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JAPAN
Feb 16, 2006

Soga did brief tutoring in North: Jenkins

SADO, Niigata Pref. (Kyodo) Ex-U.S. Army deserter Charles Jenkins, who spent four decades in North Korea and now lives in Japan, said Wednesday his wife, freed Pyongyang abductee Hitomi Soga, only had to coach six men and women, including army officers, in Japanese on three occasions in the North between...
BUSINESS
Feb 16, 2006

Mizuho to open 100 branches focusing on individual banking

Mizuho Bank will open about 100 branches in six major cities over the next three year starting in April to target individual borrowers, group officials said Wednesday.
JAPAN
Feb 15, 2006

LDP eyes easing ban on foreign donations

The Liberal Democratic Party is studying issues related to easing a de facto ban on donations to political parties by firms with a high percentage of foreign ownership, LDP lawmakers said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Feb 15, 2006

Nippon Steel ups stake in friendly ally

Nippon Steel Corp. will raise its equity stake in Sanyo Special Steel Co. to some 15 percent from the present 11.2 percent by the end of June as part of the two firms' business and capital alliance aimed at strengthening their competitiveness, the two steelmakers said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Feb 15, 2006

Sompo hits staff for padding contracts

Sompo Japan Insurance Inc. said Tuesday it punished 527 people, including sales staff and their supervisors, last month for illegally padding the number of new contracts they sold to meet internal sales goals.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 15, 2006

Japan Times wins award for animal rights coverage

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) today announced that The Japan Times is this year's winner of its prestigious International Genesis Award, given in recognition of its Nov. 30, 2005 "breakthrough expose" headlined: " 'Secret' dolphin slaughter defies protests."
BUSINESS
Feb 14, 2006

Sega Sammy exec tapped as next Fitch unit CEO

Keiichiro Hashimoto, former senior managing director of Sega Sammy Holdings Inc. and president and chief executive officer of Sega Sammy Asset Management Inc., will become CEO at Fitch Ratings Japan on Feb. 20, the firm said Monday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Feb 14, 2006

Enemy of the state

Is Toshiyuki Obora a threat to society? The Japanese state certainly seems to think so. The police arrested the 47-year-old elementary school worker and held him in detention for 75 days.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 12, 2006

Hosting is ghosting in as respectable profession

The reported improvement in the ratio of jobs to job seekers is good news for the nation's leaders, and not just because it indicates better economic health.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 12, 2006

Building scandals expose society's uncaring foundation

Japan is in the throes of two scandals that highlight a stunning flaw in the social order. For all its much-trumpeted national cohesion and the lip service paid in Japan to the people's sense of nasake (compassion, sympathy, mercy), these scandals are stark reminders that public welfare and the common...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Feb 11, 2006

Michiko Kohga

Ask Michiko Kohga what she wanted when she was a little girl, and she answers promptly, "I wanted to eat." She was a child during the early postwar years, when all Japan was hungry. She remembers her family receiving a food package from relatives in Sao Paulo. "The candy in it was like jewelry to me,"...
BUSINESS
Feb 10, 2006

Law aims to boost recourse cross-border

The government plans to introduce legislation in the current Diet session that would revise a century-old legal framework to strengthen consumer and employee protections in cross-border disputes.
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Feb 10, 2006

Napa vineyards survive deluges

Tremendous flooding in California's wine country over New Year's made for dramatic, televised scenes of almost completely submerged vineyards. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger added to the excitement, proclaiming, "Napa was 4 feet under water, creating tremendous damage."
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Feb 10, 2006

Shaping 'neo-classic' cuisine

It is a measure of Tokyo's hidden depths that many of its top restaurants remain so little known, at least among the city's expatriate population. That is certainly the case with L'Osier. Founded in 1973, it established its heavyweight reputation under French master chef Jacques Borie, winning a devoted...
JAPAN
Feb 9, 2006

Mizuho exec admits stealing data for mob

Tokyo police arrested a Mizuho Bank official Wednesday on suspicion of embezzlement for allegedly leaking customer information to a company linked to the mob.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 9, 2006

Battling to win the hearts of Taiwanese

SINGAPORE -- As flights cross the Taiwan Strait at the start of the Year of the Dog, hopes have been high for a possible rapprochement in ties between Beijing and Taipei. But observers are split on whether to expect "a new spring" or renewed tensions across the strait in the next two years before Chen...
EDITORIALS
Feb 8, 2006

The dark side of reform

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's administration, which had been sailing smoothly until a few months ago, now faces strong head winds amid a series of scandals. The first scandal to hit was the disclosure late last year that a certified architect had falsified building data on earthquake resistance....
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 8, 2006

Toyota records 34% jump in third-quarter net profit

Toyota Motor Corp. said Tuesday its group net profit for the fiscal third quarter jumped 34.1 percent from the previous year to a record 397.5 billion yen thanks to thriving overseas sales and the yen's depreciation against the dollar.
COMMENTARY
Feb 8, 2006

Sri Lanka has so much, and stands to lose it all

LOS ANGELES -- If there is one country in Asia that can serve as a metaphor for all the good and the evil in the world, it may well be little Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon.
JAPAN
Feb 7, 2006

Centrair seeks to revive expo-style traffic

Nearly one year after opening, Central Japan International Airport outside Nagoya is struggling to attract more passengers.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Feb 7, 2006

How Japan became No. 1

Who has the global bragging rights to slimness? First there was Mireille Guiliano's book, "French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure," published in 2004. Hot on the heels of this best-seller, Naomi Moriyama threw down the gauntlet less than a year later with "Japanese Women Don't...
COMMENTARY
Feb 6, 2006

Containing a growing divide

The growing economic gap in Japanese society under Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's reform policy is emerging as a major national political issue. Critics in the opposition camp as well as the ruling coalition charge that deregulation and intensified competition have divided society into winners and...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 5, 2006

When building bridges becomes a fruitless endeavor

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi prides himself on his plain-spoken approach to politics. His popularity guarantees that people listen to everything he says, and because what he says tends to be simple it has the power of a pronouncement, regardless of whether or not it makes any sense.
BUSINESS
Feb 4, 2006

Bourse reform proposals due this month: Yosano

Financial Services Minister Kaoru Yosano said Friday that his advisory panel will issue recommendations on stock market reforms by mid-February.
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.
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

Key banks now ax ties to North-linked Banco Delta

Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ and Mizuho Corporate Bank have suspended transactions with Macau-based Banco Delta Asia SARL, designated by the United States as a major facilitator of North Korean money-laundering activities, sources said Thursday.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 3, 2006

TSE's new IT czar has big task

The newly installed chief information officer at trouble-plagued Tokyo Stock Exchange Inc. vowed Thursday to improve the computer trading system of Asia's largest bourse to make it more competitive in the global capital market.

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat