their ballots in the country'sredeial t election since hosni mubarak was te 30 years in power.astea tomoko yamaguchi reports. >> reporter: two day voteit islamists against supporters of the hosni mub regime. >> translar:'m fli a sense of freedom to be able to choose the best leader for my country. >> translator: i hope thing will stabilizenhicountry. we also wantemra and security. >> reporter: front runners include muhammad morsi of the islam brotherhood a fundamentalist group a fotuh is also in the race. a moderateslist w lt the brotherhood. other strong cteer a ahmed shafiq a former air force commander an prime minister and amr moussa. he's a former foreign minister and secretary-geral. egyptians voted in parliament e econbeeeas november and january. islamic parties won the largest share of votes. threlt of the votes should be known within the week. no one is likely to win a majority. so the first andecdla finishers will face each other next month in a no. e winner is to become egypt's first clearly elected president. tomoko yaguchi, nh world, cairo. >>> saudi arabia is one of the most c

tomoko yamaguchi, nhk world, iro. >>> sdi abia is one of the most conservative arab nations, especially when it comes to women's place in society. they have been long been banned of work in the service sector. but change is coming at least when it comes to selling underwear. >> reporter: from the shopping mall saudi arabia is a man dominated society in every way. >> translator: women should defer to their husbands. tralator: islam teaches that women belong in the home. >> reporter: jeddah is one of saudi arabia's commercial cities and in its shopping malls all the sales people are all men. seven years ago it became legal for a woman to work in the service industry, but religious groups oppose this move. they said that allowing women to come in to close contact with many men would be disruptive to saudi society. as a result there still are very few women working in retail stores. however, thing are beginning to change. it has been only very recently that women have been able to work in stores selling lingerie. the change came about due to one woman's effort. she teaches at a job training

tomoko yamaguchi reports from cairo. >> reporter: support is growing for the muslim brotherhood. the group's leader, mohamed morsi, is leading the presidential race. during campaigning, he advocated building a nation based on islam and repeatedly made remarks about restricting women's rights. his remarks posted on the internet are also proving controversial. >> reporter: in parliament, islamist lawmakers are submitting bills about women. including one that would limit the rights. the secular policies adopted by the mubarak administration helped women to participate in society. egyptian women are now feeling a sense of crisis and fear that an islamist president may sharply restrict their rights. kamel is a tv anchor and pro-democracy activist. she ran in the presidential election on a platform calling for a promotion of women's rights. she drew attention as the only female candidate, but she pulled out of the race after an islamist group threatened here and disrupted her campaign. she fears that resurrection against women in egypt have been getting stricter by the days since mubar

tomoko. what about tomoko i asked? matzu gathered the food and wrapped it up. i followed you and the others down to the beach yesterday morning. i wondered if you might find your way to peace. i couldn't, i began to cry, turning away in shame. matzu lned over and smelled a sweat, it takes greater courage to live. [applause] >> i'm going to throw it open now to questions. so you might direct me as to what you might want to know about. as we are taping this with sfgov tv i will ask you to ask your question into the microphone so they can pick it up. and you, too will be on tv. now nobody wants to. i will ask a requequestion, wha you working on now? >> does that sound planted? it wasn't. i just finished a monster of a book it's a huge book, set in japan and covers the earth from 1939 and 1966 about 2 brothers and the title is a street of a thousand blossoms. if you haven't noticed we are talking about themes that run through my book. one of the things i like a lot is exploring subcultures. the lepercy. the silk working women. i like to write about groups of people

nhk world's tomoko kanada spoke with him about his disappointments and his hopes. >> reporter: now 86 years old, ota served as the okinawa governor from 1990 to 1998. after surviving the war, he devoted himself to studies at universities in okinawa, tokyo, and the united states, to try and understand why his islands had to make such a great sacrifice. during his tenure as governor, the okinawan people's anti-u.s. sentiment exploded after the rape of a teenage girl by three u.s. marine soldiers. in 1996, after a series of negotiations with the pentagon and tokyo, ota won a concession. the u.s. agreed to withdraw from bases from okinawa, including the notorious futenma marine air station. however, after the governor retired from the politics, the base issue became deadlocked over where to relocate it. >> people question so strongly that that the okinawa military bases should be cut down similar amount to the mainland japan. but this was not done. now there's great disappointment and anger toward the central government. local people here feel they are betrayed by the current central gove