News Headlines - 24 September 2013

▽Baseball reflects Japan’s changing economy - FT.com

Baseball, America and Japan’s shared national pastime, is a useful window through which to view the two countries’ contrasting and changing attitudes to foreigners in general – and in the economy in particular.

▽Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron to Merge - NYTimes.com

Applied Materials Inc, one of the world's biggest producers of chipmaking equipment, will acquire rival Tokyo Electron Ltd in an all-share deal, creating a company with a combined stock market value of $29 billion, the two said on Tuesday.

▽Al-Shabab: Militants Still Holding Hostages Inside Kenyan Mall

The Somali militant group al-Shabab says its fighters are still holding hostages inside the Kenyan mall where gunmen began a deadly siege on Saturday.

▽Egypt court bans all Muslim Brotherhood activities - latimes.com

The Islamist movement's financial assets are also ordered confiscated in one of the current government's most sweeping measures yet against the group.

▽Earth's days are numbered : Nature News & Comment

Earth will be able to host life for just another 1.75 billion years or so, according to a study published on 18 September in Astrobiology1. The method used to make the calculation can also identify planets outside the Solar System with long ‘habitable periods’, which might be the best places to look for life.