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Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Feb 20, 2003

Down by the Edo riverside

The 1830s woodcut prints by Hasegawa Settan depict an amazing panorama of Edo as seen looking southeast from Edo Castle. The unobstructed view must have been the one the shogun enjoyed from his castle in what is now the Imperial Palace's East Garden, introduced in this column last month.
BUSINESS
Feb 20, 2003

Kirin Beverage sees record sales

Kirin Beverage Corp. said Wednesday it registered a record 319.2 billion yen in group sales in the business year that ended Dec. 31, up 5 percent over the previous year.
BUSINESS
Feb 19, 2003

Bandai to adopt holding firm system

Toy maker Bandai Co. said Tuesday it will adopt a holding company structure by March 2006 as part of a new three-year business plan that will be implemented in April.
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2003

Okuda tells workers to endure pay hardship

The chairman of the country's largest business association told workers Wednesday to suck it up.
COMMUNITY
Feb 9, 2003

Hole in one: Hole in pocket

All golfers dream that -- be it only once in their lifetime -- they might, miraculously, achieve a hole in one.
BUSINESS
Feb 7, 2003

Broker, trust bank tie up on wills

Online brokerage house Matsui Securities Co. and Chuo Mitsui Trust & Banking Co. said Thursday they have agreed to tie up in the inheritance and testament-related business.
BUSINESS
Feb 6, 2003

Japan Telecom Co. buyer sought

Japan Telecom Holdings Co., a unit of British wireless giant Vodafone Group PLC, said Wednesday it is in talks with several firms, including U.S. investment fund Ripplewood Holdings LLC, over the sale of its fixed-line subsidiary, Japan Telecom Co.
BUSINESS
Feb 4, 2003

Mitsubishi Electric sees profit surge

Mitsubishi Electric Corp. said Monday its business group posted a net profit of 1.1 billion yen during the October-December term, a turnaround from a net loss of 38.4 billion yen in the same period a year earlier.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 4, 2003

Converting to a healthier bento option

It's noon on a weekday in Tokyo's posh Daikanyama district in Shibuya Ward, and 52-year-old Buddhist monk Tenkai Miki makes a conspicuous arrival in front of Daikanyama station on his scooter.
BUSINESS
Feb 1, 2003

Sogo announces plan to join Seibu under a holding firm

Sogo Co. President Shigeaki Wada announced Friday that the department store chain will merge its operations with those of Seibu Department Ltd., its bankruptcy-rehabilitation sponsor suddenly experiencing its own difficulties.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 31, 2003

Shinsei experience: lattes in the lobby, free ATM transactions

A typical Japanese bank looks a bit like the dowdy, paper-shuffling office of a shoddily run company. There are plenty of bowing clerks. But don't count on conveniences like 24-hour ATMs.
EDITORIALS
Jan 28, 2003

Can we trust 'Davos man'?

The rich, the powerful and the famous last week descended once again on the Swiss village of Davos for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF). This year, the assembled luminaries pondered the loss of "trust" that has sapped institutions worldwide. The question is a vital one. Of the many...
BUSINESS
Jan 27, 2003

C&W IDC exec hands on challenge of making telecom regulations fairer

Changes in Japan's telecommunications industry over the past two years have been far-reaching and important, but much remains to be done to achieve a truly free and transparent market, according to Lisa Suits, outgoing vice president of the public policy division of Cable & Wireless IDC Inc.
JAPAN
Jan 26, 2003

Honda Motor abolishes wages based on seniority

Honda Motor Co. has abolished its seniority-based wage system and introduced performance-based pay for the 40,000 rank-and-file employees at the parent firm and nine subsidiaries, company officials said Saturday.
BUSINESS
Jan 25, 2003

Kumagai Gumi ponders spinoff

Ailing construction company Kumagai Gumi Co. plans to spin off its money-losing real estate business and carry out a massive restructuring in the hope of surviving as a slimmer company half its present size, industry sources said Friday.
BUSINESS
Jan 22, 2003

Mizuho group plots huge fundraising effort as losses jump to 1.9 trillion yen

The Mizuho Financial Group said Tuesday its fiscal 2002 losses will hit 1.9 trillion yen, a nine-fold jump from estimates issued in November, after its two banks swallow more than 2 trillion yen in loan-loss provisions.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 20, 2003

Establishing confidence in Northeast Asia

Recent developments on the Korean Peninsula clearly indicate the need for establishing a political mechanism to maintain regional security.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 12, 2003

Drinking in the delights of men

It was after 2 a.m. and I was on a mission in Kabukicho. The assignment involved two things: alcohol and men. As dangerous a combination as that is, what woman could resist such temptation? Certainly not this one.
BUSINESS
Jan 8, 2003

Consumption tax may be raised

The government will consider raising the consumption tax to secure revenues, even though its priority remains the elimination of unnecessary spending, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said Tuesday.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 7, 2003

Maker of stylus-free record player has got his groove back

SAITAMA -- His friends backed him up 15 years ago when he left his lofty position at one of the world's largest electronics makers and ended up at a small audio manufacturer. But when he decided to pursue a piece of analog equipment seemingly destined to die in an increasingly digital world, they wrote...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 1, 2003

Okuda offers economic solution: substantially raise sales tax

Hiroshi Okuda, chairman of the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren), thinks he has a cure for the sick economy, but consumers aren't likely to enjoy his bitter medicine.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 7, 2002

Journeying back to tribal roots with eagle feather

Two years ago, after more than a decade in Japan, Shirley (Blackstar) Macdonald and her husband, Chris, decided it was time to go home. Now they run Eagle Feather Gallery in Victoria, British Columbia, with a magnificent cedar house in deep forest north of the city. A long way from working in Tokyo,...
BUSINESS
Nov 29, 2002

Yanase to hand import rights on two cars over to GM unit

Yanase & Co., a car dealer specializing in foreign vehicles, said Thursday it will transfer the import rights relating to two foreign car makes to the Japanese unit of U.S. auto giant General Motors Corp.
BUSINESS
Nov 29, 2002

NTT phone access fees should stay same: panel

A Lower House panel said Thursday that interconnection fees charged by NTT East Corp. and NTT West Corp. to other carriers for accessing their phone lines should remain unchanged for the 2003 business year.
BUSINESS
Nov 27, 2002

Top life insurers' results reveal inability to reverse their decline

The nation's major life insurance companies have had little success reversing a decline in business, while their capital remains under pressure by depressed share prices, according to half-year financial results posted by the firms by Tuesday.
JAPAN
Nov 26, 2002

Forum eyes wireless infrastructure

Researchers and business elites of the telecommunications industry discussed the possibility of mobile and wireless telecommunications networks, a prospective major infrastructure undertaking for the future, at a recent seminar in Tokyo.
JAPAN
Nov 22, 2002

Nicos head to step down over scandal

Yoji Yamada, president of Nippon Shinpan Co., said Thursday he will resign next month to take the blame for the "sokaiya" racketeer payoff scandal rocking the major loan company but will remain involved in the firm's management plans.

Longform

A sinkhole in Yashio, which emerged in January, was triggered by a ruptured, aging sewer pipe. Authorities worry that similar sections of infrastructure across the country are also at risk of corrosion.
That sinking feeling: Japan’s aging sewers are an infrastructure time bomb