Hanoi - Sony plans to close its television picture tube factory in Vietnam after 14 years of operations, a company official said Friday.

Sony Vietnam, a joint venture between Japan's Sony Group and Vietnam's Viettronics Tan Binh Co, is to close its factory in Ho Chi Minh City at the end of September, company spokeswoman Pham Xuan Anh Thy said.

Tokyo - Japan's core consumer price index (CPI) rose 1.9 per cent in June from a year before, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry said Friday.

Tokyo (dpa) - Tokyo stocks opened lower Friday as investors locked in profits from the previous day's gains.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average lost 209.5 points, or 1.54 per cent, to 13,393.81.

The broader Topix index of all first-section issues also down 26.62 points, or 2 per cent, to 1,305.95.

On currency markets at 9 am (0000 GMT), the dollar was quoted at 107.28-33 yen, down from Thursday's 5 pm quote of 107.82-84 yen.

Tokyo  - Canon Inc on Thursday reported a 15.9-per-cent fall in its net profit during the first half of the year as a stronger yen and higher material costs offset robust sales of digital cameras and copiers.

Net profit fell, for the first time in six years to 214.49 billion yen (2.02 billion dollars) from the same period last year.

Operating profits - or a company's earnings minus interest payments and taxes, which are seen as a measure of its earnings power from ongoing operations - declined
14.9 per cent to 331 billion yen, Canon said.

Tokyo, July 24 : A strong earthquake jolted northern Japan early on Thursday.

Agency reports said that several people were injured and that three cars had been buried under a landslide, and that electric power had been cut off to at least 10,000 homes.

The Japan Meteorological Agency, however, said there was no threat of a tsunami from the quake, which had a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 and could be felt as far away as Tokyo.