A special plane carrying a "pre-advance" team of US government officials has been dispatched to Singapore to prepare for the first-ever summit between the United States and North Korea.
Japanese lawmakers are moving to boost the country's infrastructure exports.
The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan has started preparation to retrieve fuel from one of the reactor buildings.
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/upld/medias/en/radio/news/20180528200000_english_1.mp3
Key words : special plane
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20180528_25/
A special plane carrying a "pre-advance" team of US government officials has been dispatched to Singapore to prepare for the first-ever summit between the United States and North Korea.
The move comes after US President Donald Trump expressed a desire to hold the summit on June 12th as initially planned, despite abruptly announcing last week that he would cancel the meeting.
The government plane carrying the team made a stopover at US Yokota Air Base in Tokyo on Monday.
Multiple sources say those on board include the White House deputy chief of staff for operations, Joe Hagin. The sources say the team is mainly made up of officials from the White House and State Department.
The plane left the base for Singapore Monday at around 3PM Japan time. The team is believed to be coordinating the itinerary and venue for talks between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The Trump administration appears to have dispatched delegates to North Korea to discuss the issue of denuclearization, the focal point of the summit talks.
Both Trump and Kim have expressed their willingness to meet in Singapore on June 12th as initially planned.
Key words : Abe again denied
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20180528_14/
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has again denied that he met a friend to discuss a plan to open a veterinary school at the center of an alleged favoritism scandal.
Abe spoke before an Upper House committee on Monday, one week after the governor of Ehime Prefecture submitted newly found documents to the Diet about the school that opened in Imabari City in April.
The operator, Kake Educational Institution, is headed by Abe's close friend, Kotaro Kake.
The files say that Kake met Abe in February 2015 and explained the project. This was before Imabari City applied to open the school under a special deregulation program.
But on Saturday, the institution released a comment, saying that Kake did not meet the prime minister in February 2015.
Abe told the committee that the accusation is "hearsay about hearsay," as no prefectural officials were present at the alleged meeting. He said Kake has also denied that it ever took place.
Abe added that the approval process for the school has nothing to do with whether he met Kake.
A lawmaker from the opposition Democratic Party For the People, Teruhiko Mashiko, referred to a remark Abe made last year about the sale of state-owned land to another school operator, Moritomo Gakuen.
Mashiko said there have been cover-ups, false testimonies, and documents have been tampered with and discarded since Abe said he would step down as prime minister and lawmaker if it can be proved that he or his wife were involved in the sale.
The Finance Ministry sold the plot of land in Osaka to Moritomo at a heavily discounted price. Abe's wife briefly served as the honorary principal of the elementary school that was supposed to open at the site.
Abe said he was clearly not involved in the transaction, and neither was his wife, nor his office, and his remark did not trigger these incidents.
Key words : finance admitted
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20180528_24/
Japan's Finance Ministry has admitted that its local bureau asked to pad the waste removal cost in a land deal in an alleged favoritism scandal.
It revealed this at a Lower House committee meeting on Monday in connection with the sale of state-owned land to school operator Moritomo Gakuen at a fraction of market value.
An opposition lawmaker said the bureau in Osaka Prefecture discounted the cost by about 7.5 million dollars, although a local civil aviation office that owned the land estimated that the discount should have been around 5.5 million dollars.
The chief of the ministry's Financial Bureau, Mitsuru Ota, said the aviation office gave its estimate in April 2016, and said the cost only covers the area on which school facilities will be built.
Ota said the bureau had been told by Moritomo's side that there is buried waste elsewhere, so the bureau asked whether it would be all right to make the estimate on the assumption that there is no more waste.
He said no one at the bureau remembers mentioning the concrete figure, but they did tell the aviation office to expand the area to be covered by waste disposal work.
Ota acknowledged that it's tantamount to asking the aviation office to pad the cost.
A lawmaker from the ruling party referred to a photo of the then-head of the school operator with his wife and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's wife Akie.
The school operator reportedly showed the picture to the bureau on April 28th, 2014, and demanded that it swiftly proceed with land deal negotiations. But negotiation papers the ministry recently submitted to the Diet do not include any records from that day.
The lawmaker asked whether the ministry really submitted all records available.
Finance Minister Taro Aso said there may be more, but the submitted papers are all the ministry has at the moment.
The opposition bloc is requesting that Aso step down over the alleged scandal. But Aso refused, saying that he must oversee the ministry's efforts to look into how the allegation occurred and how to prevent a recurrence.
Prime Minister Abe reiterated his intention to keep Aso in his post.
Key words : Japanese lawmaker
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20180528_18/
Japanese lawmakers are moving to boost the country's infrastructure exports. They've passed legislation that lets government agencies provide support to firms competing for projects overseas.
The law will allow agencies to take part in negotiations with foreign local governments and conduct feasibility surveys.
Japanese companies have had difficulties winning contracts on their own. Experts say the projects often require specialized technology and know-how that's possessed by government agencies.
Infrastructure exports are a key pillar of Japan's growth strategy.
The government is aiming to boost the total value of orders to 30 trillion yen, or about 275 billion dollars, by 2020. That's a 50-percent increase from 2015.
Key words : operator damaged
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20180528_21/
The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has started laying the groundwork to retrieve fuel from one of the plant's reactor buildings. It's a crucial step toward scrapping the complex.
Tokyo Electric Power Company began the work on Monday to move 615 fuel rods from a storage pool on the top floor of the No. 2 reactor to a more secure location.
The No. 2 reactor is one of 3 at the plant that melted down in the 2011 accident. Radiation levels inside the reactor building remain high.
TEPCO will open a hole measuring 5 by 7 meters in the building's wall and send a robot through it to measure radiation levels inside.
A section of the wall will be divided into 29 blocks, each with a handle to facilitate its removal.
From a control room some distance from the reactor building, TEPCO officials will remotely operate a machine to remove the blocks.
The work is expected to continue until mid-June.
The plant operator will measure radiation levels before deciding how to retrieve the fuel rods. The company plans to start retrieving the fuel in fiscal 2023.
TEPCO official Hiroshi Noda says that although the decommissioning work for the No. 2 reactor has just started, it's a major step forward.
He says the company will make sure that the work will have no impact on the environment.
Key words : Georgian happy
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20180528_16/
Georgian sumo wrestler Tochinoshin says he will be happy if he is promoted to the sport's second-highest rank of Ozeki.
The third-ranked Sekiwake wrestler spoke to reporters on Monday after he effectively secured his promotion in the summer tournament that ended the previous day.
Tochinoshin marked 13 wins and 2 losses, bringing his total number of wins in the past 3 tournaments to 37. That's well above the threshold of 33 considered necessary for promotion to Ozeki.
Tochinoshin said he didn't feel much pressure because he focused on one bout at a time.
The 30-year-old wrestler said he wanted to be promoted sooner, but he is still happy. He noted that he will train hard to give his best in the ring.
Tochinoshin's promotion is expected to become official at an emergency board meeting of the Japan Sumo Association on Wednesday.
Yokozuna grand champion Kakuryu won the summer tournament on Sunday by defeating his rival Yokozuna, Hakuho. This is the first back-to-back title for Kakuryu.
It's also the Mongolian wrestler's 5th career title.
Key words : Insight summer grand tournament
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Key words : Japan tax agency
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20180528_17/
Japan's National Tax Agency believes that hundreds of people last year earned significant incomes from trading in digital currencies.
The data is based on 2017 tax returns.
At least 331 people reported making at least 100 million yen, or about 910,000 dollars, from cryptocurrencies.
The officials say the trend reflects the sharp rise in prices of Bitcoin and other virtual currencies last year.
An expert says the high-income investors are a tiny minority of all the traders in Japan. The expert says they managed to acquire the cryptocurrencies before prices started to take off.
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