Search - 2005

 
 
JAPAN
Aug 5, 2005

Money-transfer fraud up but total crimes down

The number of reported money-transfer frauds and the losses from them increased in the first half of 2005 from the same period last year, but total crimes, including those committed by minors, decreased for a third straight year, the National Police Agency said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Aug 5, 2005

S&P mulls downgrades for Sony

Standard & Poor's said Thursday it has placed ratings for Sony Corp. and its affiliates on credit watch with negative implications.
BUSINESS
Aug 4, 2005

Manufacturers plan big spending boost for third year

Manufacturers plan to spend 19.8 percent more on plants and equipment over the previous fiscal year for a third consecutive year of double-digit increases, according to a survey by Development Bank of Japan released Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Aug 4, 2005

Mazda reports sharp drop in profit

Mazda Motor Corp.'s profit shrank sharply in the April-June quarter despite improved sales because of a change in accounting standards, the affiliate of U.S. automaker Ford said Wednesday.
JAPAN
Aug 3, 2005

1.17 million refuse to pay NHK fee

The number of households that refused to pay subscription fees to scandal-tainted NHK soared to around 1.17 million as of the end of July, from 970,000 two months earlier, the public broadcaster said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Aug 2, 2005

Lufthansa to boost Eastern Europe destinations

Lufthansa German Airlines will expand its Eastern European destinations to improve access at a time of growing demand in Japan for business trips to that region, according to the carrier's executive vice president, Thierry Antinori.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 1, 2005

Germany and Japan: parallels in reform

Japan and Germany can learn from each other as two major industrialized economies that have faced similar structural problems since the 1990s and are now trying to overcome them with reforms, a leading German economic scholar told a recent symposium in Tokyo.
Japan Times
Features
Jul 31, 2005

Fare to love -- or loathe

If you plan on visiting Expo 2005 Aichi, you may find you have to join long, long lines and brave the summer heat to get into the most popular pavillions. And should you go through Nagoya on your way back home, don't be surprised to see more long lines in the city center. But these long waits are nothing...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 31, 2005

Dawn of New Wave

If you're reading this on Sunday then most likely you're not at the Fuji Rock Festival this weekend. But if you're kicking yourself for not having made the trip to Naeba, you still have a chance to enjoy at least a fraction of the Fuji fun, because six bands who are playing at the festival will be doing...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 31, 2005

Book bite

SEEING JAPAN (three-volume boxed set), by Charles Whipple, Juliet W. Carpenter, Kaori Shoji. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2005, approx. 90 pp. per volume, 11,400 yen (cloth). "Seeing Japan," the boxed set, presents three different visual journeys: Japan as a whole, plus the country's two famous cities...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 31, 2005

Breach the defenses of marriage with a smile

FORTRESS BESIEGED, by Qian Zhongshu. Penguin Classics, 2005, 426 pp., £18.99 (cloth). 1937 was a rotten year for China. Japanese forces moved their operations from the Peking to the Shanghai region, the Nationalist lines in Nanjing collapsed, and the remnants of the resistance moved their troops deeper...
Japan Times
Features
Jul 31, 2005

'Secret' city basks in its low-profile limelight

It's at the geographic center of Japan and has in the past been at the hub of its history. It's also the nation's fourth-largest city, with a population of 2.2 million. But despite these, and many more, claims to fame and prominence, Nagoya City in Aichi Prefecture has always been outstanding for its...
BUSINESS
Jul 30, 2005

ANA trounced JAL in fiscal first quarter

The nation's two major airlines Friday announced contrasting results for the first quarter of fiscal 2005, with All Nippon Airways Co. managing to upstage Japan Airlines Corp.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / THE SECOND ROOM
Jul 29, 2005

Weekend trance party picks 07.29

Saturday 07.30
BUSINESS
Jul 29, 2005

Michigan seeks investment, to evolve

Seeking to lure investment from a country that once threatened her state's main industry with ruin, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm said Thursday her five-day trade mission to Japan underscores the new reality of the global economy -- evolve, or die.
JAPAN
Jul 29, 2005

Japan eyes retaliatory tariffs for U.S. steel

Japan may impose retaliatory duties on U.S. steel products, including ball bearings, in September to counter subsidies paid out to steel firms by Washington under an antidumping program that has been ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization.
BUSINESS
Jul 28, 2005

Honda reports 3.1% drop in net profit

Honda Motor Co. said Wednesday that its net profit in the first quarter of fiscal 2005 fell 3.1 percent to 110.6 billion yen, despite brisk domestic and overseas sales.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jul 28, 2005

Moves afoot to counter U.S. Big Oil's clout

Reducing the greenhouse gases that derive from human activities and cause global warming is perhaps the most critical environmental challenge facing the world community.
COMMENTARY
Jul 26, 2005

Cutting butter with a saw?

The 2005 government white paper on the Japanese economy and public finances, which the Cabinet cleared earlier this month, has a chapter titled "From Public to Private: Restructuring the Government Sector and Its Challenges." It makes the following points:
BUSINESS
Jul 25, 2005

Preferred enters hotel fray in Japan

Despite the ongoing hotel war in Tokyo with many international hotels debuting, the chief of the Preferred Hotel Group in Chicago is optimistic about its expansion here.
COMMENTARY
Jul 25, 2005

Condoleezza Rice's unfortunate decision

HONOLULU -- The recent decision by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to skip the annual ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) ministerial-level dialogue this Friday in Vientiane represents a setback for U.S. efforts to persuade Southeast Asians that Washington really cares about their region. Rice plans...
EDITORIALS
Jul 24, 2005

The economy of plastic bags

A s this summer marks the 10th anniversary of the promulgation of the law for recycling containers and wrapping materials, the government is moving to strengthen the law to force a change in the behavior of consumers. The target is plastic shopping bags provided for free by supermarkets, convenience...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 24, 2005

Race across the Pacific

IN THE WAKE OF THE JOMON: Stone Age Mariners and a Voyage Across the Pacific, by Jon Turk. New York: International Marine/McGraw-Hill, 2005, 287 pages, with b/w illustrations, $24.95 (cloth). Midway through "In the Wake of the Jomon" comes a paragraph that poses all the questions Jon Turk ponders in...
EDITORIALS
Jul 23, 2005

Making ends meet with less

The fiscal 2005 "Annual Report on the Japanese Economy and Public Finances" pays attention to the impact on the economy of two inevitable demographic changes: the expected shrinkage of the population (the first such shrinkage since World War II) and the retirement in large numbers of baby boomers born...
BUSINESS
Jul 23, 2005

Unpegged yuan to impact firms

From electronics makers to fishing companies, China's decision Thursday to abandon the yuan's peg to the dollar will affect a wide range of Japanese businesses over the long term, observers say.
JAPAN
Jul 22, 2005

Traffic death drop laid to penalties, safety push

The number of deaths in traffic accidents declined 8.8 percent in Japan in the first half of 2005 from a year earlier to 3,124, the National Police Agency said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Jul 22, 2005

Crude oil price spike dents trade surplus

Japan's merchandise trade surplus for the first half of 2005 shrank 26.4 percent from the previous year to 4.53 trillion, yen the Finance Ministry said Thursday.
JAPAN
Jul 22, 2005

NPA unveils program for Net security

The National Police Agency on Thursday released its program to improve information security on the Internet.

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