at 18:00 (JST), October 29 (AI-CC by Clipchamp)

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/upld/medias/en/radio/news/20241029180000_english_1.mp3

From our studios in Tokyo, this is NHK Newsline. I'm Ross Mihara.

Japanese political parties are jockeying to get control of the diet's lower house following Sunday's general election and time is ticking. Lawmakers are set to choose the country's next Prime Minister in a few weeks. The election dealt a severe blow to the ruling coalition. The Liberal Democratic Party and junior partner Kometo lost more than 60 seats, enough to lose control of the chamber.

Still, the LDP has secured the most seats in the House. Prime Minister and LDP leader Ishiba Shigeru says he will remain in his post and maintain the coalition government.

National politics cannot be allowed to stall even for a moment. I hope to fulfill my duties by protecting people's everyday life and Japan.

The LDP says it currently does not intend to expand the coalition, but instead plans to cooperate with the opposition parties on a policy by policy basis.　The party is reaching out to the opposition parties behind the scenes to try to secure enough votes at a special diet session to ensure Ishiba stays on as Prime Minister. The LDP has presented a plan to Komeito to convene the session by mid-November, taking diplomatic schedules into account.

The largest opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan increased its seat count by 50 in the election. It's considering to ask other parties to vote for its leader, former Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko.

I will devote my efforts to determining how we will approach the Special Diet session and how we will build a team to counter the ruling coalition. 

The Democratic Party for the People also made big strides in the election, quadrupling its seat count. Party leader Tamaki Yuichiro reiterated to reporters he has no intention to join the LDP-Komeito coalition. He says he is focused on implementing the economic policies his party pledged during the election campaign, including to raise people's net incomes. 

We will act based on policy. For good ones, we will cooperate. We will stick to this attitude not only toward the LDP and Komeito, but to the opposition parties as well.

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U.S. presidential candidates have returned to some battleground states to make another pitch. Election Day is a week away, and more than 43 million Americans have already cast their ballot. Democratic nominee Kamala Harris stopped by a factory in Michigan that makes silicon for computer chips. She says if elected, she would support manufacturing jobs and reassess what's required to get a job with the government. She told workers that they and other Americans have been presented with a serious choice. 

So I just got to also talk about the contrast because my opponent spends full time talking about. Just kind of diminishing who we are as America and talking down at people.

Republican nominee Donald Trump met with religious leaders in Georgia. He suggested Democrats are trying to persecute them. You're next because they're all everybody's next with this group and they have a very bad agenda and we have to stop it and we have to win this election. I think winning this election, I think it's going to be the most important election in the history of our country.

Analysts with the news site RealClearPolitics suggest Trump leads a national average of polls by less than one percentage point, and they say he is ahead in all seven battleground states. 

As pollsters predict a knife-edge presidential election, two leading U.S. newspapers are making waves for refusing to endorse a candidate. The Washington Post last Friday published an opinion piece stating it will not be making an endorsement in this election, nor in any future presidential election.
The paper's chief executive officer, William Lewis, wrote the Post had not endorsed a candidate up to 1976 and was going back to this policy. On the same day, the Post reported that its editorial staff had prepared an endorsement of Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, but it was not published. It said the decision was made by the newspaper's owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Critics on social media have called the decision cowardly.

U.S. broadcaster National Public Radio reported that more than 200,000 people had canceled their digital subscriptions by Monday. 
The Los Angeles Times also announced it would not endorse a candidate in this election. It has published an endorsement in every presidential election since 2008. Times owner Patrick Soon Sion said he feared picking one candidate would only exacerbate the already deep divisions in the country. His decision prompted three members of the editorial board to resign.

A nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan's Miyagi Prefecture is set to restart operations Tuesday. It will be the first one in the area to do so since 2011's massive earthquake and tsunami.
The disaster cut the Onagawa plant's #2 reactor off from many of its external power sources and flooded the underground facility. Operator Tohoku Electric Power Company has taken anti-disaster steps under government regulations, including raising the plant's seawalls to 29 meters above sea level. The reactor passed a Nuclear Regulation Authority screening four years ago. It will be the first boiling water type reactor to restart in the country since the disaster. That's the same kind that was used at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

The Onagawa plant's operator plans to begin removing control rods later Tuesday to activate the reactor. The company expects the reactor to reach a self-sustaining chain reaction at around midnight. Officials say power generation will likely start early next month if things go smoothly.

The deployment of North Korean troops to Russia is expected to be a talking point during the North Korean foreign minister's official visit to Russia.
North Korea's ruling Workers' Party newspaper Rodong Sinmun says that Choe Song-hee departed from Pyongyang on Monday ahead of a potential visit by Kim Jong-un. 

Russian officials told NHK that Choe is expected to lay the groundwork for the North Korean leader's trip to Russia, which is due to take place by the end of the year. Discussions between Choi and the Russian side are expected to center on the dispatch of North Korean troops to Russia, as well as the development of bilateral ties since the signing of their Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty. The treaty includes a promise of mutual military assistance if either country is attacked.

The US government says it has been in contact with China over North Korea's dispatch of troops to Russia. U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters on Monday that Washington has expressed its concern about the situation to Beijing.

They have an influential voice in the region, and they should be concerned about steps that Russia has taken to undermine stability. They should be concerned about steps that North Korea has taken. To undermine stability and security. 

In a separate briefing, the deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said Pyongyang is believed to have sent around 10,000 soldiers to train in eastern Russia. Singh added that they will probably be posted alongside Russian forces near Ukraine in the next few weeks. She did not give details about where Washington believes the North Korean troops are deployed, but said some of them have already moved closer to Ukraine.

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Iran, Israel and the United States exchanged words at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council held in response to the Israeli military's weekend airstrikes on Iran.
The meeting was held on Monday at Iran's request. Its UN ambassador, Amir Saeed Eravani, condemned the Israeli aggression, calling the actions a blatant and dangerous breach of international law and the UN Charter, particularly the principle of sovereignty and territorial integrity. 

The responsibility for this dangerous escalation lies squarely with the Israeli regime and certainly with those who enabled it. Foremost among them, the United States.

United Nations ambassadors from the US and Israel rejected that assessment. They urged Iran to refrain from conducting a counterattack. 

The United States did not participate in this military operation. Rather, we encourage the government of Israel to shape the operation as it did. Again, a targeted, proportional and direct response.

Israel has shown restraint. Any further aggression will be met with consequences that are swift and decisive. 

Israel conducted airstrikes against Iran early on Saturday. Multiple targets included missile production sites. The Israeli military said the strikes were a retaliation for Iran's massive missile launch at Israel earlier this month.
Israel's parliament has passed a bill that prohibits the United Nations Relief Agency for Palestinian refugees from operating in Israel. The legislation was passed by a majority vote on Monday. It will come into effect in 90 days. Israel argues that some staffers from the organization known as UNRA were involved in the surprise attack by Hamas on Israel in October last year. The UN dismissed 9 staffers suspected of being involved in the attack. Israel has since repeatedly pointed to possible links between UNRA and Hamas. It has called for UNRA to be disbanded and its responsibilities transferred to other UN agencies.

UNRA criticized the Israeli ban, labeling it as the latest attempt to discredit the agency and delegitimize its role in providing humanitarian relief to Palestinians. 

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres expressed concern over the bill in a statement on Monday. He called on Israel to act consistently with its obligations under international law and the UN Charter.

It's been a wet, cloudy day in Tokyo and in many parts of Japan, but the cooler weather is bringing in seasonal colors to the country. Our meteorologist Jonathan Oh has the details in world weather.

Hello. As it went through Tuesday, we had the stationary front that brought plenty of clouds from the western portion of Japan, also up into portions of the northeastern areas of the country. So we're seeing some of that cold, damp pattern in place, but the cooler weather is bringing in some colors into our autumn season. Take a look at this video coming out from Nikko, which is north of Tokyo. 

The fall foliage is at its peak around Lake Chuzengi in the Highlands of Tochigi Prefecture. The lake is renowned for its spectacular fall scenery, which tourists can enjoy from sightseeing boats. This year's prolonged heat delayed the color change of the leaves by more than a week, but the recent cooler weather has helped turn them red or orange. This is the best time to see this particular view, which will last until next week. However, you're gonna have to dodge some showers from time to time with the clouds in place because of the seasonal. Frontal boundary that's located South of Japan and we'll see the clouds in the rain as a part of the story for Wednesday. It will eventually shift toward the east and depart from the country, but you'll still need the umbrellas at least for Wednesday, especially from Tokyo points northward.

Temperatures are going to be topping up around that 20 degree mark from Niigata into Sendai, Tokyo 21 and Osaka at 23 for Wednesday. 

Meanwhile, we're keeping an eye on what's happening down toward the South. We have this tropical system in Congre continue to spin near the Philippines and having its impact there, but also showing some impacts into the smaller island Okinawa into Taiwan as well. The storm will continue to slowly drift toward the north and West and so you're going to see the impacts increasing more and more. So make sure that you adjust accordingly and make sure you find some safe locations to know where to go if this storm continues to move in your direction, which we are expecting it to do so over the next couple of days. 

Looking at what's happening across North America, we have a system moving through the central portions of the United States and that's going to bring some thunderstorms into the central plains with some cold air coming in behind it. Snow into the mountains possible and we'll be seeing that cold air and coming as far South as Colorado as we go through Tuesday. Hope you have a good day wherever you are.

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I'm Ross Mihara in Tokyo. We thank you for joining us on NHK Newsline.