Search Results for: japan

BY GAVIN BLAIR

LATER this year Japan’s Shochiku film studio and Fuji TV will collaborate on a new format that will see the story of "Akai Ito" (‘red thread’ in English) start with a TV drama, be continued in a movie, before the action returns to the small screen for the finale.…

BY GAVIN BLAIR

WHAT does the overworked, overstressed, sleep-deprived Japanese salaryman reach for the morning after a late-night drinking session with his boss, to get him through another long day at the office? When a can of hot or cold coffee from one of nation’s million-odd vending machines just won’t do the trick, it has to be one of a multitude of ‘genki’ (energetic, lively) drinks on the market.…

BY MARK ROWE, KEITH NUTHALL, ALAN OSBORN, GAVIN BLAIR and PAUL COCHRANE

EARTHQUAKES are not good news for nuclear power plants. In safety terms they are a serious risk, and they are usually a public relations disaster, even if no serious damage is done to a plant misfortunate enough to be in a quake.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

ANGLO-Dutch oil giant Shell is not in much doubt that hydrogen is one of the fuels of the future, if not the fuel of the future. Barely a month ago, in June, Duncan Macleod, (NOTE: SPELLING IS CORRECT) global vice president of Shell Hydrogen, told an clean technology conference in the US that Shell had restructured its organisation "to prepare for hydrogen’s transition into the mainstream, bringing it into our downstream fuels portfolio, alongside gasoline, diesel, LPG, CNG – as well as biofuels and GTL."…

By Keith Nuthall

Plans to sweep away some restrictions preventing private universities and higher education service providers from teaching, researching and examining in foreign countries have been put on ice at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

This follows the collapse of negotiations at the July ministerial meeting of the WTO IN Geneva, Switzerland, which had lasted 10 days.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON

THE AUTOPARTS and automotive industries are calling for far tighter world-wide enforcement against counterfeiting, as influential countries meet in Geneva to thrash out more details of a global Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

First mooted by the Office of the US Trade Representative in October 2007- and pursued aggressively by the US Chamber of Commerce – Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates have since come on board to try to develop ACTA.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

SOUTH Korea has recalled its Tokyo ambassador over the ownership of some Sea of Japan islands geologists think could lie amidst natural gas fields. Seoul claims a new Japanese schoolbook alleges Japanese sovereignty over the Dokdo (in Korean) or Takeshima (in Japanese) islands.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ENERGY ministers of the G8 group of countries have promised to work together to ensure that any expansion of the nuclear industry worldwide is carried out with improved safety standards and non-proliferation precautions. Meeting in Hokkaido, Japan, ministers agreed nuclear power would be an important part of global efforts to promote low carbon technologies

ENDS…

BY KARRYN CARTELLE

SEPARATED by a short plane ride across the Tasman Sea, Australia and New Zealand are clearly two distinct countries – in the physical sense – but when it comes to the cosmetics industry in these neighbouring lands it is clear that things are merging into one.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A POWERFUL international bloc is debating forging an international anti-counterfeiting of goods agreement insisting upon cooperation over fighting fake drinks products. Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States have been discussing the idea in Geneva.…