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Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 9, 2008

Work-life balance starts at home: Rengo chief

As part of efforts to stem the nation's depopulation, a guide to promoting a better work and family life balance among workers was recently adopted by a special government panel.
BUSINESS
Nov 6, 2007

Fast Retailing plans 200 stores in China, H.K.

Fast Retailing Co., Asia's biggest clothing retailer, plans to operate 200 Uniqlo stores in mainland China and Hong Kong within five years, with the region set to overtake Japan as its largest sales generator by 2017. About 80 percent of the stores will be in mainland China, Senior Vice President Tiger...
JAPAN / Q&A
Sep 29, 2007

All eyes on Japan Post as privatization begins

Japan Post will be reorganized Monday, paving the way for it to become a private company for the first time in its more than 130-year history. The following are questions and answers on how the privatization will affect Japan's postal services.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 21, 2007

A slow drink coming

At Takahata Wine Harvest Festival next month the quality of booze will not be a problem — and neither will your conscience as you nurse a hangover the next day.
Japan Times
JAPAN / ATOMIC POWER AT ANY COST
Sep 4, 2007

Nuclear plants rural Japan's economic fix

Part I: Nuclear doubts spread in wake of Niigata Part III: All cost bets off if Big One hits nuke plant
JAPAN
Jul 23, 2007

Nuclear power expansion takes direct hit

Japan's nuclear power industry is among the world's most ambitious. Spurred by fears of global warming, planners envision a rapid expansion of plants, capacity and cutting-edge technologies.
BUSINESS
May 29, 2007

Food prices rise as more crops go into producing biofuels

The increasing demand for biofuel, which is derived from biomass — usually plants — has taken a bite out of supplies of crops and other farm products worldwide. The redirection of crops from mouths to fuel tanks is reflected in the rise of prices of ordinary food items in Japan.
EDITORIALS
May 26, 2007

Stepping up realignment of forces

The Diet has enacted a law to facilitate the largest-ever realignment of U.S. forces stationed in Japan. The law, supported by the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito and opposed by the Democratic Party of Japan and three other opposition parties, reflects Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's determination to...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Mar 29, 2007

New postal giant raises competition fears as birth approaches

The planned privatization of the postal system, which doubles as the world's biggest savings bank, was hailed around the globe as a watershed free-market reform that would streamline the world's No. 2 economy.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 19, 2006

End of the Lion

The mythmaker Jim Frederick TIME Magazine The most difficult aspect of reporting on Koizumi was confronting the fixed, immutable and monolithic "Koizumi Myth." What started as a campaign plank -- "Koizumi is a reformer and a rebel who is destroying the LDP and reinvigorating Japan" -- somehow became...
BUSINESS
Jul 13, 2006

Japan Post mulls '11 listing of bank, insurer

Japan Post Corp. is considering listing in fiscal 2011 two of the four units that will be created during the organization's privatization, starting next year, sources said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
May 25, 2006

Japan Post net profit at 1.9 trillion yen, up 56%

Japan Post announced Wednesday it brought in a whopping net profit of 1.93 trillion yen in the fiscal year that ended March 31, up 56 percent from the year before, thanks to the robust performance of its postal savings business.
EDITORIALS
May 19, 2006

Inequalities of pensions

In 1984, the government decided to rectify inequalities between the pension plan for company employees (kosei nenkin) and the one mainly for public servants (kyosai nenkin). Public servants are entitled to receive more benefits by paying smaller amounts of contributions than company employees.
EDITORIALS
Jan 31, 2006

The future of local post offices

Japan Post has announced a "master plan to reform postal offices" as the process of privatizing the mammoth state-run entity of 260,000 employees is set to begin in October 2007. The focus of the plan is the reform of the specially designated tokutei post offices, which account for three-fourths of the...
COMMENTARY
Jan 30, 2006

A way past Kyoto's 'hot air'

In a Jan. 7 symposium at Dalian University of Technology, I delivered a keynote speech on the possibility of Japan's implementing the clean development mechanism in China.
EDITORIALS
Jan 28, 2006

No place for pension evasion

At a time when people's trust in the nation's pension systems is declining, some enterprises, especially small ones, are behaving in a manner that will weaken the reliability of social security. They deliberately choose not to join the corporate employees' pension system (kosei nenkin) while the number...
BUSINESS
Jan 24, 2006

Japan Post stock firm starts business

A new joint stock company set up by Japan Post began operations Monday in the leadup to privatization, which is scheduled to begin in October 2007.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 28, 2005

INEPT LEADERSHIP CONTINUES

HONG KONG -- A controversial plan to extend democracy in Hong Kong died Dec. 21 when the legislature failed to pass it by a big enough majority. Hopes of true democracy in the special region of China have thus been put into deep freeze, with recriminations reverberating from Hong Kong to Beijing and...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Dec 5, 2005

Privatization hurdles: Japan Post should compete with banks on level playing field

The government bills drafted to privatize the state-run postal services were finally enacted into laws in mid-October, but there will be two major challenges ahead as privatization is carried out.
EDITORIALS
Oct 25, 2005

Postal reform just the start

With the Diet's Oct. 14 passage of the postal-services privatization bills, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has reaped a reward for his daring decision to dissolve the Lower House. But the postal privatization is only the first of many issues that the government has to address to streamline its operations...
EDITORIALS
Oct 18, 2005

Toward the final frontier

China's successful launching last week of its second manned spacecraft, the Shenzhou 6, coming just two years after its historic first flight, demonstrates that the country's space program is making steady progress. China's goal, obviously, is to become a "space power."
JAPAN
Oct 12, 2005

Postal bills fly through Lower House

got what he wanted by fair means or foul," Kamei said after the vote. "It seems as if the 'age of civil wars' has been revived in modern society and I fear that democratized Japan will disappear."
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 23, 2005

LDP OKs postal reform; dissent a notable no-show

The Liberal Democratic Party on Thursday unanimously endorsed the hotly contested postal privatization bills that triggered the Sept. 11 general election.
JAPAN
Aug 31, 2005

It's now a case of what clicks with voters

As campaigning officially kicked off Tuesday for the Sept. 11 election, attention is focused on voters and their priorities.
COMMENTARY
Aug 31, 2005

The meaning behind Koizumi's moves

On the surface, most elections are about personalities, false promises and special interests. But Japan's general election Sept. 11 is about a deeper historical reconciliation -- the effort to resolve differences between the country's cultural and behavioral preferences, and the organizational practices...
COMMENTARY
Aug 23, 2005

LDP again at the crossroads

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi views the forthcoming general election, set for Sept. 11, as a national referendum on his top-priority plan to privatize the postal system. "I would like to ask the people whether they are for or against postal privatization," he told a nationally televised press conference,...

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past