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BUSINESS
May 15, 2008

Internet businesses try luck in overseas markets

While Japanese products from cars to TVs are known throughout the world, the country's Internet services have so far been conspicuously absent abroad.
BUSINESS
May 15, 2008

Latest car-nav checks home lights, locks

Drivers can check on their pets, turn their home lights off and on and lock the front door — all from inside their cars — with a new car-navigation system from Panasonic.
COMMENTARY / World
May 15, 2008

Getting Japan to capitalize on its innovation

BOSTON/TOKYO — As they lament the West's obsession with China and prepare to host the Group of Eight in July, Japanese fear becoming a minor planet in the Chinese orbit. Trouble is, Japan still sees manufacturing as the key to prosperity, despite the fact that it is vulnerable to offshoring.
BUSINESS
May 13, 2008

Nissan entering joint venture to produce cheap cars for India

Nissan Motor Co., Renault SA of France and Bajaj Auto Ltd. of India said Monday they will form a joint venture to develop, produce and market ultralow-cost cars, mainly targeting the rapidly growing Indian market.
BUSINESS
May 13, 2008

JPMorgan to start yen inflation swaps as prices increase

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has hired Takuma Kitajima from Merrill Lynch & Co. to start trading yen inflation swaps as Japan emerges from a decade-long bout of deflation.
BUSINESS
May 9, 2008

Soaring Softbank aims for the top

Softbank Corp. said Thursday that its operating profit in the business year to March rose 19.6 percent to ¥324.29 billion after it saw the largest net growth in subscribers among Japan's cellular phone operators.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
May 9, 2008

A drop of Malbec from down south

Despite being the fifth largest producer of wine in the world, when it comes to quality wines, Argentina has long been in the shadow of neighboring Chile, where spicy Shirazes and surprising Chardonnays have consistently outshone anything from the other side of the Andes.
BUSINESS
May 9, 2008

Forbes: Nintendo's Yamauchi richest in Japan

Hiroshi Yamauchi, former chairman of Nintendo Co., the world's biggest maker of hand-held game machines, overtook property developer Akira Mori to become the richest person in Japan, according to Forbes Asia's May 19 issue.
BUSINESS
May 8, 2008

Nippon Oil, PetroChina in refining JV

Nippon Oil Corp. said Wednesday it agreed to form a refining venture with PetroChina Co., expanding their alliance to capture growing Asian demand.
BUSINESS
May 7, 2008

Japan to propose copyright fees on iPods, digital recorders

The Japanese government will propose this week a plan to charge copyright royalties on sales of iPods and other portable digital music players, as well as on digital hard disk recorders, a major daily newspaper reported Tuesday.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 4, 2008

Japan's media plays nursemaid to nation's immature democracy

A major Japanese newspaper publishes an article denouncing the prime minister. Reporters hold a rally to criticize his Cabinet. The government responds by banning sales of the edition of the newspaper that carried the article, indicting its author for violation of the Newspaper Law. Rightwing agitators...
EDITORIALS
May 4, 2008

Thou shalt not steal . . . books

On the surface, Japan appears to be a relatively crime-free and comparatively safe society. One crime, though, is on the rise — shoplifting. A recent survey by the Japan Book Publishers Association for Information Infrastructure Development found that nearly ¥4 billion in books are stolen every year,...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 3, 2008

Rain or shine, Disney's parade rolls on

Although a cloudy day in April, and a little chilly from the morning drizzle, the temperature seemed a bit higher at Tokyo Disneyland, where many had come to enjoy a new parade, "Jubilation!" created to mark the park's 25th anniversary.
BUSINESS
May 1, 2008

Plant closure sends Tepco to first group loss in 28 years

Hurt by the closure of an earthquake-damaged nuclear power plant and higher oil and gas prices, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Wednesday that it posted a group loss of ¥150.1 billion for fiscal 2007 — its first annual group loss in 28 years.
BUSINESS
May 1, 2008

J-Power ups dividend just ¥10, braces for fight with TCI

Electric Power Development Co., the country's biggest electricity wholesaler, said Wednesday it will raise its annual dividend by ¥10 — to a total of ¥70 per share — for fiscal 2007, spurning repeated calls by a U.K.-based hedge fund that it double the annual payout to shareholders.
BUSINESS
May 1, 2008

Hotel sale propels ANA profit up 96.4%

All Nippon Airways Co. said Wednesday its group net profit rose 96.4 percent from a year earlier to a record ¥64.14 billion for the business year ended in March, due to special profit earned from sales of a hotel asset to streamline its business.
BUSINESS
May 1, 2008

Kawasaki Heavy income rises 18%

Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. reported Wednesday that its full-year net income gained 18 percent after its shipbuilding and industrial plant units returned to profit.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Apr 29, 2008

What are your plans for Golden Week?

BUSINESS
Apr 29, 2008

MHI's profit rises 25.6% on power plants

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. said Monday its group net profit for the business year that ended in March jumped by 25.6 percent to ¥61.3 billion, helped by orders to build overseas power plants amid globally rising energy demand.
EDITORIALS
Apr 28, 2008

U.S. must solve beef problem

On April 23, a spinal column, a part of the cow that is banned from import because it is considered at risk of spreading mad cow disease, was found in a shipment of beef from the United States. Though this violated a beef trade accord between Japan and the U.S., Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ROAD
Apr 27, 2008

Time that Japan's numbers came up

Given that much less than 1 percent of Japan's population are native English speakers, you can understand my surprise when the word "POLICE" suddenly appeared in bold reflective lettering on the nation's patrol cars last year.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Apr 27, 2008

Travel information, talk show product review, family melodrama

In 2007, more than 8 million people visited Japan from overseas, double the number that visited 10 years ago.
BUSINESS
Apr 26, 2008

Subprime woes send Nomura to ¥67.8 billion loss

Nomura Holdings Inc. said Friday it booked a group net loss of ¥67.8 billion in the business year ended in March due to losses related to U.S. subprime mortgage loans and falling stock prices.

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