Police raid Yamaha Motor over chopper export to China
January 22, 2006Police on Monday launched raids on Yamaha Motor Co.'s head office in Iwata, Shizuoka Prefecture, and other places to search for evidence on suspicion that the company illegally exported an unmanned helicopter to China, investigative sources said. The company allegedly exported the chopper for the use of pesticides exported to China last December without permission of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, in violation of the foreign exchange and trade law, according to the sources.
Postal privatization planning firm begins operations
January 22, 2006A new stock company set up by the public corporation Japan Post began operations Monday in the buildup to Japan's postal privatization from October 2007. The new company will become a holding company on Oct. 1, 2007, the date when the nation's postal services begin a step-by-step 10-year privatization process. The public corporation will be split into four units under the holding company.
Farm minister asks Zoellick for thorough measures over U.S. beef
January 22, 2006Farm minister Shoichi Nakagawa said he urged U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick in a meeting Sunday in Tokyo to take thorough measures so that a bilateral beef import pact will not be violated again. Zoellick pledged to seriously deal with the matter in the meeting at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, saying U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns has begun a probe into the reason why a bovine body part considered a mad cow disease risk was contained in a U.S. beef shipment to Japan, according to Nakagawa.
Dead Hokkaido cow to be further tested for possible BSE infection
January 22, 2006A cow that died in Hokkaido will be further tested after it showed an equivocal result in a preliminary test for mad cow disease conducted Saturday at the livestock health center in Nemuro, Hokkaido officials said Sunday. Samples of the cow will be sent to the National Institute of Animal Health in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, to check whether it had bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the officials said.
Ex-Fast Retailing head named chairman of Lotteria burger chain
January 22, 2006Major hamburger chain Lotteria Co. has appointed Genichi Tamatsuka, former president of Fast Retailing Co. which operates the Uniqlo casual-clothing store chain, as its chairman and chief executive officer, Lotteria sources said Sunday. Tamatsuka, 43, one of two representative partners of Revamp Corp., a Tokyo-based firm specializing in business revitalization, is expected to help Lotteria turn around its slumping business performance.
Livedoor's Horie says busy having scandal-linked meetings at office
January 22, 2006Livedoor Co. President Takafumi Horie, at the center of a high-profile probe over alleged securities law violations, said Sunday he has been busy holding meetings daily at the company's head office to study how to cope with the current situation. ''Every day, I'm moving back and forth between (my home in Roppongi Hills) Residence and Mori Tower (where Livedoor is headquartered). I'm having various types of meetings on measures (to deal with the scandal),'' Horie, who has recently kept out of public view, wrote on his blog site.