Word: tokyo
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...military commitments necessary to guarantee the survival of the current Southeast Asian governments. The most recent symbol of Japan's growing political and economic concern with the area is the dispatch in February of a 34-member "Asian investment and finance research mission" led by the Director of Tokyo's stock exchange under government sponsorship...
Even now there are no laws requiring emission devices on automobiles. Most factories still burn high-sulfur Persian Gulf oil. Only 40 full-time inspectors have been hired to check pollution in Tokyo's 10,000 factories. When a swimmer died recently in the Sumida River-which Tokyoites have renamed the "River of Death"-an autopsy showed that he had not drowned, but suffocated from inhaling methane gas, a byproduct of sludge and pollutants...
Complicating the matter further, much of the city's lethal, eye-smarting smog, which sent 8,000 persons to the hospital last July, sweeps into Tokyo from factories outside the prefecture in the bustling Yokohama-Kawasaki region. Though the Diet passed 14 anti-pollution measures last winter, including the power to arrest offenders as criminals, Premier Sato has yet to demonstrate any enthusiasm for enforcement, presumably for fear of alienating big business contributors to his party...
Pollution is currently Tokyo's most heatedly debated problem, but it is only one of many. Despite a rapidly expanding and incredibly punctual communications network, subways and trains are packed at 250% to 300% of capacity during rush hours. Several of the city's wards are sinking below sea level at an alarming rate because industrial plants have drawn off so much water from underground streams. As if all this were not enough, geologists have warned that Tokyo is just about ripe for another major earthquake-and that at least 3,000,000 would die if it were...
...There are some cities, like New York, which are finished, completed," says Candidate Hatano. "You can't do anything with them but a little bit here and there. Tokyo is not at all completed. It has a future because there is so much that can be done." Few would dispute that point-but will 4 trillion yen be enough, even for starters...