Latest news with #IreneWang
Japan Today
07-07-2025
- Health
- Japan Today
Japanese firms take steps to protect outdoor workers as heatwave sizzles on
A worker, wearing an air-conditioned jacket which has cooling fans on its back, takes a break at an under-construction apartment building in Tokyo on Monday. By Irene Wang and Satoshi Sugiyama Japan endured another day of a searing heatwave on Monday, with temperatures soaring to the highest this year in Tokyo and leaving those having to work outside vulnerable to the risk of heatstroke. Heatstroke alerts were issued in 30 of Japan's 47 prefectures, the highest this year, after the country suffered its hottest June on record. The extreme heat, which has become a norm in summertime Japan, has turned into a major workplace hazard, prompting the government to roll out labor safety regulations from last month requiring companies to implement protection measures against heatstroke. Employers are now required to ensure employees wear clothing that allows air to pass through easily, to install a ceiling to block sunlight and to provide a break space with air-conditioning or shade. Heat-exposed workers, wearing air-conditioned jackets, which have cooling fans on their backs, are seen at the top of an apartment building under construction in Tokyo on Monday. Image: Reuters/Issei Kato At an apartment construction site in Tokyo, where temperatures exceeded 35 degrees Celsius for the first time this year on Monday, workers for Daito Trust Construction donned puffy air-conditioned jackets equipped with cooling fans on their backs while at work. The custom-made jacket, which the company developed with a construction supplies manufacturer, uses thermoelectric effects to enhance cooling and has been distributed to 1,500 workers. "When I wear this vest, I don't sweat as much, so I don't lose physical strength," said 47-year-old construction worker Atsushi Mizutani. Construction workers are particularly at risk of heatstroke. They accounted for nearly 20% of deaths or illnesses caused by heatstroke in the workplace in 2023, labor ministry data showed. The overall number of heatstroke cases at work more than doubled that year from a decade ago. "In the past, we didn't wear air-conditioned jackets or anything like that and there weren't as many cases of people collapsing (due to heat stroke) as there are now," said Takami Okamura, 57, who has been a construction worker for 34 years. "In recent years, air-conditioned jumpers and other such items have become a necessity, which makes me realize just how hot it gets." © Thomson Reuters 2025.
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Scientists in Japan develop plastic that dissolves in seawater within hours
By Irene Wang WAKO, Japan (Reuters) -Researchers in Japan have developed a plastic that dissolves in seawater within hours, offering up a potential solution for a modern-day scourge polluting oceans and harming wildlife. While scientists have long experimented with biodegradable plastics, researchers from the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science and the University of Tokyo say their new material breaks down much more quickly and leaves no residual trace. At a lab in Wako city near Tokyo, the team demonstrated a small piece of plastic vanishing in a container of salt water after it was stirred up for about an hour. While the team has not yet detailed any plans for commercialisation, project lead Takuzo Aida said their research has attracted significant interest, including from those in the packaging sector. Scientists worldwide are racing to develop innovative solutions to the growing plastic waste crisis, an effort championed by awareness campaigns such as World Environment Day taking place on June 5. Plastic pollution is set to triple by 2040, the UN Environment Programme has predicted, adding 23-37 million metric tons of waste into the world's oceans each year. "Children cannot choose the planet they will live on. It is our duty as scientists to ensure that we leave them with best possible environment," Aida said. Aida said the new material is as strong as petroleum-based plastics but breaks down into its original components when exposed to salt. Those components can then be further processed by naturally occurring bacteria, thereby avoiding generating microplastics that can harm aquatic life and enter the food chain. As salt is also present in soil, a piece about five centimetres (two inches) in size disintegrates on land after over 200 hours, he added. The material can be used like regular plastic when coated, and the team are focusing their current research on the best coating methods, Aida said. The plastic is non-toxic, non-flammable, and does not emit carbon dioxide, he added.
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Head of Japan's Unification Church vows to fight loss of legal protections
By Irene Wang and Rocky Swift TOKYO (Reuters) - The head of the Unification Church's Japan branch vowed to fight a court order revoking its legal protections, following a scandal over fundraising practices and links to the assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe. Tomihiro Tanaka, the Japanese president of the group now known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, told reporters on Thursday the group had settled all cases of damages levelled against it and the court's order was an attack on religious freedom. "As a righteous, democratic nation and a nation governed by the rule of law, we will fight to the end for the right decision to be made," Tanaka said at a briefing in Tokyo. The Tokyo District Court's dissolution order on the Unification Church on Tuesday was widely expected and came at the government's request after an investigation into the church for its alleged practice of seeking excessive donations from parishioners. The order revokes the group's tax exemptions and opens it up to greater financial scrutiny and potential lawsuits. The organisation came under a spotlight after Abe was gunned down in July 2022 by a man angry at the former prime minister's alleged links to the church. Subsequent revelations that 179 ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lawmakers had dealings with the church triggered a slump in public support, undermining then prime minister Fumio Kishida, who resigned last year. The church, founded by Sun Myung Moon in Seoul in 1954, has wielded political power and courted controversy in South Korea, Japan, and the United States for decades. Moon, an anti-communist and self-declared messiah who died at age 92 in 2012, was acquainted with Abe's grandfather, former prime minister Nobusuke Kishi. The organisation he founded runs the conservative Washington Times newspaper and has traditionally been a supporter of Republican politicians in the U.S. The Japanese arm of the group has argued that receiving donations is part of its religious activities and that it has ceased misleading recruitment tactics. It claims to have about 100,000 members in Japan. This marks the third time a Japanese court has acted to dissolve a religious corporation due to legal breaches, according to public broadcaster NHK. The first two involved Aum Shinrikyo, a cult that carried out a fatal sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway 30 years ago, and a temple group involved in fraud, NHK said.
