at 18:00 (JST), January 20

20250120180000_english_1.mp3

Hello, a very warm welcome to NHK Newsline. I'm Yamamoto Miki in Tokyo.

Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on Monday.
He's promised big changes on his first day, including a sweeping crackdown against undocumented immigrants.

Very soon, we'll begin the largest deportation operation in American history by the time the sun sets tomorrow evening, the invasion of our borders will have come to a halt.

Trump held a victory rally with supporters in Washington on the eve of his inauguration. He is expected to sign a record number of executive orders, reversing many of outgoing President Joe Biden's policies.
I will act with historic speed and strength and fix every single crisis facing our country, you're going to see executive orders that are going to make you extremely happy. Lots of them. Lots of them.

Those could include strict new tariffs on foreign imports. Trump claims the clampdown will bring industry back to the United States, creating more jobs for Americans. Trump also praised his incoming administration for helping secure the recent ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas before he took office. And that deal appears to be holding, and both sides are moving forward on promises to release people from captivity. Israeli authorities released dozens of Palestinian prisoners after Hamas returned three Israeli hostages. The three women were handed over to Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip hours after the ceasefire began Sunday.
Hamas is expected to gradually hand over a total of 33 hostages during the six-week cease-fire period.
Meanwhile, Israel freed 90 Palestinians from prison in the early hours of Monday. The cease-fire began after a nearly three-hour delay. Israel and Hamas are now expected to hold talks on reconstruction as well as a permanent cease-fire. People in the Gaza Strip have been emerging from shelters after months of bombardment. Many are returning to piles of rubble where homes once stood, searching for anything that survived the damage.

The ceasefire is great, but everything was destroyed and is now in ruins.

The fighting has stopped and we are still alive, ungrateful to God.

Now that fighting has paused, the flow of much-needed humanitarian aid is expected to resume. About 600 truckloads of food will reportedly be coming through the Rafah crossing per day.
Over a year of fighting has taken an immense toll. Gaza health authorities put the number of people killed at more than 46,000.

TikTok says it is restoring service to users in the United States after Trump vowed to pause the ban of its use by executive order.
TikTok is already available for some users. A message on the video sharing app says, quote, As a result of President Trump's efforts, TikTok is back in the US. The app shut down as a law banning it took effect on Sunday. The law prohibits IT firms from downloads and updates of TikTok in the US unless its China-based parent company, ByteDance, sells its US business. In a post on his Truth Social site, Trump said there would be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark. He added that he wants the US to have a 50% ownership position to keep it in good hands. TikTok said in a statement on Sunday that it will work with the president on a long term solution that keeps the app in the US.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has once again refused to answer questions Monday after being arrested over the weekend. The president is being investigated on suspicion of orchestrating an insurrection. This comes after he suddenly declared martial law last month. The investigation team told Yoon he would be questioned Monday morning, but the president, who is in a detention center, refused. Sources close to the matter explained investigators could visit him in his cell, but they say it's more likely he would be forcibly brought to the anti-corruption agency for interrogation.
Yoon appeared for questioning after being detained last Wednesday, but has since refused to say more. The justice ministry says he's being held in a one-person cell and agreed to have his headshot taken.
The team plans to keep the president detained up to early February.

Turkey and Japan marked 100 years of diplomatic relations last year. The long-standing ties have been held together with diplomacy and a shared cultural appreciation that even includes music. NHK world's Sano Yoshitaka, who just came back from Istanbul, looks at how a traditional Okinawan instrument is helping bring the countries together.

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Iwasa Takayaki performs an Okinawan folk song at a festival in the southern Turkish city of Adana.
He's playing the sanshin, a snakeskin wrapped instrument from Okinawa that goes back hundreds of years.

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He then parodied the tune in Turkish to the delight of the audience.

I hadn't heard of that instrument before.
He sang with it in Turkish, which touched my heart.

Iwasa is a diplomat at the Japanese embassy in Turkey. His main job is to foster exchange between both countries' educational institutions.

Do you have any exchange programs with Japanese universities?

No, not currently. We would be grateful if you could help us get some started.
But what else could he do to help bring the two cultures together?

The answer was the universal language of music in the form of his beloved Sanshin. the instruments eight years ago while working for a graduate school in Okinawa. He became enchanted by its charming twang and started taking lessons.
Four years ago, Iwasa was assigned to work for Japan's embassy in Ankara.
While at the Turkish friends' wedding reception, he gave a sanshin performance that the crowd loved.

Even though it was probably their first time hearing such music,They enjoyed dancing to it.

Iwasa thought he might be on to something and set out to develop an interest in Japanese culture through the Okinawan instrument.
He started offering sanshin classes.
An Okinawan group that promotes the sanshin donated instruments for the lessons.

This might be the first ever Sanshin class in Turkey. We use the instruments to express happiness.

He gave his first class in May last year to students studying Japanese.

Culture can unite people no matter the distance.

Okinawans will be pleased to know that people in Turkey are enjoying playing the Sanshin. I hope it will help ties between the two countries grow even stronger.

As the countries look to the next 100 years of ties, a diplomat and Sanshin player is building bonds by plucking the heartstrings of the Turkish people. Sano Yoshitaka, NHK World.

A high court in western Japan has awarded the bereaved family of an accident victim with a hearing impairment 100 percent of the average income in Japan in lost earnings. Ide Ayuka was 11 years old when she was fatally struck by a power shovel that rammed into a sidewalk in Osaka City in 2018. She'd been attending a school for children with hearing impairments.
Her family filed a damages suit against the driver and the employer.
Compensation would be based on what the girl was expected to have earned in her lifetime. The Osaka District Court set her future income at 85% of the average income due to her hearing impairment. It said it was undeniable that the victim had an impairment, which it argued would limit her ability to work. Her family appealed, demanding that court evaluate her lost wages based on the average of people without disabilities.
Osaka High Court Presiding Judge Tokuoka Yumiko reversed the district court's earlier ruling and decided in favor of the victim's family.

Let's check the weather with our meteorologist Jonathan Oh. So Jonathan, a bitter blast is expected to sweep across a good portion of the United States and possibly bring some rare snow to some places. What's the latest?

Hello, we're seeing a big air of a massive cold air coming from the north into a good portion of the United States as far South as Texas. We don't talk about snow chances as often this far South. But even Houston is looking at the possibility of seeing some of that wintry weather. Big double high pressure just ushering in a cold pattern anywhere from Texas all the way into the Carolinas.
And with a low development across the southern Rockies, that's going to really pick up momentum. Looking at the forecast here, cold air all locked in from the Rockies eastward into the Great Lakes and that low is going to scaddle right down through Texas and really spreading across the Gulf Coast. We don't talk about snow as often down here. And so this is going to be a particularly unusual situation and along the eastern seaboard we're looking at some of that winter weather. Forecast for Monday, it's frigid -27 for the high on Monday in Winnipeg -13 Denver with snow extending from Oklahoma City into Chicago and Toronto and still quite frigid into Washington DC with a high of -4. We go into Tuesday that focal point shifts Houston looking at snow chances into Atlanta and even Washington DC looking at some snow. As you go through day on Tuesday, so just bundle up and also look at the possibility of some really messy roads down toward the South.
You don't get this kind of weather very often, so that can cause some real problems on the roadways. If you're not used to driving, probably want to stay home if at all possible.

Looking at what's happening across Japan, we had some rain along the eastern side of the country as a low scooted on through a little bit of a return flow from the north might bring some lighter showers.
Later this week, northern areas may see a little bit more in terms of snow. For the meantime though, we're looking at mainly a dry powder with some showers into Niigata high of 8 Tokyo at 12 with some clouds 13 into Fukuoka and Osaka as we go through today on Tuesday.

That's looks your forecast. Hope you have a good day wherever you are.

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And that is all for this edition of NHK Newsline. I'm Yamamoto Miki in Tokyo.

Thank you for staying with us.