northeast asia, the safer everyone is. you don't want anyone to be irrational. we do not want to have a war in northeast asia, we want to prevent one. these are two leaders have said that today, and will say it again tomorrow, that when the united states and japan are allied it makes all of northeast asia safer. katty: the other thing the prime minister was asked about is something congress will be watching during his address tomorrow what he says about the second world war. he was asked if it was not an opportunity to apologize for the council, does that make the japanese prime minister's life easier if you made an apology for what japan did during the second world war. >> i've literally lost count of how many times they have apologized. the apologies have been met with , very insincere is what was claimed. the prime minister is saying that japan has been a model citizen or 70 years, that should count for something. that is history as well. the secret to the united states 's and japan's relationship is that we are looking

so, the response time that those forces would have in any significant contingency in northeast asia or southeast asia is quite good. an important, that is why the forces have been -- for a long time. there is a variety of forces up there that are important to us. the fighter squadrons that are there, the bcts that are there, including the range complex as we have in alaska are very important, because that is where we get our training for our hardest active environments that are aviators have to fly in. >> how about you, in terms of korean contingency issues? general scaparrotti: i agree. we rely on those forces for quick response that were written need in times of crisis -- that we need in times of crisis. >> if you removed one or two ecgs from alaska -- bct to alaska, with that undermine our balances commitment. this goes to credibility. general scaparrotti: i think from her perspective of what the other outcomes were of that from a regional perspective, there are be questions about the lost troops -- >> and the credibility of our rebalance strategy? general scaparrotti: i think you h

i believe that alone has provided a level of stability to the issues in the east china sea, northeast asia. >> the press reports -- i appreciate and understand and agree with the points you've made -- the press reports i've seen suggest we'd be reducing that to writing. i think that can provide more clarity than words. can you comment briefly on your military to military relations with thailand at the time? >> well, we maintain military to military contact with thailand at a lower level. post-coup. we were on a very good slope, positive slope, i think. prior to the soupcoup the opportunities we were pursueing together was and control of the government. >> thank you. general scaparrotti korea is a unique area of oopperations in the world, calling for unique capabilities. our stated policy to as of january 1, 2019, we will no longer use munitions that have a greater than 1% unexploded rate. can you describe the effect this will have on current operations and contingency plans and the challenges it will face achieving that rate? >> yes, sir. the cluster munitions are an important part of the

influence in this region that we've been talking about today which is primarily southeast asia and northeast asia. and to understand we have to try to understand what their side of the equation is. and to be honest with you, some of the things they've done aren't really clear today. so, you know, we always get in a debate about whether wished continue mil to -- whether we should continue mil to mil. i am an proponent of continuing to take rusk there -- risk there. to try to establish those types of frameworks that allow us to communicate with each other in crisis we've had some good work with the prc lately of building confidence-building measures that help us understand how to operate with each other in these constrained waterways so we don't have a bunch of captains and commanders of ships out there making bad decisions that might escalate us into something that -- that escalate us into a -- [inaudible] trap. i think we need to continue to keep engaging them but i think we need to be forthright and what the position is on u.s. behavior and it doesn't match what our allies and partners and value

the response time that those forces would have into any significant contingency in northeast asia or southeast asia is quite good. and important. that's why the forces i think have been to me -- pay com for a long time. there is a variety of forces up there that are important to us. the fighter squadrons that are there, the bcts that are in including the range complexes we have in alaska are very important. that's why we get our high end training for some of our hardest types of environments aviators may have to fly in. >> general scaparrotti, how about you in terms of the korean contingency issues? >> i agree with admiral locklear. we rely on those forces as part of our quick response we need in crisis. we also train with them regularly and we also send forces to train there too. >> you think if we removed one or two bcts from alaska, do you think that would show that we're committed to a rebalance or undermine our rebalance commitment? again, this goes to credibility? >> i think that from a perspective of what the other outcomes were of that from a regional perspective there would b

now, i want to wrap things up here into northeast asia. let's end on a good note. we had storms in japan on monday. things are improving. high pressure coming in now and temperatures are going it be rising up with some clear conditions later on this week. i'll leave you now with your extended outlook. >>> that wraps up this edition of "newsline." i'm catherine kobayashi in tokyo. stay with us. we'll be back at the top of the hour. xnóxour highlights of the past week which includes these and other stories. brave new world. a famous frankfurt museum revamps its digital profile. saving the world. why bicycles from sustainable materials are all the rage. surreal world. the spectacular images of photographer pierre winther. it was in 1815 that johann friedrich stadel -- a frankfurt banker and merchant -- made a key stipulation in his will. his considerable art collection was to be housed in a museum that was open to all citizens of frankfurt. in so doing he l

sit down to discuss north korea's nuclear and missile programs, and ways to ensure stability in northeast asia. akitaka saiki is japan's vice prime minister. he'll meet with u.s. deputy secretary of state antony blinken and south korea's first vis foreign minister cho tae-yong. he's expected to help the two countries work toward reconciliation. saiki will also meet with senior u.s. officials to discuss a meeting between prime minister shinzo abe and president barack obama. the two leaders are scheduled to hold talks on april 28th. >>> japan's central bank will continue its easy money policy in a bid to keep the economy going. gene otani is here with the latest. gene? >> well, the markets reacted but there were no surprises here. same as usual. policymakers at the bank of japan took a vote and were 8-1 in favor of maintaining the massive monetary easing program. the aim is to achieve a 2% inflation target. the board members wrapped up a two-day policy meeting on wednesday. they kept their assessment of the economy unchanged, saying a moderate recovery trend is continuing. the policymakers say p

so the response time that those forces would have in the significant contingency in northeast asia or southeast asia is quite good. and important. that's why the other forces, i think, have been op-kon co-con to me for a long time. there's a variety of forces up there that are important to us. the fighter squadrons that are there, the bcts that are there including the ranges. the range complexes we have in alaska are very important because that's where we get our high end training for sort of our hardest types of environments that our aviators may have to fly in. >> general how about you in terms of just the korean contingency issue? >> i agree with admiral locklear. we rely on those forces as a part of our quick response which we'll need in crisis. we also train with them regularly, and we also send forces to train them, too. >> you think if we remove onory two bcts from alaska that would show that we're committed to a rebalance or undermine the rebalance commitment? again, this goes to credibility. >> well, i think that from a perspective of what the other outcomes were of that, fro

in this region that we have been talking about today, which is primarily east, southeast asia, northeast asia. and

forces in japan have helped to safe gart the political economic development of northeast asia. we have worked as partners to deter aggression. to respond in natural by sassters and combat terrorism oppose proliferation protect the region sea lanes and foster growth that is transforming all of asia. our dialogue focused on particularly transformative achievement. the completion of the new guidelines unfortunate u.s. japan defense corporation which is our first such revision since 1997. obviously an enormous amount has changed. after long consideration japan has taken on itself a greater international role within the past decades it has established a national security council. it has sent forces to iraq and kuwait and participated in in endureing freedom in the indian association. all of this in involving risks and dangerous pacific and across the globe. the guidelines we have work and that have been announced today will enhance japan's security. the united states and japan stand together to be resolved peacefully. we reject any suggestion that freedom of navigation oversight and

rebalance discussion was to try to move ourselves from what had been a postwar to a location in northeast asia to bring that to be more relevant to the security challenges throughout the region. a number of initiatives. one is that with our filipino allies reinvigorating that alliance and looking at the capabilities to help them improve minimum defense, but also to improve access to the region to improve better security. we have opened partnerships with nations in southeast asia that we would not have considered possible in the last couple decades. vietnam, malaysia, indonesia. they have become increasingly important to the security of the region. senator reed: as the chinese are creating artificial islands in the pacific, there are real geographic islands that our allies control. are we thinking about in conjunction with our allies positioning forces, in effect, using islands as a sort of a way to deny, you know, ocean to the chinese? admiral locklear: i will not go into specifics, but i would say that we are maturing the alliances we have their set right for the security we are going to see

asia. looking quite fine over northern portion of china but storms spreading in to south korea and north korea by saturday and a low pressure system over northeast india. this system has been with you over the past couple of days because of severe weather at least 42 people have been killed due to hail stones as well as flooding over northeast india and this system will likely sit here for a while. scattered rainfall for much of the indochina peninsula and temperatures are on the rise over northern portions of asia. take a look at these highs. ulan bator 23 degrees on friday. tokyo staying quite warm and still over 20 degrees over the next three days. let's enjoy the warm weather. now let's go the americas. we talked about severe rainfall over eastern portions of the united states due to heavy rainfall, a sinkhole opened up in parts of it. take a look at this footage coming out. a sinkhole found near two homes because of the sinkhole actually many people have evacuated from this area. now the system has gone so precipitation has gone across many part of northeastern portions of the united states. that's good news. but actually temperature are on

asia, this guy's the 'em regard ash borer. he -- emerald ash borer. he bores into ash trees. usually the results are fatal for the trees. if you live in the northeastas i do, you see these signs saying please, do not move firewood. that is to try to prevent the spread of this bug. and a lot of the trees in the forest of the northeastern u.s. and midwestern u.s. are ash trees, so he's also a very worrisome, relatively recent arrival. and not all invaders -- i just want to say not all invasive species are from asia. this guy's from eastern europe, he's a zebra mussel. also a very voracious eater. he has a nasty habit as you can see, of sticking to every available surface and eating virtually everything in the water column. so all of these species were transported by people from somewhere very far away, and when they got to a new place they didn't have any enemies, so they just proliferated. they did really, really well. and moving species around the world is something we do every day. talk about we do it purposefully -- often we do it purposefully. most of us probably have plants in our yards, for example, that are nonnative species and many people t

northeast means a tough spring for allergy sufferers. how bad is it going to get and why climate change plays a role. >> defense secretary ash carter kicked off his first tour of asia today. he's in japan to emphasize the alliance between the u.s. and tokyo. he's working to set up a plan for japan to play a bigger role in security in the region. he travels to south korea later this week. >> a federal judge in texas refuses to lift a temporary hold on the action on immigration saying he doesn't feel the president's order needs to be implemented immediately. >> air traffic controllers in france are on strike. 40% of flights have been canceled as a result. workers want better job and retirement conditions. long haul flights including to the u.s. are not affected. >> reports that russian hackers penetrated a white house computer network are raising concerns about the security of government servers this morning. national security officials insist the breach did not compromise classified data. randall pinkston is here. good morning. this actually began at another department. >> the attack happened last october at the u.s. department of state. officials confirmed it at th