Hitachi earned 1.3 billion yen ($10.8 million) in last three months of 2002 as sales grew 5 percent; company lost 116 billion yen ($968 million) in same period year ago (S)

World Business Briefing | Asia: Japan: Hitachi Reverses Loss

Profile of Samantha Power, author of A Problem From Hell, book about US failure to do anything to halt genocide in Cambodia, Iraq, Bosnia and Rwanda; book is stirring debate in foreign policy circles as diplomats and experts deal with question of when and how American power, military and diplomatic, should be deployed on behalf of humanitarian goals; photo (M)

On a Mission To Shine A Spotlight On Genocide; Samantha Power's Mind Leaps From Bosnia to Iraq

Detroit Lions sign head coach Steve Mariucci to five-year, $25 million contract (M)

Mariucci Signs With the Lions For $25 Million

Jere Longman On the Olympics column discusses latest development in Congressional examination of United States Olympic Committee, which witnessed resignation of president Marty Mankamyer under fire and departure of third president since 2000; photo (M)

A Power Struggle Without End

Theater producers and musicians begin negotiations on new contract that will hinge on size of orchestras, in what is shaping up to be one of most bitter showdowns in Broadway history; League of American Theaters and Producers argues that union rules on minimum number of musicians squeeze producers at time when Broadway rents, salaries and production costs have made mounting a musical almost prohibitively expensive; Local 802 of American Federation of Musicians says it is fighting for musicians' jobs and tradition of live music in Broadway theater (M)

Showdown Over Orchestra Size Looms on Broadway

Pres Bush's budget proposes tightened eligiblity requirements for range of benefits for low-income people, such as tax credits and school lunches, and replacement of Section 8 housing aid with direct grants to states; administration cites fraud and error, saying number of students certified for free meals is about 25 percent higher than number suggested by census data; photo of Chicago area school where pilot project found that stiffer eligibility reduced free lunches by 50 percent; Treasury Department estimates that $9.3 billion of $30 billion paid each year in earned-income tax credits involves fraud or error (M)

AID TO POOR FACES TIGHTER SCRUTINY

INSIDE

Bush administration reverses course and decides not to penalize individual investors who borrow money to buy dividend-paying stock; reversal comes in administration's latest description of plan to end double taxation of corporate dividends; change would cost Treasury undetermined amount of money, while greatly simplifying matters for individual taxpayers, who would not have to determine extent to which stock was purchased with borrowed money to see whether dividend was partly taxable; latest Treasury plan would not treat as favorably corporations that buy stock in other companies; company that buys stock in other companies could lose tax benefits if borrowed money is used; Asst Treas Sec Greg Jensen confirms change; says administration might change treatment for corporate investors (Market Place column) (M)

THE MARKETS: Market Place; Dividend Plan Drops Penalty For Borrowers Who Buy Stock

 Bush Budget Increases Push to Find Tax Cheats  President Bush's budget would increase by at least a third the number of audits of taxpayers suspected of hiding income received from their businesses, partnerships, investments and offshore accounts. The administration identified five areas to which more resources would be devoted.    The move is aimed at reversing a decline in enforcement of the tax laws. The proposal could bring in billions of dollars owed to the government and would help the states, which rely on Internal Revenue Service enforcement more than on their own audits. [Page A17.]

BUSINESS DIGEST

New York Yankees newly acquired pitcher Jose Contreras, who defected from Cuba to play in US, is expected by many in Major League Baseball to be best pitcher in Yankees starting rotation; photos (M)

Mining for Riches on the Farm

Some Japanese banks are paying borrowers to borrow from them, practice analysts say will continue until faith in banking system improves; once-rare phenomenon of loans at negative interest, first seen in Japan in late 1990's, is back (M)

Where Banks Pay Borrowers to Borrow Money

American International Group, facing upsurge in potential liability claims, increases its reserves by $3.5 billion in move that could have reverberations across insurance industry and in Washington, where Republican lawmakers are eager to restrain liability lawsuits; increase is regarded as bellwether for what may be wave of reserve increases across insurance industry; company has reputation for careful management under its longtime chief executive Maurice R Greenberg; photo (M)

A.I.G. Adds $3.5 Billion To Reserves

KT Corp posts 31 percent increase in fourth-quarter net income; profit rose to 654 billion won ($557 million) from 499 billion won year earlier (S)

World Business Briefing | Asia: South Korea: A Telecom Profit

Teachers across country grapple with how to talk to students about Columbia space shuttle tragedy and explain disaster in terms children can understand; challenge is direct and physical in Douglass, Texas, where 25 chunks of shuttle debris rained down on campus and hunk of metal tore through first-grade classroom; photos of Washington teacher Melanie ElLaissi and children at Christa McAuliffe school in Tinley Park, Illinois, one of at least 18 American schools named for teacher who died in 1986 Challenger explosion (M)

Talk in Schools of Risk and Rewards in Space

DaimlerChrysler reports fourth-quarter net income of 168 million euros ($181 million) compared with net loss of 39 million euros year earlier; 2002 net income was 4.72 billion euros ($5.1 billion) in contrast to loss of 662 million euros in 2001; auto sales dropped 2 percent in US in January, while Chrysler sales dropped by 12 percent (M)

Cost-Cutting Lets Daimler Post Profit

Alcatel posts loss of 1.12 billion euros ($1.2 billion) for fourth quarter and predicts that sales will decline 25 to 30 percent in current quarter compared with year ago; chief executive Serge Tchuruk says industrywide slump will continue this year and warns that sales will be hurt by strengthening of euro against dollar, as well as soft demand from telecom operators; photo (S)

World Business Briefing | Europe: France: Loss At Telecom Concern

Allied Domecq says profit will stall in 2003; chief executive Philip Bowman says profit will be about same as 480 million pounds earned last year (S)

World Business Briefing | Europe: Britain: Liquor Outlook Is Flat

Ciba Specialty Chemicals says net income rose 6 percent in 2002, to 406 million Swiss francs; sales declined 4 percent, to 7.08 million francs ($5.2 million) (S)

World Business Briefing | Europe: Switzerland: Chemical Profit Rises

US bond market is more comfortable now that nation is running huge budget deficit; only two years ago, Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan voiced fears that government was in danger of building up such big budget surpluses that Treasury market could dry up; Greenspan had warned that government would have no choice but to put its extra money into buying up corporate stocks and bonds; there is no need to invent life-support system for $3 trillion Treasury market with Bush administration forecasting deficits into foreseeable future; graphs (M)

Nothing Like Big Deficits To Hearten Bond Traders

Eric Asimov reports on winemaking in Piedmont, Italy, including bitter divide between those who have sought to preserve traditional methods of making Barolo and innovators who have adapted new technology and methods in effort to build new markets for their wines; photos (L)

In Piedmont, a New Landscape for Barolo

Pres Bush hails astronauts of space shuttle Columbia as seven lost explorers of great daring and purpose, and vows to push forward in conquest of space despite tragedy; speaks to family members and thousands of others at memorial under brilliant blue sky at Johnson Space Center in Houston; photos; service is held in same place where Ronald Reagan honored seven astronauts killed in Challenger explosion almost 17 years to the day; Columbia memorial, like earlier one, is drenched with raw emotion, memories and jets streaking overhead in missing-man formation; Navy chaplain Rabbi Harold Robinson quotes from Hebrew poem in tribute to Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon; Bush offers tributes to seven astronauts (M)

HAILING CREW, BUSH VOWS TO CONTINUE CONQUEST OF SPACE

New Jersey Gov James McGreevey's call for deep budget cuts noted

New Jersey Governor Seeks Extensive Cuts

South Korea's five motor vehicle manufacturers--Hyundai and Kia, in Hyundai Automotive Group, GM Daewoo, Renault Samsung and Ssangyong report total sales of 298,000 vehicles in January, increase of 7 percent from year earlier (S)

World Business Briefing | Asia: South Korea: Car Sales Rise

Mike Freeman Sports of The Times column contends that college basketball is only sport worth watching now that NFL football is over and baseball has yet to get into full swing; photo (M)

Sports of The Times; College Game Merrily Goes Round

Sec Colin Powell will show UN evidence that Iraq has concealed illegal arms from international inspectors, making further action necessary to compel compliance with orders to eliminate weapons of mass destruction; presentation will include recently intercepted communications indicating pattern of hiding chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs, as well as reports from people inside Iraq; US may declassify satellite photographs showing activity at sites just before arrival of inspectors, such as soldiers digging holes, moving equipment or burying things, along with photos of tractor-trailers that may be mobile weapons labs; Powell may show some evidence in private Security Council meetings; inspection chief Hans Blix warns Iraq it is 'five minutes to midnight' in countdown to war; says he has had reports, but no sightings, of mobile units; inspectors find another empty chemical warhead at ammunition depot near Baghdad; photo of Iraqi women watching inspection (M)

February 5, 2003

Headlines from February 5, 2003

World Business Briefing | Asia: Japan: Hitachi Reverses Loss

On a Mission To Shine A Spotlight On Genocide; Samantha Power's Mind Leaps From Bosnia to Iraq

Mariucci Signs With the Lions For $25 Million

A Power Struggle Without End

Showdown Over Orchestra Size Looms on Broadway

Billboard 200

Come Away With Me

Chicago

Let Go

Home

This Is Me...Then

Historical Context for February 5, 2003