By Quoctrung Bui15 November 2013 (NPR) – China’s decision to (further) relax its infamous one-child policy is, as much as anything, an economic decision. China put the one-child policy in place decades ago, when the country feared a destabilizing population boom. It benefited in the short run — the country slowed its population growth and […]
By James West19 November 2013 (Mother Jones) – When Japan dramatically slashed its plans last week for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, from 25 percent to just 3.8 percent compared to 2005 figures, the international reaction was swift and damning. Britain called it “deeply disappointing.” China’s climate negotiator, Su Wei, said, “I have no […]
By Ben Jervey21 November 2013 WARSAW, Poland (Grist) – For the first time ever, environmental groups have staged a mass walkout of a U.N. climate summit. Citing immense frustration with the lack of productive action in the COP19 climate talks, which have been dogged by a persistent rift between rich and poor countries on the […]
By John Light and Karin Kamp15 November 2013 (BillMoyers.com) – All eyes are on the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant as major cleanup efforts are set to begin later this month, in the most significant test of the operator’s ability to manage the threats resulting from one of the biggest nuclear disasters ever. For two […]
By Justin McCurry in Tokyo 12 November 2013 (The Guardian) – Japanese officials have admitted for the first time that thousands of people evacuated from areas near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant may never be able to return home. A report by members of the governing Liberal Democratic party [LDP] and its junior coalition […]
By Rupert Wingfield-Hayes 8 November 2013 (BBC News) – Engineers at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant are preparing to extract the first of thousands of fuel rods from the wrecked reactor-four building. This delicate task is a major step on the long road to making the site safe, reports the BBC’s Rupert Wingfield-Hayes. If you open […]
By Antoni Slodkowski and Mari Saito25 Oct 2013 IWAKI (Reuters) – Tetsuya Hayashi went to Fukushima to take a job at ground zero of the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. He lasted less than two weeks. Hayashi, 41, says he was recruited for a job monitoring the radiation exposure of workers leaving the plant in […]
By Abigail Haworth 19 October 2013 (The Observer) – Ai Aoyama is a sex and relationship counsellor who works out of her narrow three-storey home on a Tokyo back street. Her first name means “love” in Japanese, and is a keepsake from her earlier days as a professional dominatrix. Back then, about 15 years ago, […]
By Justin McCurry 15 October 2013 FUKUSHIMA (The Guardian) – Dressed in a hazardous materials suit, full-face mask and hard hat, Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, left his audience in no doubt: “The future of Japan,” he said, “rests on your shoulders. I am counting on you.” Abe’s exhortation, delivered during a recent visit to […]
By Greg Ray 18 October 2013 (Newcastle Herald) – It was the silence that made this voyage different from all of those before it. Not the absence of sound, exactly. The wind still whipped the sails and whistled in the rigging. The waves still sloshed against the fibreglass hull. And there were plenty of other […]
