Because of health issues. Former ldp secretarygeneral Ishiba Shigeru, chief cabinet secretary Suga Yoshihide, and ldp policy chief kisishida fumi are vying for the leadership. But Campaign Activities are being confined to major cities becacause of the coronavirus. Translator i will once again devote myself to regional revitalization. I want to achieve a great reset to rewrite japapans bluepririn. Ototherwise, our country wont able to survive the next era. Translator i vow to keep on pushing forward the policies of Prime Minister abe. The top priority is coronavirus countermeasures. At all costs, i will stop an explosive spread like wewe saw the u. S. And europe and protect the lives and health of the people. Translator i will listen carefully and turn the voices of the masses into political energy. Disparity and division have been growing in japan and around the world. I will tackle this modern issue and foster cooperation. 535 votes will decide the winner next monday. 394 of those will be cast by party lawmakers. The remainder will come from the partys 47 prefectural local chapters, which will have three votes each. Suga appears to be the frontrunner after securing support from five of the ldps seseven fafactions. That adds up to more than twothirds of the partys lawmakers. Ishiba and kishida are focusing on winning over rank and file members. Lets learn a bit more about each candidate. Repeporter Ishiba Shigeru hadnt even turned 30 by the time he secured a seat in the lower house. He was following in the footsteps of his politician father, who was also a cabinet minister and prefectural governor. Within a decade, ishiba faced a difficult choice. The ldp lost power for the first time in three decades, and ishiba made a move to the party in p power. But he would reteturn to t the after it took back the diet. A few years later, he took over as defense chief. Ishiba soon impressed the public with knowledge hed gleaned from a personal fascination with the security forces. Over the years, he moved between several senior posts. Ishiba is no stranger to leadership elections, having tried to take the partys helm three times before. In 2012, he came close, getting the most votes initially before losing to abe in the runoff. Ishiba later declined a cabinet position to focus on his own policies. He put up a good fight in that next racace, winning m more tha of votes among rank and file members. Ishiba hopes this time around hell finally be able to cross the finish line. Of the three main contenders, Suga Yoshihide is the only one who o snt born into politicics. Hihis family owns a strawberry farm in northeastern japan, and his first job was at a cardboard factory. Suga broke into the political world as a yokohama city counselor before winning a diet seat in the 1996 lower house election. Yeyears later, he would become part of abes firsrst cabinet, serving as the minister of internal affairs andnd communications. He would eventually push for abe to r return from the p politica wildererness. The Prime Minister resigned in 2007, but support from lawmakers like suga helped him regain leadership of the party five years later. Suga became a key face in abes next government, which would become the longest in japans history. As the top government spokesperson, suga was the one to announce the name o of japap latest era, reiwa. The moment earned him m interne fame and a an uncle reiwa nickname. Now in his first ever r leadersp race, suga has pledged to carry on abes policies. Kishida fumio won his first lower house election at the age of 35. A former banker, he seemed destined for this moment. Both his father and grandfather represented the area. A distant relative even served as Prime Minister. Over time, the political prince made a name for himself. Hes likely best known abroad as one of abes Foreign Ministers. During his tenure, thenu. S. S. President barack obama visited kishidas hiroshima constituency where they discussed Nuclear Disarmament efforts. Kishida had taken on a new role as the partys policy chief by the time the coronavirus pandemic changed life in japan. He worked on health and Economic Policy in full support of the abe administration. For kishida, this first president ial Campaign Marks the culmination of longheld political aspirations. The nldp president will be announced next monday afteter t votes are tallied. People in parts of japan and south korea are cleaning up after typhoon haishen battered both countries. The stororm left two people dea and several others missing in southwest japan. Dozens were injured in the country. In miyazaki prefecture, rescue crews are searching for four people who may have been in buildings that were hit by a landslide and swept into a nearby river. Two of them are vietnamese trainees who work at a local construction company. The owner of the company spent ten hours trapped by a mudslide but was eventually able to free himself. But life has been getting back to normal for many people. Public transportation resumed on tuesday in the region, which was hit by another typhoon last week. Translator i had thought i might go back home whehen the lt typhoon was approaching, but service was canceled. I never imagined that i would stay here so long. The power is still out in some areas of kyushu, affecting tens of thousands of households. Cleanup efforts are well under way amid scorching temperatures. In south korea, the storm claimed at least two lives after it made landfall on the southeastern tip of the peninsula. Local media say about 3,000 people were displaced. Two remain missing. Five are injured. Haishen is the second typhoon to hit japan in a week. As youll see in our next repoint, this slans system is aiming the warn people when storms threaten property and lives. It caused widespread damage arc cross japan. Near tokyo the embankment of the river collapsed flooding many houses around it this l local resident went t to check the rir during the torrential rains. Seeing it was about to overflow he warned his neighbors biphone. He took a risk. Just 30 minutes later the levee was breached. The levee was at a breaking point. The situation is unbelievable and scary. The typhoon prompted the government to expand the network of river surveillance cameras it had been developing to help local residents check the realtime situation remotely. Nationwide cameras will be set up at a a total of 3900 locatio at rivers where potential disaster lurks. The system was set up at less cost than previous ones byy omittiting camera functions suc as zooming, by using solar power, the cameras been installed easily without connecting to a power supply. The video images are posted on a government website and residents can check them on their smart phones or other devices. Translator i i can see the situation without going to the river bank. Now people dont have to take the e risk i did. The community where takahashi lives formed a group on a social media platform to ensure residents can see the videos and share other disaster information. It is unavoidable that this area will have floods, so it is essential to evacuate quickly. I think sharing information, using social media will be the k key. Both g government and resides need to continue to look for ways to take advantage of the latest technology to protect communities from floods. Next, japan continues to reopen to countries and territories where it deems the coronavirus to be largely contained. Starting tuesday, entry restrictions are eased for lolongterm residents from taiw, cambodia, laos, and myanmar. The same move has been made for vietnam and thailand. Translator many Business People travel between taiwan and japan, so its good that we are able to get vees stas. Translator i hope to get to work earlier after returning to japan. We must go through another pcr test and wait 14 days. Japan also aims to strike a deal with sing poor by the end of the month to mutually aloe shorted and longterm visitors. The government is also negotiating with china, south korea south korea and china. It hopes the moves will help revive japans economy. U. S. President donald trump has raised the prospect of decoupling the u. S. Economy from china. That would cut off business ties with the worlds second largest economy. When you mention the word decouple, its an interesting word. So we lose billions of dollars, and if we didnt do business with them, we wouldnt lose billions of dollars. With the president ial election approaching, trump is believed to be trying to boost his support base by taking a tough stance against china. He criticized democratic president ial nominee joe biden for being weak toward beijing. Hehe said, if bideden wins, chi wins because china will own this country. Memeanwhile, biden was in pennsylvania on monday, kicking off a flurry of travel to battleground states. Democratic Vice President ial nominee senator Kamala Harris and trumps running mate, Vice President mike pence, both visited wisconsin. They want to drum up support there ahead of the november election. Moving now to south africa where a major drugstore chain has pulled an advertisement after people said it was racist. Retailer clicks posted it online last week. The ad describes the white womans hair as norm ld and fine as a black womans as dry and damaged. Clicks removed the apologized. Protesters gathered in front of Clicks Stores on monday, radical leftistt party, t t ecoconomic Freedom Fighters took the initiaiative. Clickcks must take fulll respsponsibility of putting on their website an ad that dehumazezes black people. Some p people r resorted t t vandalism. The South African government done demd the violence. In a statement officials said they were disturbed by the ad but also concerned about the lawlessness. Racial inequality remains a serious problem in south africa despite apartheid ending nearly 30 years ago. The former head of a National Group representing add t at top mick bomb survivors has died. He dedicated decades of his life in the fight to abolish nuclear weapons. He was the former head of the Japan Confederation of abomb sufferers organizatitions. He was exposed to radioactive e fallout from the atomic bomb while at his home in Hiroshima City 1 kilometerer from ground zero. His mother and sister died in the attack, and he became an orphan a athe age of 16. He served as the head of the Research Committee and other posts before becoming its cochairperson in 2011. That yeaear, he worked with the novelist to launch a Nonprofit Organization that gathers testimonies and written accounts of the atomic bombings to pass down to future generations. In 2016, iwasa was president when former u. S. President barack obama laid a wreath and delivered a speech at Peace Memorial park in hiroshima. His family says he died of pancreatic cancer early monday morning. Switching gears now to the weather. The remains of typhoon to northern n china and mid sumr like hot weather to japan. Our meteorologist sayaka mori joins us with those details. Northern japan experienced the record warmest september day in many places. For example, sapporo saw a high of 32. 7 degrees, the highest temperature ever observed in seseptember for the spot. And hokkaido and ashoro a high of 34. 4. It was caused by the system dragging air from the south and the air caused a fan effect along the sea of japan side of the nation. Exhigh shen is spinning over northeastern china bringing stormy conditions. It looks like this storm will stay here for a while. More stormy conditions expected in northeastern china as well as southeast russia. Tok tokyos 34 on wednesday and into the 30s on friday. Finally cool air will arrive in japan later this week. So 27 in tokyo with rain possible on the day. Sapporo will see 23 degrees on saturday. Record highs have been set across california as well. These are the temperatures recorded in on sunday. Southern california, making the all time r record high for the entire portion of Los Angeles County because of parched conditions and extremely high temperatures, many fires have been hitting california. So far about 900 blazes have occurred in the state. This satellite showing smoke billows in the sky. We have video from california to show you the severe situation. Most of the state still faces the threat of dangerous blazes. The fires rapidly spreadd throuh ababout 15,000 hececres in the fresno area from friday night into nday. More than 200 people were airlifted to safety overnight. The risk of fires will continue to batter the Western Areas of the united states. Another big story is a huge temperature drop. Denver saw a high of 33 degrees on monday, but temperatures would drop to only 4 for the high on tuesday. Thats about 30degree drop in just one day and the morning low will be below freezing. Snow is on the way on tuesday. Watch out for the sudden change in temperatures. Thats it for me. Stay safe. That concludes this edition of nhk newsline. Im raja pradhan in tokyo. Coming up next is newsline biz with ramin mellegard. Dont go away. This is newsline biz, im ramin mellegard. Now, the number crunchers of Japans Cabinet Office are saying the economy fared even worse in the april to june quarter than first thought. They say gdp shrank by a record amount as the coronavirus pandemic battered spending and trade, we spoke with a chief economist at Mizuho Securities about the fallout from the Health Crisis and what to expect nenext. Cabinet Office Officials say gdp shrank at an annual yulized 28. 1 from the previous quarter in real terms. Thats dramatically worse than the steepest declinene recordedn the Global Financial crisis of 2009. In the First Quarter of that year, the economy contracted by around 18 . Translator japan s suffered the worst negative growth in recorded history, the domestic consumption and exports of goods and services took a big hit. Reporter some parts of the world fared even worse. Both the u. S. And europe reported Second Quarter contractions of 30 . It was a different story in china where the economy was already getting back on track between political and june. Kobayashi said production was back up to prepandemic levels. That spurrrred an increase of those exports of goods to europe and the u. S. Kobayashi says this is starting toto cause a problblem. With china regaining the largest slice of global demand, the world is experiencing the same imbalance we saw before the great recession. Beijing has resumed its position as the maiain Global Production center and all of this means the u. S. china relationship will face increasing difficulties diplomatically. Reporter kobayashi worries that p potential restrictions o trade with china combined with virusrelated border closures will pose big challenges for the economy. In the pre pan dammic Area Companies could make things anywhere, ship them all over the world, but now there are extra costs to shoulder. Translator companies are being forced to decide whether to reduce profits by absorbing thosose costs or pass them on t consumers. This will eventually weigh on the economy, and there is a risk we may see a stagflation. Type situation where prices could rise without an economic recovery. That will pose a risk to consumers and companies alike. Reporter kobayashi says the government will have to react and he also says that the Business Community will need to make quick decisions. Reporter japan will need to create a sphere where companies and the economy can survive in the midst of a kind of globalization where blocking and decoupling are taking place. Were living in a sort of evolutionary era where only the firms that can adapt quickly to the rapidly shifting corporate environment will be able to survive. And staying with japans economy, there are also data showing the ongoing impact of the pandemic in this quarter. The current account balance stayed in the black in july for a 73rd straight month but the surplus declined compared with a year earlier. Finance ministry Officials Say the current account surplus fell 27 to roughly 14 billion. Officials say this is partly due to the 25 drop in the primary income surplus, and that includes dividends and interest from overseas subsidiaries of japanese firms. Earnings slumped on the back of the pandemic. The travel account surplus plunged more than 90 . The steep drop in the number of foreign visitors to japan meant their consumption in the country fell sharply. The trade balance returned to a surplus although the value of exports declined due to the stagnation of Global Economic activity. Imports fell even more due to Lower Crude Oil prices. Nchts a hospital in japan iss usingg a r robot to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The device is linked to a system thatat enables doctors and nurs to check on inpatients without having to enterer their wards. It consists of a tablet and moves by remote control. Doctors and nurses can determine a patients physical condition by communicating withh them via the tablet. The hospital plans to use the system for visitors as well. Due to the pandemic, inpatients are not allowed to receive friends or family members. Translator first of all, we wantnt to ease our inpatients loneliness. They cant meet people from outside. We also want to secure the safety of our staff which is very important. We expect this system can solve those two issues at the same time. The robot was developed by Airline Operator ana holdings. The company is developing another version which produces an avatar that remotely takes users shopping and to sightseeing spots. Wearing face masks has become an everyday necessity during the coronavirus pandemic. Now a new mask store in tokyo is trying to add some fun and variety to the experience. The store offers over 200 kinds of masks. One is designed to keep the skien hydrated and provide uv protection for a price tag of less than 5. 00. There are also masks decorated with tiny pieces of glass cut like gems priced at more than 900. Customers can get help from staff in choosing designs that shoot their fashion taste or skin tone. Translator there are hardly any stores specicializing in fa masks. Here we can select ones wee really like including size and materials. The shop is operated by a unit of one of japans biggest retailers. As the pandemic boosts demand, many firms from a range of industries have been entering the mask market, including electric appliance and menswear companies. Chinas Foreign Ministers skauld for global rules on data secure. The proposal was made an International Information forum in beijing. He stressed the need and criticized countries for acting on their own. Wang said targeting the leading firms of other countries on the pretext of security is a form of bullying. The comment comes after the u. S. Stepped u up its resestrictions chinese i. T. Firmsms such as huhuawei and thehe operatorr of tiktok. Wang offffered some specific proposals for new data rules. These include a ban on the unthorized collection of personal information. He said businesses shouldnt be allowed to install back doors in their products and services to gather users data illegally. Okay. Lets get a checked on the markets. And thats it for newsline biz from our tokyo studios. Im ramin mellegard. Thanks very much for joining us. Anchor hello and welcome back to the france 24 newsroom. At use of latest headlines 1 00 p. M. Paris time. Its back to the brexit meeting room for the u. K. In the eu as an eighth round of divorce talks gets underway in london. Britains cheap chief trade negotiator says progress needs to be made and brussels must show more realism. We will get the latest from our correspondent dave keating