hello and welcome to nhk "newsline." i'm yoshi ogasawara in tokyo. we begin with the latest from gaza where over a million people have been told to flee south for safety. israel says it will carry out significant operations against hamas in northern gaza over the coming days. it comes ahead of a widely anticipated ground offensive and after almost a week of violence

that has killed 2,700 people on both sides. israel has launched a relentless aerial campaign against hamas militants and cut off food, water, and electricity. it says the group is hiding beneath gaza and has called on residents to evacuate as the military makes extensive efforts to avoid harming civilians. the united nations says roughly half of gaza's population has been given 24 hours to get out. it says that's not enough time to avoid devastating humaneitarian consequence. nhk captured footage of people fleeing gaza city on friday. a team on the ground says people there including nhk staff received recorded messages by phone urging them to head south.

the calls appeared to have come from the israeli military. the warnings come after hamas launched a surprise attack against israel last saturday. more than 100 hostages were taken into gaza. the militants claim at least 13 of them were kill by israeli air strikes over the last 24 hours. meanwhile u.s. secretary of state antony blinken sat down for talks with palestinian president in jordan on friday. the top u.s. diplomat has been touring the middle east to speak withfi officials as the conflic continues to ramp up. earlier ross mihara spoke with nhk world's tamura ginga from jerusalem. >> ginga, there's lots of talk about a possible ground invasion. what's your take on that? >> it appears more and more likely the situation is further

intensifying. the israel military is telling palestinians in the gaza strip to move to the south within 24 hours. on saturday is shabbat for jewish people. the military has summoned 300,000 reservists. that's the country's biggest organization in half a century. many are being sent to the south. the defense minister has vowed to wipeout hamas. >> there's a lot of attention on how the united states responds. what did secretary of state antony blinken's visit signal? >> he appeared to have iran and hezbollah in mind.

many people were waiting to see what comes out of blinken's meetings with the palestinian president on friday. it's important to note although he's communicated with both sides, blinken is not being seen as a mediator. >> hamas and israel have been attacking each other for days. how would a possible israeli offensive change things? >> the main concern is that it would kill more is civilians causing growing humanitarian corridors to be setup. people were pushing for a way to deliver aid and a way to evacuate the residents. meantime hamas is calling on palestinians to protest in the israel occupied west bank friday. that's raising fears of potential widespread crushes. so security is being stepped up in the west bank and way out

here in jerusalem. for now people are nervously waiting to see what happens with the protests and the possible ground invasion. many warn there may be more civilian casualties. >> so far there have been no reports of injuries or fatalities among the roughly 1,300 japanese nationals among israel and the palestinian territories. as the crisis deepens, japan says it'll send self-defense aircraft to help people get out. tokyo says it's already chartered a flight out of tel aviv scheduled to setoff for dubai on saturday. officials say a back up is necessary to ensure the situation. they say they'll send sdf aircraft to djibouti in north east africa in case the airlift

from israel runs into trouble. a japanese family says it's worried about two women on either side of the conflict. the pair, one israeli and one palestinian, stayed at their kyoto home four years ago. sasaki and his family hosted them as part of the exchange program for young palestinians and israeli. both had previously lost relatives to the conflict. the two spent a couple of days with the family experiencing japanese food and culture together. sasaki says he's increasingly concerned as he watches the conflict unfold. >> translator: i want to know if they are okay and if they are in a safe place. i hope they are well. that's what i really want to

know. japan's education and culture ministry has requested the tokyo district court to issue an order to dissolve the religious group formerly known as the unification church. the ministry on friday submitted about 5,000 pieces of evidence collected by questioning the group and related people. this follows a decision on thursday by the ministry's advisory panel to submit their request to the court. the education and culture minister said the group's practice of collecting donations and soliciting new members violated civil law and caused significant damage.

it's the third time an administrative body has sought to dissolve a religious group for legal reasons and the first involved a civil law violation. one of the other two cases included the colt which carried out a sarin gas attack on the tokyo subway in 1995. for this case the court will hear arguments from the ministry and the group before making a decision. if the court order is granted, the group will lose its religious corporation and tax exemption status but still be allowed to conduct religious activities. the group said on thursday it's deeply regrettable that the government has made the decision based on biased information. it said its practices do not meet the criteria for a court order. u.s. house majority leader steve scalise is withdrawing his bid to become speaker of the house. the turmoil in congress is

raising concerns about the impact on budget talks as well as the entire political process. the republican representative failed to secure a majority vote. >> our conference still has to come together and is not there. there are still some people who have their own agendas, and i was very clear, we have to have everybody put their agendas on the side and focus on what this country needs. >> the republican-controlled house last week ousted its speaker for the first time in u.s. history. the party on wednesday nominated scalise for the role, but that nomination was not backed by some republicans who support conservative jim jordan, a close ally of former president, donald trump. now house republicans will need to name yet another candidate, but the party's internal rifts make it unclear if they'll be

able to vote in a new speaker. the number of people who experienced world war ii is dwindling. family members, however, try to understand what was endure. a british woman recently re-creates the steps of her father to prisoner of war camps in japan. nhk world reports. >> reporter: p.o.w. camps across japan held captive from other countries. this one later became the site of a junior high.

caroline tyner's father was hurt in zentsuji. she recently came to japan to find out more. charles william was 23 when he was captured on a pacific ocean island and flown to japan. a large tree in the schoolyard was there back when the place was a p.o.w. camp. >> it's moving. he saw that tree. he touched that tree. >> reporter: williams and nearly 500 other p.o.w.s were forced to do hard labor. they subsited on small portions of of food. >> when they first came here they thought they were going to

be -- into the army barracks. they were worried they would be asked to back the japanese, but it didn't happen. >> reporter: after about two years, he was sent to another camp. it was near there that he received a hunting jacket. t tyner hoped to return to the original. williams survived in the second camp until the end of the war. but 56 of the p.o.w.s died of starvation. harada gento was a civilian

working on sites. >> he gave me this when we were leaving and i've always kept this as a memory because he was very kind. >> reporter: harada kaoru is genta's grandson. >> translator: i think my grandfather gave him this jacket to make sure that williams would remember him. >> my father never forgot him, never. >> reporter: 78 years since the two men last saw each other. it's been returned. >> as i said, he didn't hate japan and the japanese people. >> reporter: the original giver and receiver are no longer

around, but the symbol of their mutual respect survived. nhk world. heavy rain and severe storms hit the u.s. state of florida thursday. our meteorologist jonathan oh has a look at the situation in world weather. >> hello, we have been watching some tropical moisture move its way into south eastern areas of the united states, and as that moved on through it brought heavy rain and severe thunderstorms into the region especially for florida. take a look at this video coming out from the state, an early morning storm system that moved across florida left damage to cars, homes, and businesses. you can see the windows blown away at a shopping center. it also caused many closures of schools and multiple streets. thankfully, officials say no one was injured when possible tornado touched down thursday afternoon. we still have that system in place as it slowly drips towards

the east. and so as it dries, we'll still see unstable weather into florida and carolinas as we go into friday. another system is going to bring stormy weather, possibly strong storms as well into the up midwest as we go through friday, and it'll continue to make its way across eastern areas of the u.s. and making its way from coast to coast over the next few days. cold air surging behind that. 12 for the high in denver, 20 in okay city, 16 in chicago as you go through the day on friday. meanwhile, australia, we're keeping an eye on a front moving through the south eastern areas of australia. as it pushes on through we'll talk about rain that will eventually clear out of the area. temperature sinking back towards the west, but towards the east, dry and sunny on saturday. sydney looking at a high of 28

as we go into the weekend. and melbourne with highs in the upper teens. looking at dry weather across japan, we have the system near the ogasawara islands, the typhoon moving out towards the east. we are looking at changes for the weekend. rain expected in places like osaka as we go into saturday with highs into the mid-20s. hope you have a good day wherever you are.

and that's all for this edition of nhk "newsline." i'm yoshi ogasawara in tokyo. thanks for watching and do stay with us for more.

♪ this is "newsline biz." i'm gene otani. there are fresh fears of deflation in china as the latest data show prices either staying flat or falling backwards. that is as the slumping property market weighs on the broader economy. the national bureau of statistics says the consumer price index of september was unchanged from a year earlier. the cost of pork was down

sharply. automobiles and smart phones were also down as people cut back on spending, but officials say there was an uptick in the travel industry. demand has been growing steadily since the government ended its zero-covid policy in january. meanwhile the prices of goods at the factory gate actually fell by 2.5% from a year ago. that was in line with the recent trend. the producer price index has been in negative territory for the past 12 months in a row. a survey of japanese companies with operations in china shows that nearly half are cautious about making new investments in the country. many cite an incressingly gloomy economic outlook. the japanese chamber of commerce and industry in china polled its member companies about local economic conditions last month. over 1,400 responded. 47% said that compared to 2022, they are cutting back or making

no investments as all in china. 16% said they are expanding. common reasons among those reducing or suspending investment were concerns about risk slowing demand and growing uncertainty due to regulation. the cautious stance shown by japanese companies is in line with that of other multinational firms and it has been a trend to cut back in china as economy's prospects grow less certain. the operator of japanese clothing giant isect expecting revenue to top 3 trillion yen in the current business year. fast retailing says it's on track to meet that threshold for the first time with strong sales overseas. the company expects consolidated revenue for the current business year that started in september to exceed 3 trillion yen or $20 billion. it would be a first for fast retailing. in the fiscal year that ended in

august, the company achieved record sales and net profit. revenue rose 20% year on year to over 2.7 trillion yen. that's over $18 billion. net profit stood at nearly $2 billion. sales from its overseas business for the first time accounted for more than 50% of consolidated sales. sales of clothing were strong due to a post pandemic consumption recovery and due to hot weather. similar results were seen in u.s., europe, and southeast asia. a chief executive says he sees the firm achieving sales of 5 trillion yen in the next several years by opening flagship stores in major world cities. he's confident it won't be so difficult to double these recent efforts to achieve the firm's 10 trillion yen goal. doctors have conducted a successful experiment using a

robot system to perform remote surgery between singapore and japan. the device is japan's first surgical robot. its goal in the experiment was to remove a cancer tumor from an artificial stomach. the surgeon used a so-called cockpit located in singapore while an operation in japan performed the surgery. the unit has four arms equipped with various instruments and an endoscopic camera. a professor said he noticed latency delays of about one-tenth of a second in the device's movements but he was able to adapt to the lag. he says he hopes to teach surgery remotely with the assistance of robots. a japanese researcher has been awarded a prestigious u.k. prize for his work on long lasting magnets. he received the queen elizabeth

price prize for engineering. sagawa won for work going back to the 1980s on developing the world's most powerful permanent magnet. >> translator: as a researcher i feel deeply honored and happy. >> sagawa now work as a consultant for the japanese steelmaker. he played a key role in developing what is known as an iron boron magnet. they are use in products such as disc drives, mobile phones, and video andado systems. sagawa was recognized for a break through leading to the development of small high performance motors. his contributions led to cleaner energy saving technologies. he expressed the hope of making further improvements so the magnet can be used in next

generation vehicles. 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 this friday, october 13th. the nikkei average fell to 32,315. for the week the bench mark gained 4.25%. the index rose for three consecutive business days this week, but then u.s. inflation data came in hotter than expected. that sent u.s. stock prices lower on fears monetary tightening would continue which prompted tokyo stocks to also fall on friday. next, a look at the week ahead. on tuesday ceatec, one of the lar largest i.t. and electronic

exhibition gets under way just outside tokyo. generative a.i. is all the rage today. products and services using this technology will also be at the forefront of the event, so that's the focus of our feature this week. this service being showicatesed at the exhibition features life-like digital humans created with 3-d cg and generative a.i. it brings natural responses complete with facial expressions when users writes text or speak. it can work autonomously for example as a youtuber responding audience comments. this process also uses generative a.i., a hall graphic character powered by a.i. explains products with an expressive voice and gestures at the receiving questions from customers. it also uses a sensor to detect people passing by and asks them

to enter a store. electronics giant nec is creating its own generative a.i. training materials for generative a.i. developed abroad are mainly in english, and nec officials said their a.i. has learned massive amounts of data in japanese. they say this has dramatically improved its language operability. generative a.i. is expected to carry huge business potential, and dozens of products using the technology are being showcased at the event, but one expert says all of this is still in its infancy. >> translator: language based generative a.i. models are especiallized and actively generated in japan with products and services that combine not only text but also images, sound, and video are just now beginning to be developed. >> the global market for generative a.i. is projected to reach over $100 billion by 2030.

he says there are two keys to using it effectively. >> translator: of utmost importance is the ability to determine the division of roles between humans in a.i. and commercialized a.i. second, it's important to build original generative a.i. models or provide models that are retrained using original data when compared to models provided by other companies. >> it runs through october 20th with over 600 firms taking part in japan and overseas. it's an opportunity to encounter a variety of products that will give us a glimpse into life in the near future. i'm john ladue, and that was this weeks "biz picks." >> all right, let's have a look at the markets.

and from the "newsline biz" team in tokyo. i'm gene otani. thanks very much for being with us.

>> israel. gaza under siege. hundreds of israelis killed and abducted by hamas fighters. communities pounded by rocket fire. do civilians have any protection under international law? this is inside story. ♪ hello and welcome to the program.