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BUSINESS
Nov 5, 2008

New auto sales fall for third straight month; minicars up 6%

New auto sales in the domestic market fell for a third straight month in October, led by Toyota Motor Corp. and Nissan Motor Co., data from an industry group showed Tuesday, as a slowing economy kept buyers out of showrooms.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 4, 2008

Line of liquidity to confront fear

WASHINGTON — Even as the squeeze in interbank lending has started to ease after the rescue of financial systems across the advanced countries, falling economic indicators have sent stock markets tumbling. Pressures on emerging-market countries, which were once thought by many to have "decoupled" from...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 4, 2008

Sorting out right from wrong when ethics lag

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Sure, it will all be over someday. Sleepy governments have woken up. Economists are starting to figure out the secret dimensions to this financial crisis, and look to be putting together, internationally, the bitter-tasting but probably necessary formula for the Long March out...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Nov 3, 2008

Halloween in Japan: a commercial break from global nightmare

Since when was Halloween such a big thing in Japan? Admittedly, you could see it coming these past few years. But this autumn it is simply everywhere.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 2, 2008

God forbid if sumo goes the way of pro wrestling

In March 2007, Shukan Gendai published an article naming top-ranked sumo wrestlers who it said had been involved in match-fixing in the past. Three of the wrestlers and the Japan Sumo Association subsequently filed defamation lawsuits against the publisher, Kodansha Ltd., and several weeks ago one of...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Nov 1, 2008

Skippers Hara, Watanabe ready to match wits on diamond

It was a business-like atmosphere at Tokyo Dome on Friday afternoon as the Seibu Lions and Yomiuri Giants went through their final preparations for Game 1 of the Japan Series.
JAPAN
Nov 1, 2008

U.S. candidates vow to 're-engage' Japan

OSAKA — Eight years ago, on the eve of the 2000 U.S. presidential election, a bipartisan group of Washington experts released the Armitage Report, named after Richard Armitage, one of the main authors and an eventual deputy secretary of state under President George W. Bush.
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Nov 1, 2008

Second time a charm for reunited couple

Michael Claxton, 61, and his wife, Rieko, 43, are living proof of the saying "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."
BUSINESS
Nov 1, 2008

Suzuki income to fall as India sales slump

Suzuki Motor Corp., Japan's second-largest minicar maker, cut its full-year profit forecast Friday due to slowing sales in India, a strong yen and higher materials costs.
BUSINESS
Oct 31, 2008

Nintendo trims profit forecast

Nintendo Co. said Thursday it posted a 9.4 percent gain in first-half profit but cut its full-year outlook as a surging yen undercut brisk sales of its popular Wii console and DS hand-held device.
Reader Mail
Oct 30, 2008

Another dumb Immigration rule

When I left KIX (airport) for a business trip to Taiwan last week, I was very curtly told by an official that I had presented an old re-entry form and, from Nov. 1, would have to use the revised one. Question 3 states: "How much money in cash do you presently have in your possession?"
COMMENTARY
Oct 30, 2008

Double standard on global crises

Oct. 16 marked the 25th Annual World Food Day, an occasion whose arrival and departure received little media attention or governmental fanfare. Evidently, much of the world media and governments are consumed with an economic crisis of epic proportions.
JAPAN
Oct 30, 2008

Itoham's wells clean, Kashiwa says

The city of Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, said Wednesday that no alarming levels of toxic cyanogen compounds have been found in water from seven wells at a local Itoham Foods Inc. factory amid embarrassing reports that the plant is within walking distance of a wartime chemical weapons training facility....
BUSINESS
Oct 30, 2008

Sony operating profit tumbles 90%

Sony Corp. said Wednesday that its group operating profit tumbled 90.1 percent to ¥11 billion for the July-September quarter from a year earlier, as the global economic slowdown hit sales of its gadgets and the surging yen ate into its profits.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 30, 2008

Tokyo film competition rewards tantalizing tales

When I was at the Pusan International Film Festival in South Korea a few weeks ago, I discussed the Tokyo International Film Festival with some journalists, who disagreed with my assertion that TIFF's Competition section was a dumping ground for movies that couldn't make it at other film festivals. They...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 30, 2008

Digging deep to find the sparkle in Japanese Eyes

Japan's film industry releases more than 400 films a year, but only 10 screened in the Japanese Eyes section of this year's Tokyo International Film Festival, which ran from Oct. 18 to 26.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / NPB NOTEBOOK
Oct 30, 2008

Hara makes right call with Giants

Yomiuri Giants manager Tatsunori Hara cried last season after the Chunichi Dragons sent his team into a long offseason with a 3-0 sweep in the second stage of the Central League Climax Series.
EDITORIALS
Oct 29, 2008

ASEM takes a stand

The third leg of the global strategic triangle — Asia-Europe relations — has always been the weakest of the three. The Asia Europe Meeting, otherwise known as ASEM, was designed to remedy that shortcoming. The need for meaningful dialogue between the two poles has become even more important as the...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 29, 2008

Prince Charles urges action on climate change

The effects of climate change will be long-lasting and perhaps irreversible unless immediate and comprehensive action is taken to combat global warming, Britain's Prince Charles said Tuesday in Tokyo.
EDITORIALS
Oct 28, 2008

Future of financial restraint

The current financial crisis triggered by the subprime mortgage fiasco in the United States shows no signs of abating. Although the U.S. and other major economies have taken countermeasures, such as injecting capital into financial institutions, stock-price movements remain violently erratic. There are...
BUSINESS
Oct 28, 2008

U.S. financial crisis puts brakes on Japan carmakers

Not only has the U.S. financial crisis sent the Big Three U.S. automakers into deep financial trouble, it is damaging the sales and profits of Japanese carmakers and forcing them to review their alliances.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Oct 28, 2008

What are your plans for Halloween?

Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Oct 28, 2008

Paul and Neeta Daswani

Paul (61) and Neeta (60) Daswani are the owners of Sati's, a legendary clothing store in Okinawa City in the center of Okinawa Island. Since 1978, Sati's has been a one-stop shopping haven for hot tailor-made suits with cool matching accessories. Here beach bums turn into jazz cats thanks to the Daswanis'...

Longform

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers