Hello, and thanks for tuning in to NHK Newsline. I'm Yoshio Gaswara. We start with the latest on a huge sinkhole north of Tokyo. The local government says searchers have found what seems to be the driver's cabin of the truck that fell into the hole two weeks ago. It says a person is likely to be in the cabin. The sinkhole developed in Saitama Prefecture on January 28th, causing a road to collapse.
Officials sent drones into a sewage pipe under the hole. They found wastewater streaming through gaps in asphalt rubble and other debris piled up in an area upstream from the cabin. The sewage level around it is now about 1.6 meters deep. They're planning to install a pipe upstream from the cabin to bypass the wastewater. This project will take about three months to complete.
A former firefighter says reducing the amount of sewage and hydrogen sulfide will help the search. The air inside the pipe can kill after just one or two breaths. Firefighters would be able to operate down there if the levels drop. Similar sinkholes have appeared in other areas in Japan. This footage shows water gushing out of a two-meter wide hole which opened in Chiba Prefecture. That hole is believed to have formed as water leaked from a ruptured underground pipe.
Japan's infrastructure ministry has ordered seven prefectures with similar sewage pipes to carry out emergency inspections. The ceasefire in Gaza is on thin ice after Hamas said it won't be releasing any hostages this Saturday. The Israeli and U.S. governments are now raising their rhetoric against the Islamic group. Hamas has been releasing hostages in phases since the six-week halt to fighting took effect on January 19th. In turn, Israel has been freeing Palestinian prisoners.
But Hamas said on Monday that a release scheduled for Saturday will not go ahead. The group accuses Israel of violating the ceasefire by attacking residents in Gaza and failing to fully allow the flow of aid. Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz denounced the Islamic group's decision as a complete violation of the agreement. Israeli military officials say they've put their troops on a higher level of readiness.
The Israeli government reportedly plans to hold a cabinet meeting as early as Tuesday to discuss a response. President Donald Trump says he's prepared to let hell break out. A senior Hamas official told Reuters on Tuesday that threats only complicate matters. A nuclear-powered US submarine has made a port call in South Korea, and defense officials in Pyongyang are bristling. A spokesperson says the move further escalates tensions in the region.
A statement released on Tuesday denounces the United States for openly ignoring North Korea's security concerns. The USS Alexandria reportedly arrived in Busan the day before. The spokesperson says North Korea's military would act to deter any threats to regional security and exercise the legitimate right to punish the provokers. Yonghap News Agency says Pyongyang is likely testing the administration of U.S. President Trump, who claims he's open to re-engaging with Kim Jong-un.
but Kim has recently been focusing on strengthening Pyongyang's alliance with Moscow. South Korean Defense Ministry officials say the North has supported Russia's invasion of Ukraine with thousands of troops. 200 long-range artilleries and a substantial amount of ammunition. They also raised the possibility of Moscow helping Pyongyang to develop a nuclear-powered submarine and re-entry technology for intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Japanese Defense Ministry officials have been monitoring a Russian Navy vessel near the southwestern prefectures of Miyazaki and Okinawa. They say it sailed in the contiguous zone just outside Japan's territorial waters. The Maritime Self-Defense Force spotted the Vishnia-class intelligence vessel on February 1st.
Officials say it was sailing south, 50 kilometers southeast of Okinawa Island. It then navigated through waters including Japan's contiguous zone before sailing toward the East China Sea on Sunday. Ministry officials say they saw the same vessel in the Tsushima Strait last November. They also say this is the first time a Russian Navy vessel has been seen in Japan's contiguous zone near Miyazaki.
A festival to savor, Blowfish, drew crowds to Shimonoseki City in the western Japanese prefecture of Yamaguchi. Local tradition says the winter delicacy brings happiness. It's called fuku, the Japanese word for good fortune. Children gathered around a pool containing dozens of tiger puffers and tried their luck at catching them.
About 20 food stalls lined the Haedomari Market, where the fish are normally auctioned. Visitors bought specialties such as sashimi and fried blowfish, which were sold about 20-30% cheaper than the usual retail price. A hot pot dish was prepared by simmering ingredients in a miso-flavored blowfish broth in an 80-centimeter-wide pot. The dish was offered free to visitors who consumed 600 servings in less than an hour.
This is so delicious. I'm excited to shop here. We're thinking of buying blowfish and tuna. Shimonoseki is known as Japan's blowfish capital, handling the largest volume of the fish. U.S. President Trump has signed an executive order banning paper straws at federal agencies. He criticized his predecessor Joe Biden for promoting the use of paper instead of plastic ones.
We're going back to plastic stores. These things don't work. I've had them many times and on occasion they break, they explode. Okay. Trump signed the order on Monday to direct federal agencies to stop buying paper straws and ensure that they're no longer provided within agency buildings. Over the past several years, a move to replace plastic straws with paper ones to stop pollution in the oceans has gained momentum in the U.S.
The Biden administration also promoted a policy aimed at phasing out federal purchases of single-use plastics, including straws, from federal operations. A group of investors led by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has reportedly made a bid worth over $97.4 billion to buy OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT. The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk's lawyer made the proposal to a non-profit that controls open AI on Monday.
Musk reportedly said in a statement, it's time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was. OpenAI has a unique structure where the non-profit controls the for-profit entity. Last December, it announced that it'll transition to a for-profit entity. Musk's proposal may affect OpenAI's plans. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed Musk's bid with a post on the ex-social media platform. He said, No thank you, but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.
Musk bought Twitter, now called X, in 2022. Musk shot back an X post saying Swindler, demonstrating the ongoing discord between himself and Altman. Those were the main stories for this hour. That's all for this edition of NHK Newsline. I'm Yoshio Gaswara in Tokyo. Thanks for staying with us.
Japan has various kinds of landmarks that fascinate visitors. They range from cultural and historic locations to modern buildings created with cutting-edge technologies. What led to their creation and what were the challenges involved? The Backstory of Japanese Landmarks brings you the stories behind these amazing places. In this episode of The Backstory of Japanese Landmarks, we feature the world's tallest broadcast tower, Tokyo Skytree is 634 meters tall.
Other landmarks, such as the Tokyo Tower and Paris' Eiffel Tower, have wide bases. But Tokyo Skytree is slim and more like a spire. Its color, named Sky Tree White, is based on the lightest shade of Japanese indigo blue. The tower can be seen from a great distance, but when people first see it, some think its form is rather simple.
Tokyo Skytree was built using state-of-the-art Japanese technology. But that's not all. Traditional skills, respected and handed down over generations of craftspeople, also played a vital role in its construction. The base of Tokyo Skytree is triangular in shape when seen from above. This was designed to let people enter from the three sides of the surrounding areas. Meanwhile, the two observation decks at the heights of 350 meters and 450 meters are round and offer a 360-degree panoramic view.
This means the cross-section of the tower's base is a triangle, but becomes round toward the top. Looking more carefully, Tokyo Skytree's outline is not made of straight lines. The lines are actually slightly curved. Depending where the tower is viewed from, some parts of the tower warp inwards, while other parts bulge outwards. This comes from traditional Japanese architecture.
The inward warp is called Sori, although the outward curve is called Mukuri. Tokyo Skytree's towering outline is a combination of Sori and Mukuri. A particularly important feature of Tokyo Skytree is its earthquake resistance. The tower's construction began in 2008. Three years later, in 2011, a massive earthquake struck eastern Japan. After overcoming a number of challenges posed by the disaster, the tower was completed in 2012. Tokyo Skytree has an outer frame and an inner column.
The two are structurally detached. During an earthquake, the column acts as a weight and moves in the opposite direction as the outer frame. This reduces the impact of tremors. This anti-seismic structure was inspired by a traditional Japanese structure, the five-story pagoda. Five-story pagodas of Buddhist temples have a column at the center, similar to Tokyo Skytree.
Due to their excellent quake resistance, there are no records of any wooden pagodas collapsing in an earthquake in Japan's history. Japan's oldest five-story pagoda is in Horyuji Temple in Nara, built more than 1,400 years ago. The wisdom of ancient people lives on in today's advanced technologies. Thank you for tuning in to the backstory of Japanese landmarks. We hope you have a chance to visit these landmarks and see for yourself what makes them so special.