Japan: Matsushita Devises Technology To Make Lead-Free Fluorescent
Lamps

Matsushita devises technology to make lead-free fluorescent lamps
Friday 22nd August, 06:40 AM JST

Osaka —
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. said Thursday it has developed a technology to produce electrode glass for fluorescent lamps without using environmentally harmful lead. The industry’s first technology of its kind, which replaces lead with barium, will enable Matsushita to cut the use of lead-contained glass by 2,000 tons a year, the Osaka-based company said.

Matsushita, Japan’s largest fluorescent lamp maker with annual production of some 135 million units, will make all of its products lead-free, starting in October. Matsushita also announced a plan to increase the use of glass from recycled fluorescent lamps to 53 million tons a year in fiscal 2010 from 600 tons in fiscal 2007. Combined with other technological improvements, the increase in the use of recycled glass will reduce the emission of carbon dioxide in the glass-melting process by 25 percent from the fiscal 2007 level, Matsushita said


http://www.japantoday.com/category/technol...uorescent-lamps

Japan Plans To Host G-8 Farm Ministers' Meeting By Year-End

Japan plans to host G-8 farm ministers' meeting by year-end
Friday 22nd August, 06:48 AM JST

TOKYO —
Japan plans to host a meeting of farm ministers from the Group of Eight industrial nations by the end of the year to discuss steps to assuage the run-up in global food prices, the nation’s vice farm minister said Thursday. ‘‘We would like to exchange views so the countries may firmly position food security as their policy,’’ Vice Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Toshiro Shirasu told reporters.

Japan will start talks with its G-8 peers so the meeting may be held in October or November, he said. The farm ministers are expected to discuss what criteria should be devised and observed to keep production of bio-fuels from limiting the supply of food. They will also likely discuss setting up a multilateral system for stockpiling foods. In July, leaders of the G-8 countries agreed to arrange a meeting of their farm ministers when they gathered for a summit in Hokkaido.


http://www.japantoday.com/category/politic...ing-by-year-end

Japan: Machimura denies pork-barreling spending

Machimura denies pork-barreling spending

Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura has denied the government is planning major public spending to boost Japan's ailing economy.

Machimura told reporters on Thursday the current economic downturn has not been caused by a lack of demand.

He said thorough consideration should be given to the question of whether large-scale public expenditure is now needed to produce demand. Machimura said no one in the government is calling for conventional pork-barrel spending.

Also in the day, the government and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party discussed comprehensive economic measures, which they plan to compile next week.

The party's senior officials said a bill on a large-scale supplementary budget should be submitted to an extraordinary Diet session to be convened in the middle of September.

Cabinet ministers, including Machimura and Finance Minister Bunmei Ibuki, said how to secure revenue sources is important when enacting an economic stimulus package.

The government and the ruling party agreed to continue coordinating their opinions on the scale of economic measures and revenue sources.

2008/08/21 14:57

http://www.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/21_27.html

New Law Lets Ontario Seize Cars Of Repeat Drunk Drivers

The Ontario government is now seizing cars owned or driven by repeat drunk drivers under the province's amended civil forfeiture law, the first program of its kind in Canada.

"This new law is a message to drunk drivers: Stop your irresponsible behaviour or you could lose your wheels," Ontario Attorney General Chris Bentley said in a release Monday.

Bentley was in South Porcupine, near Timmins, where he gave one of three seized vehicles to the Ontario Community Council on Impaired Driving and Action Sudbury so they can raise awareness about the dangers of drunk driving.

Under the amended law, which was passed last February, the government can sell or give away a car owned or driven by a driver involved in two or more drinking and driving offences within the past 10 years.

"This new law is very important in fighting impaired driving," said Anne Leonard, executive director of the Ontario Community Council on Impaired Driving.

Drinking is a factor in about a quarter of all fatal crashes in Ontario with twice as many people killed in drinking and driving related crashes in the summer, compared to winter, the release said.

Of 3,226 people killed in motor vehicle crashes in Canada in 2005, Mothers Against Drunk Driving estimated that 1,210 of these fatalities involved impaired driving.

That same year, about 71,413 of 380,668 people injured in vehicles were hurt in impaired driving crashes, the group estimated.


http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/08/19/...unkdrivers.html

Olympian Phelps Serves As "Ambassador" To Mcdonald's Pushing Filth(Labeled As Food)

http://www.naturalnews.com/023930.html