Search - 2002

 
 
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 19, 2003

Overtime pay violations on Rengo's radar

Tomoru Yamaguchi, director of the working conditions division at the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo), knew the situation was bad. He just didn't think it was this bad.
BUSINESS
Feb 19, 2003

ISPs see a drop in number of dial-up subscribers

Most of Japan's major Internet service providers are starting to see a leveling off in the growth in the number of subscribers to their services.
BUSINESS
Feb 18, 2003

Failures down in January but liabilities rose

The number of corporate bankruptcies fell 11.4 percent in January from a year earlier, but liabilities left behind rose 14.2 percent to 1.22 trillion yen, the largest January figure in the postwar period, Teikoku Databank Ltd. said Monday.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 18, 2003

Income tax season gets under way

The period for filing income tax began Monday with 524 local tax offices accepting returns for 2002.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Feb 17, 2003

"Holes," "Love That Dog"

"Holes," Louis Sachar, Bloomsbury; 2000; 233 pp. It's hard to say why life is so downright unfair to some children. Take Stanley Yelnats: He gets bullied at school and is ignored by his teachers. And then one day, he gets hit on the head by a pair of sneakers that seems to fall out of the sky. He doesn't...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 16, 2003

Enslaved and liberated by lust

CONSUMING BODIES: Sex and Contemporary Japanese Art, edited by Fran Lloyd. London: Reaktion Books, 2002, 224 pp., 134 color and 34 black-and-white illustrations, £16.95 (paper). In her introduction to this very interesting collection of essays, Fran Lloyd emphasizes that the portrayal of sex and consumerism...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 16, 2003

Climb every mountain, saving souls on the way

BONE MOUNTAIN, by Eliot Pattison. New York: St. Martin's Minotaur, 2002, 306 pp., $24.95 (cloth) Novelist Eliot Pattison really knows how to spin a story. He also wants you to sympathize with the plight of Tibetans, which is not difficult to do. "Bone Mountain," Pattison's third novel set in Tibet, is...
MORE SPORTS
Feb 15, 2003

Taniguchi hospitalized with illness

Toru Taniguchi has been hospitalized due to a mystery illness that forced him to cancel his plan to appear in three U.S. PGA Tour events, his manager Naohisa Oshita said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Feb 15, 2003

Toyota to sell Lexus on domestic market

Toyota Motor Corp. said Friday it will introduce its Lexus luxury brand on the domestic market.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2003

Loan sharks feasting on ballooning number of people deep in debt

With the economy in the doldrums for years and unemployment at a record high, Japanese are racking up debts, falling prey to loan sharks and declaring bankruptcy by the thousands.
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2003

Osaka unveils slimmer draft budget

OSAKA -- The city of Osaka unveiled on Thursday a belt-tightening 1.78 trillion yen draft budget for fiscal 2003 featuring cuts in subsidies, public projects and personnel outlays.
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2003

Kyokushuzan named goodwill envoy

The Mongolian government appointed Kyokushuzan, the first Mongolian to wrestle in professional sumo's top division, as goodwill ambassador to Japan on Thursday in a bid to lure Japanese tourists to the country. During a ceremony at the Mongolian Embassy in Tokyo, Kyokushuzan received a blue satin band...
BUSINESS
Feb 14, 2003

Sega and Sammy Corp. announce October tieup

Sega Corp. and pachinko machine maker Sammy Corp. announced Thursday that they will merge on Oct. 1, a move seen aimed at resolving Sega's financial troubles.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 14, 2003

Toray Industries chief puts faith in technological research

Sadayuki Sakakibara, president of Toray Industries Inc., is confident there are researchers at his company who have the potential to win a Nobel Prize, just like Shimadzu Corp.'s Koichi Tanaka.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2003

Former Eitai execs held for taking doomed loans

Police on Thursday arrested four former executives of the failed credit union Eitai who allegedly had their firm take over 7.8 billion yen in bad loans extended by an affiliated company to ailing borrowers, even though they knew the loans were unrecoverable.
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2003

JT sees tobacco sales slide 4.9%

Japan Tobacco Inc. said Wednesday it sold 60 billion cigarettes nationwide during the quarter that ended Dec. 31, down 4.9 percent from a year earlier. The company attributed the decline to:
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2003

Unions plan to rally around seniority-based pay increases

The "shunto" spring wage talks got under way Wednesday with several major automotive unions submitting demands related to job security and wages.
JAPAN
Feb 12, 2003

METI aims to help sick firms beat bankruptcy

Changes to business regulations and special tax breaks will be considered to help ailing companies avoid bankruptcy and get back on their feet, according to government draft guidelines released Tuesday.
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2003

Tokyo appeals bank tax ruling

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government on Monday appealed to the Supreme Court a Jan. 30 Tokyo High Court decision saying a tax imposed exclusively on major banks operating in the capital is illegitimate.
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2003

Investor files suit against ex-Snow Brand executives

An investor in the now-defunct Snow Brand Foods Co., which was at the center of a beef mislabeling fraud last year, filed a 30 billion yen restitution suit Monday against 13 former executives, accusing them of ruining the company through mismanagement.
BUSINESS
Feb 11, 2003

Current account surplus up 33.8%

Japan's current account surplus grew 33.8 percent in 2002 from a year earlier, marking the first rise in four years, mainly due to a jump in exports to other parts of Asia, the Finance Ministry said Monday.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 9, 2003

Life was but a stage for Japan's troubled genius

MY FRIEND HITLER And Other Plays of Yukio Mishima, translated by Hiroaki Sato. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002, 316 pp., $49.40 (cloth), $18.95 (paper). Though he is most famous as a novelist, Yukio Mishima was also a prolific dramatist. From 1949, when his first play was published, to 1969,...
COMMUNITY
Feb 9, 2003

How green is your green?

What a difference a decade makes.
JAPAN
Feb 8, 2003

Karzai to attend Feb. 22 conference

Afghan President Hamid Karzai will make a four-day visit to Japan beginning Feb. 20 to attend an international conference to help establish peace in Afghanistan, Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said Friday.
JAPAN
Feb 8, 2003

Japan says goodbye to last land mine

By disposing of its last 25 antipersonnel mines Saturday, Japan becomes the 38th country to rid itself of the deadly devices.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami