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JAPAN
Dec 26, 2003

Video-based drug sales get qualified ministry OK

A health ministry panel has compiled a draft report conditionally removing the ban on overnight videophone-based sales of over-the-counter drugs by retailers.
JAPAN
Dec 26, 2003

Most feel men should help raise kids

Most respondents to a welfare ministry survey think men should help care for children, and many women with partners who help in raising kids want a bigger family.
JAPAN
Dec 26, 2003

Court reverses order to halt expropriation of Tokyo land

The Tokyo High Court on Thursday repealed a lower court order that the national and local governments suspend expropriation of land in Akiruno, Tokyo, for a highway project.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Dec 26, 2003

It's time for Premier League players to grow up

LONDON -- A former footballer once confided to me that after his retirement he and his wife decided to go on the dream holiday they had never been able to take while he was a leading international.
EDITORIALS
Dec 26, 2003

Privatizing the highway corporations

Finally the stage has been set for the privatization of the debt-ridden highway corporations. The government plans to send related bills to the next Diet session, which opens in January. If the package is approved as scheduled, a new tollway system will go into operation in fiscal 2005 under the management...
JAPAN
Dec 26, 2003

Japan to probe U.S. mad cow case

Japan will send a mission to the United States next month to gather information on the country's first case of mad cow disease, a senior farm ministry official said Thursday.
BASEBALL / MLB
Dec 26, 2003

Tuffy inks two-year, $10 million pact with Giants

Reigning Pacific League home run king Tuffy Rhodes signed a two-year contract with the Yomiuri Giants carrying an annual salary of $5 million (about 543 million yen), officials of the Central League club said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Dec 26, 2003

Matsumotokiyoshi to buy Tobu unit

Matsumotokiyoshi Co. said Thursday it will acquire Tobu Railway Co.'s drug store chain in January as part of a strategy to open its outlets in railway properties.
BUSINESS
Dec 26, 2003

RCC expected to get lawyer named as its next president

Attorney Yoshihiko Okuno is expected to succeed Akio Kioi as president of the Resolution and Collection Corp.
BUSINESS
Dec 26, 2003

Koizumi tapes foreign-investment ads

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has taped TV and DVD advertisements as part of a government campaign to attract more foreign direct investment to Japan, government officials said.
BUSINESS
Dec 26, 2003

Sales of electric appliances fall 1.36%

Sales at major electric appliance retailers fell 1.36 percent in November from a year earlier to 178.41 billion yen, down for the first time in four months, the Nippon Electric Big-Store Association said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Dec 26, 2003

National wealth down to 2.79 quadrillion yen

Japan's national wealth, or net assets, at the end of 2002 shrank by 3.4 percent from a year earlier to 2.79 quadrillion yen, marking the fifth consecutive year of decline, the Cabinet Office said Thursday in a report for fiscal 2002.
JAPAN
Dec 26, 2003

Takefuji charged in wiretap case

Tokyo prosecutors on Thursday charged Takefuji Corp. with violating the Telecommunications Business Law by wiretapping a freelance journalist.
BUSINESS
Dec 26, 2003

Government to clarify fiscal surplus goal

The government is ready to clarify the fiscal policy goal of achieving a surplus in the primary balance by fiscal 2013, moving a step forward from the vague target of early in the next decade, government sources said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Dec 26, 2003

Softbank buys Nissho Iwai Securities

Softbank Investment Corp., aiming to strengthen operations targeting institutional investors, acquired Nissho Iwai Securities Co. from trading house Nissho Iwai Corp. for 1.187 billion yen on Thursday.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Dec 26, 2003

Round 'bout midnight

It's that time of the year again, when everybody is steadily moving into party mode as the big countdown approaches. Some punters will simply be dancing in the streets to celebrate. Others will take to the expressways: Reportedly over 6,000 bosozoku (hot-rodders and hot-doggers on motorcycles) choked...
BUSINESS
Dec 26, 2003

Fujitsu set to forge chip alliance with Sumitomo Electric

Fujitsu Ltd. and Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd. will merge their compound semiconductor operations this spring in response to growing demand for chips used in digital products and communications devices, Fujitsu officials said Thursday.
JAPAN
Dec 26, 2003

SDF to aid Iraq in democratization, Koizumi tells Qatar's Al-Jazeera TV

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Thursday he informed the Al-Jazeera Arabic TV network of Japan's peaceful intentions in dispatching Self-Defense Forces units to Iraq, hoping the mission will help the Iraqi people create a democratic government.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 26, 2003

Slip into slo-mo Shiga-style

OMIHACHIMAN, Shiga Pref. -- Tired of group-tour hell? Does a four-cities-in-five-days' trip to Europe, or being herded like hyperactive cattle through the temples of Kyoto make you wish you could take a vacation from your vacation?
BUSINESS
Dec 26, 2003

Industries told to curb accidents

Three government agencies on Thursday urged industries, and company chiefs in particular, to do more to prevent plant fires and other accidents of the kind that occurred in a string this year, government officials said.
BUSINESS
Dec 26, 2003

Ashikaga Financial seeks protection from creditors

Ashikaga Financial Group Inc., the holding company of recently nationalized Ashikaga Bank, said Thursday it has filed for court protection from its creditors with the Tokyo District Court under the Corporate Rehabilitation Law.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 26, 2003

The image of Japan in ASEAN's dream

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- The Japan-ASEAN Summit on Dec. 11-12 has already been broadly analyzed and generally hailed as a kind of embryonic con- ceptualization of the long-term goal of creating an "East Asian Community." So what could one possibly add to this debate by comparing the reactions between...
COMMENTARY
Dec 26, 2003

Blair's overcast breaking up

LONDON -- As the old year turns, life is looking a little brighter for the besieged British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his team, thanks to a few lucky breaks.
JAPAN
Dec 26, 2003

Pyongyang offers to free abductees' kin -- but there's a catch

North Korean officials told Japanese lawmakers that Pyongyang is ready to send the family members of the five former Japanese abductees to Japan if they go to the Pyongyang airport to meet them, Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Katsuei Hirasawa said Thursday.
JAPAN
Dec 25, 2003

205 oil tanks damaged in Hokkaido earthquakes

A government-affiliated organization that checks the safety of storage tanks has found that more than half of the 395 large outdoor oil tanks in and near Tomakomai, Hokkaido, were damaged in the late September quakes that sparked a fire at an oil refinery in the city.

Longform

An illustration features the Japanese signs for "ganbare" (good luck) and the Deaflympics, which will be held between Nov. 15 and 26.
A century of Deaf sport finds its moment in Tokyo