Japan has one of the highest installed renewable energy capacities in the world. The country is also one of the world’s largest consumers of energy. Lacking its own fossil fuel resources, it relies on imports for nearly all of its supply. This dependence on imports makes the country vulnerable to …
US SOURCES contend Japan is violating a 1991 agreement, which requires the Japanese to buy 20 per cent of its computer chip needs from USA. A third-quarter assessment in 1992 shows the US share of the Japanese chip market is still only 15.9 per cent. Responding to US commerce secretary …
BY THE end of the 1980s, 37 per cent of the paper and board consumed by the world was being collected and recycled to make more paper and board. While in the North it was environmental consciousness that brought about this recycling, in the South, poverty was the determining factor. …
ENVIRONMENTALISTS are concerned that plans by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to provide Cambodia with a US $3.78 million aid package, includes supply of 30 tonnes of insecticides worth US $800,000. Japan Tropical Forest Action Network, an NGO, reports two of the chemical fertilisers are diazinon and sumicidin, which are …
JAPANESE scientists hail environmental technology as the new frontier of science. Surveyed on breakthroughs they consider likely in the next generation, scientists listed 1,149 topics in 16 fields. The survey was conducted by the Japanese Science and Technology Agency. Among their predictions: the first major discovery will probably be a …
JONATHAN Mann, who resigned as head of the World Health Organisation's AIDS programme during Hiroshi Nakajima's first term as WHO director general, is now challenging Nakajima's re-election. Mann resigned after criticising Nakajima for his "personalised style of management" and for downgrading the organisation's AIDS programme. Nakajima's re-election campaign was fierce …
THOUGH reports linking brain, cancer to the use of mobile phones pushed down shares of US Cellular telephone companies, Japanese firms remain mostly unaffected. Tokyo stock market analysts explain this is because the Japanese have been inoculated by earlier reports of radioactive cellular phones. Says Edward Staiano of Motorola, the …
PRESIDENT Bill Clinton wants American research to adopt the Japanese stress on industrial applications. But his call may have come too late as Japanese scientists are switching their thrust to basic research, in which the Americans have hitherto been pre-eminent. Clinton plans to add at least $7 billion to the …
BUCKYBALLS or fullerenes, a newly discovered form of carbon, have opened up a new field in carbon chemistry and new applications are coming to light in electronics and electrochemistry. Japanese scientists have recently made thin films of fullerene crystals that show the electrical behaviour of semi-conductors such as silicon. Other …
IN A SHIFT from Japan's traditional eating habits, meat and dairy products have now overshot rice production as the Japanese take to a more westernised diet. The Japanese ministry of agriculture, forestry and fisheries recently reported that as compared to 25 years ago, the average Japanese now eats 40 per …
MAJOR differences of opinion have surfaced within the government in Japan over the shipment of weapons-grade plutonium from Europe even as the Japanese freighter Akatsuki Maru continues its 27,000 km-long journey from Cherbourg in France to Japan. This is the first large-scale shipment of commercial plutonium fuel, the opening step …
Karoshi -- death from overwork -- has struck corporate bigwigs in Japan. Now, white-collared workers and women too are being affected and a worried labour ministry has announced a set of initiatives to deal with the problem (The Lancet, Vol 340 No 8819). Karoshi, characterised by sudden death caused by …
The Japanese passion for golf is on a new course. Since 1987, 20 districts covering 32,000 sq km were earmarked for resort development. The total area covered by the resorts will eventually touch 60,000 sq km -- 16 per cent of the country's land area. A private study asserts the …
BETWEEN the 1960s and 1990s, if there is one thing that is different, it is the level of material consumption of the richer sections of the world. Says Swedish environmentalist Anders Wijkman, "When I used to go to school in the 1950s, I was one of the few kids in …
Despite widespread international criticism, Japan has decided to go ahead with shipment of 30 tonnes of reprocessed plutonium from France and Britain over the next two decades to enhance its nuclear energy production. Even before the first cargo of 1.7 tonnes could set out from Cherbourg in France for Yokohama, …
Can earthquakes be forecast? After investing one billion dollars in a 30-year earthquake prediction programme, Japanese scientists have virtually admitted failure (Nature, Vol 358 No 6835). A recent review of the programme by Japanese officials indicated several abnormal phenomena could not be objectively identified as quake precursors. For instance, earthquake …
IN JUST two years, India's sesame seed exports have fallen dramatically -- by more than 75 per cent. While the government says this is due to higher prices in the domestic market, oilseed exporters contend it is because residues of banned pesticides have been detected in sesame seeds by importing …
ALL IS not shipshape at Japan's dry dock. Recently, six Greenpeace activists, protesting the first shipment of one tonne of plutonium from France to Japan, were arrested by the Japanese government. The plutonium will fuel Japan's future fast-breeder nuclear power programme. The protestors pointed out the vulnerability of carrying the …
ROUND logs can be transformed into square ones without using a saw. The process yields wood that is stronger, denser and less liable to split and warp (New Scientist, Vol. 135, No. 1828). The method, evolved by Japanese scientist Yoshinori Kobayashi, involves baking the logs to around 1000 C in …
THIS book is part of a project on technology transfer, transformation and development implemented by United Nations University (UNU), a UN organ established in 1972 to conduct research related to pressing global problems of human survival, development and welfare. UNU undertook a project to study the Japanese experience between 1978 …
JAPANESE cows now have their personal paging systems... call, and they come -- more eagerly if its piano music that has distinct and individual notes. With cowherds becoming unaffordable in Japan, researchers considered the feasibility of an individual musical call that would be transmitted to the cow via tiny pagers …
