Lack of concrete promises disappoints NGOs
TOYAKO, Hokkaido — Various nongovernmental organizations expressed deep disappointment Wednesday over the G8 summit, which ended without any concrete goals or commitments and left much unfinished business for next year's meeting in Italy. This year's summit was a step backward from last year's in Heiligendamm, ...
Nuke plant makers cast eye abroad
The voice of Atsutoshi Nishida, president of Toshiba Corp., rose an octave as he talked about the electronic giant's quest to build atomic power plants. "Our plan calls for us to either sign or start constructing 33 nuclear power plants by 2015," Nishida said in ...
U.S., Britain to seek U.N. action targeting Mugabe, Brown says
TOYAKO, Hokkaido — Britain and the United States are pushing for further sanctions against the regime of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Wednesday. "We are announcing new sanctions at the United Nations Security Council against an illegitimate regime that has ...
TOYAKO, Hokkaido — With global inflation and an economic slowdown looming over their heads, the Group of Eight industrialized nations ended their three-day summit Wednesday by exposing their inability to take effective action against soaring oil and food prices and the weak dollar. "The world ...
G8 trying to have it both ways on nukes
TOYAKO, Hokkaido — On July 1, 1968, world leaders signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT, in which nonnuclear weapons states agreed to never produce or acquire such arms while countries possessing them agreed to eventually scrap their arsenals. Four decades later, nuclear weapons remain ...
Leaders of the Group of Eight nations have for now agreed to disagree on expanding their exclusive club to include emerging economies, but the debate is expected to continue next year and beyond. The proposal by French President Nicolas Sarkozy appears to have made Japan ...
Fukuda seeks Hu's help on abduction row
TOYAKO, Hokkaido — Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda asked Chinese President Hu Jintao on Wednesday to urge North Korea to resolve the abduction dispute, a senior Japanese official said. In response, Hu said he understands the sentiment of the Japanese public over the issue, and Beijing ...
Home front baggage cramps leaders
TOYAKO, Hokkaido — The Group of Eight leaders headed for home Wednesday evening after wrapping up their three-day annual summit. For U.S. President George W. Bush, it was his eighth and final meeting. But several of his fellow summiteers return home wondering whether they'll be ...
G8 couldn't push emitters to set targets
TOYAKO, Hokkaido — The three-day Group of Eight summit in Toyako, Hokkaido, concluded Wednesday as the major industrialized powers and key emerging economies agreed to jointly fight global warming but failed to set any quantitative goals to substantiate their pledge. "We, the leaders of the ...
Summit outcome belies high expectations
TOYAKO, Hokkaido — The drive for economic prosperity by the major nations still outweighs the urgent need to save an ailing planet. A proposal by the Group of Eight industrialized nations to cut global carbon emissions by 50 percent by midcentury was rejected by the ...
Media flummoxed: Did summit succeed, fail, what?
The masterfully crafted jargon and haziness in a statement issued Wednesday by the Group of Eight leaders and their counterparts from eight other major greenhouse gas emitters left even newspapers bamboozled on what actually took place in Toyako, Hokkaido. The confusion was so profound that ...
Japan sees quiet jets, frigid cars, water-saving toilets in near future
RUSUTSU, Hokkaido — Japan's advanced technology may come in handy in the face of the world's growing environmental challenges and the Group of Eight's slow progress on diplomacy. The technologies put on display for the media at the Rusutsu media center's "environmental showcase" include next-generation ...
