According to The Asahi Shimbun, Suntory Holdings Ltd. plans to begin covering part of its employees’ advanced cancer treatment expenses from fiscal 2018 by tapping into overtime pay saved under a government-led campaign to reform working styles.
Employees of the beverages giant undergoing treatments not covered by health insurance policies, such as heavy particle beam therapy and proton beam therapy, will be eligible for up to 5 million yen (US$47,300) in medical care subsidies via an in-house mutual aid society.
Amid an ongoing drive to rectify the practice of working long hours, compensating workers for their lost overtime pay has emerged as an issue for this year's annual spring labor offensive.
Keidanren (Japan Business Federation), the nation’s largest business group, is advising its member companies that the overtime allowances saved through work style reforms should be used for the benefit of their employees.
Suntory also plans to spend part of the saved overtime on supporting treatments that help people quit smoking.
A quarter of Suntory’s employees smoke. Starting from fiscal 2018, which begins in April, they will be eligible for up to 10,000 yen in subsidies covering half their treatment fees if they have taken smoking cessation outpatient services and successfully quit smoking.
Another part of the saved overtime will be spent on strengthening a mechanism for analyzing health check reports and outpatient care records of employees to help promote their health. It will be used to shore up a framework under which public health nurses approach employees with risks of lifestyle-related illnesses and advise them to improve their dietary habits and lifestyles, company officials said.

Ref: http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201802270003.html

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According to The Australian Financial Review, east coast gas users have welcomed the prospect of a new source of supply into the tight NSW market in the shape of an Andrew Forrest-backed LNG import project although some harbour doubts that imported gas would be affordable.
The project is backed by the world's biggest LNG buyer, JERA of Japan. Gas from this project would be priced at between $8 and $10 a gigajoule, well above prices in expiring contracts of $4-$5, but still below east coast prices of early 2017.
Wood Mackenzie analyst Saul Kavonic said the price of $8-$10/GJ cited for the AIE terminal was only "feasible" assuming LNG prices below $US7 per million British thermal units and assuming the import plant is fully utilised.
"But this won't be sustainable," Mr Kavonic said. "Long-term LNG prices are forecast to rise from early 2020s in order to bring on new supply, indicating LNG imports will deliver domestic gas well above $10 [per gigajoule] for most of next decade."

Ref: http://www.afr.com/business/energy/gas/gas-buyers-keen-for-new-east-coast-supply-source-20180225-h0wmw4

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https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/nswlng 
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According to The Asahi Shimbun, an eco-friendly battery that can be munched by microbes has been developed by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT).
The idea is they will charge sensors that can be placed around volcanoes to note temperatures and vibrations, as well as in rivers to obtain data on water movement. Then when they die, the microbes have a feast.
It's branded as "the battery that will return to the earth" and is part of what is being called IoT ("Internet of things") technology in which a wide variety of objects are embedded with sensors.
The new technique has been developed to prepare for when Internet-equipped sensors cannot be recovered.
The triangular battery measures 2 centimeters along a side and boasts 1.1 volts, which would be enough for an LED lamp for 24 hours.
Eco-friendly sensors and communication chips to go with the battery are also being developed.
In the experiment, the newfangled batteries and regular ones were powdered and 1 gram of each was mixed into soil for two pots.
Seeds of Japanese mustard spinach were then sowed in the pot, and it was found that the eco-friendly batteries did not affect the growth whereas the vegetable did not grow in the pot with the regular battery mix.
A battery has an electrolysis solution between two electrical poles. In conventional batteries, electrical poles contain harmful rare metals, including lithium, and fluorine.
And the electrolysis solution is made of potassium hydroxide, a strong alkaline material that is not plant friendly.
NTT used biological materials that were carbonized for the poles and almost-electrically neutral liquid for the electrolysis solution.

Ref: http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201802260050.html
 
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https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/-ntt9743288
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According to The Australian Financial Review, Australia's well-known passions of sports, beer and mateship have combined to deliver the country's first crowdfunded pub.
More than 330 investors – some offering as little as $50, some as much as $10,000 – have committed a combined $1.2 million to become part-owners of the latest sports-themed pub developed by US-style chain, The Sporting Globe.
The commitment is almost double the initial $700,000 target The Sporting Globe founders James Sinclair and Brad Harris (the son of Flight Centre co-founder Geoff Harris) hoped to secure for the franchisee of The Sporting Globe Plenty Valley, which will open in March in Melbourne's outer northern suburbs.
"We've seen a lot of interest from the local community and we've also reached out to our own networks," he said.
Equity investors will be entitled to a share of any future dividends and equity gains – if they arise – but perhaps more importantly, they will become part of a member's club that will get exclusive discounts (cheap beer) and special offers (more beer).
It's the first time crowd-sourced funding, which is particularly appealing to younger investors, has been used to raise money for a new pub.

Ref: http://www.afr.com/real-estate/commercial/development/sporting-globe-australias-first-crowdfunded-pub-to-open-in-melbourne-20180222-h0whdf
 
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According to The Nikkei Asian Review, Australia's mining companies are shelling out more to find copper and other materials used in electric vehicles as demand for the next-generation automobiles grows.
Anglo-Australian mining group BHP Billiton looks to invest US$6.9 billion in plants and exploration in the year through June, up 32% from the previous fiscal year's US$5.22 billion. The aim is to improve productivity at the company's core coal and iron ore operations, and to develop its copper business. BHP in February completed a US$350 million facilities upgrade at the Olympic Dam copper mine, where it plans to raise output 25-35% on the year.
"Growing our copper business [is the] best way of benefiting" from the growing market for electric vehicles in China and elsewhere, CEO Andrew Mackenzie told investors on Tuesday. A single electric car uses around 80kg of copper, according to BHP, four times as much as a gasoline-powered vehicle.
Boosting copper production is already paying off. The metal was selling for US$3.20 per pound in the second half of 2017, up 33% from a year earlier. BHP raised output 17% over the same period, largely through increased production at its Escondida mine in Chile. The company's copper operations logged an 83% rise in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. BHP's overall EBITDA increased 14%, helped by the rising price of high-quality iron ore amid China's crackdown on less-productive steelmakers.
Rival Rio Tinto is also raising capital investment, having pulled back following the end of the resources boom that swept Australia earlier this decade. Its capital spending is expected to rise to US$5.5 billion in 2018 from US$4.48 billion in 2017, with outlays of US$6 billion planned for 2019.
As mines turning out high-grade copper dry up around the world, Rio Tinto has expanded its reach, forming a subsidiary to develop and run copper mines in Mongolia and establishing a branch office in Ulaanbaatar, that country's capital, in January. The company has also concluded a memorandum of understanding with the Serbian government regarding the mining of lithium, which is used in electric-vehicle batteries. Healthy copper and iron ore operations helped raise Rio Tinto's net profit 90% to US$8.76 billion in 2017.
Iron ore miner Fortescue Metals Group is exploring for copper in countries including Ecuador, Colombia and Argentina. The increasingly valuable metal could help offset the impact of falling prices for the relatively low-grade ore Fortescue produces. The company's iron ore fetched US$47 per ton in the six months ended in December, compared with US$56 a year earlier, knocking net profit down 44% on the year to US$681 million.
Yet the longer-term success of these investments depends heavily on the extent to which governments promote electric vehicles. China, for example, recently cut subsidies for many electric and hybrid vehicles by around 30%. India's transport minister revealed on Thursday that the government had scrapped plans for policies to promote electrics. While these countries and many in Europe remain bullish on the technology, it is unclear how much official support electrics automobiles will ultimately receive.

Ref: https://asia.nikkei.com/Markets/Commodities/Australian-miners-ramp-up-investment-in-electric-vehicle-metals
 
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https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/ev
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According to The Asahi Shimbun, a Japanese team has developed a skin-thin LED device that can be directly applied on the human body and coupled with a wearable sensor to display information about the wearer’s health.
The researchers expect applications to home-based medical care will allow doctors to remotely monitor patients’ conditions via the Internet, and send notifications to the display such as reminders to take medication.
They aim to put the technologies into practical use in three years or so.
A team of researchers from the University of Tokyo and the Research & Development Center of Dai Nippon Printing Co. (DNP) reported the development at an annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science held in the United States on Feb. 17.
Takao Someya, professor of engineering at the University of Tokyo, who led the research, said the advantages of the devices are that “a pulse and body temperature can be monitored without causing trouble to patients,” and “the information is easy to access.”
A sample device showcased by the team has about 400 LEDs evenly laid out on a 1-millimeter thick rubber sheet that can be stretched and twisted, enabling it to display letters, diagrams and moving images.
The team engineered the sheet so the stress of flexing is dispersed and the electric circuit within it would not break.
It passed a 10,000-stretch durability test, and can be applied to parts of the body that flex a lot, such as the back of a hand.
The research team also developed an improved wearable sensor that can monitor the heart when applied to the chest.
Cardiograph data can be transmitted wirelessly to online storage, fed to the display applied on the patient’s body, or remotely checked by doctors.
Hiroki Maeda, a member of the research team from the Research & Development Center of DNP, said, “(These technologies) can be applied in the realm of sports."

Ref: http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201802190037.html
 
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https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/2185950
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According to The Nikkei Asian Review, Japan is looking to accept more skilled foreign workers, targeting areas experiencing personnel shortages even with technological advances and greater labor participation by women and seniors.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will instruct relevant agencies to consider steps to boost foreign employment at an economic council meeting Tuesday. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga and Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa will take the lead. The goal is to incorporate the measures into the government's growth strategy due out as early as June.
Revising immigration laws is one possibility. Japan now grants 18 classes of work permits, mostly to such highly skilled professionals as doctors and professors. A task force under the Cabinet Secretariat will determine what other jobs require more people to add to the list.
The 18 existing types of work permits could also be made easier to obtain by relaxing requirements. Which specific categories could be expanded is unclear, but such consistently short-handed fields as nursing care and agriculture are likely candidates.
Roughly 1.28 million foreigners worked in Japan last year, according to the government. They have grown from 1.1% of the nation's workforce to 2% since 2012. But most of the increase came from students working part-time and technical interns, not those who expressly came here to work.
The government is focused on raising the number of skilled foreign workers in Japan. While the U.S., the U.K. and Germany saw their working-age populations increase over the last decade, Japan's has actually decreased. Foreign workers are key to maintaining the country's economic vitality as the population shrinks.

Ref:​ https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/Policy-Politics/Japan-to-open-gates-wider-to-foreign-professionals
 
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QUT signed an International Cooperation Agreement to develop joint venture projects and facilitate joint academic and scientific activities with the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST) of The University of Tokyo (UTokyo).
This research partnership with UTokyo builds on the existing relationship with the Intelligent Transport Systems Center at UTokyo, and focuses on developing renewable energy and, in particular, the provision of next generation fuels to meet future global energy needs.
QUT Vice-Chancellor Professor Margaret Sheil said “QUT’s Institute for Future Environments (IFE) has a purpose and outlook similar to RCAST with common alignments in many similar fields of endeavour, and particularly in renewable energy and fuels of the future, such as hydrogen.”
QUT IFE Professor Ian Mackinnon said for Queensland, the sustainable conversion of natural resources, such as waste biomass and non-potable water, into hydrogen was an important development for future domestic markets.
“Furthering research into these processes may allow development of a high-value Queensland hydrogen export industry, exporting particularly to countries that have limited natural resources,” he said.
“Professor Masakazu Sugiyama is a recognised leader in the sustainable conversion of solar energy to next-generation fuels through use of leading edge photovoltaics and compound semiconductors.
“More recently, Professor Sugiyama has demonstrated the highest level of in-field solar conversion efficiency using electrolysis to produce hydrogen from water.
“Integration of these technologies into Queensland, which has a strong capacity to implement solar-driven technologies, could lead to higher levels of efficiency and the establishment of new export industries for the state.”
Professor Mackinnon thanked Trade and Investment Queensland and its Tokyo office, and Sumitomo Electric Industries, which has been instrumental in renewable energy projects in Queensland, for their assistance in helping the two universities formalise the partnership.

Ref: https://www.qut.edu.au/news?id=127841
 
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According to The Australian Financial Review, vacant land sales fell over the September 2017 quarter, pointing to a steep reduction in available new residential land, the latest Residential Land Report from the Housing Industry Association and CoreLogic says.
Lot sales fell 10.3 per cent in that quarter compared to the previous one, and 20.4 per cent from the same period in 2016. The reduction in land turnover during the quarter was higher in capital cities than regional markets.
As supply of new land fell, prices of land also rose, reflected by a 10.9 per cent annual increase in median lot prices.
The median price of residential land hit a new all-time high of $267,368 per lot nationally by the end of September.
"Transactions on the land market continue to drop, indicating that supply is simply not matching demand sufficiently," HIA senior economist Shane Garrett said.
"The high cost of new residential land is at the heart of Australia's housing affordability crisis."
The 6.5 per cent rise in land prices was high, especially when compared with Sydney's house prices which fell 2.5 per cent in the quarter to January, CoreLogic said.
The increase in lot prices was accompanied by a fall in lot sizes. Across the six capital cities covered in the report, the median lot size has declined to 433 square metres from 553 square metres 10 years ago.

Ref: http://www.afr.com/real-estate/new-residential-land-in-short-supply-corelogic-hia-20180214-h0w2ql
 
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According to Nikkei Asian Review, Japanese companies are developing biofuels that can be burned alongside coal to cut carbon dioxide emissions at power plants without investment in pricey new equipment.
Oil distributor Idemitsu Kosan has developed a new type of pellet fuel made from compressed wood waste carbonized at a low temperature that can be burned in coal-fired plants. Plant-based biomass can be considered a carbon-neutral fuel, since burning it just releases the CO2 previously absorbed by the plants.
Though biomass is already used in some coal-fired power plants, it can generally make up only about 5% of the fuel burned, since wood fibers put extra stress on boilers. Idemitsu's new fuel alleviates this problem by reducing the amount of fiber, letting it comprise as much as 30% of the fuel mix.
The company plans to produce the pellets in Thailand, which has an abundance of wood waste, and start marketing them to Japanese power companies in fiscal 2018. Idemitsu aims to sell 20,000 tons of the fuel in the first year, worth hundreds of millions of yen. The pellets likely will initially cost three times as much as coal, though the price will drop once mass production begins. Overseas sales will be considered as well.
Nippon Steel & Sumikin Engineering, a subsidiary of Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal, has developed equipment that can process plant waste at Southeast Asian palm plantations into biofuel. It employs steel-rolling technology to squeeze impurities out of plant matter, creating a solid fuel that -- like Idemitsu's pellets -- can replace up to 30% of coal at a thermal power plant.
The engineering company plans to begin selling the equipment to major plantation operators in Indonesia and Malaysia in fiscal 2018, with an eye toward exporting the fuel produced to Japan. It expects to sell at least 2 billion yen (US$ 18.3 million) worth of the equipment next fiscal year.
The Paris Agreement on climate change has accelerated the shift from CO2-spewing fossil fuels to renewable energy. But fossil feuls will likely remain in demand for some time in emerging countries with large coal reserves. This will likely spur efforts to reduce CO2 emissions from existing fossil-fuel power plants in order to tackle climate change without stifling economic growth.

Ref: https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Japanese-companies-turn-to-biomass-to-clean-up-coal-power
 
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https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/co2
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