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Markets in Asia rose sharply.

The Nikkei was up .8% to 17,897. Bridgestone rose .8% to 2600. Canon rose .2% to 6310. Fuji Film rose 1.3% to 5320. Hitachi rose .6% to 834. Honda fell 2% to 4780. NEC rose .6% to 631. NTT rose .5% to 664000. Docomo 3.2% to 225000. Sharp rose 3.2% to 2225. Softbank rose 3.5% to 2930. Sony fell .6% to 6190. Toshiba rose 1.9% to 787. Toyota rose .4% to 8200. Yahoo Japan rose 2.1% to 44350.

The Hang Seng rose 1.6% to 20,538. Cathay Pacific rose .7% to 21.55. China Mobile rose 3% to 75. China Netcom rose 4.8% to 19.92. China Unicom rose 2.2% to 10.4. HSBC rose .8% to 140.6. PCCW fell .2% to 4.66.

The KOSPI rose .5% to 1,444.

The Straits Times rose 1.9% to 3,243.

The Shanghai Composite rose 3% to 2,993.

Data from Reuters.

Douglas A. McIntyre