Economy | ANALYSIS
Households to take hit from tax hike
by Tomoko Otake
The consumption tax increase will hit every household in Japan hard, with many people’s financial future hanging on whether their wages rise enough to offset the hike's impact.
Environment Aug 16, 2013
Race to build water-grab dams endangers Himalayas
by John Vidal and Kumkum Dasgupta
The future of the world’s most famous mountain-range could be endangered by a vast dam-building project, as a risky regional race for water resources takes place in Asia. New academic research shows that India, Nepal, Bhutan and Pakistan are engaged in a huge “water ...
Environment | Australia nature Aug 15, 2013
Mysterious whales tracked
Dwarf minke whales have been tagged and tracked in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef in a world-first pilot study that hopes to solve the mystery of where they spend the summer. Scientists at James Cook University in Queensland state are taking part in the project, ...
Environment Aug 15, 2013
Climate change linked to ancient civilizations' fall
A cold, dry spell that lasted hundreds of years may have driven the collapse of Eastern Mediterranean civilizations in the 13th century B.C., researchers in France said Wednesday. In the Late Bronze Age, powerful kingdoms spanned lands that are now Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, Syria, ...
Environment Aug 15, 2013
Extreme heat waves likely to be the new normal
Climate change will trigger harsher and more frequent heat waves in the next 30 years regardless of the amount of Earth-warming carbon dioxide we emit, a study said Thursday. But targets adopted today for curbing greenhouse gas emissions will determine whether the pattern stabilizes ...
Environment Aug 15, 2013
Tons of smuggled pangolins found
Vietnamese customs officials have found over 6 tons of live, protected pangolins inside a shipping container sent from Indonesia. The rare creatures, known as “scaly anteaters” for their unusual appearance and prized in China and Vietnam as an exotic meal, were discovered last week ...
Environment Aug 7, 2013
New records for sea ice loss, greenhouse gas in 2012
The world lost record amounts of Arctic sea ice in 2012 and spewed out all-time high levels of greenhouse gases by burning fossil fuels, international climate scientists said Tuesday.
Environment Aug 6, 2013
SkyTruth, the environment and the satellite revolution
by Neely Tucker
Somewhere in the South Pacific, thousands of miles from the nearest landfall, there is a fishing ship. Let’s say you’re on it. Go onto the open deck, scream, jump around naked, fire a machine gun into the air — who will ever know? You ...
Environment Aug 4, 2013
Europe's urban rivers regain life after neglect
Beaches in Paris and Warsaw, a bucolic cycle in Madrid: Capitals around Europe are slowly transforming their riverbanks from noisy, polluted thoroughfares to green, leisurely havens. Keen to boost their image, environmental credentials and their economy, authorities in many cities are giving rivers pride ...
Environment | OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK Aug 3, 2013
School wins prize for paddle power in its paddies
by C.W. Nicol
In mid-July, together with a couple of celebrities, a reporter and some staff from Aeon Co., Ltd., Asia’s biggest retailer, I took a half-hour bus ride from Nagoya Station to the city of Aisai in Aichi Prefecture to visit Saya High School there. The ...
Environment Aug 3, 2013
Nepal targets Everest trash, fights
Nepal’s Tourism Ministry said Friday it plans to exercise tighter control of climbers scaling Mount Everest to make sure they keep the world’s highest peak clean and to prevent fights. The ministry will set up a 10-member team made up of government officials, veteran ...
Environment Aug 3, 2013
N.Z. dad, son die in K2 summit quest
Two New Zealand climbers hoping to become the first father-and-son team to scale the world’s second-highest mountain have died in the attempt, their family said last week after the pair went missing on K2. Martin Schmidt, 53, and his 25-year-old son, Denali, were attempting ...
Environment | FOCUS Jul 31, 2013
Shark attacks on humans are rare but not unheard of
by Juliet Eilperin
With beach season in full swing, the question inevitably arises: What are the chances of getting attacked by a shark? In a phrase: extraordinarily low — though not nonexistent. It is higher in certain parts of the U.S. (Florida tops the list) than in ...