The Hyatt Regency Hakone Resort & Spa will participate in Japan's "Carbon Dioxide Reduction Light-Down Campaign' by turning the lobby lights off for two hours on June 21 and July 7. The Hyatt will also be lighting its lobby fireplace with candles, instead of a fire, between June 21 and Aug 31. The "Carbon Dioxide Reduction Light-Down Campaign' was started by the Ministry of the Environment to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions and encourage thoughts about how to prevent global warming.

The Environmental Dispute Coordination Commission ordered the municipal government of Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, on Wednesday to pay some 4.88 billion yen to Tokyu Corp for land contamination. Tokyu purchased the land in Kawasaki in 1992 and sold it as a construction site for condominiums. But part of about 25,000 square meters of land was contaminated with trichloroethylene and lead as the local authority reclaimed the land with incinerated ash from the late 1960s to early 1970s, according to the decision by the state body.

Japan's average retail price of regular gasoline rose to an all-time high of 159.20 yen per liter as of Monday, surpassing the previous record of 155.50 yen set last December, the Oil Information Center said Wednesday. The average price was up 5.80 yen from last Thursday, when many gas stations raised retail gasoline prices on the revival of an extra tax of 25.10 yen per liter.

Japanese and European Union leaders on Wednesday agreed to push for the launch by the Group of Eight powers of a new energy-saving framework to curb global warming at July's G-8 summit in Japan, while sharing

German Chancellor Angela Merkel held talks here on Sunday with former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and expressed skepticism over a U.S. initiative to halt the growth of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, Japanese officials said. Merkel was quoted as telling Abe that she is