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JAPAN
Mar 1, 2001

Assemblies favor tough stance on diesel

In a growing trend among local governments to assert their authority, prefectural governors and some municipal leaders in the Tokyo metropolitan area are inclined to take tougher measures than the state against diesel-powered vehicles.
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2001

Nestle Japan, Seiyo Food plot Italian job

Seiyo Food Systems Inc. said Wednesday it has agreed with the Nestle Japan Group to jointly set up and operate a new chain of Italian restaurants.
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2001

NTT units predict sales will fall steeply in 2001

The two regional operators of the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. group said Wednesday they expect sales to fall steeply in fiscal 2001 due to intensifying price competition.
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2001

ACCJ opposes larger role for auditors

The American Chamber of Commerce in Japan on Wednesday called on the Japanese government to create a greater role for independent directors rather than enhancing the role of auditors in legislating corporate governance.
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2001

U.S. likely to further ease interest rates

New York share prices remain in a corrective phase, but the downturn could soon run its course.
JAPAN
Mar 1, 2001

Nikkei hits 29-month low

The Nikkei Stock Average plummeted to a 29-month closing low Wednesday as tumbling U.S. technology stocks and bleak data on Japan's economy dealt a double blow to the Tokyo equity market.
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2001

Margin buying bucks trend

The balance of shares bought on credit -- a sensitive indicator of investor sentiment -- turned lower last week for the first time in five weeks.
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2001

Exxon unit set to absorb subsidiary

TonenGeneral Sekiyu K.K., a Japanese unit of the Exxon Mobile Corp. group, said Wednesday it will absorb its wholly owned subsidiary Kygnus Sekiyu Seisei K.K. on July 1.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 1, 2001

Don't bet against China's industrial policy

Cambridge, ENGLAND -- At a recent conference in Berlin organized by the Institute of Asian Affairs of Hamburg, Ireland's leading China specialist said quite unequivocally that China's industrial policy has failed. As the speaker has long been known as one of the most vocal supporters of China's state-owned...
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2001

Housing starts suffer 11.1% decline

Japan's housing starts totaled 81,348 units in January, down 11.1 percent from a year earlier for the first downturn in four months, the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2001

French firms profiting from Japan

For many Japanese, France has long represented wine and fashion. That image, however, is changing with French companies in other business fields increasing their presence in Japan.
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2001

Economic group to tackle unified accounting standards

Ten private-sector economic organizations, including the Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren) and the Japanese Institute of Certified Public Accountants, announced Wednesday that they plan to set up a new body in July to map out unified standards for business accounting in Japan.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 1, 2001

NHK's hollow take on easy-money bubble era

What's impressive about the new Steven Soderbergh film, "Traffic," which opens here in April, is how thoroughly it presents all the ramifications of America's drug war by exclusively dramatic means: no charts, no explanations of cause and effect, no polemics. The movie's three separate plot vectors intersect...
JAPAN
Mar 1, 2001

105 million yen stolen from man's home

Five or six masked men entered the Tokyo home of a major telephone dating club operator and stole around 105 million yen in cash and 30 million yen in jewelry from three safes, police said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2001

Cheap burgers add sauce to McDonald's sales

Favorable sales of half-priced hamburgers boosted earnings of McDonald's Co. (Japan) last year, with its sales for 2000 expanding 9.3 percent to a record high of 431.1 billion yen for the seventh straight year-on-year rise, the company said Wednesday.
JAPAN
Mar 1, 2001

Researchers gain interferon insight

Shigehiro Odo and colleagues at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, describes how the antitumor drug interferon-a affects the body clock and how this may lead to serious side effects in an article in today's issue of Nature Medicine.
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2001

Sega bets on silver lining in Dreamcast's demise

Sony Corp. emerged as the victor in the battle of the video game consoles in Japan, but the loser may prove to be the sweetheart among consumers.
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2001

Sansui continues to struggle with losses

Sansui Electric Co. said Wednesday it posted a group net loss of 1.33 billion yen in the year to December, compared with the previous year's loss of 1.86 billion yen.
JAPAN
Mar 1, 2001

Admiral gives apologies to families of missing

A special envoy dispatched by U.S. President George W. Bush apologized Wednesday in Tokyo to representatives of relatives of nine people still missing after the sinking of a high school fisheries training ship by a U.S. submarine.
COMMUNITY
Mar 1, 2001

Shiseido updates Braille manuals

Shiseido has updated the Braille and large-print versions of its skincare and makeup manuals and the Braille labels on its products, to make its cosmetic and skincare lines easier to use for those with sight-related disabilities.
LIFE / Style & Design / BEAUTY EAST AND WEST
Mar 1, 2001

International spa secrets

Some of the best recipes for a do-it-yourself spa come from those cultures known to go in for a bit of sybaritic pampering. Japan is high up on the list: A highly developed sense of aesthetics, a long tradition of bathing and a sublime appreciation of ritual have helped beauty practices here evolve into...
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2001

Mitsui Wood, Nichiha to integrate

Mitsui Wood Systems Inc., a subsidiary of trading house Mitsui & Co., will integrate its ceramic and fiberboard housing material operations with those of Nichiha Corp., enabling the Mitsui group to pull the plug on the loss-making housing materials business, the three companies announced Wednesday.
BASEBALL / MLB
Mar 1, 2001

Matsui, Matsunaka honored by peers

Yomiuri slugger Hideki Matsui has been voted the Central League's Most Valuable Player for the 2000 season by his fellow professionals, the Japanese Professional Baseball Players Association said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2001

JVC touts smallest video in world

Victor Co. of Japan said Wednesday that it will launch the lightest and smallest digital video camera in the world in the next couple of weeks.
COMMUNITY
Mar 1, 2001

Spreading the word of Zen

They don't hold formal conferences or seek out media coverage of their more than 20 years of charitable work in Myanmar. Rather, members of the Asian Buddhist Association put their time into the project itself and traversing Japan drumming up interest among grassroots Buddhist groups, nongovernmental...
EDITORIALS
Feb 28, 2001

Pirates without the romance

It is not just children who play pirate these days. The International Maritime Bureau reports that there were 469 attacks on ships last year, a 56 percent increase over 1999. That number has increased throughout the last decade; without concerted action by governments -- and especially those in Southeast...
BUSINESS
Feb 28, 2001

Cold winter cited in oil import rise

Japan imported 147.75 million barrels of crude oil in January, up 5.5 percent from a year earlier for the fifth consecutive monthly gain, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Tuesday.

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear