from our tokyo studios, i'm ramin mellegard.nk you very much for watching. >> this is al jazeera and these are the top stories. joe biden has criticized the his victory.ident for denying he branded donald trump's obstruction to the transition as responsible and debilitating. >> we are witnessing incredible irresponsibility, damaging messaging sent to the rest of the world. and i think it is

ramin mellegard.ck prices rallied in tokyo thursday following a surge in new york, despite uncertainty over the u.s. election. the benchmark nikkei average rose above 24,000 points to mark its highest so far this year. it ended the day up 1.7% at 24,105. the broader topix climbed 1.4%. in currency markets, the japanese yen regained some ground against the dollar, but sources warn of turbulence ahead if the presidential race isn't decided quickly. the dow jones industrial average jumped at the new york stock exchange on wednesday, rising over 800 points at one stage. market watchers said that came amid expectations a divided congress could struggle to pass a tax hike touted by the democrats. >>> indonesia has fallen into a technical recession for the first time in over two decades as the impact of covid-19 continued to take a toll on the economy. officials say indonesia's gross domestic product shrank by about 3.5% year on year in the july-to-september quarter. they say some improvement was registered,

i'm ramin mellegard. thank you very much for joining us.éléddddd] >> the race to the white house is going down to the wire. after flipping michigan and wisconsin, joe biden has a projected total of 264 electoral votes according to the associated press. it takes 270 to win the election. president donald trump has said all the states recently claimed by biden will be challenged by the courts. they have filed legal challenges by his campaign

i'm ramin mellegard. with vote counting in the u.s.dential election still under way in many parts of the country, we take a look at how investors in asia reacted today to the emerging results. here's our business reporter yanaka mari at the tokyo stock exchange. >> reporter: as polls in most states were too close to call during trading hours here, investors had a hard time taking a view. let's see how tokyo's major indices closed out this wednesday, november 4th. the nikkei average gained 1.7%, finishing at 23,695. the broader topix added 1.2%. investor sentiment was bullish in the morning as early projections showed biden in the lead. that's because a clear winner would free the market of uncertainty over a drawn-out election count. some investors even went as far as to price in what's being called a blue wave, meaning democrats winning the white house as well as both houses of congress. market players expect greater fiscal stimulus from a democratic administration. but as the vote count progressed, trump put up a stronger showing tha

i'm ramin mellegard. central bank has cut its key interest rate in a bid to boost the economy hit hard by the pandemic. southeast asia's largest economy is experiencing its first downturn since the asian financial crisis of the late 1990s policymakers trimmed the benchmark seven-day reverse repurchase rate by a quarter of a point to 3.75%. the rate is the lowest on record. thursday's cut follows one in july and is the fifth this year. market watchers were not expecting the central bank to lower the rate at its latest meeting. even so, indonesia's fallen into a technical recession for the first time in over two decades as the impact of covid-19 continues to take a toll on the economy. >>> a group of japanese companies is planning to use a digital currency in an experiment. the trial involving digital yen gets under way next fiscal year. a diverse group of nearly 40 companies, including mega banks, telecom carriers, and power utilities, have agreed to take part. the experiment was proposed by the current, a

i'm ramin mellegard.roup plans to slash hiring for a second year, as the coronavirus spreads turbulence through the global airline industry. the group has more than 30 member firms, including international carrier nippon airways. they had been taking on around 3,000 new graduates annually over the past five years, but they've only offered jobs to about 700 people for fiscal 2021, freezing hiring except for pilots and some other positions. now, they're planning to cut new hires to around 200 the following year. the pandemic has badly hurt the group's business. over 80% of its planned international flights remain grounded, although passenger numbers are gradually recovering on domestic routes. budget carrier airasia japan has filed for bankruptcy due to headwinds from the coronavirus. the airline began operating in 2017 as a joint venture between airasia group and japanese partners. the move comes after the carrier said last month that it was ending all operations as passenger demand plunged. it faces debts

a lot of businesses led by ramin have not been able to restart and especially women working in the informal sector. i'm not even owning the wages that they were at treacle. good luck. so there is no recovery yet. we see a slowdown of the downturn. what are the risks of economic improvement? saw the human economy is now in a technical recession, which means that it has to do consecutive quarters. in fact, no other media economy has been affected as badly by corporate 19 as india javelins that there has been some economic recovery in this quarter. but that's only because the lock down was used out. and also it is the best of seasons and basking in a bit of economic activity. it's given sunbed astutely comic activity, but those are temporary measures. now what is happening is that we have the rise in inspection. certain steves are going back to lock downs and distinctions which could affect the supply chains, which means that once again, domestic activity will be affected and song will india's ability to achieve in the world. so for me, the question really is, even if we are talking about econ

we begin with ramin in iran. iran reacting angrily. that part so far is predictable. what is not is whether or not they will go through with retaliation. >> paula, it is also the pressure from the grassroots and hard liners. as i talk to you in about 20 minutes or so, there are a group of people, young people of course, who will go to the foreign ministry to shout for the revenge. preside president's government is to go for, a, not to go for any negotiations biden in post january 20 and at the same time, b, the government to have severe revenge. in 40 days will be the anniversary and also revenge for fakhrizadeh. the government of rouhani is under pressure given a dire economy situation, then you can see how it's a pressure for president rouhani and his government at this moment while the international community is calling for something else and bear in mind that diplomacy is at a stake now and the negotiation chance for the president-elect biden is getting less and less. >> no doubt whoever carried this out knew it would make diplomacy much more difficult. we'll go t

i'm ramin mellegard. thank you so much for joining us. rt. >> is al-jazeera. these are the top stories. the pentagon has confirmed sharp reductions in the number of u.s. troops in afghanistan and iraq by mid january, just before president trump leaves office. 2,000 will withdraw from afghanistan and 500 from iraq, leaving 2.5 thousand in each country. >> limit us remind those who question or resolve or may seek to interfere with this pursuant plan and coordinated plan signatures. the united states armed forces remain committed to p

. >>> this is "newsline biz," i'm ramin mellegard.ead of the tokyo stock exchange stepped down to take responsible for a trading halt two months ago. follows a technical glitch that stopped trading for a full day on october 1st. resignation was announced by the ceo of parent firm to the japan exchange group. the departure takes effect immediately and kiyota will assume the post for time being, and take a pay cut for four months to take responsibility for the outage. other executives will also take a reduction. issued order to the group earlier today. told them to take action. agency inspection found defects in the exchange's internal management. the tse says the october 1st outage was caused by a hardware probm and a backup system failure. the exchange had no rules in place for quickly restarting trading in such a situation. it was the first day-long stoppage since the tse fully computerized in 1999. they have been criticized for failing to prevent the incident amid a government push to make tokyo a more international financial hub. >

i'm ramin mellegard. thank you for joining us. good to have you with. a strong earthquake in turkey and greece. at least 14 people known to have died. the magnitude seven quake collapsed buildings and caused a scene surge which flooded streets -- a sea surge and flooded streets. >> it was felt and the greek islands. it was one of the places affected by the earthquake. there was a partial

we had ramin in iran talk about the grassroots, right?nd how difficult this is to go back to the table with the u.s. government, any u.s. government. >> you're absolutely correct. i mean, any kind of a deal between the biden administration and iran is going to be extremely difficult, given what has happened in the past year or so. we're not just talking about the killing of the top iranian scientist, we're also talking about the anas natissassination top general. you have the details from your reporters, many reporters in the field. if you ask me the big picture, the historians, and i could be wrong, historians will look at this particular period about the trump administration because we say some actions receive the results from their intended consequences. what might be unintended consequences by the trump administration by pulling out of the nuclear deal with iran that was signed by president obama, by assassinating the general, and now israel assassinating, you know, the top scientist, it will not only complicate u.s./iranian relations

ramin oskoui in d.c. phil, by now, our leaders know these mitigation measures, which have severe consequences on children, families, businesses don't really work, so why did they keep pushing them? >> well, it's a very difficult thing for a politician or public health official, for that matter, laura, to say there's not much we can do with how it can spread, take reasonable precautions to the extent you can, especially if you're in a vulnerable group, and that is the best we can do. we have vaccines on the way and are improving our treatments but sorry, that is the best we can do. they don't want to ever say that. they want to say, i've got this under control, we are going to close of this. they want to look like they have a handle on the situation. they want to feel like they are in control, and that's why l unfortunately, that psychological need is leading them to repeat the very, same extremely costly disruptive policies that don't actually have any additional benefits over the reasonable precautions.