ARKALYK, Kazakhstan - The seven-day space sojourn of an American millionaire scientist came to a close as he and a Russian-American crew undocked from the international space station and sped back to Earth, landing early today on the windswept steppes of Kazakhstan.

The bone-jarring descent brought an end to Gregory Olsen's space station visit, the third trip by a private citizen to the orbiting laboratory. The Soyuz spacecraft that carried them covered the approximately 250 miles from the station to Earth in 3½ hours.

Olsen, American astronaut William McArthur and Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev blasted off from the Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan on Oct. 1 and docked with the space station two days later.

McArthur and Tokarev will stay aboard the station for six months, while Olsen returns with John Phillips and Sergei Krikalev, who were there since April.

TOKYO - Japan's powerful lower house of parliament today approved a plan to privatize the country's $3 trillion postal system and create the world's largest bank, plowing ahead with the prime minister's reform platform following the ruling party's landslide electoral victory.The bills met little opposition. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner New Komei Party clinched a two-thirds majority in the 480-member lower house in Sept. 11 elections.The lower house apparently voted along partisan lines, 338-138.The closely watched legislation now goes to the upper house for approval. That chamber rejected the proposal in August, prompting the elections, but government officials say the election results had convinced some former opponents to support the bills.The legislation would split up Japan Post's delivery, insurance and savings deposit services and sell them off by 2017. The privatization process would begin in late 2007 and create the world's largest private bank.