welcome back to "newsline." i'm miki in tokyo. first the headlines for this hour. a japanese delegation returning from pyongyang will brief the prime minister on the abduction talks. abe says he will publicly share the results. decommissioning the fukushima daiichi which plant will take longer than planned. u.s. federal a rerves have

ended their bond buying program after years of struggling with the economic slow down. a delegation of japanese officials are returning home after two days of talks on progress in the fate of missing and abducted nationals. shinzo abe says he will explain to the public what was discussed after being briefed by the delegation. gentleman pab's top diplomat for asian affairs team met with the special investigation committee on tuesday and wednesday. japanese officials stressed japan's place is top priority on the issue. he urged the results be quickly released. they asked for briefings from the heads of committee panels. it's the first time in a decade the two sides have met face to

face in pyongyang. japanese officials have left and are returning to tokyo via beijing. once home, they are to brief abe and the prime minister on what they discussed in pyongyang. japan's government found that five returned in 2002. north korea's' state run media has reported for the first time on bilateral meetings. the korean central news agency said thursday afternoon committee chairman summarizes so far and reported to japanese side. the agency said the chairman was making good on agreement reached in stockholm at a bilateral meeting in the swedish capital in may. north korea agreed to launch investigation into the missing japanese including abduck tees.

in other news, tokyo prosecutors have launched a formal investigation into alleged political funding irregularities of a former house member. obu chrkshi was appointed last month. this drove her from her post. prosecutors searched the home of her former aid as well as the office of her support organization. she served as the town mayor north of tokyo. she resigned as economy, trade minister earlier this month. she had come under fire for discrepancy between income and spend on theater events organized by her support groups. the prosecutors had earlier questioned this man. they asked him why a large amount of money was not recorded

in political reports. he stepped down friday. a civic group filed a complaint with prosecutors on suspicion the two violated the political funds law. he blamed the problem on a simple error writing up the wrorts. the the chief secretary says the government will watch the internal investigation into the matter. >> translator: i think what's important for the government is discuss each policy issue so as not to bring about a delay in national politics. >> a senior official of the main lib government party told about phone conversations. she wants to complete her duty as a diet member. the japanese government and

tokyo electric power company have decided to revise the schedule for decommissioning the fukushima daiichi plant and it will take longer than planned. she tells us why. >> engineers started the progress of removing the storage pool in november of last year. they're planning to do the same at all four reactor buildings. workers realize they have to spray chemicals in the building to prevent radioactive part kals from contaminating the environment. this delayed their work by more than six months. another challenge is slowing them down. the plan put together by tepco and government calls for removing all fuel and then all fuel that had melted in reactor

cores. the melted fuel has cooled and solidified. the current timetable call add for work to remove highly toxic review from the reactors is to begin in 2020. now the plan is revised and they say the plan will start five years later in 2025. one reason for the change is that engineers believe they'll need to build additional facilities and bring in cranes. more over, workers have not located the debris or know how much there inside the buildings. the government and tepco are developing robots and other safe ways to find out what's inside. they need the support of u.s. and uk. officials have said decommissions the plant will

take 20 to 30 years. some say it will take longer. nhk world. let's go for the late nest business news. here's ron madison from the biz desk. rong? >> thank you very much. our big story, policy makers at the u.s. central bank have decided to end quantitative easing. the federal reserve pumped massive amounts of money in the financial markets aimed at stimulating the economy after the global crisis in 2008. policy make areas reached the decision by the ma joorty vote n. the statement after the meeting they pointed to improved job market and underyutilizatin. they first bought up government bonds and securities to reduce the supply $85 billion a month. in december last year, they decided to cut back on buying. they're reducing purchases $10

billion a month. the focus will now be on when the fed will raise key interest rates now close to zero. in the policy statement, makers said they'll maintain the current rates for what they termed a considerable time. that's the same language as in the september statement. all in all a, officials have spent six years pumping money through the market trying to revive the economy following the biggest bankruptcy in u.s. history. >> hee lehman brothers in 2008 went bust. officials at u.s. federal reserve by cutting the interest rate to almost zero. that wasn't enough to help the economy. so they upped the antewith unconventional measures. they had already been buying up mortgage backed securities and started acquiring long term government bonds.

these kept on buying them. it was last year the american economy started to recover. person spending and housing sales picked up. in june, the fred chairman made announcement that surprised everyone. >> if the data a is broadly consistent with this forecast, the committee anticipates it would be appropriate to mad rat monthly purchases later this year. >> the message through global markets entered confusion. investors started shipping out of emerging economies and back to the u.s. volatility in financial markets made officials more careful about how to phase out monetary stimulus measures. another six months passed before they decided it was time to start scaling back. since then, they've been steadily winding down size of their purchases. in the middle of this year, they broadly agreed to end quantitative easing by october but only if the economy

continued to recover. six years after they embarked on this drastic course of action, fed officials are finally reaching a point they can see the finish line. >> investors around the world trying to make out what the fed's announcement means for the economy. we spoke with michelle, a senior u.s. economist at bank of america merrill lynch and got her take. >> the fed decided to end qe as largely anticipate add today. i think that reflected the fact the risk to the down side have diminished. when qe 3 was put in place at the quantitative easing program, we were in an environment of a lot of uncertainty from the federal government threatening debt default and government shud shutdown. the environment in the u.s. and globally looked weaker. we're in a healthier backdrop for the u.s. and global economy.

there's still challenges of course, but broadly speaking, the economy has made a number of steps toward as healing and eventually trajectory of growth. they treat the number of words within the statement. they importantly kept considerable time in toward guidance. they changed the description of the labor market. they took out i phrase significant resources and mentioned while there's underutilization it's gradually diminishing. that was a step in a positive direction. the next step of course is when does the fed start hiking interest rates? we're still several months from that. our baseline forecast some point second half of next year. they'll begin a period of higher interest rates. one of the things thaim monitor carefully is inflation. we're still well below the fed's target of 2%. recent data has zone down side

risks to inflation. if i had acknowledged this in the statement saying near term risk are down side as a result in decline of energy prices and other factors. the risks that would worry me is if globe m growth continues to slow. we've been some what surprised by the weakness in the eurozone and developing economies as well. if global growth continues to weaken, if inflation globally continues to weaken, that will matter for how we think about the riskss here in the u.s. >> all right. let's see how this is all affecting the markets. here in the asia pacific region, finished fairly mixed. some investors were upbeat ability the feds decision on the u.s. labor market. others decided to lock in profits from recent gains. nikkei up 15,658. that did extend wednesday' gain. it's at a three week high.

a weaker yen boosted shares of exporters. shanghai saw gains of three quarters of a percent. it reached a level we haven't seen since february 2013. investor hopes are up after beijing said it will promote consumption six sectors including e-commerce and housing. the index down half a percent 23,702. that followed petro giant. these were weak on thursday. this is a major task for the bank president. they've decided to raise the benchmark interest rate. bankers raised the rate by 25 basis points to 11.25%. that's the first increase in six months. last month brazil's inflation

rate stood at 6.75%. it's above the target ceilings of 6.5%. it's weakening against the dollar. nazi raising concern consumers will pay for more imported goods. this is a sign she is serious about taming inflation. executives at nissan motor are trying to increase share in japan's electrical market. one of the vehicles is a van. the other is a station wag gone. prices start $36,000. the government offers a subsidy of up to $7800. the vehicles can run 190 kilometers on a single charge. they're built in spain and have gone on sale in europe. consumers in japan have yet to embrace electric vehicles. they're put off by the limited driving range. another problem is lack of charging stations. nissan executives decided to

introduce commercial vehicles because routes are short and predictable. okay. that is going to do it for biz this hour. let's see how things are looking on the markets. people on the island of hawaii have been watching lava from the erupting volcano inch toward their homes. the molten rock is closingen in

on one community. authorities are urging people to flee. the lava began flowing down the side of the mountain in june. at 9:00 a.m. local time wednesday, it was within 240 meters of the main road in the village. 800 people live there. authorities say the lava is advancing at a speed of 10 meters per hour. they've told people who's houses may be at risk to evacuate. workers are putting earth around utility poles to divert power outages. a u.s. newspaper says in recent weeks, hackers broke into computer networks at the white house. the people responsible for the breach are thought to be working for the russian government. the report says hackers got into unclassified white house networks a few weeks ago. it says some services were

temporarily disrupted. unnamed white house officials told the paper there's no evidence anyone got in the classified network. the newspaper says hackers believed to be working for russia's government have targeted nato and ukrainian government. >> the white house and our government components responsible for cyber security are ever vigilant. >> earnest did not offer further information, but he said cyber attackers target u.s. government net works on a daily basis. he said officials take the activity very seriously. israeli and palestinian diplomats exchanged heated words in the u.n. security council wednesday over the status of occupied east jerusalem. it came after the un.

>> announcer: the unannounced meeting. >> everyday the territorial continuity and integrity of our state is being fragmented and undermined by these illegal actions. seriously diminishing the viability of the two state solution. >> the people of israel are not occupiers and not settlers. israel is our home. gentlemjerusalem is the capital state. >> members expressed concern the latest incident could lead to fresh hoss stillties after violence in gaza this summer. they urge the two sides to exercise upmost restraint. children's rights activist and nobel peace malala has

received another prize. this year it's children's prize sometimes referred to as the children's noble. 2 million children from around the world selected the 17-year-old pakistani girl as the winner. malala has been speaking out for children and women's right to education. in the award ceremony, she said she would donate the money to rebuild gaza. >> money will go to building of schools for children in gaza. it will definitely help children to continue their education get quality education. it will help them to continue their life and know that people are supporting them and they're not alone. >> malala told reporters she's happy and honor sod many children voted for her. she's the first person to win

the noble peace prize and world children's prize in the same year. l.e.d.s have been attracting renew add tension since three japanese born scientists were award added this year's award for technology. the lighting is used in the world's most famous chapels. the vatican unveiled a lighting system at the sistine chapel which draws crowds of tourists. the new lamps were introduced to protect the work of the masterpieces. l.e.d. lights emit pure ultraviolet raies that could damage the masterpieces. l.e.d. lamps make it possible to provide brighter light in the chapel to allow visitors to get a more detailed look at art

work works. it's time now to look at the world weather with our meteorologist jonathan oh. residents in southern chie thna getting hammered with dramatic rainfall. >> yes we have been tracking heavy rainfall covering southern china. we talked about the rainfall in the province here. it's pushing east. we have dramatic rescue video to show you. let's take a look at it. because of rain that fell, the heavy rainfall caused massive flooding tuesday stranding a driver and his car. he was trying to cross the river when his vehicle was washed downstream 30 meters. you can see rescue workers offered him a lifeboater and drove an excavator in the water

way to evacuate the driver. as soon as he was rescued the river's powerful currents washed the car further downstream. very traumatic video there. thankfully the driver is safe. i think the rain will start decreasing as we go to friday. the stationary front responsible for providing persistent rainfall is shifting east bringing rain into places like the korean peninsula and western japan. the rain story does not end there. we're look at 50 to 100 mm of rainfall. it will go to the korean peninsula and japan for the weekend. high pressure in japan at the moment pushing east and the front move miss. up toward the north, mongolia cold air rushes down. we may see a few flurries. not a big snow event, just

flurries toward mongolia. 14 degrees in beijing with rain expected into seoul and shanghai. coming up this weekend, of course friday is halloween. then in japan we have a three day weekend coming up on monday because of national holiday. lots of rain to talk about. temperatures teens from mid-20s down toward okinawi drier temperatures for the weekend. sri lanka pounded with lots of rainfall. that's going to continue and make it difficult for rescue efforts because of the landslide down there. also keeping an eye on a severe cyclone storm moving east northeast at 13 kilometers per hour. it has weakened significantly. by friday we may be talking about a simple low pressure

system. it may not make landfall. looking at strong wind and rainfall in west india toward friday and saturday. here's europe. keeping an eye on a low pressure system near the peninsula. athens going to see a chance of rain. the rest of the continent under influence of high pressure bringing dry conditions. clouds toward the united kingdom as the front moves into the area. wrapping up with a look at north america. most of the united states seeing dry conditions thanks to a high pressure system controlling the weather. we're going to see a dramatic cool down as another cold front sweeps through the area. talking about hard frost and freezing coming up for friday morning. for thursday, we're going to see mooild conditions, sunny skies toward the deep south. atlanta, sunny skies with a high of 20. hope you have a good day wherever you are. here's your extended outlook.

one more story before we go. a united nations disarmament committee has done something japan had been pushing for. members overwhelmingly adopted a

commission calling for the weapons. the united nations submitted resolution to the economy every year for past 20 years. the representatives say a record 116 countries cosponsor the resolution. 163 member states voted for the resolution. china and 13 others. north korea was the only member to oppose it. the resolution comes ahead of a review of the nuclear non pref rigs treaty scheduled for next year. the japan disarmament ambassador says unity is significant. 2015 marks the anniversary of bombings. the resolution welcomes the resolution to disclose information about the nuclear arsenal and expresses concern over north korea's missile tests and launches. that's all for this edition of

"newsline." we'll have more news for you at the top of the hour. thanks for watching nhk world. gç

parliamentfaso's stormed by protesters. the unrest do to the president's bid to hold onto power. sweden recognizes palestinian statehood. as tensions in east jerusalem turned deadly. activist isjewish shot, the suspected palestinian gunmen killed by police. iraqi peshmerga forces had for kobane. kurdish car mats against the islamic state organization. those are the headlines here on france 24