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BUSINESS
Feb 28, 2002

Giant steelmaking duo announce broad tieup

Nippon Steel Corp. and Sumitomo Metal Industries Ltd. said Wednesday they will negotiate a broad tieup that might include the integration of their stainless steel operations.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 28, 2002

Kabukicho gets 50 anticrime cameras

The Metropolitan Police Department put 50 surveillance cameras into operation Wednesday in Tokyo's famous Kabukicho district to help fight crime in the seedy area.
BUSINESS
Feb 28, 2002

Seibu to log 80 billion yen special loss

Seibu Department Stores Ltd. plans to post extraordinary losses of some 80 billion yen for its business year to Feb. 28 after liquidating a subsidiary and incurring capital losses, company sources said Wednesday.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 28, 2002

State urged to double reform efforts

Private economic experts urged lawmakers during Wednesday's Diet session to double their efforts to make Japan's public finances sound again.
BUSINESS
Feb 28, 2002

Matsushita plans to sell Osaka towers

OSAKA -- Matsushita Investment & Development Inc., a real estate developer in the Matsushita group, plans to securitize its twin towers in Osaka and other properties and sell them to investors for some 60 billion yen, company sources said.
BUSINESS
Feb 28, 2002

Wholesale, retail sales slide again

Combined sales by Japan's wholesalers and retailers dropped 5.4 percent from a year before in January, marking a 12th consecutive monthly decline, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Wednesday.
ENVIRONMENT / GARDENS FOR ALL
Feb 28, 2002

Ferns: as mysterious as they are ancient

Ferns are very old plants that long predate the dinosaurs and were already abundant during the Carboniferous Period 350 million years ago, when many species grew in treelike form. Nowadays, they are perfect for bringing a natural feeling to gardens, and complementing trees and shrubs.
BUSINESS
Feb 28, 2002

Snow Brand will spin off drugs division in March

Snow Brand Milk Products Co. will spin off its prescription pharmaceutical division into a joint venture to be launched with Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. by the end of March to make nutritional supplements for clinical use.
BUSINESS
Feb 28, 2002

Sansui Electric returns to black

Sansui Electric Co. said Wednesday it posted a consolidated net profit of 3.26 billion yen in the business year to Dec. 31, marking a turnaround from a 1.33 billion yen loss the previous year.
BUSINESS
Feb 28, 2002

Automobile exports rose 5.8% in January

Exports of cars, trucks and buses rose 5.8 percent in January from a year earlier to 328,016 units, marking the first increase in three months, the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association said Wednesday.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Feb 28, 2002

Bush fiddles figures as the globe warms up

Last June, in the Rose Garden of the White House, President George W. Bush declared the Kyoto Protocol "fatally flawed in fundamental ways," and dubyaed it "unrealistic, arbitrary and not based on science."
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Feb 28, 2002

Salt Lake City Games spark Gold War

MOSCOW -- Moscow is furious, Russia indignant. President Vladimir Putin frowns, the Russian Parliament wails. The people would be burning American flags in the streets if they could get some. The hotheads are already talking about boycotting McDonald's and "The Lord of the Rings." The nation feels humiliated...
JAPAN
Feb 28, 2002

Myanmar asylum-seeker gratified, vexed by minister's sudden reversal

His three-year court struggle for refugee status was soon to be over when the man from Myanmar received an unexpected letter from the justice minister last week.
BUSINESS
Feb 28, 2002

Daiei to get 520 billion yen from its main creditors

Struggling supermarket operator Daiei Inc. announced Wednesday a fresh three-year restructuring program that features 520 billion yen in financial support from its three main creditor banks, up 100 billion yen from an earlier plan.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 28, 2002

Tracing the evolutionary flight of the dodo

A strong contender for the title of most misunderstood animal must be the flightless dodo, the bird universally derided as fat, slow and stupid. To top it all, it's dead.
JAPAN
Feb 28, 2002

Bill to pave way for signing pact on convict transfers

The government plans to submit during the current Diet session a bill governing procedures relating to the transfer of convicts between Japan and other nations, according to government sources.
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Feb 28, 2002

Make, don't play the green

If you are looking for a great game of virtual golf, try "Links Championship Edition," a PC game from Microsoft. "Links" is as close as you can get to real golf without picking up a club.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 28, 2002

Workshops for mentally ill feel fenced in

A newspaper article that called attention to the May 1981 opening of the Aoi Mugi No Ie workshop for the mentally ill, mainly schizophrenics, in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, sparked a 15-year campaign by local residents to drive the facility away.
EDITORIALS
Feb 27, 2002

New IOC regime's shaky start

The new president of the International Olympic Committee, Mr. Jacques Rogge, no doubt spent some sleepless nights in his bed in the athletes' village at Salt Lake City. It was his first Olympics since taking over from Mr. Juan Antonio Samaranch, and Mr. Rogge had made an extraordinary decision to stay...
COMMENTARY
Feb 27, 2002

Australia: a 'lucky' country no longer

The debate over Canberra's handling of several thousand Afghan and other boat people from Indonesia claiming to be political refugees says a lot about Australia. Holding the refugees in barbed-wire desert camps or dumping them on remote Pacific Islands may have upset the rest of the world, but in Australia...
JAPAN
Feb 27, 2002

Minister hints CJD settlement near

The government will do its utmost to settle a lawsuit by one Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease victim and 19 families of deceased victims who are seeking a total of 1.16 billion yen in compensation from the state and companies involved, the health minister said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Feb 27, 2002

Boy reformatory sees two suicides

Two boys at a Tokyo juvenile medical reformatory have committed suicide, one in September and the other this month, the Justice Ministry said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Feb 27, 2002

Britain warned Japan about MBM in 1990

The British government warned Japan's farm ministry in 1990 that meat-and-bone meal, an animal-based feed, could be the source of mad cow disease, a ministry report to a study panel revealed Tuesday.
JAPAN
Feb 27, 2002

Poll eyes wages of people forced to seek new jobs

People who have taken between one and six months to secure employment after being laid off have generally managed to maintain their pay levels in their new jobs, according to the results of a Cabinet Office poll.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past