By Danielle Demetriou 21 January 2019 TOKYO (The Telegraph) – Grilled, raw, stewed, dried, fermented, fried: squid has long been consumed with abundance in Japan, appearing in countless everyday dishes. Now, however, Japan’s long-running love affair with squid is in danger, with growing reports that catches this season have hit a record low, causing prices […]
By Petra Löw8 January 2019 (Munich Re) – When compared with the record losses of the previous year from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, the indications at the start of 2018 were that it would be a more moderate year. However, the second half of the year saw an accumulation of billion-dollar losses from floods, […]
20 January 2019 (Desdemona Despair) – At the beginning of each year, the World Economic Forum publishes its Global Risks Report, which “presents the results of our latest Global Risks Perception Survey, in which nearly 1,000 decision-makers from the public sector, private sector, academia and civil society assess the risks facing the world.” In 2019, […]
4 January 2019 (The Guardian) – A record $3.1 m (£2.4 m) has been paid for a giant bluefin tuna at Tokyo’s new fish market, which replaced the world-famous Tsukiji late last year. The winning bid for the prized but endangered species at the predawn auction was more than double the 2013 annual New Year […]
By Justin McCurry and Graham Readfearn 19 December 2018 TOKYO (The Guardian) – Japan is to withdraw from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and resume commercial whaling next year, a report claimed on Thursday, in a move that drew condemnation from Australia, with other anti-whaling nations expected to follow suit.Japan will inform the IWC of […]
By Leslie Hook and John Reed 24 October 2018 (Financial Times) – As Robert Reed examines a mountain of trash piled three storeys high, a thin white plastic bag catches his eye. He fishes it out and holds it up. “That is a problem plastic,” he says gravely. “These get stuck in the machines, and […]
14 October 2018 (Desdemona Despair) – On Monday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its semi-annual World Economic Outlook report for 2018. Twice a year, Des looks forward to browsing this hefty document for the latest financial and energy data, and this year’s report, Challenges to Steady Growth, has lots of good stuff. Here are […]
By Eric Leister 2 October 2018 (AccuWeather) – On the heels of deadly Typhoon Trami, Japan will face another dangerous typhoon this week. Super Typhoon Kong-rey is currently the equivalent of a Category 5 major hurricane in the Atlantic and east Pacific and will remain a dangerous tropical cyclone in the coming days. A northwest […]
Dr. Jeff Masters 2 October 2018 (Weather Underground) – In a rare display of atmospheric violence, two Category 5 storms simultaneously churned across the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday morning. At 8 pm EDT Monday evening, the Central Pacific Hurricane Center elevated Hurricane Walaka a Category 5 storm with 160 mph winds, and just three hours […]
By Marlowe Hood 28 September 2018 (AFP) – Dozens of nations with commercial fisheries in the Atlantic Ocean will grapple next week with a new finding that bigeye tuna, the backbone of a billion dollar business, is severely depleted and overfished. Unless catch levels are sharply reduced, scientists warned, stocks of the fatty, fast-swimming predator […]
