If you are a news-freak and CNN,Times or Age is one of your favorite spots, why don't you visit Asahi, Mainichi , Yomiuri or Nikkei.

They are all leading newspapers of Japan and have competed each other everywhere in Japan to sell their newspapers.

Now WWW has become their new battle field. They are trying by all means to attract your attention to increase the hit number.

Asahi seems to appeal to your "newspaper - paper = just the news" creed by renewing their prompt news report every few hours and introducing rather elaborately the contents of the day's paper including "Inside Japanese Politics" column and Asahi Haiku. There is a free link to The New York Times.

Mainichi spares the fairly part of the site to entertainment including daily report of Sumo tournament, Haiku in English, Sudokuand WaiWaicovering the J-Pop News.

Yomiuri also seems to esteem the news. But it never forgets to spare the space for the ardent fans of GIANTS and VERDY,it's own professional baseball and soccer team respectively. If you play Go, The MAGIC of Go can be a very enjoyable corner. Pera Pera Penguin's is a conversation class for learners of the Japanese language.

Business news is of course the main concern of the Nikkei readers, but if you click its Asia Web Guide, it introduces you to a maze of company Web sites in Asia and the Pacific region. You can expect there anything of wonder and suprise such as a beutiful picture of Isis suckling the infant Horus, an Egyptian masterpiece in anciant era/circa 600 BC, collected by Dr. Freud. This famous Viennese neurologist's intense passion for archaeology, ancient history and anthropology is not widely known. Freud as Collector is a corner of the homepage of Kajima, one of leading construction companies in Japan, which reveals Freud as collector.

All the Web sites above mentioned are essentially bilingual. If you, however, find any difficulty in Japanese language, please consult a Japanese-English Dictionary.

Any comments appreciated.