Of infections outside main land china has surpassed those confirmed within that country. The w. H. O. Says as of monday at least 167,000 people have contntracted the virus worldwid. More than 6,600 have died. As i italys outbreak contininuo grow more European Countries are boosting efforts to isisolate themselves. French president Emmanuel Macron says his country is at war against an invisible enemy, hes ordered people to stay home for the next 15 days, only leaving when necessary. Anyone who violates the lockdown will face punishment. Britisish Prime Minister Boris Johnson told people to avoid nonessential travel. He is pressing people to avoid Public Places including pubs, restaurants and theaters. The European Union is looking into a 30day entry ban for anyone entering the region as member countries move to further tighten border controls. Germany has barred people from five nations, including france and switzerland from crossing g the e border. The ban does not affect daily commuters or trade. Elsewhere russia has announced it will ban all foreigners from entering the country from wednesday until the beginning of may. The czech republic, switzerland and spain are placing restrictions on neighboring countries. In the United States President Donald Trump is ramping up measures to deal with the coronavirus while stopping short of a sweeping countryside shutdown. Are you considering instituting a nationwide lockdown, a nationwide quarantine . There are some questions at this point, not nationwide, but there are some places in our nation that are not very effective at all. But we may look at certain areas, certain hot spots as they call them. Trump is calling on residents to avoid social gatherings of more than ten people for the next 15 days. His new guidelines ask americans to stay clear of bars and restaurants while also avoiding discretionary travel and shopping tripsps. Many businesses an public buildings across the u. S. Have already shut their doors. We couldnt go, also the bronx were closed. Im not exactly sure what the mayor is going to implement here, but in a month people arent going to be able to pay their rent. So problematic. The situation differs by state with some cities imposing stricter measures. Hoboken located across the river from new york imposed an overnight curfew starting monday. San francisco and some other california municipalities are requiring everyone to stay at home, except for essential travel. The u. S. National institutes of health and a biotech firm have begun a Clinical Trial to combat the coronavirus. Im also pleased to report that a vaccine candidate has begun the phase one Clinical Trial, one of the fastest Development Launches in history. Researchers began work to develop the vaccine in midjanuary and completed it before the endnd of february. Now its ready for a years testing. 45 healthy Adult Volunteers in seattle have been separated into groups and administered different dosages of the vaccine. They will be given two shots about 28 days apart. The participants will be regularly tested to determine if the vaccine is safe and if it can induce an immune response. The institute says that needs to be proven before it can be approved for public use. The whole process should take somewhere between a year and a year and a half. A war of words between washington and beijing looks set to escalate after trump dubs the pandemic a chinese virus. The remark came in a twitter post vowing support for airlines and other affected industries. There are concerns that labeling china as the origin of the outbreak will fuel hostilities against asians in the u. S. On monday secretary of state mike pompeo called chinas top diplomat yang jiechi to express his strong objections to what he said is an attempt to blame the virus on the u. S. It came after a Chinese Foreign Ministry Official said the u. S. Military might have brought it to wuhan. Inin reply yang reportedly told pompeo he e will not succeed in smearing c china for the outbre. Last week a senior whitete hous official accused beijing of inititially trying to cover up e virus. The pandemic is also starting to affect the u. S. President ial election. Four states were scheduled to hold primaries on tuesday including ohio. But the governor says polls there will be closed. Mike dewine said the event would put workers and voters at risk and suggested the vote should be postponed until june. We should not force them to make this choice. A choice between their health and their Constitutional Rights and their duties as american citizens. Thehe governor doesnt havave authority to postpone an election on his own. So he asked the state court for approval. When the judge denied his request, dewine ordered the States Health director to shut the polls citing a Public Health emergency. The decision is getting mixed reviews. We dont want our entire governmental systems to be overthrown by the coronavirus even though its affecting everything right like we still need a representatative government. With the crowdss being what t is and the virus spreading, its a safety measure i can understand. Florida, arizona and Illinois Plan to go ahead with primaries on tuesday as scheduled. Former Vice President joe biden has been on a winning streak in the race for the democratic nomination. Since making major gains. He is polling at 56 compared to 33 for senator bernie sanders. Nhk has learned that japan is looking to expand entry restrictions to include travelers from coronavirus hot spots in europe. The new rules would bar entry to foreign nationals who recently visited parts of spain, italy and switzerland as well as all of iceland. Japan already restricts entry to foreigners who have recently stayed in some parts of china, south korea, italy and iran. Sources tell nhk the measures will be authorized shortly. The number of thosese c confirm with the virus in japan has increased to over 800. According to data compiled by local governments and the health ministry. That doesnt include more than 700 people from the diamond princess cruise ship or over a dozen flown back to japan from china. So far, 29 people have died as well as seven from the cruise ship. More than 600 people have left hospitals after recovering. The head of the French Olympic Committee says the coronavirus pandemic must reach the peak by the end of may for the Tokyo Olympics to be held on time this schedule. A remark was made to reuters on monday, saying if the world is still in crisis by the end of may he cannot see how the games can happen. They are scheduled to take place from july 24th through august 9th. He added if the pandemic passes its peak and the situation gets better, questions will arise about who qualifies. But he noted it would be possible to find the least worst solution. Chief cabinet secretary suga says the country plans to host the Olympic Games as planned this summer. His comment comes after the group of seven leaders held an extraordinary Video Conference to coordinate a response to the new coronavirus outbreak. Translator we will continue to work closely with the ioc, the organizing committee, and the tokyo metropolitan government to steadily proceed with preparations for the event as scheduled. We intend to hold the games as they have always taken place. Suga mentioned that none of the Global Leaders said the games should be postponed. Earlier at the conference Prime Minister shinzo abe indicated that japan would plan to host the games in a complete form. Suga added that tokyos organizing committee has informed the government that the torch relay in japan will begin in Fukushima Prefecture as scheduled on march 26th. With over four months until the tokyo games are scheduled to Miki Yamamoto spoke to the Sports Correspondent who has been covering the olympics since the 2012 london games. Right now both the international Olympic Committee and japan have maintained that preparations are ongoing. Officially both sides have given no indication that the games will be cancelled. But the final decision will be made by the ioc. Ioc president thomas bach said w. H. O. s recommendation on whether to cancel or postpone. If the games do move forward one option being holding themm without spectators. But i dont think thats realistic. Aside from losing close to a billion dollars in ticket revenue the olympics is far more than just a sport event. Its about promoting international solidarity. Japanese says if theres no opportunity for fans to take part the value of the games will decline. Well, yes, the value its the value that makes this sports event very special but what about the athletes . They must be very confused. How is this outbreak affecting them . Its been dramatic. Thousands of athletes aiming to compete in tokyo have yet to qualify. Thats because a significant number of qualifying events have been cancelled or postponed. And its unclear when they will take place. Traiaining has also been disrupd as m many countries s are urgin people to selfqquarantine. Soso even if the g games are het will be difficult for athletes to compete at their best. It must be so hard for them. But now from your perspective how likely is that the games will be postponed or even cancelled . Given how fast the situation is evolving, its unlikely the games will move forward as originally planned. Whether it will take place at a later date is unclear. Massive amounts of money have already been invested and any changes discontinuing the games means costs will rise even farther. There have been reports that an ioc member said there was a may deadline to make a decision but that has been clarified as just a personal opinion. As of right now things are still on track with the torch relay set to start here in japan next week. But the iocs executive board is scheduled to hold a video call late on tuesday to discuss this situation. I dont expect them to come out with a decision but i think we will get some guidance on olympic qualifiers and that could give us some indication of how they plan to move forward. A former care worker sentenced to death for committing one of the worst mad murderers in recent history says hell accept the ruling. Satoshi uematsu spoke to an nhk reporter at a detention house in yokohama on tuesday. The Yokohama District Court sentenced uematsu to death on monday for fatally stabbing 19 intellectually disabled people at a care home in sagamihara in 2016. He worked at the facility before the murders. Uematsu said he realized from start of the trial that hed be given the death penalty. He said he will not appeal the ruling because conclusions about the incident have already been made. During the interview, uematsu continued to say people with disabilities have no human rights. It is time now for World Weather with our meteorologist, sayaka mori. Hi. You said that tokyo would be seeing unseasonably warm weather starting wednesday. How warm are we looking at . It will be more like april and even may the following day. More and more Cherry Blossoms are expected to come out at this week. But norththern japan and the hi elevations and central japan are still seeing some late season heavy mountain snow. We have a cold air mass in the upper atmosphere as that is also creating unstable weather across the lower elevations. Ththe westernn flank of the couy could see thunderstorms. We might even see tornados and hail as we go into the noon hours on wednesday. So watch out for the severe weather. And the nice southerly winds, temperatures are warm across many places of japan starting on wednesday. 19 for the high in tokyo with abundance of sunshine and even 21 on thursday in tokyo. And staying almost the same as we go into next week. Osaka and fukuoka will see the warm weather. And sapporo, with snow on the ground, theres a possibility of avalanches so please watch outu for that a stationary front to the south of china, expected to bring heavier rainfall in the southern areas and theres a possibility with snow across northeastern areas of china. Temperatures are much warmer than normal. Not just in japan, but beijing, and seoul. 15 for the high in seoul. 20 in beijing. Rainy w weather is i in the fort in bangkok. Meanwhile, across north america we are seeing some warm temperatures across the east coast of the u. S. And theres a possibility of a severe thunderstorm on tuesday as well as wednesday and late season heavy snow is in the u. S. More snow is possible in the sierras. And now spepeaking of snow, a re on snow took place in alaska. Look at this footage. Norwegian musher woerner and his 12 dogs won the iditarod and its about 1,500 kilomemeters. Warm weather made snow very soft and the taughts needed to take a little more rest according to onone musher. Congratulations. Thats it from me. Have a nice day. Thats all for this hour on nhk newsline. Im yoshi ogasawara. Thank you so much for watching and do stay with us for more. This is newsline biz. Im gene otani. The markets were volatile on tuesday after the huge selloff on wall street overnight. Here in tokyo the nikkei index opened sharply lower. It then reversed course as the u. S. Equity futures rose. The index ended the day 0. 06 higher than the previous days close. It w was the f first gain after four day losing streak. They raised nearly 15 of the benchmarks value. Analysts said optimism took hold. Elsewhere in asia, one market has gone into complete shutdown. Theres a halt to trading until further notice. Australian shares rebounded sharply after the central bank injected billions of dollars into the banking system. Seouls kospi ended down and the korean yuan is at the lowest level. Benchmarks in paris and london and frankfurt went back into negative territory. Finance ministers from the g7 countries are planning to discuss how to respond to the spread of the coronavirus. They are scheduled to hold a teleconference late tuesday, japan time. Japans minister said that he wants to hear what the United States is planning since declaring a national emergency. Translator theyre expected to bring in some strict measures to respond to the situation. Ill ask them for details of what kind of measures to expect. Ministers arere expected to discuss how to limit t the impa the outbreakak is having on Financial Markets. Aso said that the g7 finance ministers are likely to hold such meetings on a regular basas possibly weekly or even daily depending on how the situation evolves. Central banks said the United States, japan and other countries are taking monetary easing measures to protect their economies from the impact of the coronavirus. Earlier i spoke to a former policymaker with the bank of japan and now executive economist at the research institute. I asked why he thinks the fed and the boj have now taken these steps. Yeah, i think that the main purpose of this kind of reactions by the Central Banks is to ease the Financial Market, injecting a huge amount of liquidity in the market. Not only stimulating the economy because the market it leads to the fininancial prices that could cause a huge impact to the economy. So preventing this kind of situations i think that action was necessary. One is prevention, the other is stocks, been declining in the United States yesterday. We are seeing kind of a mixed session in japan today. It was dropping yesterday in europe as well. Why is the market unable to take in these monetary measures in a positive fashion . I thihink that the market wa disappointed on the outcome of bank of japans decision. Because they didnt include that rate cut. But i think that t the boj believed t that the financialal market injecting money is more important than the rate cut. Bubut the finanancial markett expected more aggressive actions in the economy including a rate cut. I think theres a discrepancy about the assessment over the role of between the Financial Market and the central bank. What needs to be done Going Forward to stabilize the i would say the global economy. Yeah, i think that the situation of the economy is taken by the government measures, including the restrictions. So i think that stocks that the spread of the coronavirus can be the best measures to stimulate the economy. That first. Can we learn anything from chinas experience . Yeah, i think so. Not all of the g7 countries are sharing the information on the coronavirus but i think china has a more Important Information or lessons to overcome. This is why i think that the g7 countries have to learn a lot from china. Do we need to see a lot more sharing between the nations, the governments now . Unfortunately theres somee friction between the countries right now and theres no strong coordination overcoming the economies. But now we have to share the information, including china. Its definitely important. The operator of the uniqlo closing brand says its temporarily closed 77 stores in United States and europe due to the spread of the coronavirus. Fast retailing operates 50 in the u. S. It has shut 22 stores in france, four in spain, one in italy at the request of the countrys governments. All 50 stores in the u. S. Will be closed until tuesday. The Company Executives will consider the situation in each country and Government Policies in deciding when to reopen the stores. They closed stores in china in early february but most have resumed business. Huawei plans to launch a smartphone model that will run on the 5g network. The handset will go on sale from around the end of this month. It will come with a price tag of around 1,200. The model has a 6. 5 inch organic electroluminous display. The four cameras can do telephoto shots and slow motion videos. It is also equipped with a gesture sensor that enables the users to turn web pages without touching thehe screen. The u. S. Banned companies from doing business with huawei citing national security. Three will begin the 5g services this month or shortly thereafter. Sharp, sonony and Lg Electronic are releasing 5g compatible phones also. Lets have a look at the markets. From the newsline biz team, i france on lockdown. The government takes the most drdrastic actition yet. To halt the spread of covid19. The interior minister is expected to address the nation shorortly. The European Union also shutting its borders. Travel severely rerestricted for 30 days. Caseses continue to o spike on e cotton it. Officicials say the move is need to prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed