it's 7:00 p.m. on a friday here in japan. i am james tengan in tokyo. welcome to nhk "newsline." here are some of the stories we're following this hour. more people flee the fighting around mosul in northern iraq as government forces step up offenses to retake the city from islamic state militants. possible bear attacks. a body found in a forest in northern japan could be the

fourth victim. and fighting brain drain. chinese companies are eager to lure elite graduates back home. the arabingi military says it's confident it can retake mosul from the islamic state group. the militants took control of the city two years ago. >> translator: we will be able to completely recapture nineveh province sometime between late this year and the first few months of next year. >> he says units on the northern front are being reinforced with weapons and armored vehicles. he says the militants will lose their fight -- their will to fight if iraqi forces recapture fallujah. he says that will also give a boost to the troops trying to retake mosul. the militants are launching counter offensives with suicide bombers and chemical weapons and

using humans as human shields. more people are freeing the areas near mosul as government forces step up offensives to retake the city. about 200 families have arrived at a refugee camp east of mosul in the past two weeks. a man who recently arrived there says islamic state fighters fear the u.s.-led coalition's air strikes. he says many civilians take advantage of that confusion to flee. another man says he was wounded and his friend was killed as they tried to escape. he says he holds out hope mosul will be liberated. one of the year's biggest stock issues has been approved in japan. gene otani brings us the details and other business stories. the tokyo stock exchange has approved the initial public offering for messaging app operator line. executives at the firm want to raise money to expand overseas. the japanese company's 5-year-old free messaging

application is ranked by some at seventh for global market share. shares in what will be one of japan's largest ipo of the year are expected to debut in july. line's initial market capitalization could be about $5.6 billion. the company is also eyeing an eventual listing on the new york stock exchange. line is a subsidiary of a major north korean i.t. firm nava refreshings but the headquarters are in toxkyo. it provides services to more than 218 million people. here is the company's history and strategy for the future. >> line's business model links paid digital content like games and music streaming to its free messaging app. partnerships with credit card companies make other features like money transfers possible. one factor behind its quick rise is a feature called stickers.

they are images people can post to express their feelings. it's especially popular among young users and many companies have created their own stickers. >> translator: hfor messages lie okay i always use stickers. >> the app is a necessity for me. >> the service launched in 20711 the same year a massive earthquake and tsunami hit northeastern japan. telephone lines were disrupted in the aftermath which led to the idea of a free messaging service that uses cellphone data. it helped in kumamoto during earthquakes that hit in april. doctors used it to share information in what was an unstable communication situation. while line has grown quickly in some areas, one of its challenges is the relatively limited market. 70% of users are concentrated in japan, taiwan, thailand and indonesia. >> translator: i am often in contact with people abroad, but line is not that popular

everywhere. so i rarely use it. >> in areas like the united states and europe, line users are on the decline, dropping by 15 million over 12 months. the company hopes the simultaneous listings in japan and the u.s. will boost its international profile. it also wants to use funds raised on stock markets to strengthen its sales and ad strategies. in japan the company is looking to increase its use yobeyond yog people and with a larger segment of the population. seniors. >> i use email a lot. i never use line. >> with around half of japanese people sticking to older types of phones line is looking more broadly. it's announced that it will soon enter the low-priced smartphone business, an expansion that would take it much further than the original app. >> once again, line is a subsidiary of a major south korean i.t. firm naver.

the tokyo shares ended down as lower crude prices weighed on oil related stocks. volume was low as some investors stayed on the sidelines before key events this-coming weekend next. for details we go to phoebe amaroso at the tokyo stock exchange. >> the u.s. federal reserve and bank of japan have policy meetings next week and the u.k. referendum on the european union is the following week. all this is keeping markets on edge. the nikkei finished .4% lower friday, and the index was down .2% on the week. the broader topix fell .5%. concern about the possible brexit is having an impact on the bond market. investors are flocking to safe-haven assets. the yield on the benchmark 10-year government yobeyond is a record low. low oil prices are weighing on the energy sector. inpex and jx were down 3%.

the slight rise of the dollar against the yen has given exporters some relief. electronics companies were performing strongly. alps and tokyo electron were up more than 2%. investors are also looking to china next week for data on industrial production and fixed asset investment. >> other markets in the asia-pacific region ended lower. hang seng fell by 1.2% finishing at 21,042. a report this george soros was concerned an capital flight from china weighed on sentiment. australia declining to 5,312. resource related shares led the decline. lower commodity prices caused two weeks of prices. seoul's kospi slid 0.3% and in singapore, declining .7%.

shanghai closed for a holiday, resuming trading on monday. >> here is a look at some of the other business stories we're following. japan's transport ministry is getting tough with automakers under fire for fuel economy falsification. the ministrtry says the surpris inspections will target firms as they measure the fuel consumption of their cars. any wrongdoing will result in naming and shaming of the manufacturer and models with manipulated data will be refused government certification. the asian development bank approved a $100 million loan for highway in pakistan. t the adb called the approval a historic milestone. bank of japan officials say the producer price index in may marked its 14th straight month in negative territory. the figure was down 4.2 percent

year on year. officials blamed stronger yen and lower prices of resources. agriculture minister says japan is ahead of schedule in its target to export 1 trillion yen of food products by 2020. the growing popularity of japanese cuisine means the target could be hit a year early. japan shipped a record $7 billion worth of food products last year. seafood fans know that a little squeeze of citrus can bring out the best in a fish dish. now one company in western japan has found an innovative way without having to do that. it's breeding fish that already taste of fruit and hoping the flavor will reel in consumers all over the world. >> reporter: just off the coast of ehime prefecture is a fish farm with a difference. it's drawing visitors from all

over the world. there is one fish they particularly want to see and try. the farmed salmon. >> translator: yum! it tastes like mandarin. very french. >> reporter: the pink flesh is infused with a fresh citrus flavoror. president t of the fish farming company carved a new niche in the market a couple years ago when he started adding citrus peel to his fish feed, and he quickly found an audience for fruit-flavored yellow taiail an red sea breen. last december the company started farming salmon andnd th came up with a new way of adding the flavor. they e eracted a compound called lemonine, it's what gives some fruits their citrus scent. and they added it to the fish

feed. it worked. the salmon has notes of a japanese fruit called yokam. and as an unexpected bonus, the lemonine makes the salmon a brighter pink. after four months of cultivation they were ready to ship 100,000 farmed salmon. and the president thinks this fish will help his boost boocomt overseas sales. demand for salmon is soaring globally. norway and chile dominate the market, providing about 80% of the world supply. japanese firms have a tiny market share. but kiwata hopes his citrus salmon will help to change that. >> translator: we want to offer a fish that can take on norway and chile in the global market. and we believe salmon with the

citrus aroma would surprise consumers around the world. >> reporter: he has his eye on singapore and has been working with one of the country's top food companies. this firm promotes japanese food around asia. and the president thinks the citrus-flavored salmon will be a big hit. >> among the sashimi fishers salmon is the most popular. the next step is to bring in his salmon to singapore. that's citrus fed salmon will be a big hit. >> reporter: kiwada has gotten his first foothold in the international market. now he says he hopes to double production over the next two years and put his fish with a twist on plates all around the world. >> that's a look at business news.

i am going to leave you with the markets. police say they've found a woman's body in a mountain forest in northern japan. she is one of four people suspected to have recently been killed by bears in kazuno city. police a and firefighters found ththe body friday. they believe it's tsuwa suzuki who has been m missing since wednesday. she is believed to have e enter

the forest to gather bamboo shoots. the body was severely mauled and showed signs of a bear attack. three others are thought to have been killed by bears there in the past few weeks. the attacks happened only a few kilometers apart. residents are alarmed. >> translator: the forest over there is bear country. every year it's full of bears. that's why i never go near there. last time i went, i saw a bear running across the field toward the west. >> experts say the s same bear could have been responsible for all the attacks. >> translator: if that's the case, itit's very dangerous because the bear is viewing lumens as fo humans as food. you can't use normal wayings to avoid bear attttacks anymore.

they'll put you in more danger sfl. >> workers at the fukushima daiichi are preparing to take a step toward decommissioning the damaged facility. they want to retrieve spent nuclear fuel so they're practicing to assemble a metal cover for a reactor building designed to contain r radioacti substances. engineers plan to install the cover on reactor number 3. they'll try to remove more than 500 fuel units from the building as early as next year. workers arar rehearsing the assembly process. they plan to connect the eight parts on top of the reactor building. the building was damaged in 2011 by a hydrogen explosion. and radiation levels are dangerously high around the storage pool. >> translalator: we're c checki whwhether the procedures are sa and efficient. we want to minimize the time

workers have to spend on the building. >> the cover will be dismantled and sent to the plant by ship. wepeople in okinawa are preparing to remember one of the fiercest battles of world war ii. workers have erected new monuments ahead of the anniversary. the stones are engraved with the names of 84 people newly identified as victims of the war. ththere are morere than 240,000 names at the peace memorial park at the site of okinawa's final battle. >> translatotor: when people se these names on the monuments we want them to realize how many were victimized by the war and to renew their commitment to creating peace. >> a ceremony will take place at the peace memorial park later this month.

indonesian police arrested three men for allegedly plotting bomb attacks in the country's second-largest city souray baya. the suspects may have been influenced by the islamic state group. police sized bomb-making materials, detonate ors and automatic rifles and guns from the suspects' homes. they say one of the men may have been in contact with an indonesian man fighting in syria for the islamic state. the men say they planned terrorist attacks targeting crowded public places and buildings during ramadan. in january islamic state sympathizers debtonated bombs and went on a rampage in jakarta, killing four people. ththe islamic state group is calling on followers to carry out terror attacks in countries it views as enemies. kumamoto officials hope a travel fair will revive tourism

in the kyushu region. they say it has many destinations that are safe to visit. 12 groups from kyushu are taking part in the international festival that opened on thursday. kyushu had more than 2.8 overseas visitors last year, a record number. more than 40% were from south korea. the number of tourists from the country dropped following two powerful earthquakes in april. >> translator: tourism has declined significantly due to many cancelations even in areas not affected by the quakes. i hope more south koreans will visit our prefecture. >> the travel fair is the largest of its kind in south korea. more than 700 travel agencies, municipalities and other international groups are represented. about 100,000 visitors are expected to attend. kumamoto officials plan to work with south korean travel agencies to boost tourism in the region. many young chinese who study

at universities overseas tend to find jobs abroad after graduating. the brain drain has become a major social issue. some chinese firms are working hard to lured skilled graduates back home. >> reporter: this firm in beijing makes arrangements for young chinese looking to study abroad. firm officials say more and more high school students want to go to europe and the u.s. to study state-of-the-art technologies. >> translator: if i get the chance, i would like to study overseas to learn more. if i do that, it will give me an advantage. >> reporter: the chinese academy of sciences says only one-third of students who study abroad return home. many choose to stay overseas to work for companies and research institutes that offer better salaries and conditions. many companies in china see

those young people as great opportunities. here in the city of chandu, the business community is eagerly working to attract them. this man runs a firm producing solar panels. heays the clean energy industry is highly competitive so his firm needs young people who have graduated from technology programs overseas. last year he set up an organization called the sichuan thousand talents organizations with other business owners in the city to hunt for students studying abroad. the association's goal is to draw 1,000 outstanding students to local businesses. he himself spent 15 years in the u.s. studying electric engineering and working. he decided to return home when he was a asked t to help start

company. >> repororter: he talks witith of his association partners s w is visiting germany. during his business trip the partner is meeting chinese students to look for suitable candidates for the companies in the association. pan says, if a match is found, the company will immediately make a job offer and explain the working conditio in detatail. >> they bring the scale. they bring the experience. they bring the way they are thinking. so it can help our innovation. >> reporter: so far the association has brought 20 students back to china to work. one of them is li su. he joined a pharmaceutical

company six months ago. he studied drug development at a college in denmark and says he was thinking of looking for a job in the country after graduating, but he says association officials told him that the chinese maker would assign him important research task as soon as he joined. >> i took advantage of my skills and knowledge to be with a new path with this company. >> reporter: retaining this elite is another challenge. rival firms are also searching for young talent. some young graduates quit their jobs because t they cannot adju to their new lives in china. >> we try to build better areas for people. >> reporter: chinese officials are pushing businesses to put more weight on the quality of

the products they make they are than just the quantity. young graduates with advanced skills and knowledge may be the key to make that leap. nhk "newsline" comes to you live from tokyo where we are having a break from the rainy season. skies are fair and the current temperature reading is 24 degrees celsius or 75 degrees fahrenheit, a far cry from the summerlike conditions in finland as jonathan oh tells us. >> it's a bit of a surprise when it comes to weather over in the northern portions of the scandinavian peninsula. we typically talk about warm temperatures around this time of yeyear. we don't talk about snow. but look at this video. we're talking about winter weather. yeah! look at that. it happened on thursday where a snow storm dumped as much as 8 centimeters and strong winds battered trees because of the

14,000 households were without power. here is the contrast in the process. we're talking about temperatures exceeding 25 degrees celsius just last week. and then we go into thursday and, boom, we get cold air coming in and snowfall. a lot of that should be tapering off just a bit. we do still have a low pressure system that was responsible for dragging all of that cold air down toward the south, but it may still bring some unsettled weather as we go forwardrd in time. areas in the eastern portions of europe will be dealing with wet weather. back t to the west we have anotr disturbance comingg on shore. that will bring the possibility of some rain. some scattered showers. most of it, mainly in the form of clouds when it comes to the moisture. going through friday. high of 23 in paris. 22 in london. 22 in madrid. the east sees the rain. 21 in kiev. rain toward athens and rome through the day on friday.

meanwhile, as you look a at the forecast for north america. notice all these clouds thatt just seem to really pop up over the rockies and down to the desert southwest. we have some unsettled weather due to a cold front crossing over the mountains. that will bring the possibility of some thunderstorms. we have a lot of warm air surging in in front of this front. that's the reason why we are going to see temperatures bouncing up quite high. so just be very careful that you are looking out for the possibility of some strong thunderstorms from time to time. now, down toward the deep south i want to bring to your attention a couple areas of high pressure. thatat will bring in sououtherl flow. it will be hot as we go toward the weekend. so look out. we're looking at temperatures moving up through the 30s as we go into saturday, especially on sunday, especially for the carolinas. dry along the eastern seaboard. high of 35 in denver! we're in the mountains here, and we're looking at thunderstorms and very hot temperatures. please be careful of that. back to the north and west.

vancouver and seattle looking at unsettled weather as another low pressure system moves on shore for friday. this is new zealand. we have an occluded front where we have air masses mashing into eaeach other. because of that we are looking at unsettled weather as we go throughout the weekend. atat least for part of the weweekend. moisture will be coming on shore. look out for the flooding potential -- potentially, with rainfall totalss up to 150 millimeters. gusts too 120 kilometers per hour. be on the lookout especially on the south island. east asia. warm conditions over japan. high pressure system is surging the tpeperaturess up. later into the weekend thehe hi gives way and the moisture will start to come back into the picture by monday for places like tokyo. a little more shower activity as we go into the weekend. for the western portions of japan. other areas around asia also looking at some wet weather for saturday, sunday and monday.

hope you have a good day wherever you are. here is your extended outlook.

as we approach 28 minutes past the hour, that concludes this hour's nhk "newsline." be sure to watch "newsroom tokyo" at the top of the hour. 8ú

welcome to the france 24 newsroom. football gets underway here in protests and security concerns. the deadliest end goal bombing and warns tourists to stay away from turkey. he is with her.