live from our studios in tokyo, this is "newsline." i'm james tengan. here are some of the stories we're following this hour. political consensus. japan's governing and opposition parties agree to begin budget deliberations that have been delayed by the resignation of a key cabinet minister. starting a new chapter. taiwan's democratic progressive party takes control of the legislature for the first time

ever. japan's political parties have agreed to quickly begin deliberations on the country's next budget. the process has been delayed since a key economic minister resigned last week. twelve political parties agreed to try to start committee deliberations after the new economic revitalization minister gives a policy speech and takes questions in the diet. the secretary-general of the ruling liberal democratic party called for budget deliberations to start as soon as possible. >> translator: the global economy is somewhat increasingly unpredictable. and japan must take steps in accordance with the current situation. we must come up with concrete measures through discussions in the diet. such measures will be included in the budget. >> the former economic revitalization minister, akira amari, resigned thursday, saying his secretaries had mishandled funds. he admitted to personally receiving cash from a

construction company, but he said the money had been registered as political funds. a senior member of the main opposition party says he wants to discuss a wide range of topics during the budget talks, including the allegations. >> translator: mr. amari needs to explain and clarify what happened, because the issue occurred while he was a cabinet minister. one way is for him to speak at the budget committee. taiwan's new government took control of the legislature monday, after winning a majority of seats in january's election. a senior member of the dpp was elected speaker. the first time an official from the party has assumed the post. the dpp's leader tsai ing-wen

won the presidential election by a landslide and will become taiwan's first female president. the election also ushered in the first change of power in eight years. tsai's democratic progressive party is seen as pro-independent, leading to questions over how that will affect the relationship with its much bigger neighbor. experts say the immediate question is whether tsai's party can smoothly run the legislature until then. this professor is an expert on taiwan and cross-strait relations from the university of tokyo. he sat down with nhk world's kurando tago to talk about the new legislature. >> will there be an impact on the nationalist party after the new legislature is formed? >> the newly elected leader tsai is the political ally of the new president designated. during the ma administration,

legislative u.n. speaker jin-ping was a political rival. so the process was always controversy. but because of t the nomination i think tsai can enjoy a more effective legislative process. >> will there be an impact on the nationalist party after the new legislature is formed? >> the dpp legislature is likely to pass the bill to remove all the privileges which were enjoyed by the kmt. kmt is very famous for its huge amount of party-owned property. so every time an election held, the party candidates could enjoy a huge amount of cash. so the kmt's political power and

influence, especially over the local constituencies, will be further weakened through this legislation. i think that the legislature, again, will prepare for smooth transition from kmt to dpp and smooth inauguration of president tsai ing-wen on inauguration day, may 20th. during this period of time, dpp will have to prove that there will be no provocation, no surprise to beijing. so this is also a very good sign of goodwill to beijing. this will promote and help support the cross-strait talks between beijing and taipei.

myanmar has convened a historic parliamentary session. aung san suu kyi's national league for democracy holds most of the seats. it won a landslide victory in last year's general election over the ruling military-backed regime. the first fair vote in decades. lawmakers elected win myint as lower house speaker. he's a senior nld member and an aide to aung san suu kyi. the deputy speaker was chosen from the military-backed party in a sign of reconciliation. now they'll start the process to select the country's president which ends with a vote by the upper and lower chambers. although she leads the nld, the country's constitution makes it difficult for aung san suu kyi to become president. it doesn't allow anyone with a foreign spou or child from assuming the post. her sons are british nationals. she has significant public support and has expressed her strong resolve to lead the new government, saying her position would be above the president.

the new government will take over from the current military-led regime in march. the bank of japan's latest easing is having a big impact on financial markets. gene otani joins us with details on that and other headlines from the business desk, gene? >> thanks, james. share prices worldwide rose sharply after the bank of japan announced its negative interest rate policy on friday. many investors are also buying japanese government bonds. the yield on the 10-year jgb has hit a record low. the yield briefly touched 0.05% on monday. market watchers say that could fall further and some investors are buying before prices go up. one bank's dealing room has been flooded with inquiries. customers are asking dealers how far yields will fall. >> translator: the bank of japan

is buying a massive amount of government bonds under its monetary easing program. that means fewer government bonds are available on the market. but demand for jgbs remains firm given the uncertainties in china and other emerging economies. we're all trying to figure out to what extent yields will fall. >> as yields continue to tumble, two major asset management firms in japan have stopped accepting new clients for some of their bond mutual funds. so-called mmfs invest in safer assets such as government bonds. managers at the firms say the central bank move has made it difficult for them to ensure a reasonable return. checking the marks, the boj decision on interest rates helped lift tokyo stocks for a second trading day. for details we go to our business reporter mayu yoshida ought the tokyo stock exchange.

>> the move friday once again cheered investors. one analyst called the move a turning point for the boj in its greatest monetary experiment ever and i guess he's not the only one supporting the boj's negative interest rate policy as markets on monday extended their gains. the nikkei closed at 17,865, its highest close since january 6th. the topix rose more than 2% at close. some of the biggest movers of the day, sony jumped 12% after saying that its fiscal third quarter net profit rose more than 30% on the year thanks mainly to its movie and gaming business. one analyst covering sony told me he now sees sony as an entertainment conglomerate, as opposed to a struggling hardware company. shiseda jumped more than 12% after raising its earnings forecast. on the flip side the banking sector led losses as the bank of japan will start charging financial institutions on some of their deposits so mega banks

plunged and regional banks lost ground as well. but on the boj's historical decision is helping market players recover their risk appetite. i'm mayu yoshida reporting from the tokyo stock exchange. a key indicator of china's factory outpet fell last month adding to the continuing slide in growth in the sector. this is causing worries globally as manufacturing is a major driver of china's economy. even analysts didn't expect the result. the official purchasing manager's index for manufacture organize pmi stood at 49.4 in january. that's the lowest in three years and five months. a reading below 50 suggests a contraction. the index has remained below that level for six consecutive months. the latest nonmanufacturing pmi is out. officials say it dropped by 53 1/2 in january. that sector has been one of the

few bright spots in the chinese economy over the past year. but it is also losing steam. and those fig united airlines wei figures wade on sentiment. the sse composite closed down almost 1.8%, 2688 for the close. the disappointing pmi data also cast a shadow in hong kong, hang seng index dropping by almost .5%, 19,595. as energy and financial shares were sold. still investor sentiment was riding high in some other markets after that surprising move by the boj. in seoul the kospi up by almost .7% for the close. in sydney the index gaining by .76%. toyota motor plans to

stop all its domestic assembly lines next week. company executives say they're facing a component shortage following an accident at a steelmaker. toyota announced the six-day suspension starting on february 8th. officials say there was an explosion at the group's aichi steel facility last month. it disrupted the supply of parts and engines. the halt will affect 16 ctories ross jap. officials expect a restart on february5th. th're trying to speed things up boutsourcing production to other steelmakers. some analysts point out that the closures may lead to delays new r delivees. toyota officials are considering extending operation hours to limit the impact. here's a look at some of the other business stories we're following. japan's biggest steel producer's negotiating a takeover of the fourth largest in the country. officials with nippon steel and sumitomo say they hope to make

nishon steel a subsidiary. they're looking for a way to compete globally with prices of material dropping due to overproduction in china. new car sales in japan fell in january. buying was down 4.6% from a year earlier to 383,000 units. sales of mini vehicles dropped by double digits. the government raised the tax on those vehicles last april. analysts at 12 private sector institutions say japan's gdp likely shrank in the last quarter of 2015. they estimate the real growth in the negative at minus 0.1% to minus 0.7%. they blame the slow-down on sluggish consumer spending due to a warmer than usual winter. let's take a quick look at our global economic calendar for the week. on tuesday, india's central bank will decide its monetary policy. officials at the reserve bank of

india kept its key lending rate unchanged at the december meeting. on wednesday, policymakers at the bank of thailand will meet. they also kept the key interest rates unchanged in december. on the same day a private survey will show the business activity of china's services sector. the services pmi hit a 17-month low in december. on friday japan's cabinet office will announce business conditions in december. in november, the coincident index, which identifies the current state of the economy, declined for the first time in two months. and officials at the u.s. labor department will release the jobs report for january. non-farm employers added 292,000 jobs in december, beating market expectations. every monday, we invite a specialist to discuss events for the week. in this edition of "expert view" we hear from a director at the institute for indian economic studies. he is closely watching india's

central bank monetary policy. >> i don't think it's about bank of india will change the policy at this juncture. it's because there are a series of important figures to be released after this announcement. the gdp for the third quarter from the october to december in 2015 and also the advance estimate of fully of national income and the cpi and iap index of industry production. without considering those figures, rbi will have a difficulty to determine a policy rate. >> he says the economy's future course depends heavily on the political situation in india. he says reforms will be very important to raising economic growth.

>> structural reform is a decisive factor for india to shift the full employment line to the right. but there is a political struggles between the bjp and the main opposition party, congress. it's a kind of a political hostility. the important bills such as the land acquisition bills and gst and the service tax has not yet been passed. bjp has a very strong will to initiate and structural reform. but the number in the upper house is a kind of problem. they must win a series of elections. if they atape the majority in the upper house i think there is a high possibility that structural reform is developed.n the upper house i think there is a high possibility that structural reform is developed. >> that's it for business news.

i'm going to leave you with the markets. digital technology moves messages in an instant and new information is always at our fingertips. but an older approach continues to prove its appeal. nhk world's marie yanaka reports on two exhibitions featuring fine printing.

>> reporter: 130 lithographs by contemporary artists are featured in a show in tokyo which exhibits printing from a prominent workshop in france. it's located in montparnasse, a district that's been an incubator for artists since the early 20th century. the press has been working for more than 100 years, transfring images by luminaries such as picasso, matisse and chagall on paper. it's a place where craftsmen collaborate with artists to fix their images and print them multiple times. film director david lynch is a money the many people who have produced lithographs there. lynch is also involved with paintings and photographs. when he visited idem in 2007, he became enchanted with lithography.

since then he's made more than 200 works. those in black and white are both eerie and alluring. craftsmen transferred lynch's lithographic images to a thin sheet of traditional japanese paper called washi. even faint blurs in the original came through, thanks to careful control of the ink flow and press strength. here's a lithograph by a french street artist called j.r. the large eye watching the workshop is that of picasso. novelist maha harada organized the exhibition in tokyo. she discovered idem five years ago. >> i felt as if i had been transported back 100 years. when i look at what this press produces, i get a sense of time flying by, since so many pieces

of contemporary art appear. i also feel the energy that comes from printers, and an artist working closely together. >> reporter: harada stayed in a spare room at idem and began writing a novel set in the workshop. the idea to hold an exhibition came out of her encounters with artists and printers. in the last chapter of the novel, the protagonist puts on an exhibition. she hopes readers will take the hint and come see the real-life show. another event elsewhere in tokyo shows the beauty of printed objects in the form of books. the international book design exhibition features 200 award winners from competitions in eight countries. among them a collection of 18th and 19th century encyclopedias. and here's a combination of technology and tradition.

a digitally illustrated reference book rendered in hard copy. its 500 pages were sewn together by hand, and the binding has no glue. some formats are innovative as well as elegant. shining a light on this one reveals butterflies flying toward the flowers. each time you turn the page, you hear flowing water. the transparent sheet on the cover sparkles and tinkles. many of these books are hard to find anywhere else. publishers and designers in particular come to experience what only printing on paper can achieve. technology may make things faster, easier and cheaper. but the passion for printed beauty never fades.

marie yanaka, nhk world. >> print is also easy on the eyes, isn't it. thank you, marie, for that report. japanese ski jumper sara takanashi has won her seventh straight world cup event. the 19-year-old took the lead in oberstdorf, germany, sunday by jumping 102.5 meters on her first try. on her second attempt, jumping in the rain, she marked 97 meters. it's takanashi's eighth win of the season. people in her hometown of hokkaido are needless to say ecstatic. time to get this hour's update on world weather starting with the u.s., jonathan? a low pressureystem has mod onshore on the western portion of the united states down towards california producing a lot of rainfall. it's going to be the factory measure for what we're going to see in terms of snow as we go

throughout the day on monday. if you look very closely you'll see a little spin of some clouds as it comes onshore for california. that is a low pressure system that's gathering a lot of moisture and it will continue to push toward the east as we go forward in time. as it continues to push toward the east it is going to interact with some cold air already in place for the central plains so we're talking about the possibility of some winter storm conditions and maybe even potentially blizzard conditions for some portions of the midwest and the central plains. for those of you living any i've where from colorado through wyoming into nebraska, kansas, look out for this system. as we go forward in time. going throughout the day monday, extending into tuesday, there may be anywhere from a range of 30 centimeters of snowfall to potentially as high as 90 centimeters. most of it will be toward the central and lower end of that particular spectrum. nevertheless we're going to watch out for this winter storm. back toward the east, looking at some showers as we go throughout the day monday, from another cold front that's going to be pushing toward the east.

but as we go forward in time the low that's going to bring some of this heavy snowfall will also bring the potential for some severe thunderstorms because we have warm air pushing ahead of that. tuesday anywhere from indiana down toward mississippi, alabama, louisiana, the area in yellow hatched covering will be the areas with the potential for strong winds, maybe hail, also the possibility of tornados as we'll be watching closely for that. further toward the north, looking at freezing rain and heavy snow possibilities near the great lakes as we go throughout the day. the forecast on monday, cold front moving through the eastern seaboard. that's going to bring rain from new york to atlanta, even into miami. snow for the central plains back toward the rockies, including denver. then back toward the west and the northwest we're looking at wet weather. los angeles, you're going to dry out. you'll see a little more sunshine as we go through the day on monday. we have a storm named henry that's moving over the united kingdom and we're talking about some very powerful winds ahead of this particular system. we're talking about 160

kilometer per hour gusts into france and 90 alcohol tear per hour gusts over into the united kingdom and that's not the end of the story. we talk about these isobars being really tight. what's important is these are indications of areas of pressure. when they're tight together, high pressure down south, low to the north, it's going to drag and spin the air around this system. we're looking at severe wind gusts as high as 145 kilometers per hour monday into tuesday. be prepared for this. already seeing evidence of this storm going to be a bit of a problem maker. look out for this going throughout the next 48 hours. milder weather down toward the south. we're talking about temperatures in the teens. wet weather toward the east as we go through monday. as you wrap things up with a look at asia we're looking at some unstable weather south of japan. that's going to bring some showers into places like tokyo as we go through the overnight period. the winter pressure pattern continues for the sea of japan side of things a as we see the possibility for more snowfall as we go throughout the day

tuesday. be prepared for that. warming up on tuesday in tokyo, a high of 10, after a high of 6.6 degrees celsius on monday. we'll be warming up to close to what's normal for this time of year. hope you have a good day wherever you are. here's your extended outlook.

structures built of snow are adding their charm to the view in the city of nikko north of tokyo. the kamakura huts are constructed by locals each winter and attract tourists looking for an igloo experience. an event marking the beginning of the snow hut season was held at the hot springs resort on saturday. the huts were ready a week later than usual as a result of mild weather. larger snow huts are popular with families and even provide barbecue equipment for a real hot and cold experience. >> translator: the snow sparkles and creates a lovely view. >> translator: the snow is fluffy and fun. >> about 800 miniature igloos dot the landscape along a nearby river. candles glow from within in the evening, creating a snowy field of lanterns.

the kamakura festival runs through march 6th. so if you're planning to visit japan by then, do check out the snow huts at ññ

genie: this is "france 24." time for 60 minutes live around the world. i'm genie godula. these are the headlines. all eyes on iowa as the state gets set to choose its favorites among the u.s. presidential candidates. live coverage in just a minute. a historic parliamentary session begins in burma, set to install the first democratically elected government in more than 50 years.