Welcome back to NHK Newsline. I'm Kaneko Sakno. We start this hour with Russia and North Korea.
Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn't denied that North Korean troops are in his country.
Putin spoke at a press conference Thursday after the BRICS summit. When asked about satellite images showing the troops were in Russia, he said, If there are images, then they are reflecting something.
Putin also said Moscow is in touch with Pyongyang, calling them friends. South Korea's defense minister claimed the troops are wearing Russian uniforms and acting under Moscow's command. He also said 12,000 soldiers will be dispatched.
Ukrainian officials say the first units were sent to the Russian region of Kursk. Kiev has launched an offensive in the area and considers it a combat zone. They believe the Kremlin has high hopes for the North Korean component in the war. Moscow has also ratified the country's comprehensive strategic partnership with North Korea. That's the treaty Putin signed with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June. They agreed their forces would provide what they called all means of military assistance if either country was attacked.
The issue is likely to come up at a meeting of security advisers taking place in Washington on Friday, and HK has learned top officials from Japan, the US and South Korea are reaffirming their cooperation. The Secretary General of Japan's National Security Secretariat, Akiba Takeo, is meeting with his counterparts Jake Sullivan and Shin Won-shik. They're expected to discuss ways to maintain relations and jointly cope with international issues.
That includes China and Russia's increasing military activities and North Korea's nuclear and missile programs. They'll also likely discuss the reports of North Korean troops in Russia.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama has joined Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on stage at a campaign rally. This marked the first time the two have campaigned together. There's less than two weeks to go before Election Day.
US Vice President Harris and Obama attended the rally on Thursday in Georgia, one of the so-called battleground states. Obama said he noticed that some, especially men, seem to think that the behaviour of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is a sign of strength or machismo. He said real strength is about taking responsibility and telling the truth, even when it's inconvenient.
We've got a candidate to vote for in this election who demonstrates that kind of character, who knows what real strength looks like. There's a choice that everybody has, so let's imagine it for a moment. It's either Donald Trump in there, stewing, stewing over his enemies list, or me, working for you. Checking off my To Do List.
Meanwhile, Trump declared during a conservative radio show on Thursday that if he retakes the presidency, he would fire Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith within two seconds.
Smith has been leading the investigation into the attack on the US Capitol in January 2021. Trump is facing criminal charges over the case, including conspiracy to defraud the US.
Trump has criticised Smith as a very dishonest and mean man. Kamala Harris's campaign team issued a statement in response to Trump's declaration. It said Donald Trump thinks he's above the law. It added that a second Trump term is guaranteed to be more dangerous.
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One Japanese tourist was killed and ten others were injured after a bus and a truck collided on an expressway in western Malaysia. The travel agency that arranged the tour says the bus was carrying 11 Japanese tourists as well as a local driver and guide. The crash happened in Perak state on Thursday. The company says a Japanese woman in her 70s was killed in the accident. It says four other tourists have been hospitalized and are conscious.
The company says the bus was heading to Cameron Highlands, one of Malaysia's most popular tourist destinations. The Japanese travelers were scheduled to fly back to Japan on Sunday.
As the company that arranged the trip, we are very sorry and offer our deepest and sincerest apologies. We are committed to supporting customers and their families affected by the accident.
Police are trying to determine the cause of the accident.
A manga artist has received the Order of Culture from the Japanese government for the first time. Shiba Tetsuya is the illustrator of Ashitanojo, a pioneering boxing manga series in Japan. The order recognizes individuals who've made outstanding contributions in developing Japanese culture. Since beginning as a manga artist at the age of 17, Chiba has created many hits. His work is known for focusing on sports and featuring poor but sincere characters. Ashitanojo, or Fighting for Tomorrow, debuted in 1968 and became a huge hit. The manga series was such a social phenomenon that people actually held a funeral for the main character's boxing rival after he died in the story. Chiba said he and his predecessors helped elevate manga from being seen as books for children to being recognised as culture. The 85 year old said he was honoured to receive the award and hopes manga continues to be cherished as culture.
The United Nations is warning that without urgent action, global temperatures could rise up to 3.1 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. There is a direct link between increasing emissions and increasingly frequent and intense climate disasters. Today's emissions gap report is clear. We are playing with fire, but there can be no more playing for time. We are out of time.
A new report from the UN Environment Programme revealed that global greenhouse gas emissions jumped to a record high in 2023, with 57.1 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent being pumped into the atmosphere. That's a 1.3% increase from the previous year.
Emissions fell by 7.5% in the EU and 1.4% in the United States, but increased by 5.2% in China and 6.1% in India. The UN says that to meet the Paris Agreement target of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, emissions must be cut by 42% by compared with 2019 levels. Countries are required to submit emission reduction targets for 2035 by February. With COP29 talks approaching next month, the report is calling for bold new commitments to drastically lower emissions.
Taiwanese companies are renowned globally in the fields of semiconductors and AI, and some startups are now stepping up efforts to enter the Japanese market. NHK World's Yoshida Mayu has the story.
This business event was held in Tokyo in September to promote the technology of Taiwanese startups. About 50 companies participated, including one that develops translation systems using AI. In recent years, ongoing political tensions between Taiwan and China have led more Taiwanese companies to look into opportunities in Japan.
For now, our company is not entering the Chinese market.
Laws in China can change suddenly.
Japan has an environment where you can do business with peace of mind. This Taiwanese app development company entered Japan four years ago. It developed an app to prevent spam calls. The system uses AI to detect calls suspected of fraud. A warning is then displayed on the screen. One in two people in Taiwan are said to have downloaded this app. The company's headquarters are in Taipei.
This is the time the call came. AI identifies suspicious phone numbers and websites based on a database of 2.6 billion entries.
The highly developed countries, rich countries, is easily become the target of scammers. So this makes Japan one of the very important market for us to enter.
After being told by a Japanese firm that spam calls are increasing at call centers, Kuo thought his company's technology could be applied, so they're co-developing a new product for the Japanese market.
They jointly developed software that displays a warning on a PC screen when a spam call is made to a landline.
The amount of data is abundant and the information is accurate. It's a service that is not available in Japan, so we thought this service is good. The startup believes if they're successful expanding into Japan, it could open the doors to Europe and the US.
Japan is facing some issues in terms of like scams and also like the elderly aging problems are looking forward for, you know, different like collaborations with Japanese enterprise.
An organization was newly set up in Tokyo to offer support for Taiwanese companies. And Japan is likely to attract more startups in the future. Yoshida Mayu, NHK World.
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It's time now for a look at the world weather. A cyclone has been battering the eastern coast of India. Our meteorologist Yumi Hirano has the details.
The storm named Dhana already brought 159 millimeters of rainfall in just one day in one area of the east. In addition to heavy downpours, strong winds were reported. We have some video.
Dhana made landfall in eastern India as a severe cyclonic storm with gusts of up to 120 kilometers per hour. It brought trench or rain and strong winds, causing flooding, downing trees, and damaging homes and power lines. Authorities closed the schools, canceled flights, and hauled hundreds of train services. More than half a million people were evacuated ahead of the storm.
On Friday, another 200 millimeters of rain and gusts of up to 120 kilometers per hour are expected, leading to high risk of flooding, landslides and power outages. People in the Philippines have also been struggling with a tropical system. Northern parts of the country have already received more than 900 millimeters of rain. The storm is now moving offshore, but still bringing windy conditions. And is expected to linger near the Vietnam coast over the weekend.
There is one more system over the Pacific that we need to monitor. The system is expected to intensify into a severe tropical storm and move toward Taiwan and Japan's Okinawa Islands early next week. Even the mainland of Japan faces the possibility of a heavy rain in the middle of the middle of next week due to the combination of tropical moisture and frontal systems. So please keep an eye out the latest weather updates. That's it for me. Have a nice weekend.
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Thanks very much for joining us.
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