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/ 14 February 2008
The United Nations climate chief on Thursday called for rich and developing nations to reach a compromise as they held talks in Japan in their bid to forge a new deal on fighting global warming by the end of next year. Officials from the United Nations and 21 countries opened two days of closed-door talks in Tokyo to help find common ground.
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/ 13 February 2008
Hiroshi Hoketsu, a 66-year-old equestrian rider, is set to become Japan’s oldest Olympian after being officially named on Wednesday in the team for Beijing. Hoketsu, who will be 67 next month, has been named to compete in the team dressage event after a 44-year break from the Games.
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/ 9 February 2008
A Russian strategic bomber briefly entered Japanese airspace over the Pacific south of Tokyo early on Saturday morning, prompting 24 Japanese military aircraft to scramble, officials said. Russia denied the incursion, but the Japanese Foreign Ministry said it lodged a strong protest with the Russian embassy in Tokyo.
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/ 9 February 2008
Top world finance ministers warned on Saturday that the global economy faces growing threats from a United States housing slump and credit crunch. The finance chiefs from the Group of Seven (G7) industrialised nations said their economies were set to lose steam in the near future but remained fundamentally solid.
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/ 5 February 2008
Japan’s health minister raised the possibility on Tuesday that someone had deliberately contaminated Chinese-made dumplings imported into Japan with pesticide in an incident that made 10 Japanese sick and sparked a food scare. Japanese police have set up a joint task force to investigate the case on suspicion of attempted murder.
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/ 31 January 2008
Dozens more people in Japan on Thursday said they fell sick after eating Chinese-made food, a day after Japanese food companies recalled pesticide-contaminated dumplings from China that made 10 people sick. The food scare has triggered a nationwide probe into possible additional cases of food poisoning.
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/ 29 January 2008
With her hair tied back into a neat ponytail, Hikari Kanno (13), a bookish schoolgirl, would hardly seem to fit the profile of an avid reader of novels about sex, drugs and violence. She finds them not at the bookstore but on her cellphone, the gateway for "cellphone novels" that are becoming very popular in Japan.
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/ 29 January 2008
Lovelorn staff at a Japanese marketing company can take paid time off after a bad break-up with a partner, with more "heartache leave" on offer as they get older. Tokyo-based Hime & Company, which also gives staff paid time off to hit the shops during sales season, says heartache leave allows staff to cry themselves out and return to work refreshed.
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/ 28 January 2008
British rock band Led Zeppelin enjoyed jamming together again last year in a charity concert but won’t have another session before September at the earliest, lead guitarist Jimmy Page said in Tokyo on Monday. Page, in the city to promote a greatest hits release, painted a happy picture of the reunion.
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/ 16 January 2008
The anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd scored a victory on Wednesday in its high-seas campaign to obstruct a Japanese whale hunt in the Antarctic, forcing the fleet to a standstill while officials tried to unload two protesters who had boarded a harpoon vessel from their rubber boat.
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/ 14 January 2008
Young Japanese people are evolving a new lifestyle for the 21st century based on the cellphones that few are now able to live without. While about one-third of Japanese primary school students aged seven to 12 years-old use cellphones, by the time they get to high school that figure has shot up to 96%.
The booming popularity of Nintendo’s Wii console and DS handheld sent the combined sales of game machines and gaming software in Japan to a record high last year, according to research by a Japanese publisher. The results underline the stellar success of Nintendo, the company maker behind Super Mario and Pokemon games.
Gold surged to a fresh record high on Tuesday, boosted by firm oil prices, with longer-term trends such as a weakening dollar spurring heavy buying by investment funds. Spot gold rose as far as ,80 an ounce, surpassing the previous record of ,05 reached last week.
Nintendo’s Wii outsold rival Sony’s PlayStation 3 (PS3) three-fold in Japan last year, helping the country’s multibillion-dollar video game market to notch up its best-ever year, a survey showed on Monday. Nintendo sold about 3,63-million Wii consoles in its home market in 2007 while Sony sold 1,21-million PS3s, according to magazine publisher Enterbrain.
Spot gold held near record highs on Friday in Asia as a rally in oil prices to more than a barrel and a weak dollar supported the investment appeal of the precious metal. Platinum hit a record high on Friday, before drifting lower. Investment funds are flocking to gold, which jumped more than 30% in 2007.
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/ 28 December 2007
Flexible concrete that becomes stronger after it cracks is being used in Japanese buildings to protect against earthquakes. Developed by construction firm Kajima Corporation, it contains polymer fibres the thickness of a human hair, commonly used in tyres, which hold it together and prevent cracks from spreading.
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/ 25 December 2007
Japan’s leading mobile phone operator NTT DoCoMo, trying to fight off resurgent competitors, will tie up with United States search-engine giant Google to upgrade its services, a report said Tuesday. DoCoMo will incorporate Google’s search and email features into its popular "i-mode" internet service as part of a broader alliance.
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/ 22 December 2007
No time to bring your suit to a dry cleaner? Just turn on the shower to wash it at home. Washable suits are already available, but Japanese clothing company Konaka says its ”Shower Clean” line of business suits that can be washed in a warm shower and require no ironing is one of a kind.
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/ 21 December 2007
Japan’s whaling fleet in the Antarctic will avoid killing humpback whales for now, but will press on with plans to slay 1 000 other whales by early in the New Year, a government official said on Friday. Plans by Japan to include 50 endangered humpbacks in its annual hunt had sparked an outcry from activists.
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/ 20 December 2007
As Japan takes a more active role in military affairs, the defence minister has more on his mind than just threats here on Earth. Shigeru Ishiba became the second member of the Cabinet to profess a belief in UFOs and said he was looking at how Japan’s military could respond to aliens under the pacifist Constitution.
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/ 11 December 2007
As if the idea of having one robot to serve a person wasn’t unusual enough, Honda says its robots are now ready to work in pairs — and they can even serve drinks. At a demonstration held on Tuesday in Tokyo, the automaker showed off two of the child-sized Asimo robots serving tea and performing other tasks.
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/ 29 November 2007
Whale curry made its debut as a takeaway business lunch in Tokyo on Thursday, attracting curious customers who seldom eat the meat amid an international row over hunting the giant mammals. Asian Lunch offered South Asian-style keema curry with ground whale in a first trial for the meat.
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/ 28 November 2007
Japan’s future dentists may soon be able to better appreciate patients’ pain by training on a humanoid robot that can mumble "ouch" when the drill hits a nerve. The robot, resembling an attractive young woman with long black hair and a pink sweater, can also listen to instructions and react to pain by moving her eyes or hands.
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/ 27 November 2007
A pearly white robot that looks a little like ET boosted a man out of bed, chatted and helped prepare his breakfast with its deft hands in Tokyo on Tuesday, in a further sign robots are becoming more like their human inventors. Twendy-One, named as a 21st-century edition of a previous robot, Wendy, has soft hands and fingers that gently grip.
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/ 17 November 2007
Japan’s whaling fleet is set to depart on Sunday for an annual hunt that this year for the first time will take humpback whales — a perennial favourite among whale-watchers — sparking protests from activists. Japan abandoned commercial whaling in accordance with an international moratorium in 1986, but began the next year to conduct what it calls scientific research whaling.
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/ 15 November 2007
A publisher has taken to Japan’s top court his eight-year fight over the banning of imported images of male genitals in a book of pictures by the late American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Publisher Takashi Asai said he expected to win his case because the court had taken the step of agreeing to hear his appeal.
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/ 15 November 2007
Japan will launch satellite searches for rare metals with Botswana and South Africa in a global race to secure industrial resources, a minister said in an interview published on Thursday. Japan has a strong interest in platinum and other rare metals and minerals abundant in Africa.
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/ 13 November 2007
A series of successes by recent mothers has prompted questions whether childbirth, far from spelling the end of a sporting career, can actually boost an athlete’s performance. Paula Radcliffe has a sensational New York Marathon win this month, after having her first child in January.
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/ 5 November 2007
Shares of Citigroup rose 5% in their debut on the Tokyo bourse on Monday, a day after the United States bank’s head resigned to take responsibility for spiralling losses on subprime-related investments. Charles Prince stepped down after four years as Citigroup’s chief on Sunday after the bank said it may suffer an -billion write-down for subprime losses.
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/ 1 November 2007
Japan ordered its naval ships on Thursday to withdraw from a refuelling mission in support of United States-led operations in Afghanistan as a political deadlock kept the government from meeting a deadline to extend the activities. The Pentagon said that Japan’s withdrawal would not affect its patrolling of the Indian Ocean.
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/ 24 October 2007
Japanese Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama said on Wednesday he wanted to consider more ‘tranquil’ methods of execution. ”I am fully aware that ‘death by hanging’ is written in the criminal code,” Hatoyama said after a parliamentary committee meeting. It was not clear what other methods he was considering.
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/ 23 October 2007
If you’re stuck in traffic when Mother Nature calls, Japan’s Kaneko Sangyo Corporation has developed the loo for you. The manufacturer of plastic car accessories drew back the curtain on Tuesday on its new portable toilet for cars. The toilet comes with a curtain large enough to conceal users and a plastic bag to collect waste.