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Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Oct 20, 2015

Japan Post's IPO might just shake up lagging regional lenders

The nation's regional banks need a little shaking up: There are far too many of them, profits from loans are shrinking, and their customers are disappearing. The enormous privatization of Japan Post, coming up next month, may just help spur them into action.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 7, 2015

Nation's top IT-electronics fair shifts focus, courts startups

Strolling around the nation's biggest IT-electronics show, visitors might notice the absence of some familiar brands.
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 7, 2015

Sony spins out semiconductors as Hirai pushes accountability

Sony Corp. will spin out its semiconductor business into a new company as President Kazuo Hirai revamps the devices business to focus on hit products such as image sensors and considers selling underperforming assets.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 5, 2015

Abe, French prime minister establish bilateral 'year of innovation'

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and visiting French Prime Minister Manuel Valls agreed Monday to further boost cooperation and exchanges in research and development areas, and designated a "year of innovation" between the two countries that will start 12 months from now.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 1, 2015

The inexorable logic of the sharing economy

Today's sharing-economy companies like Amazon and eBay have left their infancy, and their services will one day be ubiquitous.
BUSINESS / Economy
Sep 30, 2015

Abe's ¥600 trillion GDP goal called 'impossible'

After enacting contentious security bills earlier this month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has declared that he is refocusing on the economy, with the goal of boosting gross domestic product by 20 percent to ¥600 trillion in 2020.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 30, 2015

Islam's important statement on climate change

The Islamic Declaration on Climate Change calls on the world's 1.6 billion Muslims be responsible activists for the welfare of the planet.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Sep 30, 2015

Landmark ruling in favor of victimized porn actress paves way for others to quit, lawyers say

A recent landmark court ruling in favor of a porn actress desperate to quit the industry paves the way for others to cut ties with the world of commercial sex without fear of penalties, lawyers said Tuesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 28, 2015

'Pope-onomics': Francis' keys to a better economy

Pope Francis is a strong and eloquent advocate of people sharing and governing their enterprises together.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Sep 27, 2015

Can art bring people back to Japan's depopulated islands?

I've seen island revitalization projects come and go, but the idea of an NPO riding on the coattails of a successful art trend in the area strikes me as having some promise.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 23, 2015

India's states — where reforms are working

National-level reforms may have run aground in India, but progress is taking hold at the state level.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Sep 19, 2015

Taiji drops anchor on dolphin hunts despite increasing pressure

On the harbor road heading east toward Tomyozaki Point, there is a moss-encrusted monument dedicated to an ill-fated whaling expedition in 1878. Facing fierce westerly winds, the fishermen released their catch, a right whale and her calf, and tied their boats together with nets to bolster defenses, but...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 18, 2015

Pressure to show a profit led to Toshiba's accounting scandal

Manufacturing giant Toshiba Corp.'s president and seven other directors were forced to resign when an investigation revealed in July that the firm had doctored the books and had padded its profits over the past seven years to the tune of hundreds of billions of yen.
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 15, 2015

Meatpackers Itoham, Yonekyu agree to merge

Meat processors Itoham Foods Inc. and Yonekyu Corp. said Tuesday they will merge their managements by setting up a holding company next April.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Sep 11, 2015

North Korea's unofficial markets driven by repurposed buses

It is not Amazon or FedEx, but in North Korea's fledgling market economy, a fleet of re-purposed old passenger buses is the next best thing for moving trade goods, from rice to textiles and livestock, between far-flung corners of the country.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 24, 2015

Corporate Japan gets a jolt from an outsider

Japan's business executives would do well to emulate Softbank President Nikesh Arora's risk-taking spirit.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 24, 2015

To Nomura, Fannie and Freddie are bright spot in struggle abroad

Nomura Holdings Inc. is doggedly expanding in a U.S. bond market that pays fees as low as 0.003 percent, even as it slashes its number of employees in London and one of its biggest shareholders says to get out of unprofitable overseas businesses.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 21, 2015

Toyota to buy 13 million air-bag inflators from Takata rival

Toyota Motor Corp., in a bid to reduce its risk from potentially lethal air-bag inflators supplied by Takata Corp., will buy millions of them from smaller parts-maker Nippon Kayaku Co., people familiar with the matter said.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 13, 2015

Thailand and China build ties of convenience

The Thai military regime, isolated by the West, finds that China is more than willing to fill the void.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 12, 2015

Sumitomo Life to buy Buffett-backed Symetra for $3.8 billion

Sumitomo Life Insurance Co. agreed to buy Symetra Financial Corp. for about $3.8 billion (¥473.5 billion) as the Japanese company seeks to expand in the U.S.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 8, 2015

Uniqlo can't survive on bargains alone

Tadashi Yanai, one of the richest men in Japan, told the Wall Street Journal last week that he was "disgusted" by the video of a couple having sex in a Beijing outlet of the clothing chain Uniqlo. The video quickly went viral in China, and Internet commenters wondered if it wasn't part of some weird...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / FOCUS
Aug 4, 2015

Loeb makes fourth foray in Japan, declares new activists' age

Billionaire Daniel Loeb is starting to make a habit of looking for bargains in Japan.
Japan Times
JAPAN / GENERATIONAL CHANGE
Aug 2, 2015

Getting Japan's youth engaged in disaster preparedness

Even though earthquake-prone Japan has seen numerous warnings that massive, devastating temblors could strike at any time, including in the Tokyo metropolitan area and in the Nankai Trough off the Pacific coast, data shows the nation's youth don't seem to have the same sense of preparing for a disaster...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 31, 2015

Japan's tourism boom drives real-estate developers to convert offices into hotels

The surge in tourists visiting Japan is stretching the ability of hotels to accommodate them in a sector constrained by high costs, forcing developers to think out of the box for means to quickly increase lodging options without breaking the bank.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jul 30, 2015

Despite long odds, independent media battle on in Putin's Russia

Alexei Venediktov, one of Russia's most prominent journalists, doesn't go out without a bodyguard and doesn't answer mobile phone calls for fear of being tracked.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 27, 2015

FT challenges Nikkei's values

The Financial Times is everything that Nikkei is not. It is questionable whether international and Japanese news values will fit easily together.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues
Jul 26, 2015

Three amigos on a mission to protect your rights

The only people who tend to know what I'm talking about when I say the words "labor relations commission" are unionists, labor or corporate lawyers and labor-law scholars. These panels are government enforcement bodies that lack the glamour and fame of the courts, the cops and even the Labor Standards...

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