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COMMENTARY / World
Feb 14, 2002

North Korea: signs of trouble but no evil

CAMBRIDGE, England -- I have just returned from a week visit to North Korea, one of the countries on U.S. President George W. Bush's "axis of evil." I was one of three British academics running a workshop under a new technical assistance program inaugurated when the two countries opened diplomatic relations...
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2002

Kinden Corp. penalized over evaded taxes

OSAKA -- Electrical contractor Kinden Corp. failed to declare about 900 million yen in corporate income in the three business years to March 31, 2000, and has been ordered to pay 300 million yen in back taxes and penalties, industry sources said Wednesday.
EDITORIALS
Feb 13, 2002

Reading between the lines

According to the financial mandarins of the Group of Seven, the global economy has turned the corner. Despite recession in Japan and the United States, the world's leading economies, and the shock created by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the international outlook has improved. The statement released...
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Feb 11, 2002

Argentina's decline holds lessons for Japan

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- A J.P. Morgan analyst in Tokyo was quoted by The Globalist (Dec. 21) as saying, "Japan now faces the choice: either restructure its economy or become the Argentina of the 21st century -- a spent power." One would not have imagined even just a very few years ago that Japan and...
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2002

Kawaguchi mulls ways to curb pressure on Foreign Ministry

Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi has been studying ways to curb political influence on diplomacy, and is considering a policy to make public anytime a politician approaches ministry officials concerning ministry affairs, sources close to her said Sunday.
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2002

Cargo transport deregulation planned

The transport ministry plans to scrap regulations on the license system for cargo transport firms and allow trucking firms to transport cargo anywhere, ministry officials said Sunday.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Feb 10, 2002

TV sports trump freedom; public loses

MOSCOW -- There is no television broadcast in Russia anymore that is independent of the Russian government. Having applied the poisonous gas of legal niceties, the Kremlin has shut down the last stronghold of dissent, the vocal and opinionated TV-6. It was the coup de grace in Russian President Vladimir...
JAPAN
Feb 9, 2002

Farm ministry begins beef testing

The farm ministry, responding to the revelation that Snow Brand Foods Co. abused a government beef-buyback program implemented after the discovery of mad cow disease in Japan, began random inspections Friday of beef it bought from across the nation.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 9, 2002

Hire women, aged before foreigners, expert says

While Japan's unemployment rate is hovering at its worst level in the postwar era and manufacturers are shifting production abroad for cheaper labor, foreign workers seem to be enjoying their share of demand.
EDITORIALS
Feb 8, 2002

Enron's third strike

A fter being pilloried in the press and made the new poster child for capitalist excess, Enron is being handed the final indignity: The Houston Astros baseball team has gone to court to take the company's name off its stadium. The humiliation is now complete: The former energy giant is being stripped...
JAPAN
Feb 8, 2002

High school grads' prospects still grim

A record-low 67.8 percent of high school students due to graduate in spring had lined up jobs as of Dec. 31, the education ministry said Thursday.
EDITORIALS
Feb 7, 2002

An optimistic economic outlook

How will Japan's economy develop from fiscal 2002 through 2006? The official answer, in a nutshell, is that it will stage a slow but steady recovery led by private demand. Under the circumstances, that is probably the most the government can hope for. The big question is whether this scenario will come...
BUSINESS
Feb 7, 2002

Snow Brand told to avoid foreign tieup

The government's efforts to protect the agriculture sector is affecting ailing Snow Brand Milk Products Co. and its plans to restructure.
BUSINESS
Feb 7, 2002

Nidec to set up subsidiary in China

Precision motor manufacturer Nidec Corp. said Wednesday it will set up a wholly owned subsidiary in China to make and sell spindle motors for hard disk drives.
BUSINESS
Feb 6, 2002

Key economic index goes bust for entire year

Japan's key economic index came in below 50 percent in December -- its 12th consecutive month under the boom-or-bust line -- as weak consumption and severe unemployment continued to weigh down the economy, the government said Tuesday in a preliminary report.
BUSINESS
Feb 6, 2002

Japan Telecom goes with youth

Japan Telecom Co., in the nation's third-largest telecommunications company, has asked 20 of its younger managers to draw up a reform plan that will include the adoption of a personnel system based more on performance than seniority, the new president of the company said Tuesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 6, 2002

The Japa-Rican Dream

NEW YORK -- From a New Yorker's point of view, young Japanese actor Masayasu Nakanishi definitely has chutzpah. How many other people would go out of their way to flash their dreams and frustrations in public, especially when the defeats equal or outnumber the successes?
JAPAN
Feb 5, 2002

Murder suspect gets new warrant

OSAKA -- A man indicted for murdering a Chinese woman at a Tokyo hotel in December was served a fresh arrest warrant Monday on suspicion of embezzling 50 million yen from his former employer.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 5, 2002

French imitations of a banana republic

LONDON -- Is corruption a Third World disorder? Not if the French are any guide.
Japan Times
Events
Feb 5, 2002

Artificial jellyfish find niche market with aquarium hobbyists

NARA -- Jellyfish swimming up and down inside a water tank may be a comforting sight to see, but keeping them alive is another matter entirely. Help, however, is on the way, said Hideaki Okuda, a maker of artificial jellyfish.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 5, 2002

Kinki Nippon, Nippon Travel part ways

Kinki Nippon Tourist Co. and Nippon Travel Agency, the nation's second- and third-largest travel agencies, announced Monday that they have canceled a merger plan for January 2003 due to ramifications of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.
BUSINESS / TAKING STOCK
Feb 5, 2002

Healthy firms' stocks best

Tokyo stocks could remain in a consolidation phase until early next month, with the 225-issue Nikkei average moving between 9,500 and 11,000 and the broader-based Topix between 950 and 1,100.
BUSINESS
Feb 5, 2002

Shiokawa wants quick budget OK

Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa on Monday called for swift passage of a 81.23 trillion yen general-account budget for fiscal 2002, designed to accommodate structural reform measures pursued by the administration of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
BUSINESS
Feb 5, 2002

Asian, Latin American officials ready to roll up their sleeves

A fledgling forum of 27 East Asian and Latin American countries will get down to business early next month on drafting a package of specific proposals to shore up nascent trans-Pacific cooperation in economic and social areas.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Feb 5, 2002

Faith in a tropical Gethsemane

When the Spanish arrived in the Philippines in the 16th century, they found a lush tropical garden ripe for replanting. King Philip II had commanded his soldiers, administrators and religious zealots that there were to be no repetitions of the atrocities committed in the name of the cross throughout...
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Feb 4, 2002

English-language deficit handicaps Japan

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- In 1984 I was invited to give a public lecture at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. I began by apologizing for the fact that I would not be able to deliver my lecture in Dutch. I went on to remark that had I been alive at the time of Erasmus, I would have given my lecture in Latin....

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight