Japan

It will give 50 million yen (£274, 000) to the Cartivator group that operates outside Toyota city in central Japan.

The Nikkei Asian Review reports Toyota and its group companies have agreed in principle to support the project.

So far crowdfunding has paid for development of the so-called Skydrive car, which uses drone technology and has three wheels and four rotors.

While cherry blossoms were in full bloom, despite bad weather, more than 50,000 visitors attended the fair with more anticipation than last year.

Among them were many enthusiastic divers and travel lovers who were looking for new ocean resorts.

A corner of the main aisle at the fair was almost completely occupied by Pacific islands booths from Palau, Papua New Guinea, Kosrae of the Federated States of Micronesia, the Cook Islands and Marshall Islands, which was a first-time participant on the initiative of tourism authorities and diver groups.

Needing to win by a healthy margin against Japan to keep themselves in the hunt in the ICC Women’s World T20 EAP Qualifier, the Lewas were sent into bat on another pleasant day in Sano, Japan.

In yesterday’s match between Samoa and Japan, the trend of bowling first continued as Samoa sent Japan in.

Japan never looked like setting a competitive total with a run rate of under two runs an over for most of the match.

Some late hitting from Rio Endo (9 not out) brought some spark to the last quarter of the innings but it was too late and Japan could only manage 49 runs from their 20 overs.

The helicopter carrier Izumo is escorting a US supply vessel within Japanese waters.

The US ship is heading to refuel the naval fleet in the region, including the Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group.

North Korea has threatened to sink the Carl Vinson and a US submarine, amid rising tensions in the region.

It also carried out a failed missile test on Sunday, despite repeated warnings from the US and others to stop its nuclear and missile activity.

Tojinbo in Fukui prefecture is famous for its cliffs. Tall basalt columns rise dramatically out of the Japan Sea, drawing sightseers from around the region.

Sadly, it has also become notorious for another kind of visitor, often from further afield, drawn by its reputation as a suicide cluster site.

Fourteen people killed themselves there in 2016, and 12 the year before. But in the first months of this year, there have been no deaths at Tojinbo.

This was the era when the Japanese society moved from being an isolated feudal society to its modern form.

Sankei Tomitaro Hara, the owner of the Sankeien garden built his fortune through the silk business. It took him 20 years from 1902 to construct the garden which covers an area of 175,000 square meters.

Seventeen old buildings of historic value are skilfully arranged that goes in harmony with the seasonal changes of the natural scenery.

In Japan, there are many water filtration plants but one that Loop PNG recently visited is the Kawai Purification plant located in Yokohama city.

Imagine drinking water that has been purified using ceramic membrane filtration system, a filtration system that is as thin as the strand of your hair.

That is basically water filtered through microfiltration filters to purify or treat water. 

That is the level of technology that is being used today at the Kawai Purification plant. It started off in 1901 using the slow sand filtration system.

In Japan, young children are taught in their early age to recycle things after use. They are also taught to sort out house hold waste which helps in waste management.

In Japan’s Yokohama city the residents work together to divide the recyclable resources from the combustible waste. They also have neighbourhood clean-up of the streets and station squares.

 But all that waste management began in 1955 when the city started regular waste collection. In 1970, the separation of oversized waste begun before cans, glass and plastic bottles were separated from waste.

Like Lae and other parts of the highlands region, the city of Yokohama, located south of Tokyo in the Kanagawa area, experiences a lot of rainfall and had drainage problems. However, that was addressed through multi-purpose reservoir storage areas.

Port Moresby does not have a river flowing in the city, but the roads turn into fast flowing rivers whenever it rains.

In Japan, the Tsurumi River runs through Toyko and has a river basin of 235 square kilometres that extends to Kanagawa and Yokohama city.