Welcome to NHK “Newsline.” I’m Ramin Mellegard in Tokyo.
We start with the latest conflict in the Middle East. The Israeli military is not letting up in its attacks against Hezbollah, both from the air and on the ground. The Israelis say Hezbollah launched about 100 projectiles, including rockets, from Lebanon toward their country. They say Israeli forces struck over 2,000 Hezbollah military targets. They claim about 250 fighters have been killed. Hezbollah says it has conducted a series of strikes against Israel. It says some were killed and injured in the attacks. The New York Times quoted Israeli officials as saying their forces have bombed an underground bunker near Beirut. It says the military was tipped off that senior Hezbollah officials were holding a meeting there. The article says one of the attendees was the presumed successor to the group’s late leader Hassan Nasrallah. More than a million people in Lebanon have been forced from their homes. Officials at the United Nations say most of the nearly 900 shelters set up by the government are full. They say people are sleeping out in the open on streets or in parks.
U.S. President Joe Biden says Israel will not decide immediately on countermeasures against the recent massive missile attack by Iran. Biden spoke at a news conference at the White House on Friday. “The Israelis have not concluded what they’re going to do in terms of a strike. That’s under discussion.” He also made comments about the possibility that Israelis may strike Iranian oil facilities. “I think there are – if I were in their shoes, I’d be thinking about other alternatives than striking oil fields.” On the previous day, Biden responded that the U.S. and Israel were in discussion about whether he supported Israel striking Iranian oil facilities. Biden’s comments prompted oil futures to rise as there was a widespread view that the chance of Iranian oil facilities becoming the target of an Israeli attack could not be ruled out. Now, former U.S. President Donald Trump has criticized Biden for voicing opposition to Israel possibly targeting Iranian nuclear sites. One participant at a campaign rally in the southern state of North Carolina on Friday asked Trump about potential countermeasures in response to Iran’s recent missile attack on Israel. “When they asked him that question, the answer should have been, ‘Hit the nuclear first, worry about the rest later.’” Trump also said Biden got that one wrong.
It’s been two weeks since record heavy rains devastated the Noto region of the central Japanese prefecture of Ishikawa. Residents are continuing their struggle to recover their lives. Record-breaking downpours that hit Ishikawa Prefecture on September 21st deluged areas like Wajima, Suzu, and Noto Town. Flood-ravaged houses remain inundated with mud, and volunteers are being called on to help clear the wreckage. The prefectural government sent about 250 volunteers to the three municipalities on Saturday. This followed the suspension of their dispatch on Thursday and Friday due to further rain. About ten workers were seen removing waterlogged mats from a flooded house, scooping mud into buckets, and cleaning floors. “This is the third time we’re seeing the volunteers. I can’t thank them enough for their hard work and clearing away the mud,” said one resident. “The few tons are waterlogged and so much heavier than usual. We want to do as much as possible to help this region recover,” said another. It’s the second catastrophe in a short period. The region was devastated by an earthquake in January. The twin disasters are having a major social and psychological impact on the people of the region.
As Saturday marks the 60th birthday of a woman abducted in North Korea, her mother is again urging the government to bring her daughter back. Megumi Yokota was kidnapped in 1977 by agents on her way home from school in Niigata Prefecture. She was 13. Her mother, 88-year-old Sakie Yokota, took part in a rally on Friday in Tokyo. “Megumi did nothing wrong. She was taken away to North Korea. It has been an unbelievably long time,” she said. Megumi’s younger brother also took part in the rally. Takuya Yokota said a group of abductees’ families he heads is opposed to setting up a liaison office in Pyongyang. The idea was recently proposed by Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba. “North Korea strictly controls the abductees and knows who, when, and where they are. The liaison office would help Pyongyang buy time or put an end to the issue,” he said. The Japanese government says at least 17 citizens were abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and ’80s. Five returned to Japan after a summit in 2002, but the other 12 remain unaccounted for.
Leaders in the European Union are a step closer to slapping additional tariffs on battery electric vehicles from China. They want to protect the market from what they describe as Beijing’s injurious subsidization. They voted to impose tariffs up to 33.5% on top of the original 10% levy. It was backed by ten members including France, the largest economy in the bloc, while Germany and four others voted against it, and 11 others abstained. The measure is slated to start at the end of the month and run for five years. Officials also say there’s still time to find a compromise through dialogue. “The reason we continue negotiating and negotiating in good faith and in a meaningful, constructive way with our Chinese counterparts is because we want to find a solution,” said one EU official. A Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesperson released a statement accusing the EU of unfair and protectionist practices while also acknowledging the bloc’s willingness to talk. The two sides are going tit-for-tat on trade. Beijing has been carrying out an anti-dumping probe into pork and cheese from Europe in response to the EU’s tariffs.
A U.S. tech giant Meta has unveiled a new artificial intelligence tool that can create videos of up to 16 seconds based on text and photo inputs. The company announced the generative A.I. model called MovieGen on Friday with examples shown on its website. When text is input along with a photo, MovieGen creates a high-resolution video of the woman in the photo keeping rhythm as instructed. The A.I. model can add sound effects or replace images in existing videos. A sample movie shows a flying lantern being changed into a large soap bubble. Meta says MovieGen is still under development. It expects to release the A.I. tool next year after taking safety measures to prevent misuse. Competition is heating up over A.I. video creation as OpenAI and Google are also developing similar technologies.
And those were the top stories for this hour.
That is a wrap for this edition of NHK “Newsline.” I’m Ramin Mellegard. Thank you very much for joining us.
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