One worker was killed and another was injured in a Monday morning blast at a chemical factory in Yokohama, police and firefighters said. Bare Frames are all that is left of a chemical factory building in Kanazawa Ward, Yokohama, after an explosion Monday morning. KYODO PHOTO The blast occurred at around 8:50 a.m. at one of the eight buildings at the factory of chemical maker Kanto Koatsu Kagaku Co. in Kanazawa Ward. The building that suffered the blast is used for conducting experiments.
By 2012, all of Japan should be using energy-saving fluorescent bulbs rather than incandescent bulbs as part of the effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Akira Amari said Saturday. "I think this is a prime example of a campaign that is accessible and can be participated in by everyone," Amari told a news conference after attending a public meeting on environmental issues in Toyako, Hokkaido, where the annual Group of Eight summit will be held in July.
An ingredient in weedkiller has been detected in a bottle of green tea sold at a Tokyo supermarket, and police and its manufacturer suspect the substance was deliberately mixed into the bottle, officials said Saturday. The incident involved a bottle of Healthya, a hit product made by Tokyo-based Kao Corp. touted as dissolving fat. A 43-year-old man in Nerima Ward who suffered minor diarrhea after drinking the tea told police the cap on the bottle appeared to be loose when he opened it.
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who will chair the G8 summit when it is held in Toyako, ministers in charge of environmental issues and members of the prime minister's panel of experts discussed ways to tackle climate change, an area where Japan hopes to show strong leadership on the global G8 stage.
Japan will lead discussions at July's Group of Eight summit on the North Korean and Iranian nuclear standoffs and on strengthening the nonproliferation framework, Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said Tuesday in a biennial report on disarmament. The 2008 white paper on disarmament and nonproliferation also criticizes China's failure to provide an adequate explanation of its antisatellite test in January 2007, reiterating Japan's concerns and calling for greater transparency of its military capacities.
Japan will urge people to carry their own chopsticks instead of using disposables and to shop with their own bags instead of using plastic ones in a bid to more than halve the garbage it produces.
Lehman Brothers Inc. has announced it will start trading carbon credits in Japan, becoming the first global investment bank to link the Japanese and European carbon markets. Lehman Brothers has become the first foreign financial firm to open an account in Japan's national registry system for trading in Certified Emission Reductions, the company said. A CER is a carbon credit developed by carbon offset providers that is certified as being equivalent to one ton of carbon dioxide under the mechanism defined by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to combat global warming. The carbon offset system allows emitters of greenhouse gases to pay another party to undertake to remove an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Lehman Brothers said its entry into Japan's carbon trading market follows a significant increase in its global reach in the international carbon markets, including China, India and Latin America.
The Environment Ministry is considering requiring measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for large-scale projects such as building shopping centers in suburban areas that lead to a sharp increase in road traffic, ministry sources said Sunday. Aimed especially at reducing the rising emissions in the transportation sector, the ministry wants to include the provision in a bill it plans to submit during the ongoing Diet session to revise the law on promoting measures to deal with global warming, the sources said.
An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.0 rattled Chiba and Shizuoka prefectures and surrounding regions Sunday morning, the Meteorological Agency said. There were no reports of casualties or damage from the 9:37 a.m. quake. No tsunami warnings were The quake measured 3 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7 in Tateyama, Chiba Prefecture, and Ajiro, Shizuoka Prefecture, and 2 in Tokyo, Yokohama and other locations, the agency said.
