It is an alliance essential to the world. Our two countries are partners that share basic values such as freedom, democracy, basic human rights, and the rule of law. Our alliance is forged with that bond. It is now an indispensable alliance for the peace and stability of the asiapacific region as well as the world. Across seven decades, our nations have become not just allies, but True Partners and friends, and that mutual affection is on display tomorrow when shinzo becomes the first japanese Prime Minister to address a joint meeting of congress. And we are two Global Partners that stand together for security and Human Dignity around the world opposing russias aggression against ukraine, providing relief to innocent civilians threatened by isil, combatting ebola, promoting global health, and now offering help to the people of nepal, who are in our prayers today. Abe expressed views on the newly revised defense cooperation guidelines to strengthen the alliance. He said its regrettable some say the revision drags japan into wars. Translator when we revise the japanu. S. Security treaty in 1960, some people criticized it saying japan would become involved in an american war. That kind of stereotypical argument was the main idea against the revision. 55 years after that, we now know that it was completely baseless. History has proven that kind of labeling was incorrect. Obama said the new guidelines will not only enhance the alliance, but expand japans role in securing maritime safety. The president also said that japanu. S. Security treaty covers the east china sea, and japan controls Senkaku Islands and china and taiwan claim them. I want to reiterate our treaty commitment to japans security is absolute, and that article 5 covers all territories under japans administration including the Senkaku Islands. The leaders discussed the Transpacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement and welcomed the progress thats been made. Translator prosperity is what brings about peace, and that belief led us to the commitment to quickly conclude the tpp. President obama and i welcome the significant progress in the negotiations between japan and the u. S. On remaining issues. We agree to continue to cooperate towards the final phase of the tpp negotiations so that we can have a swift and successful conclusion of the agreement. Tpp will help level the playing field. It will be good for the workers of both our countries and more over, tpp will have a strong protection for workers in the environment and help us set high standards for trade in the 21st century. Abe and obama talked about chinas increased maritime activities. Obama said both countries are committed to responding swiftly to chinas actions. Regarding the Investment Bank proposed by china, abe said japan has not yet decided to take part in the new bank, but decided to cooperate with the u. S. To have dialogue with china over various concerns surrounding the aaib. The first ladies of japan and United States have called on School Children to help make ties between their nations more friendly. They visited an Elementary School in a suburb of washington. The japanese first lady is accompanying her his on his u. S. First. About 100 children at the school study math science and other subjects in japanese. Hello, everyone. You guys are playing an Important Role in bringing our two countries even closer together and you should be very very very proud of yourselves. Translator i am very proud and happy that Many American children are interested in japanese culture. After the school visit they attended a state dinner at the white house. On wednesday morning u. S. Time the Prime Minister is scheduled to address a joint meeting of the congress. In other news hundreds of people in 0 kinawa are protesting a u. S. Base. 300 people gathered on tuesday near the planned construction site in the henoko district. April 28th marked the anniversary of japans recovery of sovereignty in 1952 but okinawa remained under the control of the u. S. Okinawa made an enormous sacrifice in the war. Well never accept a new base being built here. Translator they are ignoring our voice. The base as part of japan. Some demonstrators also boarded boats to protest the drilling survey of the sea bed. Official from more than 150 countries and one territory have support ad joint statement call for an to end the use of Nuclear Weapons in consideration of their inhumane consequences. The 2015 review conference of the parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty is under way at u. N. Headquarters in new york. Delegates have been presenting statements at the four week long conference. On tuesday 158 nations and the territory backed the joint statement but the supporting parties did not include nations possessing nuclear arms. All states share the responsibility to prevent the use of Nuclear Weapons to prevent vertical and horizontal proliferation and to achieve nuclear disarmament. The International Community is increasingly recognizing the inhumane consequences of nuclear arms. Three International Conferences have been held to deal with the subject. However, opinion is split even among the parties supporting the joint communique. Officials from australia and other countries want the treaty banning Nuclear Weapons while those from japan and other nations insist on a realistic disarmament approach including nuclear countries. Rescue workers in nepal pulled a survivor from the rubble more than 80 hours after saturdays massive earthquake. Survival rate falls sharply after 72 hours. Authorities confirmed the death toll from the quake has passed 5,000. Rescuers in the capital kathmandu found a man in the debris of a seven story build. He was shouting for help when they arrived, and he was trapped in a room with three people who died. My nails turned white and my lips cracked. I lost all hope since yesterday. And i was sure no one was coming for me. I was certain i was going to die. Authorities say the magnitude 7. 8 quake killed 5,000 people in nepal, 100 in india, and 10,000 people have been injured. International rescue teams are combing through debris to find more victims. A forest fire erupted around the chernobyl plant in ukraine. Its prompted fears that radioactive substances in the woodland may spread. Fire began on tuesday. Ukraines interior Ministry Officials say the flames spread across 4400 hectares. The blaze is believed to have several origins. Ukrainian Prime Minister said 200 personnel are fighting the blaze. He said the fire is the biggest since 1992 but the situation is under control. He added no change in Background Radiation levels has been detected. One of the reactors at the chernobyl plant exploded in 1986 sending a huge amount of radioactive materials into the air. After the disaster an area within a 30 kilometer radius of the plant was declared a no go zone. Officials say nearly 300 women and girls have been rescued from the boko haram militant group. It came during a military operation in the countrys northeast. Members of the Islamic Group have carried out a wave of kidnappings. In april last year, they abducted more than 200 girls from a school in the same area. Reuters news agency quoted a military spokesperson as saying those girls were not among the people rescued in the latest operation. The abduction of the schoolgirls caused international outrage. Pakistani Nobel Prize Winner Malala Yousafzai and others started campaigns for their release. The families have staged rallies and are urging authorities to take action to find their children. A Human Rights Group has detailed the violence carried out by Islamic State militants in syria. The fighters have killed more than 2,000 people off the battlefield since declaring a caliphate last june. Most of the victims were civilians. The syrian object varier to for human rights put the number of deaths at 2154. More than 1300 were civilians including women and children. The grownup members say many others remain missing and the death toll is expected to rise. Syrian Government Forces have been battling rebel groups in a 4yearold civil war. U. N. Officials invited representatives of the warring parties for talks in switzerland next month but its not clear if the discussions will lead to a weakening of the Islamic State group. A cheating scandal at a school in eastern india involved not just students but parents as well. It happened while students took exams that could decide their futures. Reporter these adults climbing up the walls of this school are relatives of the students. They are handing notes to help students cheat on exams. People around india were shocked when this footage first aired. To find out why the cheating took place we headed to the school in the eastern state of bihar. We found what appears to be a note with information for a chemistry exam. We also saw ropes people had used to climb the school walls. Neighbors said hundreds of people had gathered in front of the school at exam time causing chaos. Translator some of the relatives bribed policemen. Others threw rocks to chase the police away. Some were paid by family members to climb up the wall to give students notes. Reporter they tried to ask the school about the incident. School officials insist they had nothing to do with the cheating because this school was just being used as a testing center. For the questioning suggested theres a close connection between cheating and poverty. The state of bihar doesnt have any key industries. The average annual income here is about 500, among the lowest in india. Many children start working at a very young age. Students who pass a statewide exam have a chance at Getting Better paid jobs as Public Administration staff. Those with high marks are eligible for state scholarships. Theres a long history of cheating in bihar. Translator i did it because everybody else was doing it. Reporter the state administration is questioning 4,000 students and their families to determine how cheating occurred at different exam sites. We talked to all the administrators and now nobody will indulge in this kind of activity in the future. Reporter a lack of funding for education contributes to the problem. Education budgets are tight and many Public Schools face teacher shortages. This school has just 14 teachers for 1600 students. There is no math teacher. Many students feel the only way to get ahead is by cheating. Translator we cant deny that the quality of teachers is not high enough. Its unfortunate that children feel they have to cheat. Reporter life has improved for millions of people in india but what scandal in bihar shows sharing of prosperity is still a struggle. Some people in japan are living with the less fwa save haven disfiguring illness. They have been cured of leprosy but still struggling with the stigma. The sickness is caused by bacteria and leaves victims disfigured. That with the contagious nature of the sickness is why people afflicted with leprosy were separated from society. The disease is curable with proper treatment but for many people from around the world who suffered from the sickness as well as isolation and discrimination the pain has never gone away. Until the late 1990s leprosy patients were forced to live in one of 13 staterun sana torch riums. People who recovered were not allowed to leave. At one point number of Patients Living in the facilities reached 10,000. 200 elderly people live in a sanatorium and worried their stories will be forgotten so they made contact with people in a similar facility overseas. Reporter the island of culion was at one time home to one of the Worlds Largest sanatoriums for leprosy people. Some 7,000 people here in isolation. This man has long wanted to visit the facility. He has spent most of his life in the sanatorium in japan. The facility was modeled after the one on this island. Translator i think the two sanatoriums in japan and the philippines are somehow connected. In a sense it seems that two facilities are just like brothers. Reporter he first visited the island museum. This panel depicts a gate that separates the sanatorium from the rest of the island. This is a coin which could be used only on the island. Leprosy patients here were cut off from society and treated inhumanely just like what happened in japan. But thats where the similarities end. People here were allowed to have families and to live as families. But in japan it was the opposite. Japanese patients were forbidden from having children. Pregnant women were forced to have abortions. And men were sterilized. Translator in the philippines people were allowed to get married and have children. Im sad we did not have the same opportunity. Reporter this woman suffered from the disease and loss most of her fingers but she still managed to raise three children and she now has six grandchildren. This man makes pendants for a living. He said hes envious the former patients are fully participating in society. And living life to its fullest. Translator we should expand our Human Networks and communities. We have to live life with confidence. Reporter hes work to help those in japan where he spent most of his life. He says he was moved hearing about the experiences of the former patients in the philippines. Translator the children and grandchildren of former patients will pass on the history of the leprosy sufferers. They will preserve and nurture whats good. I think we need to carefully study whether we can make use of such a network. Reporter he says it has made him more determined to work with people who have suffered similar experiences in other countries. He says he wants to make sure that their stories are passed on to future generations. As weve been reporting rescue crews in nepal are struggling to find survivors more than three days after the devastating earthquake and the weather there has consistently hampered their recovery efforts. Lets bring in our meteorologist jonathan oh for the weather. Heavy rain has bean big issue for the valley area these past several days. Is there any chance conditions will improve any time soon . Unfortunately, i dont think so at least for the next couple of days were continuing to look at this weather pattern of seeing these heavy rains that are continuing to develop over the area and as we continue to go into thursday and friday we will see this pattern lingering on. I think we might have some hope of drier conditions as we go into the weekend but at least for the next couple of days you can see here the cloud cover continues to remain over the area. What happens is when you have the heat taking place, we have these patterns taking place during the day the heat builds up, we see the instability build up and the rain takes place. Some areas may see close to 120 millimeters of rain in the next 72 hours. In an area where were dealing with avalanche concerns having the warm temperatures and the rainfall combined together just makes things that much worse. You can see here expecting the rainfall to continue least for next 24 hours, expecting it further into friday before we start to slowly dry out by the weekend. We switch gears and lake a look at the east asia. Bringing a lot of rains. 20 millimeters of rain in 24 hours and thats creating heavy rain warnings for the country. So look out for this low. We had a stationary front over southern portions of china. Thats now slowly sliding to the east and bringing rain into okinawa and rain into the ocean. Built lingers into china and that will bring clouds and rain as we progress into thursday. For a good portion of eastern asia warm conditions. Now as we go into north america we are finally seeing some calmer weather starting to move into the u. S. Deep south. We had a low pressure system that was coming out of texas earlier this week that was responsible for producing some big storms and some tornadoes. This system is now weakening, still bringing some rain so we do have a slight concern for maybe a strong storm down towards florida. Marginal risk for severe weather. But a rain storm for areas like georgia and into the carolinas as we go throughout the day. Back towards the west High Pressure keeping the area really dry so sunny skies expected from denver to oklahoma city. Even into houston temperatures in the 20s. But rain from chicago into atlanta and also into miami, maybe some thunderstorms with a high of 31 degrees way down towards the south. As we wrap things up with a look at europe were keeping an eye on a cold front thats located towards the east. This system has been bringing heavy rainfall to the central portions of the continent for the past couple of days. Its scooting towards the east bringing possibility of strong storms into Western Areas of russia. Another low coming down into the United Kingdom and also into ireland and bringing rain and dropping temperatures down into teens as we go towards wednesday. So look out for some of that shower activity. 16 in paris. Down towards the Iberian Peninsula temperatures in the low 20s for the high on wednesday and cooler temperatures we saw 20s earlier this week were now down the teens mayor as we go throughout the day. We hope you have a good day wherever you are. And before we wrap up, a japanese actor whos conquered hollywood is now making waves on broadway. Ken watanabe has been nominated for a tony award. He is one of the five performers competing in the best lead actor in a musical category. Hes nominated for his role in the king and i. The musical is up for awards in a total of nine categories. Watanabe is the first japanese performer to be given a tony nod since 1959. I thought he was great. He was really loveable as that character. In a good way. And yeah, i really liked him in that role. I think he did a very, very nice job. Yes. He really brought you into the character. Absolutely. The winners will be announced on june 7th at a ceremony in new york city. And thats all for now on this edition of newsline. Im raja pradhan in tokyo. From all of us here at nhk world, thanks for watching. 3o3o3o o tionals were executed for drug smuggling. Eight people were executed by firing squad on tuesday night. Aid begins reaching areas of nepal affected by the earthquake which shook the nation but many remain in dire need of food and water. The death toll rises to over 5000
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.