March grand sumo tournament in osaka. The leaders of the group of seven industrialized nations are trying to work out a way to contain russia. Theyll discuss president Vladimir Putins decision to annex the autonomous ukrainian republic of crimea, and they may consider strengthening sanctions, even as Russian Forces tighten their grip. Nhk world has more. Reporter Russian DefenseMinistry Officials say their forces have occupied most of the ukraines military facilities in crimea. They say the countrys flag is flying at almost 200 bases, checkpoints and other installations. Russian forces began mobilizing in the autonomous ukrainian republic about a month ago. They started taking over facilities last week, after a majority of crimeans voted in a referendum to join the russian federation. President Vladimir Putin now wants government officials to move in. Hes ordered his ministers to open offices for the interior ministry and federal security service. He wants to see plans by saturday. U. S. President barack obama has been spearheading the push to punish russian leaders for their actions in crimea. He and other leaders from the group of seven nations will speak during a twoday Nuclear Security summit in the hague. Obama wants to talk about further sanctions, should russia go beyond annexing the republic. Some leaders are talking about ending their 17year partnership with the russians, known as the g8. I think we should be discussing whether or not to expel russia permanently from the g8 if further steps are taken. Reporter g7 leaders have already seen annexation of crimea as a violation of travel law. Theyve slapped travel bans on russian officials and frozen the assets of some. But the heads of some European Countries with close trade ties to russia worry about going any further. Japanese Prime Minister shinzo abe is expected to announce a Financial Aid package for ukraine during his visit to the hague. Putin appears ready to stand his ground, come what may. He suggests the Global Support for ukraines interim government is trying his patience. The administration is antirussia and could pose a threat. Putin is scheduled to welcome g8 leaders in june to a summit in sochi, where the Winter Olympics were held. He says he wants the group to focus on president day and future challenges. But with other leaders questioning the future of g8, the russian president may find himself hosting a party with no guests. Nhk world. Chinese president xi jinping met with south korean President Park geunhye on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security summit. Staterun media in china report the two leaders discussed a variety of issues, including projects commemorating their nations history. South korean Officials Say xi spoke about a monument being built in northwestern china. It honors a militia set up by the korean government in exile before and during world war ii. The militia opposed japans colonial rule over the korean peninsula. Earlier this year, china opened a Memorial Hall in the northeastern city of harbin. It commemorates a korean activist who assassinated a top japanese official in 1909. The victim was ito, japans first Prime Minister and the first resident general of japanese occupied korea. Park reportedly expressed gratitude, saying in both projects are significant, the two leaders pledged to enhance bilateral cooperation. Japans chief cabinet secretary said japan and south korea have differing views about the korean activist. Translator south korea and china have been taking actions together based on their own assessment of an incident that took place in the last century. I think it could undermine efforts to build Regional Peace and partnerships. The meeting comes ahead of a summit between the u. S. , japan, and south korea scheduled for tuesday. U. S. Officials proposed the meeting. Suga said sundays meeting between xi and park will have no impact on the upcoming trilateral summit. The president of taiwan is trying to figure out how to respond to protesters angry about a trade deal with china. Ma yingjeou called his cap net together for an emergency meeting. The demonstrators have occupied Parliament Since last tuesday. On sunday, they stormed the cabinet building. Police managed to force them out, but about 100 people were hurt. Representatives of taiwan and china signed the agreement, the trade agreement, last june. The protesters fear it will threaten small and mediumsized businesses. But ma says increased investment from the mainland will create more jobs. He has rejected demands to cancel the deal, and he has refused to meet with the protesters. China state media says the crew of a chinese plane has spotted objects floating in the southern indian ocean. Teams from a number of countries will follow up to see if theyre related to the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner. Chinas Central Television quoted the Xinhua News Agency as saying that the crew spotted multiple suspicious objects floating in the ocean. It said two are relatively big. And many smaller ones are scattered within a radius of several kilometers. The plane was running out of fuel, so its crew had to turn back. But they asked other search teams to head to the area. They passed along the coordinates to Australian Authorities who are orchestrating the search operation. The News Agency Says the chinese crew spotted the objects from an altitude of 10,000 meters. Sources close to the search say its usually difficult to identify floating objects from that altitude. Lets now turn to the latest business stories with ron madison. Well japanese consumers are rushing to buy before the sales tax is hiked from 5 to 8 next week. A surge in personal computer shipments. Industry Officials Say domestic shipments of pcs topped 1. 2 Million Units in february. Thats up 22 yearonyear. And the Third Straight month of record highs. Demand is also being driven by microsoft, which will end its support services for the windows xp operating system next week. Pcmakers expect demand to plunge once the consumption tax hike kicks in on april 1st. They hope new models will help to make up for the drop in sales. Many markets in the Asia Pacific Region have started off the week on a pretty strong note. Manufacturing data released out of china on monday was weak. But chinese stocks performed well, because the slowdown appears to have been largely factored in the forecast. And the positive performance in shanghai lent support to the rest of the region. The bench mark shanghai composite rose 0. 9 , 2,066. Its highest close in about three weeks. A private survey showing that chinese Manufacturing Activity in march contracted for a Third Straight month failed to disappoint investors. Some were hopeful the government may provide stimulus to prop up the economy while others hunted for bargains following the recent market weakness. Here in tokyo the nikkei average climbed 1. 8 roughly to 14,475. The index rebounded from a sharp loss at the end of last week. Export related issues were in demand as a weak yen lifted overall sentiment. And in taiwan the taiex index rose 0. 3 , 8,605. Investors speculated that governmentbacked funds were buying stocks to help support the market. Still many investors were cautious about the violence between Taiwanese Police and protesters. The operator of the Tokyo Stock Exchange has consolidated Derivatives Trading and shifted it to osaka. The aim is to make trading more competitive as the business expands worldwide. The Japan Exchange group has launched the Osaka Exchange for Government Bond futures and other derivatives. The latest move follows the consolidation of osakas stock Trading Operations to tokyo last july. The operators wants to separate the markets for stocks and derivatives in japans two major cities. Osaka exchange Officials Say they will develop new products, and extend trading hours. They say they hope to boost transactions by 50 in two years. Well economists predict that a bank of japan survey out next week will continue to show positive Business Sentiment among manufacturers, and nonmanufacturers. But with the sales tax looming they think that sentiment may not last in the coming months. The central bank will release the results of the Tankan Survey on april 1st. The researchers at 16 institutions say the measure of Business Sentiment among large manufacturers will likely range somewhere between 17 to 20 points. That would be an improvement from the 16 points registered in the december survey. The economists expect improved sentiment for the fifth consecutive quarter in the next survey. They say nonmanufacturers and small to mediumsized firms will also be more optimistic. Some experts think overall figures will even reach the highest levels since 1991. But they say personal consumption and production may drop off after the consumption tax hike is implemented in april. They predict the outlook for the next three months is likely to worsen. Japanese government officials are trying to find ways to deal with the nations aging population and low birth rate. Members of a Government Panel will also discuss accepting more immigrants to try to solve these problems. Analysts at a National Research institute say japans population could fall by 40 million to about 87 million in the year 2060. Government officials worry that could shrink the countrys economy. They set up a committee under the council on economic and fiscal policy to look in to these issues. A key item on the agenda will be raising the nations birth rate. Japanese women give birth to an average 1. 41 children during their lifetime. Economists at the Cabinet Office predict that even if the birth rate rises to about 2. 0 by the year 2030, that wouldnt be enough to put the brakes on japans population decline. They predict that the number of workingage people between 15 and 64 will likely drop severely. Members of the Government Committee plan to study the experience of other countries that have used immigration to deal with shrinking labor forces. Some retail managers in japan are refashioning their approach to fashion. People throw away 1 million tons of used clothing every year. Only about a quarter of that gets recycled. Now some managers are changing strategies and changing opinions. Shoppers at the europe based h m retail chain may have noticed something new during the past year. This box is for recycling clothes. Customers can drop off items that they dont want anymore. The store accepts damaged clothes. And even clothing from other brands. Customers can receive a coupon worth about 5 for every bag they bring in. Heres your coupon. Thank you very much. Translator i used to throw all my old clothes away, because no one would take them. Reporter during the past year, the company has collected about 320 tons of clothes at its japanese stores. Its recycled about 95 of the items. Company officials are hoping that the Program Raises awareness about environmental issues, and they say the coupon system has helped sales. Translator producing consumer goods impacts the environment. We want to take responsibility for that by working with customers on the recycling project. Reporter the Company Sends the used clothes to a warehouse north of tokyo. The facility belongs to the japanese subsidiary of a leading textile recycling Company Called soex. The firm is based in germany. The subsidiary sends clothes from japan to four different locations for sorting. They include india, where labor costs are low, and dubai, which serves as a Logistics Center connecting africa and asia. Some of the facilities receive as many as 500 tons of clothes each day. Workers sort the items based on more than 400 criteria, including size, design, fabric type, and degree of damage. They rely on high turnover and cuttingedge technology to keep costs down. Then they ship the clothes to 70 different countries. The items are matched to particular markets based on local tastes, weather conditions, and economic situations. One of the countries is the west african nation of togo. At this secondhand market shirts from japan are popular with shoppers because of their high quality. Translator we want to accommodate the varied needs of consumers in each country. Reporter officials at the japanese subsidiary of soex say theyve been receiving many inquiries from Clothing Companies that want to set up recycling programs. On this day, they meet representatives from a firm that runs a fashion label targeting young women. Translator it is part of our corporate policy to be conscious about environmental issues. Translator we need a broadbased system for collecting used clothes. And we need to let more customers know about recycling. Reporter japanese shoppers have shown that they are willing to recycle their used clothes. It appears that more and more shops will be there to help them. Okay. That is going to do it for biz this hour. Lets see how things are looking on the markets. Eld a ceremony o to mark the 70th anniversary of fighting between japan and britain. Soldiers from the two nations battled for control of a northeastern part of the country during world war ii. The ceremony in imphal on sunday was organized by a local group working to maintain Historical Records of the period. We should not forget that one of the harshest battles in world war ii was fought here. The japanese ambassador to india thanked the group and local residents for looking after Memorial Tower for the deceased and other facilities. Around 30,000 japanese soldiers died in the battle of imphal. The failure of the Japanese Imperial armys campaign to gain a strategic foothold against the british army stationed in the area hastened japans fall in the region. Members of the organizing group say they plan to tour the battlefields in northeastern india through june, and hold memorials. They hope many people will visit the former site, including relatives of those who died there. Tokyo electric Power Company officials have restarted most of a water decontamination system at the Fukushima DaiichiNuclear Power plant, after a sixday suspension. They halted the system after finding that the performance of one of the lines had dropped sharply. Crews reactivated two of the three lines that make up the advanced liquid processing system, or alps on monday. Previously untreated water became mixed with treated water in parts of storage tanks and the operator had to stop all the lines to remove the contaminated water. They say the line in question apparently began to malfunction after workers replaced filters that separate metals from the water in early march. The cause of the trouble remains unknown, and the faulty line remains shut off. Alps is said to be able to remove almost all types of radioactive materials from waste water. Its considered the key to dealing with the massive volume of contaminated water at the plant. Officials hope to have the system in full operation as early as next month. The alps system has been hit by a series of problems, and the latest may cause a delay in the water decontamination schedule. The march grand sumo tournament wrapped up on sunday. The competition ran for 15 days. Our sumo reporter hiro morita joins us with the latest. Great to have you back. So how did things go in osaka . Thanks for having me back, shery. We all thought that the oak zune ma grand champions were on a collision course for the emperors cup but a surprise candidate passed them by. Heading into the final day of the spring tourney mongolian ozeki champ kakuryu was the sole leader with just one loss. All he needed was one more win to clinch the championship. Kakuryu had already beaten the two yokozuna and a victory here would give him his first top division championship. He faced off against, he started off with a tough charge but he was able to hold him off. He gets a firm hold and rallies. Kakuryu takes the match, and he is the champion translator i finally clinched the victory. I think its because with experience and diligence i have worked so hard to develop. Kakuryus backtoback records of 14 wins and one loss convinced the sumo elders to promote him to the highest rank of yokozuna. When the afoishl announcement is made on wednesday, kakuryu will become the 71st yokozuna grand champion. Now heres what happened to the other grand champions. Hakuho was undefeated until injuring his right hand. After that, he lost his final three matches. Harumafuji was trying to redeem himself after sitting out the previous tourney, but lack of training cost him, and he lost three of his last four matches. Besides kakuryu, goeido, went home with a distinguished prize for excellence. Goeido was fighting on his home turf as he hails from osaka. With the huge fan support he upset one yokozun