Welcome to NHK Newsline. I'm Ramin Mellegard in Tokyo.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, has met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to push for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of hostages. The Israeli Prime Minister's Office says the meeting was held on Saturday. Trump has said there will be hell to pay if Hamas does not release the hostages before his inauguration on January 20.
The office also says Netanyahu told the head of the Mossad intelligence agency and other officials to depart for Qatar. Negotiations are underway in Qatar to reach a deal to halt the fighting between Israel and Hamas and to free the hostages. Local media quotes sources as saying some progress has been made in the negotiations.
And top officials from Britain and China have been holding talks in Beijing aimed at boosting trade and investment. The meeting comes just over a week before Donald Trump returns to the US presidency with vows to implement protectionist policies. The UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, met Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng on Saturday. Now, Reeves traveled with top finance executives for the first high-level economic and financial talks between the two countries in about six years. The British government said the delegates agreed to deeper cooperation in areas including financial services, trade and investment.
This government recognizes that as two major economies. We have an obligation to work together to find pragmatic solutions to shared global challenges and to boost our economic growth for the benefit of working people in both of our countries.
Now U.S. President-elect Trump has been threatening to increase tariffs when he takes office. The United States is an important trade partner for the both countries.
And dozens of academic organizations in Germany and Austria have said they're leaving the social media platform X. They say X is no longer, no longer fulfills its responsibility to promote fair and democratic discourse.
More than 60 universities and research institutions made the announcement on Friday. They claim X's algorithm amplifies right wing populist content.
They call its current direction incompatible with the institution's core values, such as scientific integrity and democratic discourse. Goethe University in Frankfurt, which jointly announced its withdrawal, said in a statement that the platform changed after it was acquired by US tech billionaire Elon Musk. It said X's algorithm has been manipulated to favor content that corresponds to the owner's world view. The university also said X has developed from a place of constructive exchange into a tool for disinformation. Musk has been accused of meddling ahead of Germany's upcoming parliamentary election next month. He made an appeal to X. He made an appeal on X to German voters urging them to support a right-wing political party, which takes a tough line on migrants and refugees.
Police say evacuation orders or warnings remain in effect for over 300,000 residents. They also say they're still receiving reports about people who are unaccounted for.
A fire started in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood on Tuesday and spread quickly by strong winds.
Separate fires broke out in northeastern Los Angeles and other areas. New mandatory evacuation orders have been issued for areas, including the Getty Center, which is home to one of the world's renowned museums. Many people evacuated by car, causing severe road congestion. The wildfires have burned more than 160 square kilometers, 16 deaths have been reported and the tally of damaged or destroyed structures comes to over 10,000.
Authorities have declared a public health emergency, saying hazardous smoke and particulate matter has degraded air quality. Firefighters are finally getting many of the blazes under control now that winds have abated, but authorities say people should remain on the alert as winds could intensify again.
Now an update on Nippon Steel's takeover bid for U.S. Steel. The Japanese and U.S.
companies say the Biden administration has now extended the deadline to permanently abandon their transaction.
The two companies say that the Committee on Foreign Investment, or CFIUS, has granted them an extension to June 18. The initial deadline was early February. The companies say they're looking forward to completing the transaction, saying it will secure the best future for the American steel industry and all of their stakeholders.
U.S. President Joe Biden blocked the takeover of the U.S. company on January 3, citing national security concerns. An executive order gave the two firms 30 days to complete all steps necessary to abandon the plan. The decision on the deal was left to Biden after CFUS failed to reach a consensus in its review. The two steelmakers have filed a lawsuit against Biden's decision, saying there was a political interference. They're asking that the presidential order be overturned and a fresh review be allowed.
A cybersecurity firm says 46 companies and organizations in Japan were targeted in likely distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attacks. That involves sending massive amounts of data to websites or servers to make them crash. Since late December, cyberattacks have hit Japanese companies, including Japan Airlines, MUFG Bank, and mobile carrier NTT Docomo. The businesses say this led to glitches in their systems or disrupted access to their websites. The attacks are believed to be of a type called distributed denial of service, or DDoS. Under that kind of attack, networks are overwhelmed by massive data, which causes disruptions and service suspensions. Trend Micro has identified and analyzed networks called botnets that it says were very likely involved. The company has learned that 46 businesses and organizations in Japan came under such attacks between December 27 and January 9. It says the targets had little in common and were across a variety of sectors, including brokerage, insurance and transport. Companies based in the United States and other countries were also targeted.
You know These attacks may have been carried out for surveillance in preparation for full-fledged attacks. It's difficult to determine the purpose because it's hard to see the entire picture.
The expert adds that the attacks could have been part of the same campaign.
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And those are the top stories for this hour.
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I'm Ramin Mellegard. Thank you very much for joining us.
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