Activities of the first japanese commander of a Multinational Task force fighting piracy off somalia. Japanese officials have released photos that show chinese facilities in the East China Sea. They say their counterparts in beijing have been developing natural gas fields there in breach of a bilateral agreement. Translator we have confirmed that 12 structures have been constructed since june 2013 on the chinese side of the geographical median line between japan and china. We had confirmed four other structures before that. Suga said it is extremely regrettable that china is redeveloping Natural Resources even if on the chinese side before the two countries have agreed on a demarcation line. The photos are on the website of the foreign ministry. A map showing the locations was also uploaded. White paper released on tuesday also confirmed the projects. And has demanded china stop the work. Japan and china had once agreed to develop gas fields in East China Sea but the plan shab shelled for years. Nhk worlds Tomoko Kamata has more. Reporter leaders from japan and china discussed the development of rich natural gas fields under the seabed between the countries. Officials agreed in 2008 to invest and jointly develop two drilling sites in the East China Sea. They also agreed to continue discussions for other joint projects in the surrounding waters. But china postponed the talks. They were protecting the arrest of a chinese fishing boat captain who rammed his ship into japans coast guard patrol vessel in the East China Sea. Japan controls the islands. The government maintains that they are an inherent part of japans territory. China and taiwan claim them. Government Officials Say china has continued to develop gas fields on its own since 2013 against their agreement. Translator we have protested again and again to china over its unilateral actions including building new marine platforms. We have also demanded that the operations be halted. Reporter the new sites shown in governmentreleased photos wednesday are located on the chinese side of a median line that divides the sea equally. Japan has been trying to set the boundary of its exclusive Economic Zone or eez on that line. A country has the right to exploit Natural Resources in the eez. But china claims their boundary to be closer to the okinawa islands and the exclusive Economic Zones in the sea have not been officially decided. Japanese Officials Say the fact that the new platforms were built on the chinese side of the median line may indicate that china is well aware of japans claim on the boundary. Tomoko kamata, nhk world. Thank you, tomoko. Officials from the central and metropolitan tokyo governments have been facing off on the stadium for the olympics. But that tension may be subsiding. The Central Government launched a task force that will draw up a new construction plan. Criticism over a ballooning cost prompted officials to scrap the original plan and start from scratch. Toshiaki endo is in charge of the olympic and paralympic games. He told the governor masuzoe that they plan to come up with a new plan by early autumn. Translator the Central Government will work as one to proceed with the planning. Wed like the tokyo government to assign people to the task force and help make a wonderful facility. Translator id like to assign two or three excellent government officials. Masuzoe says tokyo will give the project its full support but the Central Government should ensure transparency. They should release information on the project on a monthly basis. The Central Government will ask tokyo to bear some of the cost of the stadium. Endo says he expects the exact amounts of the citys contribution to become clear during the planning process. Japanese Officials Say about 48 million of funds set aside for the facility will likely ever be recovered. Officials with japans Sports Council say theyve already settled contracts. They say 29 million of that went to the design firm. And about 12 million to iraqbritish architect hadid who made the design. And more for the construction firms involved in the design and planning process. Jsc officials also say the contract with hadid does not stipulate a cancellation penalty. But they say the architects may demand compensation for losing what would have been public recognition for designing the olympic stadium. Yes, much adieu about a price tag. Ramin mellegard joins us with the latest on Business News. Thank you very much james. U. S. Investors have filed for compensation from Japanese Electronics maker toshiba and its two former president s in connection with its accounting scandal. Damages were filed last month. He claims to have suffered massive losses. The lawsuit says toshiba released through may this year to drive up stock prices. The misinformation includes underestimated costs for infrastructurerelated projects. The investor claims the companys actions violate u. S. Federal law. The investors said the company bs share prices plunged after it announced in may it would set up a third party panel. The plaintiffs lawyer has called on other investors who bought toshiba shares during the same period to join the suit. The april to june quarter earnings of two u. S. I. T. Giants have come out in opposite directions. Apple enjoyed strong gain ossen a surge of global sales of the iphone. But microsoft has booked a big net loss after layoffs in its mobile device unit. Apple posted quarterly revenue up nearly 49 billion. Net profits shot up 38 to 10 billion. Thats up 35 from a year earlier. People at the californiabased company rolled out the first apple watch in late april but did not disclose the number of units sold in the quarter. Tim cook says their market share grew throughout the world and apple watch sales were better than expected. Now, revenue at microsoft came in at around 22 billion. Down 5 . Its net loss reached more than 3 billion. Company officials site sluggish sales of its shrinking operating system. And also two massive layoffs in the Handset Division they bought from nokia. Microsoft hopes to turn around its performance with the launch of windows 10 later this month. Although apple reported strong earnings, investors were disappointed that the iphone shipment numbers fell short of analyst estimates. This led stocks in japan to snap their sixday winning streak. Our Business Reporter gives us more details from the tokyo stock exchange. The nikkei 225 has risen by more than 5 over the last six trading sessions. It was about time to lock in profits. That coincided with some negative headlines during the u. S. Earnings season and this is what we have for today. The nikkei has fallen from its fourweek high ending at 20,593. About 1. 2 lower. The topixs was down for the first time and fell about 1. 1 . Many focused on apple. Revenue from apple contributes to profits for its parts suppliers. So the iphone shipments that came in weaker than expected created cause for concern. Manufacturing is one that took a hit. It tumbled about 4. 6 . Foster electric which makes earphones for apple shed about 5. 6 . And toshiba paired earlier gains and lost 1. 7 . These Electronics Makers are big exporters so a stronger yen also worked against them. Another sector hit hard today was banks and financials. Shares were down as kuroda mitsubishi shed about 2. 4 . Sumitomo down 1. 9 and also mizuho 1. 9 . One analyst has told me that the markets tend to be choppier. Reporting from the tokyo stock exchange. Lets check on other markets across the asia pacific region. Performance was mixed though many markets slipped on the back of a lackluster earnings in the u. S. The benchmark in hong kong fell almost 1 . And the heng sang had losses across almost all sectors. Stocks of apple suppliers pulled down shares in taiwan. It head down to 8,918. The shanghai composite eased from yesterday. The benchmark rose for a fifth consecutive day. It gained 0. 2 to close at 4,026. Australia fell 1. 6 . Investors took profits after tuesdays sixday high. Resource and financial sectors were among the hardest hit. Visitor numbers to japan keep breaking records. Government Officials Say one factor behind the boom is better shopping. A weaker yen has helped too, as if increased International Flights and visits from cruise ships. Looking at by the month, officials at the Japan NationalTourism Organization estimate over 1. 6 Million People visited the country in june. Up more than 50 from the year earlier. The total number of foreign visitors in the january to june period totaled over 1. 99. 1 Million People. Visitors from china more than doubled. Those from korea were up 43 . An expanded list of taxfree items was one factor in the surge. They expect to see around 18 million visitors this year. Thats 5 million more than last year. Vertical images are becoming the norm as people look at more and more pictures on smartphones. Companies are taking notice of the shift and turning it into a business opportunity. Reporter one website is taking advantage of how people are using smartphones and are posting videos vertically. Translator im like to try on this beach dress. Reporter this reporter is filming for a site that has fashion and food trends. She always shoots vertically. If the scene is filmed horizontally, it looks like this. The vertical image leaves out unnecessary details on the right and left and looks neat and sharp. The Company Started posting videos in april. Its website is popular with young female smartphone users. It got over 1 million hits in a single month. Translator just changing a horizontal image to a vertical one gives it a brand new feel. This is important for business and has become a great asset. Reporter another major change is being seen in the comics industry. This company uploads new episodes of its 20 comic titles every day. Its attracted about 10 million users since starting out 20 months ago. The secret to its success lies in its original method of writing comics through a vertical layout. Honma is a popular artist who publishes his work with the company. He began creating comics for smartphones one year ago. The design is quite different to the approach he used for conventional works on paper. If printed comic books are simply digitized to be enjoyed on smartphones, readers need to take the trouble to enlarge the smaller images. So the comic artist published by the company make each box big so users can read them easily. And the images are laid out to enable readers to scroll the pages vertically. Translator when you turn to a new page of a comic book you see all the boxes at a glance but on a smartphone you cant see the next image until you scroll down. This provides a sense of anticipation. Reporter the change has also helped the Company Expand into the overseas market. Conventional japanese comics run from right to left. On the other hand, comics in the u. S. , europe, and south korea read from left to right. This makes japanese comics challenging for some people overseas. Scrolling the images from top to bottom makes it easier for them to follow the order. The Company Started providing for markets in south korea and taiwan last year. It then gained a foothold in the global market. Translator as the number of users increases, we can offer more and more Quality Content for smartphones. We will surely become an Influential Company in the comics industry. Reporter the spread of smartphones has made consumers familiar with vertical images. The trend is generating new Business Opportunities in the Digital Content industry. And thats it for Business News at this hour. Ill leave you with a check on the markets. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki. An nhk poll suggests twothirds of residents hardly talk about the bombing of their city or do not discuss it at all. In late june, nhk telephoned people 20 or over in hiroshima. 69 could correctly state the date of the bombing. Asked how often they discussed the issue, 32 said often or sometimes. 44 said not very often. And 24 answered not at all. Together these two groups account for 68 of respondents. Thats up five points from 2010. Young people in particular appear to be less engaged. Three quarters of those in their 20s and 30s said they do not often discuss the topic or never do so. Parts of two shrine gates that washed ashore in the u. S. State of oregon after the 2011 tsunami are being shown there to the public ahead of their return to japan. The cross beams from the gates have been on display in portland since tuesday. They were washed away from the prefecture from a shrine in japans north. They were found on the u. S. Coast two years ago. A group that runs the garden decided to return the pieces to japan next month. Garden staff provided explanations about the cross beams to visitors. Some of them wrote messages on japanese origami paper. I think its a great story. And its a story of hope and friendship to me. Translator sending back a lost item is such a simple action. But it would be so wonderful if we could send a message that there are many people across the ocean who care about those who suffered in the disaster. The pieces are expected to arrive in japan in september and be returned to the shrine next spring. The future roll of japans selfdefense forces is the focus of attention as the diet debates a set of security bills. The sdf are already engaged in operations overseas. An nhk crew followed the first japanese commander of a multinational antipiracy task force off somalia to see the work the sdf are doing there. Reporter the headquarters of the Multinational Forces are located at a u. S. Navy base in bahrain. Military officers hold meetings every morning in a war room. On this day officers from 30 countries including the United States britain, south korea, and turkey attended the meeting. Good morning. Reporter the last person who enters the room is a senior japanese officer. Admiral ito of the Maritime Defense force. He became the commander of a task force against piracy in the region two months ago. As a commander i continue to take a role for the resources and optimizing our force. Reporter the japanese government says itos antipiracy mission doesnt involve the use of armed force which is banned by japans constitution. The selfdefense forces do not participate in any of the antiterrorism operations. Itos office was full of material that showed his responsibilities. Translator we use these numbers on the map to assign vessels and planes to the respective patrol areas. Just one thing to update you on very briefly. Its a tanker with an Armed Security team on board and they reported being approached by two skiffs at high speed. No ladders at all, no weapons. Reporter he reported that a suspicious vessel had been spotted. Ito judged that the vessel was unlikely to be involved in piracy, so he decided not to dispatch a unit. This sdf officer reported japan and france carried out a joint exercise. It means more cooperation is being built between japans sdf and its counterpart. The sdf began exercises with nato troops last year. Senior officers involved in the middle east say the sdf have shown themselves able to play a role in antiterrorism missions. That is the matter ultimately, for the japanese government. And im sure if given the opportunity or given permission that they could perform equally as well in any of the task forces. They have the ships, the capability, the commitment and the quality of people required to achieve any of the operation. Translator our maritime selfdefense force is not operating on its own. Our activities are under the japanese governments leadership as a proactive contribute tore tore er to peace. But i think we should do whatever we can within japanese laws. Reporter the sdfs role in securing peace overseas has grown within the scope of policing activities. The new bills currently under deliberation would allow the sdf a wider range of activities in cooperation with their counterparts. Youre watching newsline here on nhk world. The u. S. Southern plains have seen more inindags due to pelting rain as jonathan oh tells us in this hours weather update. Hello. Were monitoring this unstable pattern for the last couple of days. We have all this warm air coming in from the south. We have the cooler air coming from the north. And that persistent frontal boundary along with a low pressure system is producing some very heavy rainfall. And i want to show you the video, how serious this actually looks on the ground level. Torrential rains hit texas overnight monday into tuesday. You can see right here. It is serious flooding. Several streets being closed and cars submerged under water. One person tried to drive through a flooded road. The car got stuck and so thankfully at least the driver was able to get out safely. Northern texas having significant rainfall this month because of these pattern of the storms rolling through. Please, let me remind you, if you see a flooded roadway, do not try to drive through it because you see what happened in that video. People trying to drive through and their cars get flooded. And youre stuck. Thankfully this driver was able to get out. We certainly dont want any serious problems. Totally preventable for you to get out of the area. Keep that in mind. Especially as this pressure system is moving to the east its bringing more heavy rainfall into places like arkansas, missouri kansas and also oklahoma. So please keep that in mind. Also a bit of moisture moving its way into california. Thats good news. We dont get a lot of rainfall in this area. In fact a serious drought condition for the state. Were looking at rain for los angeles coming in on wednesday. The rain also extended to seattle and vancouver. The unstable weather extends into atlanta looking at possible afternoon thunderstorms. High of 33 degrees. Still hot. Up to 29 degrees in new york as we go into wednesday. Now as you take a look at the forecast for east asia, were talking about some heavy rainfall continuing. That low pressure system located down toward the southern portions of china. At least what was is still bringing a lot of rain into the area. So the wet weather pattern does continue. Meanwhile, we also have some moisture moving into japan. The western portions of japan seeing quite a bit of activity. And so were going to see the rain system expanding towards the east of tokyo. Youre looking at some wet weather as we go into thursday. Were keeping an eye on the system halola. This is moving at 20. Packing winds of 144. Not expected to intensify much more. In fact expected to maintain strength the next couple days and then turning toward the north and aiming toward some of the islands further west in japan. And then well see it potentially turning toward the north and east. Meanwhile, lots of rainfall into kyushu. Up to 150 millimeters possible. Shikoku also seeing heavy rainfall. And hokkaido with a low pressure system rolling by the area. Looking at up to 100 millimeters of rainfall. Wet weather for japan. A lot of rain expected throughout the country on thursday. And then also extending to shanghai down to hong kong. Now, wrapping things up with a look at europe were looking at some unstable weather. Thunderstorms also in the picture. We do have a cold front toward the north. But we have all this hot air coming from the south. And thats creating instability. Look out for thunderstorms in the process. Down toward the south, were looking at temperatures really high near 40 degrees in rome coming up the next few days. Take proper precautions for the next few days. Hope you have a good day wherever you are. Heres your extended outlook. And that wraps up this edition of newsline. For featured stories and special reports, just log onto our website. Im james tengan in tokyo. Bye for now. Ish government is meeting to discuss the issue after monday pus suicide bombing that killed 33 people. This was an attack close to the frontier. We are getting the latest live with our correspondents in ankara. France scrambles to placate furious farmers. The government is planning to spend 600 Million Euros of public money. Agriculture workers are