Arni Finnsson, chairman of the Nature Conservation Union of Iceland, said it will prove very expensive to get Icelandic fin whale meat to market in Japan. It is out of the question that the Icelandic government is in a position to supplement the whaling industry with the extra hundreds of millions of kronur it has cost and continues to cost the nation every year. Read the full story

It appears that fowl, goose and duck feathers are being sold as Icelandic eider down in Japan. Icelandic eider down is considered a particularly desirable luxury product in Japan. Last year Iceland exported 2.6 tonnes of eider down, mostly to Japan – but 20 tonnes of Icelandic eider down were reportedly sold in the same year. The Icelandic embassy in Japan has been asked to investigate whether these allegations of false marketing are indeed true. Read the full story

There is little to no market for whale meat in Japan, according to the manager of the import company Asian Trading Co Ltd, which has been Hvalur hf.’s main Japanese customer.

The manager said Asian Trading does not intend to purchase Icelandic whale meat from Hvalur hf. this year. Read the full story

The Irish actor Pierce Brosnan visited the White House in Washington DC yesterday and used the opportunity to urge American leaders to start serious negotiations with Iceland, Japan and Norway on the subject of whaling. Read the full story

Actavis Group and Japan’s ASKA Pharmaceutical have formally signed an agreement establishing a joint company: Actavis ASKA K.K. with its head office in Tokyo. The preliminary agreement was signed last November. Read the full story

Actavis announced a preliminary agreement with ASKA Pharmaceutical concerning the establishment of a joint company: Actavis ASKA Co., Ltd. The plan is to enter the Japanese generic pharmaceutical market in April 2009. Read the full story

Reuters reports that according to Japan’s finance minister Shoichi Nakagawa Japan is ready to back up a bail-out plan for the struggling economies of the European nations, starting in Iceland. “With nearly USD 1 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, Japan is prepared to help bail out nations running out of funds amid the worsening global financial crisis,” Mr. Shoichi Nakagawa said. Read the full story

The Prime Minister of Finland, Matti Vanhanen recently announced plans to visit both Japan and South Korea in the near future. According to reports by the Finnish News Agency (STT), the government of Finland released a statement on Monday indicating that the trip would occur in early June.

A meeting between South Korea’s president, Lee Myung-bak, and Finland’s Prime Minister is scheduled to take place on June 5th. On the agenda are the topics of bilateral trade, political cooperation and important international issues.

In addition to speaking with the President, Mr. Vanhanen plans to engage in discussions with other prominent leaders in South Korea. While in South Korea, Mr. Vanhanen will attend the South Korean-Finnish economic forum. His agenda indicates that he will visit the demilitarised area between North and South Korea and take a tour of a shipyard owned by Hyundai.

Following his time in South Korea, Mr. Vanhanen will travel to Japan where he is scheduled to meet Emperor Akihito and former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on June 9th and 10th.

While in Tokyo, Mr. Vanhanen will inaugurate FinNode, the new Finnish centre for innovation. He is scheduled to attend an economic conference concerning Japan and Finland and speak at the National Press Club of Japan.

According to the government’s statement, the President will be travelling to Asia with a business delegation.

New data released by Statistics Iceland suggests that the life expectancy of Icelandic men may be the longest in the world.

A spokesperson for Statistics Iceland, Olof Gardarsdottir, said to the AFP: “This is a world record. They live even longer than Japanese men.”

The average life expectancy of a man in Iceland is 79.4 years, compared to 78.6 years for men in Japan.

“We don’t have an explanation. It’s really difficult to give a reason why,” she said.
Icelandic women are also fairly well-off compared to other countries. Women in Iceland have a life expectance of 82.9 years and Japanese women, according to statistics from the United Nations, live almost 86 years on average.

Together, men and women in Iceland rank higher than France in terms of life expectancy, living an average of just over 81 years in 2007. However, the average person in Japan lives 82 years.

Other countries with high life expectancies include Sweden and Finland. “Historically, these countries had an ethic of having more of a nationalised health care system,” says Kate Schecter, a programme officer for the American International Health Alliance. “There’s this mentality that health care should be a given right for citizens.”

Whilst once relying heavily on seafood exports and the fishing industry, Iceland has undergone an economic revolution in recent years. Developments in the financial sector have lead to the Nordic nation becoming one of the world’s richest countries, despite having a population of just over 300,000 people.