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/ 10 September 2003
A Japanese government watchdog has warned the owners of hot springs resorts nationwide to come clean on the benefits of their baths, claiming advertisements exaggerating quality and healthiness are rampant. Many of the inns mix spring water with outside water sources, it says.
The United States will suspend legal proceedings against Britons being held at its military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, pending discussions with Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s official spokesperson said on Friday.
Britain’s ministry of defence intends to hold an independent judicial inquiry if a body found west of London on Friday proves to be that of the missing Iraqi weapons expert David Kelly, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s official spokesperson said.
Though frustrated by strident opposition to its campaign to overturn a 17-year international ban on commercial whaling, Japan should remain a member of the global whaling commission, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Wednesday.
Japan is eyeing an oil deal with Iran that could strain ties with the United States, which is trying to isolate Tehran for allegedly sponsoring terrorism, officials said on Monday.
If David Beckham had peered down from the 38th-floor window of his swanky Tokyo hotel last week, he might have wondered why the vast green park opposite was flecked with blue tarpaulins.
Oil prices above a barrel are in ”nobody’s interest” Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch/Shell Group chairperson Philip Watts said on Tuesday ahead of an Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) meeting next week.
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/ 14 February 2003
Representatives of agricultural organisations from nine countries on Friday unleashed a barrage of criticism against a draft framework for agricultural trade proposed by the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
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/ 13 February 2003
Semiconductor giants Toshiba of Japan and Germany’s Infineon said on Wednesday they have invented a tiny chip with a vast memory capacity, marking the first fruit of a joint development plan launched in 2001.
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/ 22 January 2003
With a couple of Starbucks and at least one other big-name coffee shop within easy walking distance, not long ago Tomohiro Tsuchiya would have been better off opening his little café somewhere else. But he’s got a trendy product to offer — tea.
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/ 20 January 2003
A religious sect associated with the company claiming to have produced the first human clone caused a stir in Japan on Monday with an announcement that the next clone will be Japanese and is due to be born at any time.
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/ 18 January 2003
Sony said on Wednesday it has begun sales in Japan of CD singles that require users to pay a small fee over the internet each time they make copies.
Japanese electronics giant Hitachi said Monday it has launched a company combining its hard disk drive operations with those of US counterpart IBM to boost global competitiveness.
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/ 29 December 2002
Fears of a power shortage are mounting in Japan as nuclear plants could remain closed next year after an atomic cover-up scandal triggered a rare campaign to save energy.
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/ 26 December 2002
A beached whale buried along the coast of southern Japan five months ago has turned out to be the first adult find of an ultra rare species, researchers said on Thursday.
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/ 23 September 2002
It will rank as a stunning confession to one of the most bizarre crimes ever committed by a state. This week North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-il said his country’s special forces abducted at least a dozen Japanese nationals during the 1970s and 1980s in a fit of patriotic overzealousness.
Toyota Motor Corp, the world’s third-largest automaker, said on Tuesday that it would more than double its stake in its South African unit, taking its holding to 74,9%, as it plans to expand its base there.
JAPANESE electronics giant Sony has started developing a successor to its
popular PlayStation 2 game console which it aims to complete by 2005, a
report said on Sunday.
Microsoft said on Tuesday its Xbox video console aims to win the number one slot in the Japanese computer game market, dominated by mighty rival Sony Corp’s PlayStation2.
For every seed of truth, a thicket of rumour, speculation and lies. For every confirmed fact, a gallery of smoke and mirrors.
The Japanese branch of online retailer Amazon.com said on Wednesday it had made a ”major strategic step” by opening a marketplace for users to buy and sell primarily used goods on its website.
The precedent of a tourist massacre in Egypt in 1997 suggests Indonesia will suffer a 20% drop in foreign visitors following last month’s deadly bombing on the resort island of Bali, the World Bank said in a report published on Wednesday.
Microsoft is keen to boost relations with Japan’s top students as it prepares to pump -billion into global research in the next year to keep ahead of the competition, its chief executive said on Monday.
North Korea is awakening from an egalitarian communist dream with vast economic reforms, ranging from price and wage spirals to a phase-out of state rationing and a currency shake-up.
A Japanese H-2A rocket was launched successfully on Tuesday, releasing a satellite and test module into orbit.
Global gold mine production probably peaked last year and could start sliding by 2004 unless bullion prices rally, prompting miners to pump money into new projects, analysts said on Tuesday.
Japan plans to pledge about -million in emergency aid to countries in southern Africa in the wake of the region’s worsening food crisis,
Japan’s space agency was trying to steer a new satellite into its planned orbit on Saturday, after two previous attempts to do so failed when the main thrusters stalled, an agency official said.
Bankruptcies in Japan in April were the third-highest for the month in half a century and deepening deflation could send the figure to record annual highs, a research firm said on Thursday.
The Okinawa government voted unanimously on Monday for a halt to all F-15 flights until an investigation determines why one of the US Air Force fighters crashed just off the southern Japanese island last month.
Japan’s leading liquid crystal display maker Sharp Corporation said on Tuesday it had made an ”epoch-making” step toward making ultra-flat ”sheet computers” after it succeeded in running a computer on a tiny piece of glass.
A top Japanese government official whose comments that the nation might one day possess nuclear weapons sought to climb down from his statement as lawmakers expressed disgust on Sunday.