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JAPAN
Feb 23, 2002

Snow Brand Foods to disband

Snow Brand Foods Co. will lay off most of its 1,000 employees in March and disband in April, the scandal-tainted firm said Friday.
BUSINESS
Feb 23, 2002

Japan Metals throws in towel, seeks protection from creditors

Japan Metals & Chemicals Co., the nation's top ferroalloy manufacturer, on Friday afternoon stopped trying to rehabilitate itself and filed for court protection from creditors.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 22, 2002

Southeast Asia scores its outside players

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- Three outside players influence, to various degrees, the destiny of Southeast Asia: the United States, Japan and China. Their influences may intensify or wane over a specific period, depending on the prevailing over- all geopolitical and economic framework. How then can we evaluate...
JAPAN
Feb 22, 2002

Diplomats impress at Japanese speech contest

What most touched the hearts of the audience may not have been their fluency in Japanese and experiences of culture shock, but their insights into daily life summarized in a five-minute speech.
BUSINESS
Feb 22, 2002

Koizumi opposes book-value loan deals for RCC

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi indicated Thursday that he does not support a proposal that the state-run Resolution and Collection Corp. buy bad loans at "effective book value" rather than at market value.
JAPAN
Feb 21, 2002

Prince Takamado may go to Seoul for World Cup

Prince Takamado, honorary president of the Japan Football Association, will probably attend the opening ceremony of the World Cup finals in Seoul, according to government sources.
JAPAN
Feb 21, 2002

Find something worth saying, then build skills: translator

Natsuko Toda, a leading writer of Japanese subtitles for English-language movies, said Wednesday that Japanese people should learn how to be more expressive in their own language before worrying about learning English.
JAPAN
Feb 21, 2002

Team discusses fuel-cell promotion

Vice ministers from three government ministries on Wednesday held their first meeting on promoting fuel cell technology in Japan.
BUSINESS
Feb 21, 2002

Hitachi, Mitsubishi ink nuclear deal

Hitachi Ltd. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. said Wednesday they have agreed to collaborate on basic nuclear power plant technologies.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2002

Miyazaki delighted to win Berlin Golden Bear

Film director Hayao Miyazaki expressed delight Tuesday about winning the top prize for his animated film "Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi" ("Spirited Away") at the Berlin Film Festival.
BUSINESS
Feb 20, 2002

Nissan, DoCoMo to jointly work on 'telematics' project

Nissan Motor Co. and NTT DoCoMo Inc. said Tuesday they will jointly study and develop a "telematics" service based on the cellular phone giant's third-generation mobile communications technologies.
BUSINESS
Feb 20, 2002

Keep that video collection -- new DVDs are around corner

The DVD player just went the way of the VCR.
BUSINESS
Feb 20, 2002

House Foods appoints new chief

House Foods Corp. said Tuesday it will promote Akira Oze from vice president to president and chief executive officer, replacing Takashi Kono, who will become an adviser.
BUSINESS
Feb 20, 2002

Banks skeptical of share-purchasing body

Banks are reluctant to use a government share purchasing body set up to help them unwind their massive cross-held shares, the chairman of the Japan Bankers Association said Tuesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 20, 2002

The mind has mountains

"It's true," a friend who has lived here for more than a decade insisted. "Because for them it's the most important mountain in the world, Japanese schoolchildren don't draw Mount Fuji the sloping shape it really is, but as incredibly tall and pointed."
JAPAN
Feb 19, 2002

Bush's blooper temporarily lifts dollar

The dollar temporarily rose against the yen Monday after U.S. President George W. Bush confused currency markets by saying he had talked about "devaluation" with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 19, 2002

Celebration of folk traditions keeps national identity alive for Peruvian

TSU, Mie Pref. (Kyodo News) Her family's playing of the traditional Peruvian folk song "El Condor Pasa" for a Japanese audience helps Rosa Ochante Muray keep her national identity alive.
BUSINESS
Feb 19, 2002

Mitsubishi Tokyo's Swiss unit to target wealthy investors

Three Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group Inc. companies said Monday they will jointly set up a securities firm in Switzerland to provide comprehensive wealth-management services.
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2002

Elementary schools snub Snow Brand

OSAKA -- Forty-two percent of some 14,000 municipally run elementary schools throughout Japan are boycotting products made by scandal-tainted Snow Brand Milk Products Co. and its group companies, according to the results of a poll released Sunday.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 17, 2002

Was she used -- or were Makiko's tears deemed too dangerous?

The sixth Press and Human Rights Committee Conference, held at the end of January by the Asahi Shimbun, focused on the problem of gender discrimination in the media. In a full-page feature promoting the event in the Feb. 10 issue of the newspaper, three participants started out by blasting Prime Minister...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 16, 2002

Towels, tea & sympathy under CLAIR umbrella

I have arranged to meet Shingo Ishida, a program coordinator in the Guidance and Counseling Division of the JET Program Management Department in the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations. (Gulp, what a mouthful!) But after colleague Nicola Chilton -- working in a similar capacity under...
BUSINESS
Feb 16, 2002

Fujita seeks integration with Mitsui-Sumitomo

As banks and the government desperately work to solve the issue of mounting problem loans, many of which were extended to the construction industry, financially troubled contractor Fujita Corp. said Friday that it plans to merge its key construction division with Mitsui Construction Co. and Sumitomo...
BUSINESS
Feb 16, 2002

Asahi Mutual to cut stock losses

Asahi Mutual Life Insurance Co. said Friday it will raise 150 billion yen and cut its shareholding losses by 400 billion yen by March 31 in a bid to regain customer trust and stop policy cancellations.
BUSINESS
Feb 15, 2002

Margin buying still on rise

The balance of shares bought on credit rose for the fifth consecutive week last week as investors continued hunting for bargains.
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2002

Sumikura officials held over 'sokaiya' payoffs

Police on Wednesday arrested three senior Sumikura Industrial Co. officials on suspicion of paying 5 million yen to three shareholders to ensure a June 2000 shareholders' meeting was not disrupted by racketeers.
BUSINESS
Feb 14, 2002

BOJ not planning to raise long-term bond purchases

Bank of Japan Gov. Masaru Hayami said Wednesday there is no immediate need to increase the central bank's outright purchases of long-term government bonds to boost liquidity in the money market.
JAPAN / CLOSE NEIGHBORS
Feb 14, 2002

Lawmakers' views of past still plague relations

An education ministry panel's approval last April of a history textbook, which critics denounced as attempting to glorify Japan's wartime past, drew a quick response from South Korean politicians.
BUSINESS
Feb 14, 2002

Aioi expects greater loss after terror attacks

Aioi Insurance Co. will likely incur a loss of 126.1 billion yen from reinsurance claims on its U.S. agent in the fiscal year to March 31, or 28.2 billion yen more than it expected.

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