Japanese Environment Minister Hiroshi Oki listens to a question from a journalist during a news conference held at a Tokyo hotel November 9, winding up a two-day ministerial-level meeting on global warming in preparation for a 10-day high-profile conference in Kyoto next month. That is where nearly 170 signatories to a 1992 United Nations climate convention will seek to hammer out binding targets for developed nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the next century. Ministers from 13 developed nations and the European Union met yesterday and representatives from eight developing nations joined today.

ENVIRONMENT JAPAN