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JAPAN
Feb 13, 2003

Opposition bill would freeze ruling coalition's plan to hike salaried-worker medical fees

Hoping to drive a wedge into the ruling coalition, four opposition parties submitted a bill Wednesday to freeze a planned 50 percent increase in the fees salaried workers pay for outpatient medical care.
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2003

Resona now sees loss of 185 billion yen in fiscal '02

Resona Holdings Inc. said Wednesday that it expects to post a group net loss of 185 billion yen for the current fiscal year, as it writes off more of its loans as losses.
JAPAN
Feb 13, 2003

Ishihara to run again in Tokyo

Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara signaled his intention Wednesday to seek re-election in the April 13 gubernatorial poll.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 13, 2003

Yokohama mayor targets bureaucracy, apathy

First in a series of articles focusing on young politicians with the potential to change Japan. These articles will appear every other Thursday. KANAKO TAKAHARA Staff writer Yokohama Mayor Hiroshi Nakada is hoping to use the city, which has a population of some 3.5 million people, as a platform from...
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2003

FTC questions Saturday ATM fees

The Fair Trade Commission will look into recent decisions by major commercial banks to impose fees for Saturday transactions at automated teller machines.
EDITORIALS
Feb 13, 2003

Helping 'refugees' from the North

North Korea is creating a new headache for the Japanese government: the plight of North Korean residents and their Japanese spouses who have now returned secretly to Japan from that impoverished communist state via China. The problem came to the fore last month when a Japanese woman who had gone to the...
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2003

JT sees tobacco sales slide 4.9%

Japan Tobacco Inc. said Wednesday it sold 60 billion cigarettes nationwide during the quarter that ended Dec. 31, down 4.9 percent from a year earlier. The company attributed the decline to:
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2003

Unions plan to rally around seniority-based pay increases

The "shunto" spring wage talks got under way Wednesday with several major automotive unions submitting demands related to job security and wages.
JAPAN
Feb 13, 2003

GSDF, police train for terrorist raid

OSAKA -- The Ground Self-Defense Force and Osaka Prefectural Police conducted a joint security drill Wednesday simulating an attack by armed commandos.
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2003

Okuda tells workers to endure pay hardship

The chairman of the country's largest business association told workers Wednesday to suck it up.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 13, 2003

Time for a Japan-Chile free trade accord

Chilean President Ricardo Lagos is currently visiting Japan at the official invitation of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. I suppose that one of the aims of his visit is to ask Japan to begin a joint study with Chile on the possibility of a free trade agreement, or FTA, between Japan and Chile. I say,...
JAPAN
Feb 13, 2003

Public handed in 2.4 billion yen in lost cash to police in 2002

Some 2.4 billion yen in cash was handed in to the Metropolitan Police Department's lost and found center in 2002, down 1.2 percent from the previous year, MPD officials said Wednesday.
JAPAN
Feb 13, 2003

New probe of abductee cases urged

The National Police Agency and the Justice Ministry's Public Security Investigation Agency were handed lists Wednesday of about 200 Japanese who vanished under mysterious circumstances and are suspected of having been abducted by North Korea.
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2003

WTO spotlighted as trade chiefs gather for Tokyo meeting

Trade ministers from 25 nations will enter three days of intense negotiations in Tokyo on Friday as part of a new round of World Trade Organization trade liberalization talks. Here is a roundup of some basic facts on the organization and issues to be discussed.
COMMENTARY
Feb 13, 2003

No shortage of reasons why South Koreans dislike the U.S.

WASHINGTON -- Opinion polls from around the world show increasing numbers of people believe that the United States is arrogant, unilateralist and indifferent to key concerns of other nations -- even friends and allies. There is a rising belief that the U.S. has become a source of international tension...
JAPAN
Feb 13, 2003

Essay contest for Japanese-language students

Graduates and undergraduates studying the Japanese language overseas are being invited to take part in an essay contest organized by the nonprofit Japan Return Program, with the winners earning themselves a trip to Japan.
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2003

Mitsui, Hitachi win U.S. plant deal

Mitsui & Co. said Wednesday it has won an order with Hitachi Ltd. to build a coal-fired power plant for U.S. firm Mid American Energy Co. in the United States.
JAPAN
Feb 13, 2003

Governors call for revision to SOFA

Governors of prefectures hosting U.S. military bases urged the Liberal Democratic Party on Wednesday to revise the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement.
MORE SPORTS
Feb 13, 2003

NFL wants Japanese cheerleaders

The National Football League will hold a cheerleading audition in March for Japanese women, NFL Japan recently announced.
JAPAN
Feb 13, 2003

Fukuda laments differences of opinion over Iraq

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda expressed concern Wednesday that the rift between the United States and European countries skeptical of Washington's case against Iraq is sending "the wrong message" to Baghdad.
COMMENTARY
Feb 13, 2003

The 'vision thing' still matters

LONDON -- In the ideal Middle East "dream scenario," U.N. weapons inspectors, gently prompted by American and British intelligence information, stumble on stores of chemical and biological weapons hidden in Iraq.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / NETWISE
Feb 13, 2003

Japanese get real on 2 Channel

It was 1975 when University of North Carolina graduate student Steve Bellovin developed a handful of short programs to facilitate communication via UUCP (Unix-to-Unix Copy) between the University of North Carolina and Duke University. The scripts were later rewritten in the computer language "C" and...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 13, 2003

Ensuring age is the crown of life

The English scholar John Bailey said his wife Iris Murdoch, a prolific, perfectionist novelist and lecturer, became like "a very nice 3-year-old" as her Alzheimer's disease progressed. The disease made the proteins in her brain "misfold" and collapse, forming clots called amyloids that disrupt normal...

Longform

Sociologist Gracia Liu-Farrer argues that even though immigration doesn't figure into Japan's autobiography, it is more of a self-perception than a reality.
In search of the ‘Japanese dream’