Search - business

 
 
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 26, 2007

Nintendo profit jumps fivefold on surging sales

Surging sales of the Wii and DS video game players lifted Nintendo's quarterly profit fivefold, prompting the company to raise its annual earnings forecast 40 percent.
BUSINESS
Jul 26, 2007

Honda raises forecast on strong U.S. sales, weak yen

Honda Motor Co., Japan's second-largest carmaker, said Wednesday it raised its full-year profit forecast after demand for fuel-efficient models in the U.S. and a weaker yen boosted first-quarter profit 16 percent.
JAPAN / UPPER HOUSE SHOWDOWN
Jul 25, 2007

Shimane voters: Has Tokyo helped us?

National polls may show that voter outrage over the pension records fiasco is the primary issue in Sunday's Upper House election.
JAPAN
Jul 25, 2007

Election loss no matter for Abe

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe does not plan to resign even if his ruling party fares badly in this weekend's House of Councilors election, his top spokesman said Tuesday.
EDITORIALS
Jul 25, 2007

Democracy wins in Turkey

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed a second five-year term last weekend. His government's record since 2002 should have made victory a given, but fears that it would drift toward more Islamic fundamentalist rule had tempered enthusiasm for his Justice and Development Party, or AKP. The...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jul 25, 2007

Our world is being driven by denial

As an environmental columnist, one question that repeatedly comes to mind is, "How much denial is humanly possible?"
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Jul 24, 2007

MLB, NPB should retire legendary Bambino's uniform number

Should Major League Baseball retire Babe Ruth's No. 3?
COMMENTARY
Jul 24, 2007

When democracy goes bad

LONDON — "We do not want to go back to an elective democracy where corruption becomes all pervasive," Lt. Gen. Moeen U Ahmed, chief of the Bangladesh army, told a conference in Dhaka in April.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / TAKING A CHANCE
Jul 24, 2007

'Silver workers' a gold mine for temp agency entrepreneur

When Shigeo Hirano set up Mystar60 Corp., a staffing agency specializing in finding jobs for people age 60 and over, he was a man on a mission.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jul 23, 2007

10 years on, currency earthquake is waiting to rattle Asia once more

It is 10 years since the Asian currency crisis. Currency crises are like earthquakes. I hesitate to use this analogy when lives have been lost and people continue to suffer as a result of the quake last week in the Chuetsu area of Niigata Prefecture. Yet the parallel is a valid one.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 22, 2007

Video crime peril vs. virtual pedophilia

PRINCETON, New Jersey — In a popular Internet role-playing game called Second Life, people can create a virtual identity for themselves, choosing such things as their age, sex and appearance. These virtual characters then do things that people in the real world do, such as having sex.
ENVIRONMENT
Jul 22, 2007

TETRAPODS

Ah, tetrapods!
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 22, 2007

Outsiders, or not; that is the question

I wish I had a yen or two for every time I've been told: "You will never be accepted in Japan."
JAPAN
Jul 21, 2007

Kansai cargo hub hopes ride on its new runway

. We need to aim to be an independent airport," Kansai airport President Atsushi Murayama told a recent news conference. The proposal's emphasis on freight was no doubt influenced by U.S. cargo carrier DHL. In June, DHL opened up a 5 billion yen facility at the airport. It is five times bigger than the...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jul 21, 2007

Mitsuya Goto

Mitsuya Goto can tell any aspiring student how to learn English. "You really have to want to," he might say, and "you must use any tool available to you."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 20, 2007

Serving up some piping-hot salsa

Calling Oscar D'Leon a salsa superstar doesn't do justice to his stature in the world of Latin music. Over the course of his 36-year-career, the bassist and singer has acquired more nicknames than the late James Brown.
BUSINESS
Jul 20, 2007

KDDI announces fee cuts; could spur industry price war

KDDI Corp. said Thursday it plans to cut its basic monthly mobile-phone fees by 50 percent starting in September if users sign a two-year-contract — a decision that could trigger an industry price war.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 20, 2007

'Tennen Kokkeko'

Nobuhiro Yamashita scored an international hit in 2005 with "Linda, Linda, Linda," a comic drama about a schoolgirl band whose lead singer drops out just before a big school festival. When it was screened at the Udine Far East Film Festival last year, the audience whooped with laughter at its deadpan...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 20, 2007

A quick exit from Tokyo

In the lexicon of Japanese travel, the expression "An-Kin-Tan" — an abbreviated reading of the three kanji for yasui, chikai and mijikai — refers to journeys that are cheap, close and short.
SOCCER
Jul 16, 2007

Prickly Osim in rare form before match

HANOI — Ivica Osim's tit-for-tat battle with sections of the press at the Asian Cup finals reached surreal new heights Sunday ahead of defending champion Japan's final Group B match against cohost Vietnam.
EDITORIALS
Jul 16, 2007

Unsettling yen trend

The Bank for International Settlements has issued a warning against the current trend of yen undervaluation. Its annual report states, "There is clearly something anomalous in the ongoing decline in the external rate of the yen." This is a warning against complacency prevalent among some company executives...
EDITORIALS
Jul 16, 2007

Smoother trade in East Asia

The trade ministry's fiscal 2007 white paper calls for creation of an "open and seamless" economic system in East Asia where Japanese companies have already established strong business networks. Behind the call is recognition that a dynamic East Asian economy is indispensable for Japan's economic growth....
COMMENTARY
Jul 16, 2007

Miyazawa knew economics

Obituaries for former Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, who died recently at age 87, agreed that he was a statesman and a genuine internationalist. But some — those from Nikkei, Japan's leading economic media group, especially — also criticized him as a Keynesian economist responsible for Japan's economic...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jul 16, 2007

Companies must fight for balance between greenmailers, growth

The biggest feature of this year's crop of annual shareholders' meetings — which came on the heels of May's removal of the ban on triangular mergers — was the move to install defensive measures against so-called greenmailers, the corporate interlopers who chase after short-term profits.
SPORTS / MULLY'S MISSIVES
Jul 15, 2007

Quenching thirst hard work in Hanoi

HANOI — Covering the Asian Cup finals is proving to be thirsty work for the many soccer journalists in hot and humid Hanoi.

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