♪ live from tokyo, this is nhk "newsline." i'm james tengan. we start in china where the country's leader has paid his first visit to the city at the center of the coronavirus outbreak. xi jinping's trip to wuhan comes as theovernmen report that new infections continue to slow. state mia reported that xi visited a hospital which was built to treat patients at the height of the virus scare. communitiesemain under lockdown and xi gave encouragement to those in

quarantine. it's not clear when those measures will be lifted. the number of newly confirmed cases dropped to 19 on monday. the total is now around 81,000 and the death toll stands at about 3100. at the same time, other nations are ramping up efforts to stop the virus's worldwide spread. italy is now entirely locked down. prime minister giusepp conte says the unprecedented measures will last until april 3rd. he asked residents to stay at home and for bayed them from gathering in public. individuals should only go out for work and health-related needs and emergencies. 463 people in italy have died from the virus and nearly 9200 have been infected. both numbers are the second highest after china. on sunday and monday inmates in the country's prisons rioted after the virus. the justice ministry said seven

inmates died. elsewhere in europe france, germany and spain have now each confirmed more than 1,000 cases. outside mainland china and japan over 30,000 infections have been confirmed and more than 830 deaths reported. the japanese government is set to deny entry to visitors from the northern area of italy which is t latest hospot in the coronavirucrisis. the entry b will cover five regions including hardest hit lombardi and the republic of san marino. this is the first time japan is banning visitors from europe following the outbreak. entry from some parts of south korea and iran have been barred last week in addition to china's most affected provinces including hubei. the number of confirmed cases in japan has increased to 520. the tally does not include some 700 people from the "diamond princess" cruise ship or over a dozen who returned on chartered flights from china. ten people have died in japan so

far as well as seven from the cruise ship. the hardest hit area is the northern prefecture of hokkaido where more than 110 infections have been confirmed. dozens of cases have also been reported in other prefectures such as aichi, tokyo and osaka. health officials say around 350 people have recovered and been discharged from hospital. japanese prime minister shinzo abe has pledged to launch a second emergency fund to ease the economic impacts of the outbreak. he also said a request to avoid large events will be extended for ten more days. he made the announcement on tuesday at a meeting in tokyo. the package includes more funding for virus tests. the government aims to nearly double the number of people it can check in a day to 7,000 before the end of the month. more money will also go towards sterilizing day care centers and nurseries. and subsidies will be provided to parents who have been forced

to take days off work due to a nationwide school shutdown. financial help will also be offered to smaller companies that have implemented teleworking. officials plan to provide special loans with effectively zero interest and no collateral requirements. now tots u.s. and the next round of primary contests democrats in six states will cast their ballots on tuesday for the presidential nominee. it is virtually a two-man race between former vice president joe biden and vermont senator bernie sanders. abc news says biden has won 637 delegates so far and sanders 557. about 350 delegates in the six states including michigan and missouri are up for grabs in tuesday's primaries and caucuses. a candidate needs to win 1,991 delegates to eventually take on donald trump in november's

presidential election. biden surged ahead of sanders after winning ten out of 14 super tuesday states last week and gained endorsements by other moderate candidates who pulled out. sanders hopes to garner support from white working class voters in michigan which has the largest number of delegates among the six states. it's almost exactly nine years since the great east japan and the fukushima daiichi accident devastates lives of people in the northeast. an evacuation ord issue for a town in the area has been partially lifted to allow the operation of a railway along the pacific coast. a gate installed in tomioka town was opened at 6:00 a.m. on tuesday. the station located about 7 kilometers from the plant and

the last station on the joban line to be reopened since the disaster. the area in red around the plant has been designated a no entry zone because of high radiation levels. years of decontamination work have led to a lifting of the evacuation order for the first time for some parts of the zone including three local train stations. the railways operator plans to resume service on saturday. local residents came to see the reopening. passing through the gates that has been closed for nine years. some parts of a street famous for its cherry blossoms have also been added to the safe area. >> translator: i cherished every footstep i took this morning. i feel joy but also sorrow as i see some buildings have been razed to the ground. sections of the town remain off limits due to high radiation levels. the latest government survey indicates only 8% of the people

evacuated from the town say they wish to return. authorities decided to cancel wednesday's national ceremony commemorating the disaster due to the coronavirus outbreak. >> meanwhile workers are trying to make headway in decommissioning the crippled reactors in unprecedented tasks. let's take a look at the progress they've made and the issues they're facing. >> reporter: it was one of the world's worst nuclear accidents. the fukushima daiichi plant suffered three meltdowns and three hydrogen explosions in the days after the deadly earthquake and tsunami. since then the work environment has improved on the front lines, thanks to a massive decontamination effort, but many challenges still lie ahead. concerns are increasing over the huge amounts of contaminated water at the site. it's used to cool molten fuel in the reactors and later processed to filter out most of the radioactive substances, but one of them is proving difficult to

remove. meanwhile the number of storage tanks keeps growing and no decision has been made on what to do with the 1.2 million tons of contaminated water they hold. earlier this year a japanese government panel proposed releasing it into the sea or the air saying there would be almost no impact on the environment or human health. but local fishermen are worried about how it may affect their industry which has been recovering in recent years. >> translator: the ocean is really important to us. i think the authorities need to consider other options before releasing the waste water. >> reporter: but the biggest challenge is how to remove the radioactive debris from inside the react -- reactors where radiation levels are still extremely high. the government and the plant's operator say that task is scheduled to get under way next year with the whole decommissioning process taking another three to four decades.

to some analysis on developments at the unique plant. ai uchida spoke with nhk world science correspondent yushi. we've seen there are major hurdles involved with decommissioning these reactors. all things considered how well would you say the work is going so far? >> yes, well the progress has been a lot and there has been headway in some areas and not in others. after the accident workers had to wear protective suits outside the react for buildings but radiation levels have come down thanks to decontamination work. that involved removing radioactive ground surfaces like soil and coating them with special chemicals. now workers can walk around. almost the entire site without protective suits on.almost the

protective suits on. even without wearing a face mask in some places. >> that does sound like significant progress. let's also talk about the areas that haven't seen so much progress, mainly the melted fu. why is removing that melted fuel proving so difficult? >> yes. one reason is that workers can't even get close to those fuel lots because radiation levels are so high inside the reactor buildings. they have been trying to survey the ctainment vessels using remote controlled robots, but even those are of limited use because of the radiation. so the complete scope of the damage is still unknown. new measures will also need to be invented to get the melted fuel out and it's unclear how long that will take. engineers are considering

several methods of removal because the reactors are damaged in different ways. the fuel may need to be kept underwater during the operation for one reactor while it could be exposed to the open air for another. more of these surveys need to be conducted to figure out what kind of technology is needed. >> so what does all thisean for the nuclear industry in general? >> dropping three damaged reactors has never been done before. that means the first experience of the engineers involved will only take them so far. this is unchartered territory. but they will hopefully draw important lessons to keep nuclear accidents from occurring in the future. japan will need to share those lessons with the international

community, mainly through the iaea which is the u.n.'s nuclear watchdog. countries around the world that rely on nuclear energy will be watching to see how all of this unfolds. we have another story related to the nuclear disaster. a japanese court ordered the government and the operator of the fukushima daiichi nuclear plant to compensate evacuees but plaintiffs say the amount of compensation doesn't go far enough. the sapporo district court handed down the ruling on tuesday. the case was brought by 257 people who fled to the northern prefecture of hokkaido following the accidts. presiding judge muto said the disaster occurred as a result of the government's failure to exercise its regulatory authority over tepco and added tepco's preparations for its tsunami were inadequate. the plaintiffs asked for about $40 million in compensation for emotional suffering and damage to their livelihoods.

but the court ruled that state and operator will have to pay about $500,000 distributed among 89 plaintiffs. the plaintiffs' leader said he appreciates the judge's acknowledgement of the state's responsibility but also was disappointed. >> translator: the amount of compensation is far too small. we want to ask the court for more understanding. >> evacuees have filed similar class-action lawsuits nationwide. this is the seventh case in which a district court has found not just tepco, but also the governments liable. as communities continue to deal with the aftermath of the disaster some of the region's hardest hit areas are preparing to welcome the world's top athletes. nhk has learned when the first pitch of the 2020 olympics is thrown in fukushima, a special guest could be in the stands.

showcasing reconstruction efforts is one of the goals of the 2020 tokyo olympics and paralympics. it's something international olympic committee president thomas bach touched upon during preparatory visits to japan. now sources tell nhk that arrangements are being made for bach himself to attend the first baseball game in fukushima city this july. the prefecture will host some of the olympics softball and baseball games while another prefecture affected by the disaster miyagi is home to one of japan's olympic soccer venues. the olympic torch relay also aims to shine a light on reconstruction efforts with the first leg starting on march 26th in fukushima. ♪

tokyo had a wet tuesday here with the domestic and international outlook is jonathan oh. how are you feeling today? >> well, we are talking about some warm weather as well on top of that. probably helped out with rain at least, may have helped out with some people dealing with the pollen. guess what? as we go into wednesday and the rest of the week, if you are a hay fever sufferer you're going to definitely feel it. it's going to be dry and it's going to be warm. now we did see a lot of rain as it went through the daytime hours across japan and some places like the prefecture, some video from there, and that video showing us the high waves with some of the stronger winds but a high amount of rainfall as well. those of you in nagasaki you had record-breaking amounts of rainfall into the prefecture for the month of march and we are looking at this unstable pattern to be wrapping up as we head into the day on wednesday. looking at the map here, we do have one low moves to the

north and another one to the south. we're having a lot of warm air pushing in with this system, so as it does so, we are going to be talking about temperatures at around 20 degrees for the high in tokyo as we go through wednesday. a cold front will then push in for thursday and the temperatures will fall back down. we're seeing mid teens across the pacific side of japan as we go throughout the next few days. so be ready for some warm weather coming up on wednesday. sapporo you will be dealing with a mix of rain and snow for the middle of the week and then we'll see snow chances returning as we head towards friday. tokyo, osaka and fukuoka seeing temperatures that are above average for this time of year and then mid teens expected by thursday into friday. now we broaden out the view. high pressure is controlling the weather back toward the west into china and that's going to keep things relatively dry. maybe a return flow to bring some showers into chongquing.

snow part of the story in mongolia. snow and high degree of 9 below zero through wednesday. across north america we are watching out for a system that was draped across the central portion of the united states. now we're looking at the system moving toward the eastern seaboard and that's going to bring a chance for some rain, possibly a few thunderstorms. be on the lookout forhat. once the system passe through with a high that's going to be coming in and calming things down, we'll be seeing a drier pattern as we head toward the latter part of the week. another low moving into southern california. once again, extending into tuesday, we're looking at a decent chance for some rain. 19 for the high as we go through tuesday. that's a look at your forecast. hope you have a good day wherever you are.

♪ the sn crushes the numbers in business and financial news ramin mellegard is up next.

♪ tokyo's benchmark stock index managed to finish in positive territory on tuesday after a volatile trading day. that followed a historic plunge on wall street overnight. the dow jones industrial average posted its biggest one-day point loss in history, and oil prices tanked over a price war between saudi arabia and russia. the nikkei average ended at 19,876, up 0.8%. it had dropped more than 800 points at one stage, but it turned positive in the afternoon

as some investors saw buying opportunities. the other markets across the asia pacific region recovered from monday's sharp losses. sydney's benchmark finished up more than 3% after losing almost 7% the day before. shanghai ended 1.8% higher and jakarta was up 1.6%. this is "newsline" business. i'm ramin mellegard. many experts say it was the plunge in the price of crude oil that really triggered this turmoil in the markets. we spoke with a market risk advisory to find out why. >> translator: banks probably believe that plunging crude oil prices will hurt energy-related firms, the smaller ones in particular may not be prepared for prices to slum. they'll see their revenue drop as prices fall. banks will stop lending to them and they will go under. when small firms fail, it zaps

the banks' strength and they'll do less lendin it drops the stocks because investors are picturing this. >> he says lower crude oil prices in principle should be an advantage for oil importer like japan, but he says that's only in the short term. if the situation persists, we could see some serious pain in the real economy in the not-too-distant future. >> translator: many businesses review their debts every quarter or every half year to consider refinancing. if oil prices remain low, the weaker energy firms may begin to fail around june. the international energy agency says it expects coronavirus fears to put a big dent in the global oil market this year. it's forecasting the first contraction in more than a decade. the agency releases assessment that saudi arabia decided to drive down the price of crude oil. the energy watchdog says demand is likely to drop about 90,000

barrels per day from last year. it says the demand for transport fuel has plunged and economic activity is slowing. that's expected to cause a drop in demand of about 2.5% for oil globally in the first quarter of this year. the iea says 70% of that loss would stem from china. a ban in japan on the resale of face masks that marked up prices is set to go into force from sunday. the government has approved the measure as the masks are in short supply amid the outbreak. violators will face penalties up to a year in prison or a fine as high as 1 million yen or nearly $10,000. officials believe that hoarding of masks for reselling them at inflated prices on-line is worsening the shortage. medical and nursing care facilities are among those directly affected. the government ordinance will ban the reselling of masks by

individuals and businesses at prices higher than the cost of buying them at retailers or elsewhere. the measures apply to sale on on-line auctions through marketplace apps and other means. the coronavirus outbreak has been a major blow for many japanese companies with production in china. suspensions and quarantines are wreaking havoc for factory managers. we take a look at how one mid sized firm has been trying to get by. >> this company produces parts and machines for the automobile and agriculture industries. two years ago it set up a factory in china's province hoping to expand sales. but when the coronavirus outbreak hit, the firm was forced to suspend operations there. >> translator: when do you think our factories can return to normal? within the month? >> translator: tt's not possible. >> translator: some employees

can't leave their camp due to lockdowns. >> sales in china account for about a third of the company's total. a prolonged shutdown would hit the firm's bottom line hard. >> translator: if production stops in china, the damage would be great. we wouldn't be able to take orders. in the worst-case scenario, current orders could be canceled. >> on february 17th, the company was able to put the factory back online, but many problems remain. this is the head of one of the company's local branches. he returned to japan during the lunar year holiday. now he cannot go back to china to work. he said he would be quarantined upon returning. he has resorted to managing the facility from japan. >> translator: i'm the leader of the factory, so i should be there to make decisions and give instructions.

communicating with workers only by email or phone is very inconvenient. >> matsui has also found it difficult to obtain parts for new orders as most of the suppliers have suspended operations. the factory plans to dip into its inventory to continue production. but supplies won't last long. sending parts from japan would be far more costly and time consuming. >> translator: after we set up a production base in china, we might have relied on it too much. that's one of my regrets. the only thing we can do is try and get back to our regular output schedule as soon as possible. >> shifting factories to china has gone from being an asset to a liability for many companies amid the coronavirus spread.

>> looking ahead, it may force some firms to think twice about production plans. okay. let's get a check on the marks. ♪ ♪

thas it for "newsline biz." from ourokyo stios, i'm ramin mellegard. thanks very much for watching.

thee: italy on lockdown, first country in europe to an outside restriction on all nonessential movement. italy has over 9000 cases of coronavirus, the most in any country outside china. the worst in china seems to be over. xi jinping sending the message from wuhan, his first visit to the epicenter since the