here in japan it's a friday evening. i'm james tengan in tokyo. welcome to nhk "nenewsline." rescue workers in syria have released video showing the moment they pulled out a girl from rubble after an air strike. members of the volunteer rescue group known as the white helmets sa they were removing bodies

from the rubble when they heard a voice. they dug through the debris and found a girl they thoht to be about 5 years old. they carried her on a stretcher to an balance. the u.n. children's fund said hundreds are dead and injured. they have been launching air strikes as they try to retake from rebel forces. john kerry says he doesn't think russia is serious about reviving the cease-fire. >> i think we're on thverge of suspding the discussion because it's irrational the context of the kind of bombing taking place. >> u.s. deputy of state says -- russia has been supporting the syrian government. the u.s. is backing what it

calls moderate opposition forces. the u.s. defense chief has stressed the importance of the asia pacific region for amera's future. ash carter said the pivot to asia or rebalanced policy has entered a new phase. >> the rebalance to the asia pacific which president obama announced five years ago is a critical national commitment. >> carter was speaking in san diego ahead of a key asian defense minister's meeting in hawaii. he said the u.s. military will continue to sharpen itsdge in the region. he sai it'll introduce advanced technolo such as undersea drones and next generion stealth bombers. carter stressed he will work to imove maritime security in t china seas and also address beijing's aggressive activiti. >> the freedom to navigation at

16,449. and the broader topix lost by the same margin. on the week the nikkei fell 1.8%. it's been a volatile week here in tokyo as it was on the last day of september. the benchmark lost more than 2% for the month. now, taking a look at individual stocks, a wide range of shares were sold on friday. the financial sector was one of the biggest drags on the nikkei. all three banks saw losses on european banking worries. and major exporters including car makers are lower on the stronger yen. nissan was down 2%. now, next week we may see another volatile week as investors react to some important data. that includes u.s. jobob data o friday. john ladue reporting from the tokyo stock exchange. moving onto china, the latest private survey put the purchasing managers index for

manufacturing at 50.1 in september. that's marginally up from the previous month. the shanghai composite added 0.2% and recovered the 3,000 mark for the first time in a week. sentiment improved one day before the imf includes the yuan. hang seng tumbling 1.9%. the lowest in more than two weeks. all sectors ended in the negative with banks leading the way. here's about european banks dragged down others in the asia pacific region as well. seoul's kospi was down 1.2%. singapore slid more than half a percent. friday marks the deadline for new member countries to join the asian infrastructure investment bank. its expanded membership is likely to exceed the asian development bank led by japan and the u.s.

more than 20 new members includuding canada, a g7 member have reportedly applied to join the aiib. the bank was launched by china last year to help build infrastructure in asia. britain and some of asia's developing economies are among the bank's 57 current numbers. the united states and japan have stayed out. they'ree waiting to see if the aiib meets standards. new members will be formally admitted by the beginning of next year. the larger membership will overtake the adb which has 67 countries and territories. nearly six months have passed since japan's electricity retail market was liberalized in april. to end the monopoly of major electricity companies that continued for almost 60 years. in an effort to spur competition among retailers. people have previously been able to buy from one of the ten

companies. now they can choose their own provider. 150 are listed as retailers. many people are in a wait and see mood. 2.6% of households have applied to switch retailers as of the end of august. >> translator: it's unclear how much money i'd be able to save. >> translator: it's just too much trouble. >> for more on this, ai yuichi asked why consumers are switching. >> well, many of them seem to be unsatisfied with discounts. the new retailers are offering. and people say the money that they save amounts to only about a few dollars per month. they seem to be feeling that isn't enough considering the hassle of the paperwork needed to switch companies. consumers also question whether the new retailers can maintain a

stable supply. winners so far are suppliers owned by large well-known firms. >> now, what about the fact that government officials had hoped that the liberalization would encourage competition among the retailers? hasn't that happened yet? >> well, we're seeing some changes. for example, in western japan, kansai olympic power is targeting heavy power users starting next month. the company has lost more than 300,000 of its customers to the new retailers. and there are other who is are trying to differentiate themselves. one retailer is trying to attract customers by the distributing electricity made primarily of renewable energy. this start up in tokyo entered the retail business in late may. >> translator: here's our list of power plants. >> reporter: most of the

electricity itself is generated from renewable energy. the company buys it from about 30 different power plants. one is a solar plant in western tokyo. run by a citizens group. it has 80 solar panels on a roof of a cow shed. the plant can generate 20,000 kilowatt hours per year. that's barely enough to supply six households. most of the 30 plants on the mpany's supplier list are small. and many of them have an output that is affected by the weather. some customers end up paying more than they would if they got their electricity through the major companies. but the ceo says those people don't mind the extra cost. because they want to avoid using electricity from nuclear or thermal plants. >> traranslator: the challenge r us retailerss is to provide a creative and original service so that we can meet the demands of

customers. not just offer low prices. >> so then what is the future of the industry? >> even though the undergoing change may seem slow, competition is expected to increase as consumers become more accustomed to the rates and increases. they need to take this as an opportunity to expand b their business joer soverseas. >> translator: if the companies are just competing within the japanese market, they are not contributing to economic growth. they need to become bigger and stronger and go into overseas markets. >> this is quite a challenge for companies since they have faced almost no competition for 60

years. but it's vital that these firms step up and use deregulation as an opportunity to become globally competitive, to fill japan's push for growth. tokyo police have installed english and chinese-speaking officers 24 hours a day in two of the city's busiest tourist spots. the officers are assigned to police boxes in front of shibuya station and the ceremonies on friday marked the starts of the assignments. 24 police officers will provide around the clock help for foreign visitors. it is first such service in japan which is expecting a surge of tourists as of the 2020 tokyo olympics nears. by the end of the year. you can catch our report online together with a full transcript. look for nhk world and business

wrap. that's a look at business news. i'm going to leave you with the markets. police in yokohama are looking into suspicious deaths at a hospital. the number has now grown. >> reporter: it didn't seem out of the ordinary for an

88-year-old patient. the patient died in a hospital in yokohama earlier this month. but later police made a shocking announcement. ththey were investigating his deatath as a possible murder. then investigators discovered that another man had died. they found holes in iv drip bags and discovered a toxic substance similar to those used in disinfectants had been mixed in. it was also discovered in the men's bodies. sources close to hospital revealed to nhk that in the previous three months, 46 other patients died in the same ward. >> translator: the hospital admits terminal patientss whoho have nowhere else to go, so naturally many of them are in serious condition. that's why there are so many deaths. >> reporter: the director admitted the numbers seemed high. he said there were no outbreaks

this summer. in july, a town in thehe same prefecture was shocked by killings at a care facility. a former employee broke in and killed 19 people with disabilities. police have questioned staff members. they say the iv drips could have been tampered with. it has people in the area worried. >> translator: it's shocking. we patients don't know what's going on. i want to know how the hospital will take responsibility and what value it places on patients' lives. >> translator: people trust hospitals. so incidents like these are scary. >> reporter: the hospital issued an apology after the first death was discovered. >> translator: we'd like to express our deep sorrow and convey our condolences to the family. we want to know as soon as possible exactly what happened.

>> reporter: but the patient's son says he won't accept it until he finds someone respononsible. and that's only one of the questions that remains unanswered. as public scrutiny grows, the city has launched a separate investigation of the situation. they are also looking into other incidents at the hospital. like bleach found in a nurse's drink. tokyo's governor says an inquiry has failed to clarify who was responsible for problems at the site to replace the famous tsukiji market. the metropolitan government looked into who decided to build the market without laying clear soil underneath the buildings to prevent cocontamination. >> translator: it is difficult to pinpoint who madee the decision and at which point. each phase of the design was

decicided separately y in diffe envivironments. >> reporte >> the governor said she appreciates the work but called it inadequate. the site was to replace the aging wholesale food market. but a gas plant once operated there and that gave rise to safety concerns. so experts recommended years ago to replace the top two meters of soil. then add another two and a half meters of clean soil over that. tokyo officials didn't follow that advice and created an open space instead. koike says the inquiry found the began in 2008 on plans to leave areas open so they could monitor contaminatation even after the market's opening. in august 2011 after studies on containing the contamination, senior officials approved the plan for underground monitoring

spaces. but the investigation could not find who ordered the construction to proceed without clearly specifying not to lay soil under the buildings. koike says she will consider creating a whistle blower system and other measures to prevent similar incidents. she will also order further investigations. meanwhile, the head of the tsukijii market t green grocers union says it's disappointing they did notot carry out the decontamination process as originally planned. >> translator: i feel betrayed by thehe tokyo government which lacked accountability. >> izumi says he hopes tokyo officials will never again present market dealers with false explanations. the head of the tsukiji market business association has also expressed disappointment. >> translalator: i do not reall care to confirm who made a

decision. i hope the tokyo government sysystem will change. >> he says he hopes tokyo officials will quickly decide on a date to open the new market once its safety is confirmed. sasaki, a former tokyo government official had this to say. >> translator: i think it's the irresponsible government attitu tokyo government that led to this tragedy. >> he said the government needs to unify every branch and work in a more coordinated manner. as we mentioned earlier in our business corner, language barriers are a big problem for tourists visiting japan, but they are being addressed. japan hopes to bring in more international visitors by the 2020 olympics. and the government is supporting the development of technology to

help them get around and communicate. our next story takes a look. >> reporter: at an information halfway up mt. fuji, a tourist asks a japanese guide some questions in chinese about the mountain. he takes out a smartphone. >> translator: you can't camp. there's a house on the way and you can stay there overnight. >> translator: it gave a perfect translation without any hassle. i was really surprised. >> reporter: this app was developed in japan by a natatiol technology institute. it currently supports 31 languages including english, chinese, and russian.

it uses a very accurate speech recognition system. audio data of the user's voice is sent to this computer at the research institute. it analyzess the audio and converts it t to text by referrg to m more than 8,000ours of recocordings c collected from 80 people. it then n sends back an audio a text translation in less than a second. the biggest problem for any speech recognition technology is unwanted noise. researchers record ambient sounds in town. typically background noise interferes with the ability of speech recognition systems to understand the words of the speaker. researchers record many background sounds. once the computer has been fed the audio data, it can recognize such noises and eliminate them.

>> which ride do you want to go on first. >> reporter: after the background noise has been removed, you can hear the words clearly. the government is funding the development of a further improved version of the system to be ready for overseas visitors by 2020. >> translator: we'd like the technology to get close to simultaneous translation even if several people are speaking at once. >> reporter: the institute's technology has also been used in a new service for railway companies. co-developeded with a private firm, the service can instantly translate the announcements made in train stations. researchers are putting their energy and know-how into helping visitors overcome the language barrier at the tokyo olympics. nhk "newsline" comes to you live from tokyo. storm systems continue to plague

japan and neighboring regions. jonathan oh joins us with the latest on the next approaching storm. >> hello.o. we are monitoring this system as it continues to move to the north and west. severe tropical stororm chaba i right now over waters but it will potentially impact the western portions of japan as we go into the first part of next week. it is expected to become a strong typhoon as we go through the day saturday and a very strong typhoon by sunday. so it is going to intensify and bring a lot more rain and a lot more strong winds and high waves. in fact, by monday, okinawa expect this on top of you. may already see the impact of this starting on sunday. and then monday things are going to go downhill very quickly. then we are expecting it to eventually move to the north and east. kyushu, you may be dealing with the impact of this system through the next week. we already have a wet setup in the area. a stationary front continues to

remain in kyushu and also into portions of south korea. so the combination of the rainfall now along with the more rainfall that may be coming by next week may not be a very good situation as we go forward. that's something people have to look out for. some areas dealing with intense amounts of rainfall here. also extending over into eastern portions of china as well. we will be dealing with substantial rainfall through the next several days. much cooler into tokyo. high of 22 degrees with rain coming up on saturday. meanwhile e we go over toward t atlantic where we are keeping an eye on another t tropical syste. this is a hurricane named matthehew. it has already dumped close to 300 millimeters of rainfall in the past 24 hours in the lesser antilles. and we are expecting it to bring more rainfall into other areas of the caribbean as we go forward in time. we are expecting it to get a

little bit strong. eventually becoming a major hurricane going through the weekend. but as we go forward through the next few days, we are expecting upper level forcing to change8úú

>> hello and welcome to live at paris. let's look what's happening and making headline this is hour. president obama: true security comes from making peace with our neighbors. >> u.s. president barack obama joined hundreds of world leaders in jerusalem to pay their final respects to shimon peres, the last of israel's founding leaders. past and president, mahmoud abco