Hello there, welcome to newsline. It is tuesday, february 12th. Im Catherine Kobayashi in tokyo. Millions of roman catholics around the world are coming to terms with an announcement that is both surprising and rare. Pope benedict xvi says hes too old to do his job. Hes 85. Spokespersons for the vatican say the pope cited his advance age and felt he could no longer fulfill his responsibilities. German Cardinal Joseph ratzinger was 78 years old when he became pope in april 2005 following the death of Pope John Paul ii. He was the oldest person to become pontiff in 275 years. Benedict xvi was a conservative pope, he strongly opposed to birth control, but he embraced new forms of communication and joined twitter last year. Pope benedict faced a string of challenges during his term from sexual abuse scandals involving the members of the clergy to an investigation into Money Laundering in vatican city. A court convicted his former butler last year of stealing and leaking classified documents that pointed to corruption in the vatican. The pope pardoned him over christmas. Its rare for a pope to resign. Pope benedict is the first to quit in nearly 600 years. Senior members of the Catholic Church will now start planning their conclave, the meeting they hold to choose a successor. Police in the United States are investigating yet another case of gun violence. Pop ben fikt benedict xvi will be one of the most religious thinkers of the age. The president says he has warm memories. The meeting drew attention because of the different views on abortion rights. He hopes it will be a legacy to build further dialogue and tolerance. We were briefed by our japanese allies on the incident. Weve satisfied ourselves that it does appear to have happened. Japanese Officials Say the radar was locked eed on a marit destroyer. They argued the vessel used navigational radar and not fire controlled radar. Japan controls the territory. China and taiwan claim it. Former u. S. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton says the Obama Administration opposing any unilateral action. Her successor, john kerry, supports that position. Rebels in syria are making important strides. It provides electricity to aleppo and other northern cities. The rebels have surrounded a aleppo airport and other places around the country. They launched a major attack. They are vowing to liberate the capital damascus. They are worried civil war may be spilling across the border. It killed 12 people and damaged vehicles taking aid supplies to syria. European authorities are investigating several firms in connection with a Meat Labeling scandal. Food safety regulators are looking into the possibility someone deliberately switched beef for horse meat because its cheaper to produce. Officials in britain and ireland studied frozen lasagnes and hamburgers sold this year in supermarkets. The british regulators found 60 of the meat used in lasagne was from horses, but the products were labeled as 100 beef. They recalled them after tests confirmed they contained horse meat. A French Company produced the lasagnes using meat from romaine yann slaughter houses. They want those responsible for selling horse meat as beef to face harsh punishment. Its not only the investors following japans Economic Policy. Tell us whats the story here. It looks like Prime Ministers policies have been given a thumbs up by the u. S. Government. She supports japans Economic Policy as a way to keep the nation on a Firm Recovery path. She endorsed the abe administrations bold monetary easing and fiscal spending measures. Her approval came with a warning regarding the recent weaker yen she said advanced countries should allow markets to determine Exchange Rates and weaken the currencies to their advantage. A common spot u. S. Treasury push the yen lower. It rose to the highest level in two years and nine months. Thats on expectations the bank of japan will take additional easing measures. The dollar yen is changing hands at 94. 33 and 35. The yen is now being quoted at 126. 41 to 46. Lets look at how the yen slide is affecting stocks. Tokyo share prices are sharply higher following two days of declines. Market players say car makers and other exports are benefitting from the slide. The nikkei is up 2. 54 from fridays close. South koreans kospi is up about. 1 of a japans fiscal and monetary policies are likely to be key topics of monetary meetings. Japanese finance minister and bank of japan governor will attend the conference and moscow on friday. Theres concern over current manipulation specifically mentioning japan. Investors are showing confidence in the japanese economy. They are encouraged by the weakening yen and recent political change. The market value of japanese firms has soared more than 30 over the past three months. The total market value stood at 3. 5 trillion as of last friday. Thats up 31 since midnovember in yen terms. Former Prime Minister called the general election around that time. The liberal Democratic Party beat the democratic the following month. 71 companies have market capitalization of more than 1 trillion yen or nearly 11 billion. Thats up from 47 in midnovember. Analysts say the rapid increase suggest investors think the weakening yen will help japanese exporters improve earnings. Data traffic on mobile devices is expected to surge. Thats due to the number of people accessing internet from smartphones and computers. Researchers at u. S. I. T. Firm said mobile data traffic is expected to surge 14fold. Its likely to come in asia pacific, africa and the middle east. Data traffic and asia pacific in north america will can want for almost twothirds of the total by 2017. Mobile operators worldwide face the challenge of boosting their infrastructure. The philippines has one of the highest birthrates in southeast asia. Another key factor is pushing businesses to set up shop there. Reporter the middle class is boosting private consumption. This has attracted some of the worlds best known brands. Japanese retailer opened last year its on store in manila. Translator were hoping to operate about 50 stores in the philippines within three years. Other japanese manufacturers have chosen to philippines to relocate some of their factories. This Industrial Complex is located south of manila. Over the past 18 months seven Japanese Companies have chosen to set up new Production Companies here. Translator were facing a wave of investment. Reporter toy maker ban dai is among the new. The company produces the bulk of its products in china but soaring labor costs have pushed it to look for an alternative. Five years ago the minimum wage was higher. Ban dai managers say its cheap labor in the philippines played a major role. Translator population in the philippines is steadily growing. There wont be concern about labor for many decades. Reporter another advantage of the philippines is the use of english as an official language. This factory is operated by Electronics Giant toshiba. Managers are able to give direct instructions to their local employees without relying on an interpreter. Translator i speak in simple english. Thats good enough to teach them. Reporter some companies are going beyond the simple relocation of factories. Shipping companies have placed hundreds of people at its office in manila. The job is to prepare documents in english, certifying the consents across the world. Each team is in charge of a particular country. The Company Began concentrating this operation in the philippines seven years ago. Every month the Manila Office handled more than 60,000 documents for 24 countries. Translator cutting costs is our top priority. The philippines is becoming our main base for administrative work. Reporter the philippines used to be nicknamed the sick man of asia because of its instability. Cheap labor, a rising middle class and relevance of english have turned it into a prime destination for foreign investment, at least for now. Time for a quick look at whats happening on the Global Economic scene. On thursday japan will release its gdp data. It shrank for a Second Quarter by 3. 5 . The bank of japan will wind up a twoday meeting of its board. They are waiting to see if the boj will ease monetary policy. The euro zones gdp for the final three months of last year will come out on thursday also. Well find out how manufacturers did in january when the Production Index is released. On friday Central Bank Governors will get together in moscow. Thats all the news i have for now. Ill leave you with a recap of the market figures and a note on those figures some chinese and other asian markets are closed today for holidays. Many russians are skeptical about what they see on television, tight media controls and selfcensorship mean that criticism of the government is rare. One station is trying to regain viewers trust by turning to the internet. Nhk world has the view from moscow. Reporter his face is everywhere. A leader in control. Advising a judo team or fly with cranes. On russian tv, president putin is center stage. Putin took power in 2000. Since then, he has steadily increased government control of the media. It started with intimidation. Television stations were paid a visit by security authorities. Later, station owners were arrested. In recent years, the government has taken outright control by buying up shares in the companies. But not all independent voices have been silenced. This internet tv station set up in 2010. Most prefer a different take. Here is one example. An antiputin demonstration in december, as shown by this station. The report last one minute. It stopped immediately on the orders of police. The protest lasted into the night. And so did the news coverage. The owner is 41yearold natalya. After many years operating a radio station, she decided the internet afforded the chance to reach a large audience. Translator we report on what we think is important, not copying what others are doing. We dont have anything to be afraid of because were not doing anything illegal. Reporter the web station is popular with young people, especially in urban areas. With positive feedback on the site. And from the wider public. In 2011, the russian Collection Academy named them station of the year. At the end of last year, she took on a new challenge. She attempted to get a license for a broadcast. She wants to reach People Living in areas where Internet Services are not available. The government rejected her application. She says she will not give up. Translator i want russia to be truly free and democratic. I hope watching our broadcast will encourage people to work for a better society. Reporter with little income from advertisers, they are still not turning a profit, but are determined to keep going. She says freedom of speech is at stake. Nhk world, moscow. Now students from the South Pacific have traveled to northeastern japan to learn how to better prepare for natural disasters. They met with survivors of the earthquake and tsunami in march 2011. 18 students from the island of nauru visited students on the island of miyagi. This tsunami survivor took them to see a 2,400meter long breakwater. She told them how the concrete structure was supposed to protect coastal neighborhoods, but the waves surged over it and swamped homes and businesses. Translator elderly people ran for their lives at that moment. She said seniors were thankful the tsunami escape route had handrails. She urged the group to always be ready for natural disasters in order to save lives. One of the students said nauru could be hit by a tsunami, but he noted people there are less prepared. I believe now this group will go back and tell them how important it is to have awareness. The Foreign Ministry has been inviting students from abroad to japan to help them learn lessons from the 2011 disaster. The Program Began last april. About 2,000 young people from around the world have visited iwate since then. Time now to get a check on the weather. People in Northern Spain are bundling up and shoveling heavy snow. The swollen clouds affected spain produced heavy snow showers. I want to show you some situation here. Weather officials have issued snow alert for much of the country. Snow piled up two meters high over the weekend. Temperatures plummeted. Strong winds and heavy rain lasted. Conditions have generally improved across much of the spain. Now the system is locationed over the central parts of the mediterranean. For example, the alpine region you could be seeing an additional 25 centimeters of snow on thursday noon. The nasty weather here will prolong for the next 24 hours, at least. A new disturbance is drifting up toward the north affecting the southern parts of the scandanavian peninsula. The next system is approaching from the atlantic. Island will turn wet from thursday afternoon. Rain could change over to snow by the time it reaches the northern uk on wednesday. Highs only 3 degrees in london. 6 degrees in paris with rain showers likely a seasonally cold in moscow. In north america we can see clouds moving across the eastern u. S. And canada. Underneath its theres a lot going on. Heavy snow showers and strong winds and drenching rain to the south. Let me talk about this one. This system produced at least 15 tornadoes in the deep south on sunday. Flooding rain will remain. Winds are going to be problematic up to 130 kilometers. Its going to shift in towards the east and snow showers for the northwest on your tuesday. Temperatures are not doing too badly in many locations but Oklahoma City is going to be an exception. All right. In east asia is new season has formed producing heavy rain and thunderstorms for taiwan as well as Southern Islands of japan. This system will head toward the east developing as it does. Very cold air is coming in from the north producing lower temperatures across much of japan and precipitation. Rain could change over to snow when it reaches central japan from wednesday night. Tokyo we could be seeing snow showers from tonight. That will continue into your wednesday. Out towards the west looking dry across much of china which is good news for people who are celebrating the chinese new year. Highs only 2 degrees in beijing. More minus chilly 1 for tokyo and seoul. Here is your extended forecast. That wraps up this edition of newsline. Do stay with us