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Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 5, 2002

Kinki Nippon, Nippon Travel part ways

Kinki Nippon Tourist Co. and Nippon Travel Agency, the nation's second- and third-largest travel agencies, announced Monday that they have canceled a merger plan for January 2003 due to ramifications of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.
BUSINESS
Feb 5, 2002

SAS route expansion plan halted

Scandinavian Airlines System has suspended a plan to extend its routes in Asia in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, but it will go ahead with a plan to introduce bigger airplanes to the region, Jorgen Lindegaard, president and CEO of SAS Group, said in Tokyo.
BUSINESS
Feb 5, 2002

JT cuts earnings projection, citing costs of reform

Japan Tobacco Inc. said Monday it has lowered its projection of 52 billion yen in group net profit to 30 billion yen for fiscal 2001 due to an extraordinary loss of 41.5 billion yen in restructuring costs.
JAPAN
Feb 5, 2002

Groping reporter gets eight months

A reporter for the Washington Post was sentenced Monday to eight months in prison for groping a high school girl in November while riding a subway train in Tokyo.
BUSINESS / TAKING STOCK
Feb 5, 2002

Healthy firms' stocks best

Tokyo stocks could remain in a consolidation phase until early next month, with the 225-issue Nikkei average moving between 9,500 and 11,000 and the broader-based Topix between 950 and 1,100.
BUSINESS
Feb 5, 2002

Shiokawa wants quick budget OK

Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa on Monday called for swift passage of a 81.23 trillion yen general-account budget for fiscal 2002, designed to accommodate structural reform measures pursued by the administration of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
BUSINESS
Feb 5, 2002

KDDI ties with Chinese telecom trio

KDDI Corp., the nation's second-largest telecom firm, said Monday it has formed alliances with three regional Chinese telecommunications firms.
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ARCHIPELA-GO
Feb 5, 2002

Where past and present tracks cross

Stepping off the shinkansen at Okayama Station and crossing over to the iron rails and worn stone of the city's aged streetcar system, you experience an abrupt transition in time and space.
BUSINESS
Feb 5, 2002

Asian, Latin American officials ready to roll up their sleeves

A fledgling forum of 27 East Asian and Latin American countries will get down to business early next month on drafting a package of specific proposals to shore up nascent trans-Pacific cooperation in economic and social areas.
Japan Times
Events
Feb 5, 2002

METI scrutiny, idle shipment cloud Kepco's plans for MOX

OSAKA -- The future of Kansai Electric Power Co.'s plans to use mixed uranium-plutonium oxide fuel is now in doubt following a decision late last year to cancel an order of French-made MOX fuel as well as uncertainty over when, and under what security conditions, a shipment of British-made MOX fuel could...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Feb 5, 2002

Faith in a tropical Gethsemane

When the Spanish arrived in the Philippines in the 16th century, they found a lush tropical garden ripe for replanting. King Philip II had commanded his soldiers, administrators and religious zealots that there were to be no repetitions of the atrocities committed in the name of the cross throughout...
JAPAN
Feb 5, 2002

Topix closes at new 17-year low

The Tokyo Stock Price Index closed Monday below 950 for the first time since April 1985 as Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's policy speech to the Diet failed to ease investors' worries over a possible delay in structural reforms.
EDITORIALS
Feb 4, 2002

Doing right by Doha

Without a lot of fanfare, trade negotiators formally began the Doha Round of trade talks last week in Geneva. That the talks are being held at all is a victory; the original attempt to launch them unleashed "the battle of Seattle," when antiglobalism protesters turned that peaceful city into a riot zone....
COMMENTARY
Feb 4, 2002

Price of pure market reform

"Kozo kaikaku"(structural reform) is the buzzword these days. But it isn't clear exactly what it means. Yet it is the "clincher" in newspaper articles, economic journals and TV comments by economists. The common belief here is that structural reform is in and by itself good. It is held as an article...
JAPAN
Feb 4, 2002

Koizumi to order top bureaucrats to stand fast

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will instruct top bureaucrats today to cut dubious ties with politicians in light of recent problems involving the Foreign Ministry, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said Sunday.
MORE SPORTS
Feb 4, 2002

Hingis captures fourth Toray Pan Pacific title

Top-seeded Martina Hingis became the first player to win four singles titles at the Pan Pacific Open after defeating third-seed Monica Seles 7-6 (8-6), 4-6, 6-3. Hingis, who had advanced to the finals six-straight years, first won the tournament in 1997. "I'm honored and flattered to have won four times,"...
JAPAN
Feb 4, 2002

Seoul to request Crown Prince open World Cup soccer finals

South Korea plans to unofficially ask Japan about the possibility of Crown Prince Naruhito attending the opening ceremony of the World Cup soccer finals on May 31 in Seoul, a source close to bilateral relations said Sunday.
MORE SPORTS
Feb 4, 2002

Suntory downs Steelers 28-17 to clinch Japan rugby crown

Suntory was crowned national rugby champion of Japan after winning the Japan Championship at Chichibunomiya on Sunday. In a pulsating game that had the sold-out of 25,000 on their feet, the Suntory Sungoliath defeated Kobe Steel 28-17 in a game that was truly worthy of a final.
BUSINESS
Feb 4, 2002

Dow tops Nikkei in latest sign of Japanese economic decline

The year was 1957. Russia launched Sputnik, Dwight D. Eisenhower was in the White House, Elvis swiveled his hips in "Jailhouse Rock" and the Dow and the Nikkei were at level pegging.
BUSINESS
Feb 4, 2002

Dollar expected to stand firm against yen

The U.S. dollar is predicted to be firm against the yen this week in Tokyo in light of the better economic fundamentals in the United States compared with Japan.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 4, 2002

Who is bugging the Chinese leadership?

HONG KONG -- Since it is not opening up to the outside world, but remains a very closed society in terms of its internal politics, China raises more questions than it answers. The latest intriguing episode concerns the bugging of a Boeing 767-300ER purchased in 2000 to be the VIP jet for President Jiang...
JAPAN
Feb 4, 2002

State bill would demand energy-efficient buildings

A government-drafted bill would amend the energy-conservation law so that plans to build nonresidential buildings with a floor space of 2,000 sq. meters or more would have to include specific energy-saving measures, according to a draft of the bill obtained Sunday by Kyodo News.
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Feb 4, 2002

English-language deficit handicaps Japan

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- In 1984 I was invited to give a public lecture at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. I began by apologizing for the fact that I would not be able to deliver my lecture in Dutch. I went on to remark that had I been alive at the time of Erasmus, I would have given my lecture in Latin....
EDITORIALS
Feb 3, 2002

And now, the gold medal for bloat

The dust of the Summer Olympics in Sydney has barely settled, yet here we are tuning in already to Salt Lake City, Utah, where the 2002 Winter Olympics open this Friday. No doubt by the time the last light flickers out on Feb. 24, we will all have entered into the spirit of the thing, just as we did...

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’