Search - 2005

 
 
BUSINESS
May 11, 2006

Toyota sets new record profit

Toyota Motor Corp. reported Wednesday a record group net profit of 1.37 trillion yen for fiscal 2005, up 17.2 percent over the previous year and the fourth straight yearly rise, thanks to brisk sales overseas, particularly in North America.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 2, 2006

How to kill a bill

On Oct. 12, 2005, the Tottori Prefectural Assembly approved Japan's first human rights ordinance, a local law forbidding and punishing racial discrimination.
BUSINESS
Apr 29, 2006

Jobless rate at seven-year low of 4.3%

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate averaged 4.3 percent in fiscal 2005, down 0.3 percentage point from fiscal 2004 and the lowest in seven years, the government said Friday.
BUSINESS
Apr 26, 2006

MMC cuts last DaimlerChrysler tie

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. will dissolve its engine-production venture with DaimlerChrysler AG by selling its entire stake in the equally owned firm to the German-American automaker, according to MMC officials.
JAPAN
Apr 23, 2006

FTC to probe 11 firms over shady bids

The Fair Trade Commission is expected to open criminal investigations into 11 major water-treatment plant makers that were raided by the antitrust watchdog in August for allegedly rigging local government bids, sources said Saturday.
JAPAN
Apr 11, 2006

Over 4 million foreign tourists visited last year

The number of foreign tourists visiting Japan hit a record 4.37 million in 2005, up 13.8 percent from the previous year and surpassing 4 million for the first time, a government-affiliated organization said Monday.
JAPAN
Apr 8, 2006

Japan struggles with the right-to-die issue

The revelation in late March that a Toyama Prefecture surgeon shut off the life support of six patients and let them die has raised once again the issue of how to treat the terminally ill.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 2, 2006

Accepting apologies is not so easy

JAPANESE APOLOGIES FOR WORLD WAR II: A Rhetorical Study, by Jane W. Yamazaki. London: Routledge, 2005, 256 pp., £65 (cloth). POLITICS, MEMORY AND PUBLIC OPINION: The History Textbook Controversy and Japanese Society, by Sven Saaler, Munich: Deutsches Institut fur Japanstudien, 2005, 202 pp., 28 euro...
JAPAN
Mar 16, 2006

New traffic plan aims to cut deaths to 5,500 per year

The government said Tuesday it has drawn up a five-year plan for bringing traffic deaths under 5,500 a year by calendar 2010.
BUSINESS
Mar 15, 2006

New chief vows to steady JAL

Japan Airlines Corp. should restructure itself into an airline that can consistently make an operating profit of at least 100 billion yen so it can survive in volatile business conditions, the troubled carrier's incoming president said in an interview with The Japan Times.
BUSINESS
Mar 14, 2006

Quarter GDP revised to 1.3%

The economy grew by a real 1.3 percent from October to December 2005 from the previous quarter, revised downward from the 1.4 percent rise reported initially, as capital spending declined, particularly among businesses, the government said Monday.
EDITORIALS
Mar 9, 2006

Turbulent times for JAL

The drama started Feb. 10, when four board members of Japan Airlines Corp.'s international operations unit visited JAL President Toshiyuki Shinmachi with a petition carrying the signatures of some 50 managers. They urged him and two other executives to take responsibility for the JAL group's poor business...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 9, 2006

Young, fresh and traditional Japanese artists

Some people complain that poetry has never been the same since poets were absolved of their obligations to rhyme and rhythm. The same people also think that since the 1968 scrapping of the Hollywood Production Code that regulated sexual content, movies have lost a lot of their sexual sizzle.
BUSINESS
Mar 7, 2006

Capital spending jumps 9.5%

Capital spending rose 9.5 percent in the October to December quarter of 2005 on an all-industry basis compared with the previous year, the Finance Ministry said Monday.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Mar 5, 2006

Attention divided between WBC and NPB preseason

Kind of a strange atmosphere in Japan's yakyu world this week with the World Baseball Classic attracting a lot of attention, as it should but, at the same time, the 12 Central and Pacific League teams have concluded their spring training camps and are into the exhibition season, preparing for Opening...
JAPAN
Mar 4, 2006

Bid-riggers to be barred for a while

Defense Agency chief Fukushiro Nukaga said Friday that 178 companies will be temporarily barred from bidding for defense facilities contracts following a series of bid-rigging incidents.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Feb 23, 2006

Ichiro steps up to the plate in Fukuoka

FUKUOKA -- Ichiro Suzuki is back in Japan, and he is feeling good. The Seattle Mariners star painted the right-field stands at Yahoo Dome from both cages during batting practice at Japan's World Baseball Classic training session Wednesday, looking at ease before, during and after his time at the plate....
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Feb 22, 2006

S. Korean wetland faces doom

For those readers long ago numbed to the fraud, waste and environmental abuse that accompanies public works projects in Japan, here's one that might jump-start your ire: A project by the South Korean government to landfill and develop 40,100 hectares (almost 100,000 acres) of coastal waters and wetlands...
BUSINESS
Feb 1, 2006

ANA's profit up 11% despite surging fuel prices

All Nippon Airways Co. said Tuesday its group operating profit for the first three quarters of fiscal 2005 rose 11 percent from the previous year to 89.9 billion yen, thanks to strong demand for passenger and cargo flights that more than offset the impact of rising fuel prices.
BUSINESS
Jan 31, 2006

Industrial production up third year

Industrial production rose an unadjusted 1.3 percent in 2005 from the previous year, the third straight annual increase, with upbeat December data leading the government to revise upward its earlier economic assessment, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Monday.
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2006

New HIV, AIDS cases top 1,000

The combined number of people in Japan newly infected with the HIV virus and the number of new AIDS cases came to 1,124 in 2005, topping 1,000 for the second consecutive year, a health ministry panel said in a preliminary report.
BUSINESS
Jan 28, 2006

Annual retail sales record first increase in nine years

Retail sales rose 1.1 percent in 2005 to 129.52 trillion yen, chalking up their first year-on-year rise in nine years, due largely to soaring fuel prices and robust clothing sales, the government said Friday.
JAPAN
Jan 27, 2006

China again top Japan trade partner

Japan's trade with China totaled 24.949 trillion yen in 2005, making it the country's biggest trading partner for the second year running despite souring bilateral relations, according to Finance Ministry data released Thursday.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 24, 2006

Can Japan absorb foreign influx?

When discussing the recent ethnic riots in France, The Economist newsmagazine ("Minority Reports," Nov. 10, 2005) posed an important question: How come some countries assimilate immigrants more peacefully than others?
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jan 22, 2006

Roster of foreign players nearly complete for 2006 season

Spring camps begin for the 12 Japan pro baseball teams in just 10 days, and there has been a flurry of activity in the past week with the Central and Pacific League clubs signing new-and second-hand-foreign players and finalizing rosters for the coming season. Following is a team-by-team update on the...
EDITORIALS
Jan 21, 2006

A new empire is shaken

Mr. Takafumi Horie, president of the high-flying Internet services company Livedoor Co., has once again been thrown into the media spotlight as a criminal investigation into his business activities begins.
JAPAN
Jan 18, 2006

Foreign tourists hit record high 6.73 million

The number of foreign tourists to Japan in 2005 is estimated to have been a record high 6.73 million, up 590,000 from the previous year, transport chief Kazuo Kitagawa said Tuesday.

Longform

A man offers prayers at Hebikubo Shrine in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. The shrine is one of several across the country dedicated to the snake.
Shed your skin and reinvent yourself in the Year of the Snake