to create jobs. >> let's look back to the previous lower house elections. the dpj putting forth its manifesto. the people lyiiking it because swept them into power. they talked about the consumption tax, saying they would not raise it. what's the status of that between the two? >> it's very controversial. referring to the manifesto, it seems that kan is moving to a more pragmatic way to achieve a budget for things like welfe. he said he wou havhe consumption tax to support social security. he's remained firm about not raising the tax. but he will cut expenses

instead. we asked the director of the institute of research how he views the announcement. >> it creates the consumption tax. now prime minister kan has said that the -- it is needed to argue the consumption tax. but this is just the arguing. then the -- mr. ozawa is now against the increase of consumption tax. >> japan's confronting the worst

situation due to uncertainties about the year's economy. the yen has risen to it a 15-year high while stock prices have continued to fall. >> thank you very much for that. at the end of world war ii, the now defunct japane imperial army abandoned a large number of chemical weapons in china. a plan to dispose of them has been completed. an opening ceremony on wednesday was attended by representatives from the two governments. the senior vice minister of japan's cabinet office heralded the opening as a new phase in abandoned chemical weapons in china. he said that the plant is moving toward destroying the weapons

after a period of excavation and survie. china's vice foreign minister said china hopes japan will dispose of the weapons as quickly as possible. work to destroy the weapons and neutralize poisonous gas will begin by the end of september, after safety checks. japan spent 3.5 billion yen or around $42 million to build the facility. 37,000 weapons are stored there. experts estimate that up to 400,000 chemical gas shells remain buried in northeastern china. april 2012 is the deadline set for dissal under the chemical weapons convention. japan is likely to ask for an extension. sony's walkman music players have reclaimed the top spot in monthly sales of portable media players in japan in august. walkman has taken over apple's ipod for the first time in eight years.

a private search firm said walkman 'sales in japan marked 47.8 of the overall monthly sales, followed by ipod with 44%. walkman gave up much of its foothold in japan in 2001. they offered low-price versions for youngsters as well as those with enhanced functions. now we take a look at the market figures.

hi, there. welcome back to your world weather update. east asia of course has been taking a look at all the tropical activity. here's a burst of clouds from the typhoon heading into the korean peninsula likely making landfall in a short time. meanwhile, the south -- moving into southeastern china, we have tropical storm lionrock. this will oss over the central areas of japan taking and then into the sea of japan, crossing over person in japan by the weekend. hopefully by then it will have weak end.

right now it is a very strong system. winds are hitting 126 kilometers per hour. gusts will be much, much higher. tropical storm lionrock is working its way to the southern coastline of china. once it makes contact with land, it should weaken quite a bit. it's been a slow-moving system. it's been producing a lot of rain in the area. it will continue to bring in a lot more moisture. rainfall amounts will continue to accumulate. the korean peninsula, we'll need to watch out for the strong winds as well as heavy rain. as for highs today, 35 and hot in tokyo. 34 in shanghai with rain. 34 in taipei. over towards the americas and the atlantic. keeping an eye on hurricane earl. still a category 4, major hurricane. large and very dangerou mong away from the bahamas.

set to get very close to the east of the united states. warnings issued up and down the coastline. it will likely maintain a lot of strength as it works its way northward. showers will impact the coastline. there's also the winds and the storm surges that we are going to be concerned about here. meanwhile for the united states, a couple of severe thunderstorms could pop up across the plain states, the midwest tonight. more rain moves across the mid-section of canada and the s. into thursday, you could be seeing thundershowers develop. it will stay in the northeast. 34 in new york. the same in d.c. a little bit cooler for toronto at 28 on thursday. now, for europe today, it's going tosh largely settled and calm. a lot of high pressure areas in place. the exception will be here in the east. that well-developed system remains in place. it will produce showers and off

and ondownpours. a couple of light showers moving through the iberian peninsula. for highs today, looking mild and pleasant. 21 in london. 23 for paris. a lot of teens as we look towards central-eastern section. 17 for kiev. 15 degrees in warsaw. that's a look at your weather for now. here is your three-day outlook.

japanese meteorologists say june through august was the hottest since recordkeeping started 113 years ago. the agency said on wednesday that the average temperature for the period was 1.6 degrees celsius higher.

the highest period since recordkeeping began in 1898. the average temperature was calculated based on data from 17 observation points in the country that are relatively unaffected by the heat island effect that hits highly urbanized areas. the average temperature for june was 1.24 degrees higher than the benchmark. for july, 1.42 degrees higher. and for august, 2.25 degrees. the agency contributes the summer's record heat wave to westerly winds that blew more northward than usual. global warming is cited as another factor. >> in washington, u.s. president barack obama has met israeli and palestinian leaders on the eve of direct peace talks.

during a meeting on wednesday with israeli prime minister netanyahu, obama condemned tuesday's hamas killing of four jewish settlers in hebron. >> the united states is going to be unwavering in its support of israel's security. and we are going to push back against these kinds of terrorist activities. >> obama said he would not allow extremists to derail the peace process through violence. in a separate talk with palestinian president mahmoud abbas, obama praised him for quickly condemning the incident. israel and the palestinian authority will resume direct talks on thursday for the first time in 20 months. obama wants an agreement within 12 months. but differences over the construction of jewish settlements and other issues are likely to weigh heavily on the upcoming negotiations. >>that wraps up thisditi of "newsline." i'm catherine kobayashi in

tokyo. thanks very much for joining us. we'll be back at the top of the next hour you. hope to see you then.