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JAPAN
Jul 13, 2002

Firms place highest value on ability for innovative planning

The quality that Japanese companies most want to see in their employees to fend off competition from foreign firms is the ability to devise innovative projects, according to a government survey.
SOCCER / World cup
Jul 13, 2002

With the World Cup over, J. League gets back to business

The World Cup may be over, but Japan's newly converted soccer fans will still have plenty to cheer about when J. League Division One action resumes Saturday.
BUSINESS
Jul 13, 2002

ETFs fail to spur individual investor trade

Exchange-traded funds have failed to lure individual investors back to the stock market as hoped, though a year has passed since they debuted on Japan's two key exchanges, securities industry officials said Friday.
BUSINESS
Jul 13, 2002

LDP elements denounce government's budget move

Senior members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Friday increased the pressure on Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to reload the public works budget, expressing doubts about the government's decision the previous day to upgrade its economic assessment.
BUSINESS
Jul 13, 2002

Japan to push WTO members to scrap industrial goods tariffs

Japan is preparing to call on members of the World Trade Organization to scrap tariffs on various industrial goods as part of its proposals to spur a new round of global trade talks on cutting tariffs on nonfarm products, government sources said Friday.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jul 13, 2002

Giving our insects a permanent vacation

On July 7th, all bad insects left our island. How do I know? I threw them out myself, along with 40 other islanders.
BUSINESS
Jul 13, 2002

Postal services log first profit since '97

Japan's mail and postal savings services in fiscal 2001 recorded profits for the first time in four years, the Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications Ministry said Friday.
BUSINESS
Jul 13, 2002

Eckrodt first foreigner to join old-boys' lunch club

Rolf Eckrodt, president and chief executive officer of Mitsubishi Motor Corp., on Friday became the first non-Japanese to take part in a closed traditional lunch meeting at one of Japan's major business conglomerates, the Mitsubishi group.
JAPAN
Jul 13, 2002

Health official faces ax over med school scam

Senior vice health minister Kazuaki Miyaji faced pressure to resign Friday after admitting the day before to helping the grandson of a senior member of his support group enter Teikyo University's medical school.
BUSINESS
Jul 13, 2002

NTN to set up China auto parts unit

NTN Corp. said Friday it will set up a subsidiary in China in August to produce components for constant-velocity joints for use in cars.
BUSINESS
Jul 13, 2002

Matsushita to cut costs with transfer

OSAKA -- Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. will transfer 1,200 clerical and other employees to an office business subsidiary as it cuts further into labor costs, company officials said Friday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jul 13, 2002

Ciaran Murray

"I had to come to Japan, to sit in a garden and discover something of Japanese culture, in order to write the history of my hometown," Ciaran Murray said.
BUSINESS
Jul 13, 2002

Bankruptcies increase 4.7%

The number of corporate bankruptcies during the first six months of 2002 rose 4.7 percent from a year earlier to 9,872, the third-highest number since World War II, Teikoku Databank Ltd. said Friday.
JAPAN
Jul 13, 2002

Hospital pays for transplant coverup

A health ministry panel decided Friday to strip the Tokyo Women's Medical University Hospital of its designation as an advanced treatment hospital following a coverup involving the death of a patient.
BASEBALL / MLB
Jul 13, 2002

Tigers dominate at All-Star Game

As George Arias rounded the bases, he was pumped, thrilled, excited. But he showed no exuberance, trotting back to the dugout in a cool, soothing manner like the picture of the Kirin Beer ad he had just hit with a monstrous 147-meter blast at the Tokyo Dome.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 13, 2002

Society still treating homeless as pariahs

The debate was heating up at the local civic hall, packed with residents and dozens of homeless people who live nearby.
BUSINESS
Jul 13, 2002

Nonresidents take net buying spree into fourth month

Nonresident investors were net buyers of Japanese stocks in June for the fourth consecutive month, with net purchases of 134.9 billion yen, the Finance Ministry said Friday in a report based on transaction contracts.
Japan Times
JAPAN / MUSEUM MUSINGS
Jul 13, 2002

19th century face of Edo resurrected in Koto Ward commoners' ghetto

Devastated by the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and then flattened again by U.S. air raids during the war, little of the old face of Tokyo remains.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 13, 2002

Chinese diet aids leave one dead, 11 sick

One person has died and 11 others have developed liver disorders since last year after taking three types of Chinese diet aids, officials at the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said Friday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 13, 2002

Nisei woodworker follows grain of ancestral roots

His mailbox in Kikoba, where the town of Hayama meets Yokosuka City in Kanagawa Prefecture, reads "toco," the Portuguese word for log. Lengths of bamboo lean against an outside wall.
EDITORIALS
Jul 12, 2002

Narrow the wage gap

The important fact about Japanese wages today is that pay scales for regular workers have not fallen despite declining prices. This "downward rigidity" in seniority-based wages may be partly responsible for the growing presence of part-time workers and for the nation's persistently high level of unemployment....
SOCCER / World cup
Jul 12, 2002

Inamoto deal near

Japan midfielder Junichi Inamoto, released by English Premier League champion Arsenal at the end of June, has reached a basic agreement on a transfer to London rival Fulham, soccer sources claimed Thursday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 12, 2002

By-elections give Abdullah chance to prove his mettle

SINGAPORE -- For Malaysia's deputy prime minister, Abdullah Badawi, the sequence of two fast-moving events late last month could not have been more timely -- and dramatic.
COMMENTARY
Jul 12, 2002

Iraq debate moves to the fore

LONDON -- "Where you stand depends on where you sit" goes the old political adage. And this was never more true than in the case of Iraq and what, if anything, should be done about this troublesome tyranny.
JAPAN
Jul 12, 2002

Sewer-overflow disaster law eyed

The Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry has informally decided to pursue new legislation to prevent urban disasters caused by sewerage systems overflowing during heavy rain, according to ministry officials.

Longform

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