U.N. conference adopts Minamata mercury treaty; Abe pledges $2 bil aid

Thanks, Abe, for pledging more of our money to poor nations while insisting that domestic taxes need to be raised to cover costs!

WTF... why did he just pledge 2 bil of our tax cash to some unknown country when worst pollutant currently in the world is Fukushima.... maddening ...

Here we go again!! As in the past, the Liberal Democratic Party is throwing away our hard-earned money. Where are they going to get this $2 billion from? Hope they don't dig into our Social Security and pension funds, like they did in the past.

And while all our tax money is once again going down the drain, some of it is perhaps going down into the deeper linings of the LDP's bottomless pockets. Remember when they lost the big election about four years ago? They were being labled as "corrupt" at that time. Just hope their corrupt ways aren't continuing ...

Foreign aide is good and all, but I would rather have seen this money go towards another helicopter carrier or to something that would benefit Japan.

jeff: "Foreign aide is good and all, but I would rather have seen this money go towards another helicopter carrier or to something that would benefit Japan."

Forget the helicopter carrier -- how about the people STILL in shelters in the north (the Olympics will help them!!) that need saving first? Or for the love of god, use common sense and put the money in domestic social programs where it is sorely needed, like the extremely mishandled pension funds or health care. Why do we need the consumption tax raised to up to ten percent by 2015 when Abe's got so much money to throw around??

He will use $2 billion bond out ot more than $ 1 trillion USA bonds Japan hold. Any money Japan will spend will be from these USA debts, I'd bet.

And Minamata was how many years ago? 60ish? Doesn't sound too good for the results of the Fukushima disaster, does it?

Have to agree that throwing foreign aid at the problem isn't going to do much either.

I wonder how many Minamata victims live in these 50 countries. UN should release numbers of Minamata victims in each country to distribute 2 billion dollars fairly. Some countries might inflate numbers of Minamata patients. How come they moved to these countries? Can they speak llanuages of tthese countries? Or Abe is becoming the top sucler in the world?

Minamata is a byword in Japan for sluggish official responses and the development-at-all costs that characterised the decades of booming growth after World War II.

Can't you just replace Minamata with Fukushima?

“Precisely because we experienced and overcame damage from mercury, Japan bears responsibility for spearheading the world’s efforts to eliminate it,” Abe said.

Sounds like Abe has been eating fish and shellfish from Minamata bay.

Abe seems to be very generous with cash Japan doesn't have