at 20:00 (JST), February 01 AS

A comprehensive free trade deal between Japan and the European Union has come into force.

A senior Japanese labor ministry official has been removed from his post over a series of faulty surveys.

US President Donald Trump says he will announce the site and date for his second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his state of union address to Congress on Tuesday.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/upld/medias/en/radio/news/20190201200000_english_1.mp3


Key words : comprehensive free trade deal
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20190201_02/

A comprehensive free trade deal between Japan and the European Union has come into force. The pact will eventually remove tariffs on more than 90 percent of imports from both sides and liberalize rules in a broad spectrum of fields.

The Economic Partnership Agreement, or EPA, took effect on Friday. Japan and the EU ratified the deal last December.

Japan and the EU have a total population of 640 million. And they account for 28 percent of global GDP and 37 percent of the value of the world's trade.

Japan will eliminate tariffs on 94 percent of its imports from the EU, including agricultural products. The EU will scrap levies on 99 percent of imports from Japan.

The two sides will also liberalize rules in a wide range of areas, such as investment, services, and public procurement.

The Japanese government says the EPA will expand trade and investment, pushing up the country's real GDP by about one percent and create roughly 290,000 jobs.

Tokyo led negotiations on the EPA with the EU and another major free trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which involves Japan and 10 other nations. The TPP came into effect late last December.

The Japanese government hopes the two major trade deals will help advance the importance of free trade to the world amid growing protectionism.

Key words : today's news keywords segment Japan and EU EPA
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Key words : senior Japanese
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20190201_30/

A senior Japanese labor ministry official has been removed from his post over a series of faulty surveys.

Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Takumi Nemoto dismissed Yasuyuki Onishi as the director-general for statistics and information policy on Friday.

The ministry has been under fire in recent weeks following the revelation of a long-time practice of ministry officials conducting improper labor surveys.

The initial issue of the flawed monthly survey on wages and working hours prompted a review of all key government statistics. After the outcome of the review was released last week, new flaws came to light in the labor ministry's wage structure survey.

Speaking to reporters, Nemoto said Onishi knew of the improper methods used in the wage structure survey, but reported in the review that there were no problems.

Nemoto said Onishi later noticed his omission and reported it. The minister said it's not appropriate to keep him in the post any longer.

He said it is very regrettable that the ministry has failed to report all the problems when it should be doing everything it can to restore public trust in government data.

Opposition parties have also accused the ministry of failing to ensure the independence of an inquiry by a third-party panel. The opposition took issue with the panel holding interviews with ministry staff when senior officials were present.

Nemoto said the third-party panel is carrying out further investigations strictly and energetically. He added that ministry officials will be dedicated solely to providing clerical help.

Key words : senior diplomat
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20190201_33/

Senior diplomats and defense officials from Japan and China have held their first security dialogue in 15 months.

The Japan-China Security Dialogue took place at the state guest house in Beijing on Friday.

At the outset of the meeting, China's Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou said that Beijing hopes to use the talks to promote trust between the two countries.

Japan's Senior Deputy Foreign Minister, Takeo Mori, responded by acknowledging that both sides have concerns over the other's security policies, and that direct talks are essential to building confidence.

The talks are also expected to have covered defense exchanges, as well as the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

Observers believe the dialogue could be used to pave the way for a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Japan.

Key words : referendum on landfill work changed
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20190201_31/

A referendum on landfill work to relocate a US base within Okinawa is to be held across the prefecture, after five cities that had said they would not take part changed their minds.

In the February 24 referendum, residents of the southern prefecture will cast votes on landfill work in a coastal area of Henoko in Nago City.

The work is aimed at building a replacement facility for the US Marine Corps Futenma Air Station, now located in a densely populated area of Ginowan City.

Ginowan was one of the five cities that said they would not take part, on grounds that a "yes" or "no" vote would be insufficient for gauging public opinion.

But the cities shifted their stance after the prefecture's assembly passed a bill on Tuesday to add the third option of "neither."

The five cities have since approved budget bills needed to take part in the vote.

Key words : Trump announced second
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20190201_07/

US President Donald Trump says the location and exact date for his second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will be announced early next week.

Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday that the summit will be held at the "end of February."

Trump said North Korean officials "very much want the meeting."

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday that the summit will take place somewhere in Asia. One of the potential venues is Vietnam.

The US special representative for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, will start a visit to South Korea on Sunday. He also plans to meet North Korean officials to discuss substantive steps toward denuclearization.

Key words : US special envoy
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20190201_23/

The US special envoy for North Korea has suggested that Washington may discuss possible concessions to Pyongyang in the lead-up to a second bilateral summit, due to be held later this month.

In a speech at Stanford University in California on Thursday, Stephen Biegun said he planned to discuss "corresponding measures" the US can take in return for North Korea's denuclearization.

But he stressed that the US must have a complete understanding of the full extent of North Korea's weapons of mass destruction and missile programs through a comprehensive declaration.

Biegun said sanctions will not be lifted unless denuclearization is complete.

There is a growing view that the US may make concessions to prod North Korea toward denuclearization.

Biegun is expected to hold working-level talks with North Korean officials next week in South Korea ahead of the summit. The outcome of the talks is being closely watched.

Key words : and China ended their province
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20190201_32/

The United States and China have ended their latest round of trade negotiations in Washington, but officials say much work remains to be done. And President Trump said he's going to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping as early as this month to try to reach a final agreement.

The White House issued a statement on Thursday after the two-day meeting. US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He were among the participants.

The statement says that the talks covered a wide range of issues. These include forced technology transfers by China and alleged violation of intellectual property rights.

China's state-run Xinhua News Agency said, "Important progress has been made for the current stage." But it added that the two sides "will continue to hammer out more details."

Trump and Liu met after the talks. Trump later told reporters, "When President Xi and I meet, we want to have it down so that we have certain points that we can discuss, and I would say agree to. But we are not quite at that stage yet."

US media reported that the Chinese side proposed a summit meeting be held in China's southern province of Hainan later this month.

That's close to the March 1st deadline that the Trump administration has set for raising tariffs on Chinese goods if an agreement isn't reached.

Key words : weather center
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20190201_35/

Organizers of the 2020 Tokyo Games will establish a "weather center" with a special focus on protecting athletes and spectators from the city's scorching summer heat.

Weather centers are a standard feature of Olympic and Paralympic games. They provide analysis of temperatures, wind, rain and other data for outdoor events.

But Tokyo's "weather center" will place extra emphasis on heat data. It plans to stream information through mobile phone apps as part of an effort to protect both athletes and spectators from heatstroke.

The organizers say the center will have a staff of around 10 people, including certified weather forecasters. It will obtain previous data from private weather firms, and collaborate with the Meteorological Agency.

Tokyo and other parts of eastern Japan experienced record high temperatures last July, with the mercury topping 40 degrees Celsius in the suburbs of the capital.

The organizers are planning to move up the marathon and race walk events to the early morning hours. Schedules for mountain bike races and Rugby Sevens have also been changed to avoid the extreme heat.

Key words : sushi
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20190201_34/

Customers of a casual sushi restaurant chain in Japan now have a chance to enjoy yellowtail raised on chocolate.

The chain, operated by Kura Corporation, on Friday started serving sushi made with yellowtail farmed in Ehime Prefecture, western Japan.

The prefectural government and a local seafood trading firm developed the method of mixing chocolate into the fish's feed.

A substance in chocolate called polyphenol has an anti-oxidization effect. It helps retain the color of fresh fillets longer than usual.

People who tried the fish at an outlet in Tokyo on Friday said it doesn't taste like chocolate but has a richer taste and seems more nutritious.

Officials from Ehime Prefecture and the trading firm say they will go to North America this month to promote the new product.

Key words : gene discovered
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20190201_15/

A team of scientists has named the sleep-inducing gene it discovered "nemuri," which is the Japanese word for "sleep."

The team, led by Japanese researcher Hirofumi Toda of the University of Pennsylvania, discovered the gene through experiments on fruit flies. The finding was published in Friday's edition of the US journal Science.

The scientists say overexpression of the gene made fruit flies sleep longer, while the flies woke easily and had difficulty falling asleep when the gene was mutated.

They also found that the gene increased the ability of the flies to survive bacterial infection, leading them to believe that the gene plays a part in their immune system.

They think the gene triggers sleep when the body is under stress, such as sleep deprivation or bacterial infection.

The gene has yet to be detected in humans. But Toda points out that people with colds tend to sleep longer, which leads to recovery. He says the same type of mechanism observed in fruit flies may also be at work in humans.