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BUSINESS
Feb 4, 2006

Hitachi operating profit rises 14%

Hitachi Ltd. said Friday its operating profit for the October to December quarter rose 14 percent to 39.14 billion yen, as strong plant and equipment, and social infrastructure investments by customers domestically and overseas boosted its industrial business.
JAPAN
Feb 4, 2006

Aso, Tanigaki also balk on female reign

Senior Cabinet ministers Friday joined growing voices within the Liberal Democratic Party expressing concern over a government-sponsored bill to allow females and their descendants to ascend to the Imperial throne.
JAPAN
Feb 4, 2006

Tokyo to leverage whole talks on abduction issue

In a move to pressure North Korea a day before bilateral talks between Tokyo and Pyongyang are to start in Beijing, Foreign Minister Taro Aso said Friday that Tokyo may consider abandoning the three-track talks on security, abduction and normalization if there is no progress on the abduction issue.
JAPAN
Feb 4, 2006

Pro-Pyongyang groups set for tax scrutiny

The government will urge municipalities that provide tax breaks for pro-North Korean group facilities to consider whether such preferential treatment is appropriate, Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said Friday.
JAPAN
Feb 4, 2006

Pabco truck-scandal toll rises to 10,351 since 1986

Auto body maker Pabco Co. said Friday it illegally modified at least 10,351 trucks -- four times the number it announced in December -- by adding equipment that made them too heavy.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 4, 2006

New auto jobs, not quotas

WASHINGTON -- U.S. automakers are in dire straits. While non-U.S. brands are gaining market share, both GM and Ford have announced major plant closings and substantial layoffs. For some, these announcements have raised the specter of a return to the policies of the 1980s, when the United States imposed...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 4, 2006

'Land art' drives home message on environment

Imagine you are driving along an expressway and suddenly you are slicing a hare -- inscribed into the landscape to right and left -- in half. Truly a most uncomfortable and powerful metaphor for what we are doing to nature.
BUSINESS
Feb 4, 2006

Insurers mimic each other to clean up act

Four domestic nonlife insurers announced business improvement plans Friday in the wake of an industrywide failure to pay legitimate claims that prompted closer scrutiny of structural problems in the sector, including a follow-the-leader mentality.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Feb 4, 2006

Dave Bockmann

"A psychologist wants to change people. An organizer wants to change society," Dave Bockmann said.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 4, 2006

The year 2006 -- going to the dogs

Jan. 29 was the Chinese Lunar New Year, the official beginning of the year of the dog according to the Chinese calendar. I did some dog-on-the-street interviews to find out what we can expect this year under the helm of the dogs.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Feb 4, 2006

Another strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

I have within me, I confess, a split personality -- like sheared halves of a single beating heart.
MORE SPORTS
Feb 3, 2006

Sharapova on track

Top seed Maria Sharapova began her defense of the Pan Pacific Open title in Tokyo on Thursday with a comfortable 6-4, 6-4 win over American qualifier Lisa Raymond.
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2006

Toyoko Inn qualifies apology to disabled

Toyoko Inn Co. President Norimasa Nishida apologized to a federation of nationwide disabled people's groups Thursday for removing mandatory facilities designed for their use at its hotels.
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2006

Livedoor tied to faked transactions

Former Livedoor Co. executives are now suspected of booking fictitious transactions and revenues in 2005 as well as those earlier reported for the year to September 2004, investigative sources said Thursday.
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2006

SDP returns to roots, wants no military, or U.S. bases

The executive board of the Social Democratic Party on Thursday approved the final draft of a declaration that will reverse its stance on the Self-Defense Forces to argue that their existence violates the Constitution.
EDITORIALS
Feb 3, 2006

A way of looking at profits

Mr. Takafumi Horie, the 33-year-old maverick businessman who built the Livedoor Co. empire from scratch, has entered the most difficult phase of his life, confined to sleep in an unheated, three-mat cell in the Tokyo Detention House -- a world apart from his posh Roppongi Hills residence. The criminal...

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes