Toshiba beat out GE and Mistubishi in a bid of nearly $5 billion to purchase Westinghouse, an American nuclear-engineering company owned by the British government, according to a story from Times Online. If nothing else, this is instructive on the international scope of large-scale business today: A Japanese company buys an American firm from the British government, eying China’s demand for nuclear reactors. And the only other company that offers a pressurized-water design that China’s government supposedly favors is French company Framatome.

First steps are taken toward the privatization to begin October 2007. Via Crisscross News.

As part of Prime Minister Koizumi’s restructuring of government-affiliated financial institutions. Story from Kyodo News.

The Globe and Mail, a Canadian paper, has a story on free-trade talks that could lead to preliminary action as early as this week in order to study the benefits of the liberalization of trade and investment rules. Note that as this is from the Canadian perspective, while mention is made of Japan’s status as Canada’s second-largest export market and third-largest overall trading partner, as well as Canadian industry concerns about the talks, similar details are not present from the Japanese perspective.

The Yomiuri Shimbun has some prospective analysis of the economic revival underway–with the Nikkei expected to reach 15,000 by the end of the year–and the central role that the Koizumi administration’s reforms are expected to play in the revival. Unfortunately, as is all too common in such pieces, explanations of how exactly the reforms will impact the economy is lacking, an omission that tends to lead readers to believe “reform is good” without ever understanding why, or where the problems were in the first place. Perhaps my standards are too high for this sort of article, though.

The Asia Times has an interesting report about Japan’s import restrictions on leather. It seems that in contrast to typical protectionist measures, this one has a lot of historical baggage stretching back to the feudal hierarchy in the Edo period. Economic, political and social issues all play into this, and they are well-explained here.