core offensive element of his country's navy. it comes days before the country celebrates its 75th anniversary of its founding. well, the new hardware comes after a series of failed attempts to put so-called spy satellites into orbit. kim is now negotiating an alleged arms deal with moscow and is expected to meet russia's president next week. he's also getting closer to beijing with china's vice premier set to attend saturday's ceremonies. nhk spoke with a korea expert with columbia university for his insight into the north ahead of its 75th anniversary. >> if you look in the past and take a look at the kind of engagement that north korea has had with china diplomatically, we haven't really seen very high ranking officials from china come into north korea until very

recently, so depending on the level of the delegation, i think it will signal beijing's intentions about how to push forward in this relationship, whether they would like the relationship to be closer. i think both sides have something to gain from tightening the relationship. i think it's very apparent russia is looking to get assistance and help in waging its military campaign in ukraine. obviously diplomatic support at the u.n. russia is part of the permanent member on the security council. if russia continues to work with north korea in vetoing additional international sanctions against north korea, which is fairly clear for north korea to continue the development of its weapons

program. if you take a look at the developments towards the second half of last year around september or so, north korea passed a new nuclear forces policy law, which amended the existing nuclear law on nuclear use, essentially declared that north korea is willing to use nuclear weapons preemptively in the event that the leadership is threatened, and the war it sees the necessity to use nuclear weapons to fight wars and win wars. and what we're seeing with these tests and development of more higher end weapon systems in different areas and not only naval but also even in space. and there are two things i think that kim jong-un intends to do with these. one is to develop a reliable

long-range capability that could deliver his nuclear war heads. second is that he's also signaling the intention to punch above his weight and essentially going after these areas and developing in these areas in space. this is a -- it's a third generation of leadership under the kim dynasty. it shows that this -- this form of rule that has been, you know, passed down through generations and generations can continue to persist and actually do reasonably well and survive in a very hostile environment against -- you know, against adversaries that are far superior. and so in many regards i think this shows for the north korean

people that, you know, there's some pride, some national pride that goes with the ability to survive in this kind of an environment. and if they can do it for 75 years why not do 75 more? next, voting has begun in regional and local elections across russia. moscow is also staging what it says are elections in some ukrainian regions which it claims were annexed last year. voters will elect leaders including moscow's mayor and governors of 20 regions. the administration of president vladimir putin is apparently aiming for his united russia party to score an overwhelming victory to provide momentum for the presidential election next march. voting continues through sunday. ballot counting will start immediately after polling stations close. the election is affecting the donetsk, luhansk, zaporizhzhia

regions of ukraine. russia unilaterally declared the annexation of the four regions last september. observers say moscow is trying to reinforce its grip as ukraine steps up its counter offensive. the u.s. secretary of state is calling russia's moves in these regions sham elections. antony blinken said in a statement they're nothing more than propaganda and they demonstrate moscow's blatant disregard for u.n. charter principles. microsoft says china is running a disinformation campaign aimed at american voters. the u.s. tech giant says beijing runs fake social media accounts using generative artificial intelligence. the company released a report on thursday saying the phony account mimicked u.s. voters. they post politically charged content in english and can respond to posts from other users. the report says the accounts have been getting more engagements since around march when they started posting what appear to be a.i. generated

images. google recently announced measures to clamp down on a.i. related disinformation. it says political advertisers will need to declare when they use the technology to generate or manipulate their content. tokyo police have searched nine outlets of the used car dealer big motor on suspicion of damaging public property. the company is accused of using weedkiller to destroy trees along sidewalks outside some of its stores. the raid on friday comes after the tokyo metropolitan government filed a complaint with the police earlier this week. tokyo officials found weedkiller residue in soil samples taken outside the nine stores and evidence trees had been cut down

at one of them. the nine stores are located along roads maintained by the tokyo government. big motor has confirmed with tokyo officials weedkiller was used in the vicinity of at least five of them. police are investigating whether the company's head office was involved. the used car dealer also handles vehicle repairs. the chain has recently come under scrutiny for allegedly filing insurance claims after carrying out unnecessary repair work. the japanese government says it's going to secure more money to support the domestic fishing industry if the need arises. the industry has been hit by china's suspension of imports of japanese seafood products that was put in place after treated and diluted water from the fukushima daiichi nuclear plant started being released into the ocean. >> translator: the government is planning measures to expand various sales channels and help fishery groups that buy and

store seafood products. we will take all possible measures to support the industry by securing a flexible budget. >> nishimura spoke at a lower house committee meeting on friday. he says the government plans to organize promotional activities and help fishery groups by buying and storing seafood items that have been hit by falling demand. it's earmarked more than $680 million in emergency aid to deal with reputational damage and other impacts from the water release. the chief of the national federation of fisheries cooperative associations attended the session. >> translator: china's import suspension is dealing a blow to fishers across japan. we urge the government to address the issue and ease fishery workers concerns. >> the fukushima daiichi plant suffered a triple melt down in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. water used to cool molten fuel

has been mixing with rain and ground water. the accumulated water is treated to remove most radioactive substances but still contains tritium. before releasing the treated water into the ocean, the plant's operator dilutes it to reduce tritium levels to about one seventh of the world health organization's guidelines for drinking water. in other news anticipation is growing in japan's political circles ahead of a cabinet reshuffle scheduled for next week at the earliest. prime minister kishida fumio is expected to retain two key people in the leadership of its main governing democratic party. kishida is planning to revamp the ldp executive line-up one year since the previous cabinet shakeup. aso tarro is expected to keep his post as vice president and -- will stay on as the secretary-general. >> translator: the squejal has yet to be finalized, but as for

personnel matters as i have said in the past, i am putting in the right person in the right place. >> sources from the government and the ruling coalition say kishida will finalize the retention after confirming their willingness to stay on. the two politicians have been playing key roles in supporting the kishida administration since his first cabinet formed since october 2021. they had discussion on thursday about the possibility of the opposition democratic party for the people joining the government, but they agreed it would be difficult for that to be realized in time for the upcoming cabinet reshuffle.

our meteorologist yummi hirano we bring her back for the storm and storms in other parts of the world. >> a tropical rainstorm in parts of japan. rainfall has exceeded 300 millimeters in just 12 hours in many parts of chiba prefecture. more heavy rain is expected in northern kanto friday night and the side of cohokeue up to saturday morning. the weather in tokyo will quickly improve on saturday. sunny skies will come back and the temperature will jump up to

35 on sunday, so extreme heat will be the next concern. down to the south, south eastern china is also dealing with flooding. people in hong kong just saw 158 millimeters of rainfall as their all-time record. this is the highest amount per hour in over a 100-year history. unfortunately, moisture is expected to persist and more downpours on their way into saturday. and another system will bring wet weather in beijing. that's all for me. stay safe.

and that concludes this edition of nhk "newsline." i'm raja pradhan in tokyo. coming up next is "newsline biz" with ramin mellegard, so stay right there.

♪ this is "newsline biz." i'm ramin mellegard. sompo japan president will step down to take responsibility for the insurance giant's links with a used car dealership that's been accused of fraud. >> translator: i deeply regret that our company has significantly undermined trust in its non-life insurance business from customers and society.

>> big motor was a sompo client that allegedly inflated customers bills by cars brought in for repair and later cut ties after the scandal emerged. the financial services agency has been investigating how he responded to the big motor scandal. the executive has said he sought to resume a partnership with big motor after learning about the possible fraud. and japan's leading precision equipment maker, canon, has appointed its first female board member. it has been under pressure to do so from its shareholders. the company on thursday nominated ito akiko to its board. she previously served as commissioner of the consumer affairs agency. she's expected to be formally approved as an outside director at the general shareholders meeting next march. at the meeting held in march

this year canon's shareholders saw the fact the company has no female board members as a problem. this led to an unusual situation in which the chairman and ceo was reappointed by a slim majority. he's held many prominent positions in the business world including chairman of the japan business federation. japan lags behind the u.s. and the countries in europe in appointing female executives. japanese companies have been scrutinized by shareholders regarding gender balance in the boardrooms. the movement to appoint female board members and promote diversity is expected to further spread among japanese companies. japan's second quarter gdp grew less than initially estimated on weakness in exports and capital investment. the cabinet office said the economy expanded annualalized 4.8% in the three months ended in june. that compares to an initial reading of 6%. the revised gain shows the

economy grew for a third straight quarter. exports rose 3.1% in the period compared with january to march or 0.1 percentage point less than the previous estimate. auto shipments were helped by an easing of the shortage of semiconductors used to make vehicles. consumer spending fell 0.6% as inflation continued to weigh. but demand for services such as dining and travel recovered as the coronavirus threat was downgraded in may to the same level as the flu. capital investment fell 1% from the previous quarter. the preliminary figure was for a marginal gain. now, japan posted a current account surplus for the six straight month in july. cheaper energy reports helped reduce trade deficits. finance ministry officials say the surplus stood at almost 2.8 trillion yen or about $19 billion. that's up about $13 billion from

a year earlier. the cost of energy resources from overseas such as crude oil and liquefied natural gas fell leading to an increase in the overall value of japan's imports. the trade balance turned into a surplus of about $464 million, an increase of about $8.5 billion from a year earlier. meanwhile, the primary income surplus came to about $24 billion. that figure includes dividends and interest income that japanese firms received from their foreign subsidiaries. income from bonds increased as interest rates abroad went up. chinese i.t. giant tencent says it has launched its models for business use. tencent operates the popular wehp chat social media platform. it released its a.i. model on

thursday. the company uses the model to respond to queries in both chinese and english in a conversational manner. it adds the model can wrat long text and solve certain math problems better than the similar chatgpt from u.s. firm open a.i. just last week china's largest web search provider baidu released its offering to the public. strict regulations back in 2017 its chat bots apparently criticized the chinese communist party and the company was forced to shut them down. next nhk world's john ladue is here with biz picks. every friday we bring you the latest in business with biz picks. let's go straight to the numbers for this friday, september 8th. the nikkei 225 fell over 1% to

32,606. now the week inindex lost about a third of a percent. toward the end of the week tech stocks followed wall street low. reports on the state official firm and agencies using iphones saw apple and other tech stocks fall. now, let's take a look what's happening in the week ahead. on wednesday the u.s. labor department will come out with the consumer price index for august. the cpi rose by 3.2% in july from a year earlier. that was the first rise after the steady decrease since june of 2022 when prices jumped 9.1%. and that's actually our biz pick feature for this week. we look at u.s. consumer price trends and the federal reserve's next move. the senior economist projects a slightly faster pace for

inflation in august compare today the previous month. >> we expect the headline figure for august cpi to show a month to month increase of over 5% on the year on year basis of 3.6%. the up side in the time lap figure can be attributed to factors such as the rising crude oil prices. >> matsumoto says the fed will likely hold the policy rate to where it is now with no rate hike expected for the rest of the year. >> inflation has already shown signs of deceleration including service prices. and concerning the results of the august employment report, it appears they're gradually achieving their aim of balancing labor supply and demand and lowering the pace of price inflation increases. >> but matsumoto holds a pessimistic view due to the

fed's tight monetary policy. >> there's already a significant slow down in corporate profits, and the labor market is also showing signs of weakening as we -- as we saw in the august report. we think raising the real interest rate of inflation target and the economic conditions driven by inflation are now entrenched to reduce sales expectations for businesses and anticipate further restraint on investment opportunities in the future. >> he also said that a notable slow down in the world's number one economy could weaken global demand. if that coincides with continued sluggishness in china, it could create a biurden on the global economy. i'm john ladue, and that was

this week's biz picks. okay, let's get a check on the markets.

that's it for "newsline biz" from tokyo. i'm ramin mellegard. thank you very much for watching. >> they've been largell

during 12 years of war, but now syria's druze are protesting in their heartland. they're demanding bashar al-assad to step down. but why now? what's really behind their anger? and could these demonstrations gain momentum? this is inside story. welcome to the program. weeks of demonstrations in