with notorious amounts of waste. and will have to do so for many years to come. economies have recently been showing signs of growth. now people are anxiously waiting for a turn around in europe to

help lift the global economy. ron madison is here with more on the situation in the eurozone. ron? >> they may have to wait a bit at least in the near term. longer term some are looking saying there may be a bit of a bottoming out. for now the european commission says the eurozone economy will continue track for the second straight year in 2013. the commission says it expects gross domestic product to shrink 0.3% from last we're. it does compare with the previous forecast of 0.1% growth. the commission said tight lending conditions, job cuts, sluggish investments are all dragging the recovery. it's projecting 1.4% growth in 2014. the commission says leading indicators suggest the region's economy is starting to bottom out and economic activity is expected to gradually pick up. let's get a check of the market now. first what's going on with currencies today. the euro has lost a bit of ground against the yen on the

european commission announcement. earlier the single european currency had jumped on strong business data from germany. right now euro yen at 122.74. we're seeing dollar/yen changing hands at 93.24. let's move on to europe where the market trading day is still under way there. we got gains across the board for the majors, london footcy 100 higher by 6 pores. the dax higher by 5%. paris cac moving ahead at 1.24%. better than expected indicate skrors from germany lifted market sentiment. european shares rebounding from the sharp drop that we saw on thursday. here in asia the nikkei average did advance almost 7% to finish at 11,385. had a bit of bargain hunting after thursday's loss. chinese markets shanghai shares

continue to lose ground. concerns about tighter controls on property purchases put a dent in market sentiment. the shanghai composite shedding half of a percent. in hong kong stocks there also down for a second consecutive session. this is due in part to caution about possible tighter monetary policy in china. the hang seng down more than half of a percent, 22,782. for the week the index has delined 2.8%. to get more insight on chinese markets i spoke earlier with a wealth management strategist in hong kong. i want to start by talking about shanghai stocks. they seem to have lost their upward momentum this week. what do you make of this trend and what your looking for in the coming weeks? >> asia has grown about 5% in just two months and without any

correction. so correction is long overdue. this correction is triggered by fears for tightening from china's government. this includes property markets tightening measures and also repurchase operations which drain liquidity from the markets. but i don't think the government would launch severe tightening at this stage because that would risk the economy which has just stabilized in the fourth quarter and is still under pressure. as for asia's outlook i believe this type much aggression is nearing its end. further correction is limited to 2% or 3%. >> of course another big event we have coming up the chinese national people's congress set to open on march 5th. the premier expected to announce the country's economic growth target as well as some other policies. what your expecting we'll hear

about gross domestic product and what are some of the other top priority issues there? >> i believe that this year's gdp growth targets will be set at 7.5% same as last year's although the economic outlook is better now than last year. the government is unlikely to raise the growth target because what the government is looking for now is the quality of growth, as much as quantity of growth. that means sustainable growth is more important. and the policies i would watch for is with the government's launch to raise disposable income of citizens because that would be the key to whether china can transform to a economy of consumption. raising citizens income very important in the coming years. >> all right.

let's show you something now. may look a bit like a wrist watch but actually it's a computer. i.t. giant apple has filed an application for a computer that people can wear like a watch. the computer has a flexible touch panel display and sensors inside can detect moments by the user and automatically adjust the interface. the computer can wirelessly connect with other portable device like smartphones. it follows a series of media reports last week on rumors apple is developing a wearable computer. u.s. search engine giant has been developing a computer that looks like a pair of eye glasses. competition in the emerging field of wearable computers is expected to further intensify. all right. that's going to do it for biz this week. let's get a check of the markets.

people in southern new zealand are looking back on the day. an earthquake destroyed their homes and killed their loved ones. the magnitude 6.3 tremor hit the city of christchurch two years ago. nearly 200 people died including a number of foreign students. nhk world joins us on how the city is remembering and

rebuilding. ♪ >> reporter: families of the victims and citizens expressed condolences. new zealand's prime minister john key spoke at the ceremony. >> as we remember the destructive and terrifying earthquake that struck this city and the surrounding area two years ago today. >> reporter: the quake killed 185 people. nearly two-thirds of them were in this building in the city center. it used to house an english language school. it was damaged far more severely than other structures. investigators blame design flaws. 28 japanese were among the victims. some of their relatives visited the site where the building once stood. this man lost i had 19-year-old daughter. >> translator: i feel more

painful this year than last year. we want to know why the building collapsed and who is responsible. this should be clarified for the sake of our dead children. >> reporter: crews are still rebuilding central christchurch. the area includes one of the city symbols, a cathedral. that's more than 130 years old. it suffered heavy damage in the quake. citizens must keep out of a construction zone measuring 38 hectares. the fenced off area is one tenth of what it was in 2011. people recognize christchurch has made progress. >> i think two years on there's hope, you know, now. things are going to become better and it's going to be better than before. but there's a lot of healing to

do. >> reporter: nhk world, christchurch, new zealand. a cyclone is making it difficult for residents in madagascar to get on with their daily business. meteorologist robert speta joins us with the latest on the situation there and the rest of the world. robert? >> yes, gene. this storm just really has been persistent. currently moving almost stationary as it does continue to drift off towards the west. really it's just going to be continuing to bring just heavy rain showers. but just one second, i'm sorry. just really kind of unable to move it ahead. people in the studio if we can move this ahead. all right that's the u.s. all right. all right. okay. there we go. thank goodness we got this working. start talking about this cyclone as it continues to push off towards the southwest. across the southern portions of madagascar. as it pushes towards the southeast and winds right now about 130 kilometers per hour. storm surge will be a threat

here along the southwestern coast. also accompanied by heavy rainfall as it does push overhead. flood is really going to be high risk not just here in madagascar but off towards northern portions of mozambique. not just the southern hemisphere where we have this tropical weather, it's the tropical season here but as we take a look at the northern hemisphere, around the philippines torts southeastern asia another storm. this is tropical storm sansung. really the center of circulation with storm that's not the main threat area. further off there towards the north. we'll be seeing heavy rainfall as all that moisture just continues to blow off there due to vertical wind shear and that will cause flooding and possibility of land slides in the southeastern portions of vietnam and around the border of thailand and malaysia. water continuing to pile up. something really to watch out going through the next 72 hours.

not just there but also, unfortunately, another area is going to be impacting you here in southern portions and bringing heavy rainfall up to 200 millimeters in davano on this saturated ground. the americas, shifting gears. not tropics. this is a classic setup of a winter storm. off towards the north heavy snowfall steady across the great lakes about 15 to 20 centimeters in the forecast. that's going accumulating up, making traveling dangerous not just here but further to the southwest virginia freezing rain in the forecast here. that's going to be bringing some power outages very possible and then down towards the south we have the severe weather, some squall lines pushing across portions of louisiana throughout mississippi. and we have already seen tornadoes already reported here. one blowing the roof off a home there in mississippi so just rather dangerous weather continuing to set up here.

basically a one-two-three punch style storm. rain, freezing rain and heavy snowfall. now the good news is into europe calm weather out across the north. british isles, low country high pressure continuing to dominant here making things rather nice. mediterranean we have several low pressure systems back-to-back here and that's making for messy weather all around. balkans heavy snowfall. austria, hungary, 15 to 20 centimeters accompanied by gusty winds. one report about 80 kilometers per hour and then over to the iberian peninsula another system moves in but behind i want cold air is coming in. in london and paris lingering near the freezing mark for most of the week. that will start to push down there towards the south. madrid decent for the time being. by sunday going get much colder. that's a look at your world weather.

before we go a slam dunking sea otter is making waves at zoo in the united states. eddie the sea otter leaps from the water and dumps a ball into the basket. sometimes he misses but he's back for the rebound. 15-year-old eddie suffers from are a arthritic elbows. zoo keepers introduced him to the game last year as a form of therapy. zoo keepers say they are not surprised by his dexterity. eddie may not make to it the nba but for zoo keepers he's truly a star player. we're back in 30 minutes with morton latest. i'm gene otani in tokyo. for all of us here in nhk world,

thanks for joining us.