When world leaders, including the Taoiseach, meet at the UN Climate Summit, they have a chance to make a real difference. Right now, it’s as if we are falling from a skyscraper muttering ‘so far so good’, writes Éamonn Meehan, executive director of Trócaire

IN MY first years of collecting I felt a yawning cultural chasm open wide when confronted with Japanese or Chinese ceramics. 

Haruki Murakami

Taoiseach Enda Kenny will visit Japan over the next week as part of efforts to boost trade links.

An eccentric Japanese musician-cum-inventor who’s been described as the “mad professor of home-made instruments” is set to liven up the classrooms of a West Cork school where he will perform as part of the Clonakilty Guitar Festival.

It’s been 32 days since Peter O’Mahony last played a game of competitive rugby and over 50 will have passed by the time he gets to bridge that gap back to the oh-so-close Heineken Cup semi-final against Clermont Auvergne.

A powerful typhoon is bearing down on Japan’s ravaged north-eastern coast today, approaching a nuclear power plant crippled in the tsunami disaster and prompting calls for the evacuation of more than a million people.

MORE than a million people in central Japan were urged to evacuate yesterday as a powerful typhoon approached, triggering floods that left two people missing.

France is bringing home its citizens from Japan on government planes and is sending 100 tons of boric acid to help stem radiation leaks from a damaged nuclear plant.

A LEADING Japanese seismologist warned the country was in danger of a major “nuclear catastrophe” four years ago, but resigned from an advisory panel after his concerns were ignored.

TWO Japanese students studying English here were trying desperately to contact their loved ones last night.

Delegates from more than 190 countries struggled today to break a deadlock on setting targets to preserve animals, plants and ecosystems, raising fears the two-week UN meeting might end in failure.

SINCE the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, a huge amount of media attention has been focused on the collapse of other financial institutions as well as the perilous state of the public finances in many countries.

UN talks aimed at brokering a deal to protect the world’s diminishing natural resources have made little progress, green groups said ahead of the summit’s second phase starting today.

THE world must act immediately to stop the rapid loss of animal and plant species that allow humans to exist, the United Nations warned yesterday at the start of a major summit on biodiversity.

AN international conference aimed at preserving the planet’s diversity of plants and animals in the face of pollution and habitat loss begins today in Japan, facing some of the same divisions between rich and poornations that have stalled UN climate talks.

MORE than a fifth of the world’s plant species faces the threat of extinction, a trend with potentially catastrophic effects for life on Earth, according to research.

ETIHAD Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), who recently increased flights from Dublin to Adu Dhabi to ten a week, continues to expand with the announcement of new services from the Middle Eastern hub to Tokyo.

I IMAGINE there are tons of letters on George Lee’s resignation – here’s mine from Japan:

The president of car giant Toyota faced a huge backlash from the Japanese media today for failing to offer a convincing explanation over the massive worldwide car recall.

IRISH long-haul travellers will be pleased to note that Etihad Airways has expanded its routes with the provision of indirect flights from Dublin to Tokyo and Nagoya in Japan from early next year.

The Ireland U20s rounded off the Pool stage of the Junior World Cup with a resounding 45-0 win over Uruguay in Nagoya today.

Ireland U-20 coach Allen Clarke has named his team for their final IRB Toshiba Junior World Championship pool game against Uruguay in Nagoya on Saturday.

CIARÁN RUDDOCK has been installed as captain for the Ireland U20s’ pivotal Pool A clash against holders, New Zealand, in the world junior championships at Nagoya, Japan today (11am Irish time).

Coach Allen Clarke will have to plan without captain Peter O'Mahony, following a citing, when the Ireland U20s play New Zealand in their second Junior World Championship pool game in Nagoya on Tuesday evening (kick off: 11am Irish time).

Cork Constitution's Peter O'Mahony will lead the Ireland U20s into their first IRB Toshiba Junior World Championship match against Argentina in Nagoya on Friday (9am Irish time).

IRELAND’S young guns will once again face a test of their physical credentials as they lock horns with Argentina in their opening Pool A encounter at the Junior World Championship in Nagoya, Japan tomorrow (9am, Irish time).

Japan executed four convicted killers today, the Justice Ministry announced, amid criticism that the country’s secretive and slow-moving justice system leaves inmates to languish on death row for decades.

Ireland has been drawn in with defending champions New Zealand for the 2009 IRB Junior (under-20) World Championship to be played out between June 5 and 21 across four Japanese cities, with Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and Fukuoka each hosting a pool.

A typhoon expected to hit Tokyo missed the capital and moved toward north-eastern Japan today after leaving five people dead and forcing tens of thousands to evacuate.

YESTERDAY thousands of families across the world woke up to the same threat of unemployment now hanging over those connected with Cork’s Pfizer plant.

Jonny Wilkinson has been released from hospital in Japan after suffering an inflamed appendix and could make a swift return to action.

England fly-half Jonny Wilkinson has been admitted to hospital in Japan suffering from an inflamed appendix.

A Japanese champion eater fended off 30 challengers to win a dumpling eating contest in Hong Kong today, downing 83 steamed dumplings in eight minutes.

Nearly one in three Air New Zealand international flights will be cancelled over six days from July 18 if the majority of the carrier’s long-haul cabin staff goes on strike, the company warned today.

Japan’s Takeru “The Tsunami” Kobayashi is in serious training. Not for any ordinary event. His sport is wolfing food.

British upmarket retailer Fortnum and Mason is to open its first overseas outlets, it was announced today.

A man who wanted to share his stock market winnings with the public tossed one million yen (about €7,500) from the observation deck of a tower in central Japan today, causing a scramble for the money in the streets below.

Three people, including a policemen, were killed in Japan today when a hostage taker blew himself up in a Japanese office.

THE euro tumbled to a four-month low against the dollar and yen as Japanese investors flee the eurozone anticipating a recovery in the Japanese and US economies.

A supermarket employee foiled a robbery in central Japan after a mobile phone in his shirt pocket stopped a bullet fired by the would-be thief, police said today.

Qantas Airways Ltd launched its new international budget carrier Australian Airlines today, with an inaugural flight between Cairns to Nagoya in Japan.

NTT DoCoMo has launched the world's first 3G phone service.

A Japan Airlines jet rained parts on a city shortly after take-off from Nagoya Airport today, damaging a nearby factory and hitting houses and a car parked at a gasoline station, Japanese police said.