Tourists by 2020, we look at whether the target is possible or even desirable. The u. S. President has laid out his plan to help leaders in iraq fight a wellarmed insurgency. Barack obama says hes sending up to 300 military advisers to the country, but not combat forces. Iraqi soldiers have been trying to stop the advance of islamist militants who are surging toward the capital. Nhk worlds sachiko pakeda has more. Reporter the Iraqi Government is using staterun tv to show its soldiers are keeping up the fight against islamic extremists, but the reality is, they need help. So after days of deliberation, u. S. President barack obama announced hes sending up to 300 military advisers to the country, but thats as far as hes willing to go for now. American forces will not be returning to combat in iraq. But we will help iraqis as they take the fight to terrorists who threaten the iraqi people, the region and american interests as well. Reporter governing with Islamic State of iraq and la vant or isil have taken over towns and cities with lightning speed. Theyre sunni muslims, and theyre opposed to the administration of iraqs shia muslim Prime Minister nuri al maliki. Theyve killed civilians and soldiers in their push toward the capital, baghdad. The Iraqi Military has been using airstrikes to try to stop the insurgency. And both sides have been battling for control of the countrys Largest Oil Refinery in baji. Hundreds of shia men have been streaming into Recruitment Centers to volunteer to join the military, but iraqi leaders know they cant fight this insurgency alone. And while obama has been ruled out ground forces, he admits other options are on the table. We will be prepared to take targeted and precise military action if and when we determine that the situation on the ground requires it. Reporter the president is among many leaders who are calling on prim minister maliki to also respond to this crisis politically. Many have said his government is too dominated by shia muslims and excludes sunnis and kurds. There is no doubt that the government of iraq has not given enough attention to healing sectarian divides, including sunni and kurds in the government to bringing the country together. Reporter but iraq is far from together, and even as staterun tv sends out a patriotic message, the reality is, the countrys future remains uncertain. Sachiko takeda, nhk world. The president of ukraine is seeking russias help to end the fighting in the eastern part of his country. Petro poroshenko outlined his peace plan in a telephone conversation with russian president vladimir putin. Officials in the ukrainian president ial office say poroshenko told putin that hostages need to be freed at a border jointly managed by both countries. Putins aides say the russian president put the responsibility on ukrainian officials to ease tensions. He called for immediate halt to Ukrainian Military operations in the region. They also say putin expressed hope that a Ukrainian Government will address the demands of ethnic russian residents. Analysts say it is unclear how far putin is willing to cooperate with poroshenkos peace plan. Prorussian militants have continued fighting even after the plan was announced. Nato secretary general anisfal rasmussen said russia deployed several more thousand troops along the border. He called it very regrettable. Ukrainian officials also confirmed Russian Forces are establishing new positions along the border. The south korean navy has conducted a livefire drill near islands in the sea of japan. That comes despite japans demand that the exercise be canceled. Officials in tokyo say part of the drill took place in japans territorial waters. South Korean Defense spokesperson said on friday that exercise was going ahead as planned. Officials in seoul said the drill would take place between 9 00 a. M. And 5 00 p. M. Japans coast guard issued a gn navigation warning for the area. The spokesperson said south korea will not permit any interference with the military exercise conducted for selfdefense. The navy conducted the drill on the high seas more than 12 nautical miles from the takeshima islands. But some exercises took place in what japan says are its territorial waters. Japan claims the south korean controlled entry. Translator the drill is totally unacceptable in light of japans position on the sovereignty of the takeshima islands. We have been urging the south korean government to cancel the drill. It is extremely regrettable. South koreas army, navy and air force last october conducted a drill on the islands. They rehearse ed measures to counter a civilian landing. The japanese government maintains the islands are an inherent part of japans territory. It says south korea is occupying them illegally. To the latest in business now. Executives at Japanese Bureau maker Sapporo Holdings have volunteered to pay adengsal liquor taxes of more than 110 million. The company put an inexpensive beer flavored drink sappor zero on the market last year. The liquor tax rate for this category of drinks is lower than those for regular beer or low malt beer. But tax authorities told the beermaker that the product may not fall under that category. They also asked sapporo to submit information on how the drink is made. The firm stopped producing sapporo zero last month and officials have now decided on their own to pay additional liquor taxes of 11. 6 billion. Roughly 114 million. The amount is more than double the profit the entire Sapporo Group is expecting for the year. Japans industry minister has announced the government will soon start a drilling survey on methane hydrate resources in two offshore areas in the sea of japan. The country is the first in the world to succeed in extracting gas from methane hydrate deposits in the pacific ocean. Industry minister toesh meet sue motegi sees the gas as a promising energy source. Translator i believe e methane hydrate will be a very important domestic source of energy for japan. We pledge our efforts to develop it as a next Generation Energy source. Something comparable to shale gas. Government Officials Say the survey is aimed at collecting geological samples to assess the amount of shallow deposits. One target area is located off akita and yamagata prefectures in northeast japan. A sonar survey has found promising geological structures there. The other is off niigata prefecture, central japan. A similar survey has shown that this area may also hold methane hydrate deposits. The test drilling is scheduled to start on tuesday. All right. Lets see how stocks have ended the week here in asia. Many markets rallied over the past five day. Share prices in tokyo and sydney gave up some of their recent gains. Chinese stocks showed only small gains, though. One market that didnt rally this week was hong kong. The hang seng index snap add four day losing streak today. It finished higher by. 10 . 23,194. For the week the hangseng was down 1. 2 . Investors in sydney sold equities to try to take advantage of thursdays 1. 6 gain. That was a biggest rally in seven months. Or biggest daily rise, i should say, in seven months. The index is still up on the week. 3 . That was the first weekly gain weve seen in nearly a month. Tokyos nikkei hit a five month high friday morning but did lose steam in the afternoon. For the week the index is up nearly 2 and it is one of the top performers in the region. Investors are keeping a pretty close eye on chinas economic growth. Theyre especially worried about a slowdown in the region. Real Estate Investment has been a main engine of growth. Now that does appear to be showing signs of stalling. The Chinese Government takes a look at new home prices across 70 cities. In may price declines were seen in 35 cities including shanghai and shinzen. Local government officials rely on revenue from sales of property rights. All the more reason for them to worry about a negative impact from falling property prices. We spoke earlier with daniel so in hong kong. Hes a strategist at Cmb International securities. He gave us some insight on this issue. Clearly home prices are falling. Which will mean second and third tier cities oversupply is more serious. Potential buyers are staying on the sideline because as expectation of home price downturn is formed, it will take a long time to turn around. And inventory to sales rising to levels above historical average. And so developers have no choice but to cut prices to boost sales. And i believe more price cuts in the second half of this year is likely as developers have to meet their fouryear sales targets. So the home price downturn may may continue for a longer while. Chinas local governments have to pay off about 3 trillion in debts. Senior Officials Say about 20 of those loans are due this year. And with falling real estate prices, do you think some of the local governments might default . Well, i dont think that will be the case. Local governments have some measures to reach the repayments. Of course, the slower land sales hurts their income, because that means developers have less cash flow for reinvestment, for land purchase. And that means local governments can no longer rely solely on land sales to meet their expenditures. But i believe local governments may choose to delay payments on some payables rather than have some technical defaults on bank loans, bonds or local governments funding vehicles. If necessary, the Central Government might step in as a last resort to avoid any systemic financial crisis. Daniel, you touched on some measures there. But what measures could local governments implement to ride out that situation . The most important measure would be issuing Municipal Bonds directly. Gang dong would be the first province to do so. It will issue five to tenyear bond next week. I believe the other nine would follow suit shortly. And the scheme might expand to more provinces in the future. Other important measures include selling stakes in staterun enterprises to raise income for local governments and also for the local governments to invite the private sector to participate to invest in Infrastructure Projects so that the local governments can shift their burdens to the private sector. Japanese government officials are trying to stop foreign rivals from stealing data on cuttingedge technologies. They have decided to discuss additional measures to prevent the leakage of industrial secrets and other confidential information. Officials have turned their attention to an incident where Research Data of an electric machinery maker in japan was illegally provided to a south korean competitor. Additional measures may include raising maximum fines for those who steal secrets from japanese companies. The penalty is currently about 98,000. They are also considering changing the law to make it easier for firms to sue for damages. Japanese leaders want to see more people driving ecofriendly cars. Theyre planning to offer support to promote fuel cell vehicles as automakers prepare to launch them next year. The move comes after a panel of experts drew up a timeline to promote the vehicles through the year 2040. Fuel cell vehicles run on hydrogen and emit exhaust only in the form of water. They dont give off carbon die ox side responsible for global warming. Industry Ministry Officials plan to support the technology by including subsidies and tax incentives in the budget for next fiscal year. Fuel cell cars are expected to cost nearly 100,000. A key target is to sell them for the same price as hybrids by the year 2025. Hybrids are currently selling for about 20,000 and up. The timeline also calls for slashing costs for Building Hydrogen filling stations. It aims to cut them to half the current levels by 2020. That is it for this hour in biz. Ill leave you with the markets. Every morning, investors turn their attention to asia. The tokyo market leads the way. And markets around the world follow. From the decisions that could change the course of an economy. To the companies at the forefront of change. Up to the minute market reports. And analysis by specialists from around the world. Get all the latest Business News and insight every day here on newsline. The Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly has found itself under an unwelcome spotlight. An Assembly Member was this week jeered while making a speech on womens rights. So shes decided to take a stand against sexism, and shes getting support from the public. Anika shumira is a member of your party. This week while questioning the metropolitan governments measures to assist childbearing and rearing, she found herself being heckled. Shumira submitted the written complaint to the chair of the assembly. She said the remarks were derogatory and insulting. She also said whoever made the comments must be punished and that measures need to be taken to prevent a recurrence. Translator whoever made the comment should step forward and face up to the remarks so that i can feel better. Staff at the metropolitan assembly say they received hundreds of phone calls and emails over the incident. Most of them have been in support of the your party Assembly Member. U. S. Officials say a piece of a military aircraft may have dropped off while it was flying over southwestern japan. They say the incident occurred over waters off okinawa prefecture. No damage has been reported. Japanese Defense MinistryOfficials Say they were informed that a 15 cent meter long part called a static wick is missing from an osprey transport aircraft. The antennalike object helps limit stackic buildup that could cause radio interference. Officials in okinawa say theyll urge u. S. Marine staff to keep the safety concerns of residents in mind and maintain their aircraft thoroughly. The u. S. Military finished deploying 24 ospreys at the marine corps in maya station last september. Many residents protested the move because of the aircrafts poor safety record. Japanese leaders released a new action plan this week for how they plan to attract more tourists. They want to double the number of foreign visitors to 20 million by the year 2020. Some in the industry say its possible, but others worry about the impact on the overall experience. Nhk worlds craig dale has the story. Reporter roslynn and ken wine traub of california are among the millions of tourists who flock to japan every year. In fact, theyre repeat visitors. We were here two years ago. And stayed about a week. And it wasnt nearly enough time just to see kyoto. Reporter japanese leaders want many more foreigners to follow in their footsteps. Back in january, Prime Minister shinzo abe set a target of 20 million visitors by 2020. Its a goal mamaru kobori of the Japan Tourism Organization calls very realistic. Because, the again, the growth of population and income in china and Southeast Asia and india and russia is far exceeding our expectations. Reporter the recovery of the Tourism Industry from the 2011 disaster and Nuclear Accident also exceeded expectations. More than 10 million foreign visitors came to japan last year, thanks in part to the weaker yen. Its a record, but still far behind the top two destinations. 83 million traveled to france in 2013, and 67 million to the u. S. And so government leaders have released a new action plan in an effort to catch up. Theyre further relaxing visa regulations for travelers from Southeast Asia. And theyre planning to offer wealthy tourists special visas, allowing them to stay for up to one year instead of just 90 days. Theyre also expanding the network of dutyfree shops. Still, historically, its taken japan 10 to 15 years to double foreign visits. So is 20 million by 2020 possible, or does it just sound good . Hiroki fukanaga who represents a Group Representing japanese ends believes the target is within reach. But he says tourism officials must work on luring people to places away from the socalled golden route between tokyo and the ancient capital kyoto. Only 20 of the whole entire contents of this country is already discovered. But we have to look at 80 of the things that we have in this country already. Which the people, foreign people, doesnt know. Reporter but some in the industry question the governments approach, this push to focus on figures. They say doubling the number of tourists could end up ruining aspects of japan visitors have come to cherish. Canadian duff trimble has spent years organizing exclusive tailored tours in japan. He worries famous places will become overwhelmed and the less famous spots will lose their atmosphere. If there are 20 million tourists coming to japan, will this change . And if it changes, what will the reaction be of those tourists . Will they get the same experience that they were expecting in japan, or will it feel like theyre just doing the same thing that everyone else has done, feel a little less special . Reporter one of trimbles clients, american james west, admits there is a possible downside. Obviously if you bring in more tourists, you potentially bring in more bad tourists. Reporter good or bad, more tourists will be making their way to japan if government leaders get their way. Theyre already looking beyond the 20 million target for 2020. Their goal for 2030, 30 million foreign visitors. Craig dale, nhk world, kyoto. Its time now to take a look at the weather. The people in parts of the United States are dealing with heavy rain and flooding. Our meteorologist robert speta has the details. Robert . Yes. We have been talking about really all this week across the central u. S. Through the mid wis tern states is that heavy rainfall. The severe thunderstorms which have produced several damages tornadoes. Large hail out here earlier. Report upwards of baseball size. Most recently it is this heavy rain which has been persistent in parts of minnesota. And we actually have some video coming out of jordan, minnesota. Right here starting off, that is a landslide that submerged the road here. A state of emergency actually issued after the rain caused massive flooding here in a third of the state. Storms dumped upwards of 150 millimeters of rain. And a total 300 millimeters of rain this past week. The downpours have washed out roads, flooded homes and stranded drivers. Lake min tonica reached an alltime high level here yesterday. And that is that was record breaking. But only replacing a record that was actually set two weeks ago. So some pretty incredible stuff happening this Severe Weather season across much of this area. And it does look like the severe thunderstorms are going to continue to linger and drift off towards the east. Back towards the west, improving conditions if you are out here towards parts of the central u. S. Over towards the western great lakes. But were going to be seeing this storm system drift off there and heading eventually over towards the carolinas. So by sunday into monday, what youre going to be looking at is some areas of large hail, even some damaging winds and yet more heavy rainfall. I think a tornado threat will be really starting to taper off, though, as this system does start to push out there towards the east. Still remaining hot and muggy in the south. Thats one thing fueling up these storms. 33 expected there for your high in atlanta. Those thunderstorms will be present. Washington, d. C. , up to 29. While back towards the west, actually very dry conditions in the southwest. Still remaining drought out there as well. Lets see whats going on over towards eastern asia, though, where you dont need any more rainfall. And that is in the southeastern china. It has been coming down out here. It really started earlier this week. Hagivas that made landfall, that kicked off the rainy season. Since then upwards of 800 to 900 millimeters has fallen in some areas out here, and that threat is still going to be going through the next 24 hours. A few isolated locations could see upwards of 200 millimeters. Whats going to be happening, that stationary boundary, thats going to spawn a new low pressure area off of it and push off here towards the east into western portions of japan over the next 24 hours. On saturday, parts of kyushu could see upwards of 100 millimeters of rainfall. There is that Flooding Risk there. Now, i think most of this is going to stay south of tokyo, though. Good news there, if youre out in the izu islands, some wet weather and gusty winds expected, but some passing showers only expected there into the kanto region. Lets take a look at your temperatures. Partly cloudy skies for the most part in tokyo on your saturday. Sole up to 26. Rain showers there for you. Same thing goes for those of you in shanghai. This is the big topic in area. We have a low pressure area pushing a i cross the balkan peninsula. This has brought some torrential rainfall. Actually severe flooding. Upwards of ten deaths have been reported at this time. The good news, at least, were going to look at improving conditions. Thats going to push there towards the east going through the coming days. Elsewhere still some showers off towards the north and relatively dry into london and paris. Lets wrap things up really quick into brazil. If youre near the coast, a few of the matches out here, well be seeing some rain showers as we head through friday. Likely going to be having some impact on the games. Heres your extended outlook. And that concludes this edition of newsline. Im keikichi hanada. On behalf of our team, thank you for staying with us. Mw welcome back to the newsroom in paris. Sunni top cleric says militants must be expelled from the country before it is too hee as Barack Obama Says will send 300 military advisers to try and help the iraqi army stopped the isis advance. The ukrainian president unveils a peace plan to stop the progression insurgency in the east. New fighting has reportedly left another 300 dead. Upping the stakes. Sweetenineering giants