New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda agreed Wednesday to cooperate on global warming, security and other areas but failed to make progress on signing a free-trade agreement, according to a joint statement issued after their summit in Tokyo. Clark and Fukuda failed to report any progress on a FTA despite New Zealand's desire for a deal that would promote agricultural exports to Japan. During the meeting, Clark proposed that the two countries launch a joint study to explore a bilateral FTA, Japanese officials said.
The death toll from the massive earthquake that hit China's Sichuan province Monday has neared 15,000, and more than 20,000 are reportedly still trapped under rubble. This is China's most devastating earthquake since the July 1976 earthquake in Tangshan, Hebei Province, which killed about 242,000 people. The international community must not lose any time in extending assistance to China in its efforts to search for, rescue and take care of quake victims.
Labor representatives of the Group of Eight industrialized nations agreed Tuesday that they must take measures to deal with the impact climate change will have on the labor market. The agreement was announced on the final day of the three-day labor meeting in Niigata. In a chairman's conclusion released at the end of the summit, participants agreed that policy responses to fight climate change are likely to force industries to cut costs, and concurrently to slash jobs.
Labor officials from the Group of Eight nations began on Sunday a three-day meeting to discuss ways to curb climate change coupled with measures to redress economic and regional inequalities. It is the first time discussions linking labor issues with environmental policies have been attempted within the G8 framework. According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, the participants in the Niigata meeting are aiming to provide momentum toward building a consensus on climate change at the G8 summit in July in Hokkaido.
Aid is desperately needed in hard-to-reach parts of Myanmar devastated by the recent cyclone, which triggered huge waves that in some areas swept away more than 90 percent of dwellings and left as many as 90 percent of residents dead or missing, a UNICEF official said Sunday. Osamu Kunii, chief of health and nutrition at UNICEF's office in Yangon, Myanmar's largest city, described the dire situation faced by Cyclone Nargis survivors in the Ayeyarwady delta region of southwestern Myanmar in a telephone interview.
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has told a U.S. newspaper that he expects the United Nations to "more actively intervene" to help cyclone-hit Myanmar at a time when the military government is reluctant to accept troops from other countries, according to a government official. While noting that the United States is showing "great consideration" by preparing to deploy troops to help Myanmar, Fukuda was quoted as telling the Washington Post on Saturday, "But is it OK to forcibly go there when the (Myanmar) government doesn't want it and what if some conflict occurs?
Over the next 10 years, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government is going ahead with ambitious plans to plant a forest along Tokyo Bay, increase the number of tree-lined streets, plant grass in parks, and all the while encourage community involvement in a bid to nurture a "green movement." Tokyo's Big Change: the 10-year plan, which was laid out in 2006, responds to growing environmental concerns worldwide and aims to boost the capital's image as it prepares to bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Chinese President Hu Jintao called for bolstered trust and cooperation with Japan as he arrived in the country Tuesday for the first visit by a Chinese head of state in a decade. Hu, who arrived on a special Air China flight, is scheduled to hold summit talks with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda on Wednesday, after a meeting with Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko earlier that day.
The head of the Nobel Prize-winning U.N. climate panel is urging Japan to exercise leadership during the upcoming Group of Eight summit in setting midterm and long-term global targets to cut carbon emissions. "I would feel very happy if in the G8 meeting all the leaders agree that by 2020 the world has to cut its emissions by X percent and by 2050 it has to cut them by Y percent," Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said in a recent interview in Tokyo.
The Nankan River in Kumamoto Prefecture was hit by a 5,000-liter oil spill Friday after a nearby food processing plant stocked up on more oil than usual before a gas surcharge was reinstated earlier in the week. Iwamoto Co., based in the town of Nankan, had increased its stores of heavy oil to stock up before higher gasoline and other surcharges were reinstated Thursday by the government after the ruling bloc-controlled Lower House rammed through a related bill. The oil is used as fuel for boilers.
