Hello and welcome to NHK Newsline. I'm Keiko Kitagawa in Tokyo. People across Japan are remembering tens of thousands of lives lost 14 years ago. On this day in 2011, a massive earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan's eastern Pacific coast, triggering a nuclear accident that still impacts the region today. As we look at the commemorations, a warning our coverage includes images of the disaster some viewers may find disturbing.
Since early morning, people in areas that were hit hard have been gathering to pay respects to the dead. I sincerely hope those who died are resting in peace. One man paid tribute with his passion for music. He was a high school student during the disaster and played his trumpet to people in evacuation centres. Today it's like I'm meeting with myself as I was 14 years ago. At the same time on this day I'm meeting with those who passed away. It's also a time to think about hope for the future.
officials place the number of people who died or went missing at more than 22,000. That figure includes deaths that happened later due to health problems or other complications related to the disaster. The magnitude 9 quake struck off Japan's northeastern coast at 2.46 p.m. on March 11, 2011. It was followed by tsunami at points more than 10 meters high, which swept over vast areas.
One of the places hit by the tremor and waves was the Tokyo Electric Power Company's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which then suffered meltdowns. The accident forced tens of thousands to flee their homes. Even now, entry to some areas around the devastated plant is restricted and over 20,000 Fukushima residents still cannot return. TEPCO and the Japanese government aim to completely decommission the site by 2051.
Last year, the company announced its first successful test retrieval of debris from one of the damaged reactor buildings. But large-scale retrieval has suffered delays. We have breaking news. The Philippines' presidential office says police have arrested former President Rodrigo Duterte. It happened Tuesday as he arrived at an airport in Manila. The office says the arrest warrant came from the International Criminal Court and it's on suspicion of crimes against humanity.
While in office, Duterte led a hard-line crackdown against illegal drugs and allowed police officers to kill suspects. Manila says more than 6,000 people died during the campaign. Japan's trade minister says he requested exemptions from U.S. tariffs on steel, aluminum and auto imports but received no assurances during talks in Washington.
Minister Muto Yoji made the comment after meeting on Monday with U.S. officials. They included U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik and Trade Representative Jameson Greer. The 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports are scheduled to kick in on Wednesday. President Donald Trump has said he plans to impose automobile tariffs in April. Muto says the U.S. side brought up non-tariff barriers in the talks. Japan-U.S. cooperation in energy projects has another topic.
Whilst another topic, this included development of liquefied natural gas export facilities in Alaska. The officials said that they place importance on reviving manufacturing and creating jobs in the United States. We agreed to hold further discussions on how to achieve a win-win. for the national interests of both Japan and the US.
Japan's government is set to see the talks with the leading U.S. officials as a step forward, but tough negotiations are expected in order to try and win any tariff exemptions. Talks aimed at brokering a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia are set to begin soon. Ahead of that, the U.S. president suggested to reporters that Washington may resume sharing military intelligence with Kiev.
Would you consider lifting the intel laws on Ukraine? What does Ukraine have? Well, we just about have. I mean, we really just about have. The pause came following a summit last month between Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart that descended into a heated exchange. Trump also later ordered a pause on military aid to Kyiv.
Top diplomats are scheduled to meet in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to talk about a ceasefire. The US is sending the Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor. The Ukrainian delegation will include the Foreign Minister and the head of the President. presidential office. I think everybody wants to see it get done. We're going to make a lot of progress, I believe, this week.
Reuters quotes U.S. officials as saying their side plans to determine from the meeting whether Ukraine is serious about improving ties with the Trump administration. The Secretary of State says he hopes the U.S. can resolve the military aid issue and he's interested in finding out what the other side is thinking. We have to understand the Ukrainian position and just have a general idea.
what concessions they'd be willing to make. You're not going to get a ceasefire and an end of this war unless both sides make concessions. Rubio says they still need to discuss the details on the minerals deal. He stressed that Trump wants to get the deal done, but it doesn't necessarily have to happen tomorrow. Volodymyr Dubovic is an international relations professor based in Odessa, Ukraine. He says Kiev should sign a deal with Washington even if the security guarantees are not perfect.
This agreement is not necessarily in our interests of Ukraine. You know, it doesn't really give us much of what we need, like security guarantees and everything. We are still in the middle of this big war, and American support is important. writing to us always been. He says Ukraine still has a tough road ahead to achieve peace, mainly because Kiev and Washington are far apart on how to get there.
Elon Musk says his social media platform X has been hit by a massive cyber attack. In an interview with Fox Business on Monday, Musk claimed the attack involved IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area. A website which monitors internet service outages says users reported they were unable to access X since Monday morning. Media outlets in the United States say the X outages may have been caused by a major communication
disruption or a glitch. Musk said X gets attacked every day, but that this one was done with a lot of resources. He said either a large coordinated group and or a country is involved. Bloomberg has reported that Dark Storm, a pro-Palestinian hacker group, claimed responsibility on the messaging platform Telegram. The head of an organization of Pacific Island countries has stressed the importance of building relations with various countries amid China's increasing influence in the region.
Baron Wanga spoke with NHK on Monday. The forum is a group of 18 countries and territories in the Pacific. The region has been subject to China's increasing influence through development aid and other measures. In 2019, Kiribati and the Solomon Islands served diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of ties in China. We don't want to take sides. So we have more to worry about than all these other geopolitical issues that are playing out in our backyard.
Wanga expressed the group's disappointment with U.S. President Donald Trump's signing of an executive order to leave the Paris Agreement, the international framework to combat climate change, which has severely impacted the region. But he said the forum will cooperate closely with the new administration.
Rice prices continue to soar in Japan even after the government announced it would release some of the emergency national stockpile onto the market. They have now nearly doubled in the past year due to supply uncertainties. The Agriculture Ministry surveyed about 1,000 supermarkets around the country on their prices for a 5-kilogram bag of rice. The average was 3,952 yen or nearly $27 for the week.
The price also rose 0.3% from the previous seven-day period, marking a ninth consecutive weekly increase. The ministry plans to release 210,000 tons of the staple grain from the national reserves to stabilize distribution. This is the first time it's dipping into the stockpiles for this purpose. The government previously did so only in response to poor harvests and natural disasters.
The bidding for the first 150,000 tonnes started on Monday. The result is expected to be announced on Thursday at the earliest. Experts say rice prices will gradually come down once the shortage is eased, but some believe they will not return to formal levels because of rising production costs. Stormy weather has been reported in parts of Spain this week. Army meteorologist Jace Monaro has all the details up next.
Well, all along Western Europe, that's where we've been seeing heavy rainfall, some of it measuring at about 163 millimeters in the last 72 hours or so. So it's been quite a busy weekend and leading up into the new week. Let us, in fact, take a look at this following video. This is coming out of Spain, where back-to-back storms have continued to dump heavy rainfall into the region. The downpours for Spain's main reservoirs west of Madrid to open spill gates to reduce...
the risk of flooding on Monday. One curious local person said that he had never seen There's so much water in the 30 days that he's been living there. The weather department says heavy rain warnings will remain in place for parts of both central and southern Spain.
So there could be more widespread showers and people are expected to just be on the lookout and take all necessary precautions to avoid. You can see the heavy rainfall is expected for much of the country and it moves all along towards southern Mediterranean.
going all the way up in towards the eastern side into the Balkans as well. Elsewhere though, dry weather will be continuing. If you're going to be in Vienna, expect a maximum of about 17. Although these temperatures look like they're pretty high for this time of the year. they are going to get a bit cooler, especially from the west.
A little bit later on into the week as a bit of a cold front settles in, so things will get to a little bit of a normal. Now, for those across the southern parts of the African continent into the Mozambican Channel, we go again because of Jude. This storm is expected to traverse all the way towards the south and possibly enter the ocean once again. And as it moves, so you can see here it will get even stronger as it makes its way towards the western coast.
of southern madagascar do expect heavy rainfall strong gusts and possibilities of rough seas the rest of the continent is heating up quite intensely particularly towards the north namely 42. 32.2 watts. If you're in South Africa as well, do expect a bit of a heat wave to start coming up as temperatures are on the rise. That's all for the weather. Bye for now. you you
Later today, we will have special programming to mark 3.11 anniversary. Our coverage will begin at 2.40 p.m. ahead of the nationwide moment of silence. And that wraps up this edition of NHK Newsline. I'm Keiko Kitagawa in Tokyo. Thank you for joining us.