Government reports that Vietnam's economy grew by 6.75 percent in 2000 despite trade deficit, weak foreign investment and tottering state-owned industries; oil is large factor in driving up trade imbalance; Vietnam also imported 1.58 million motorbikes in 2000, more than double the number imported in 1999; motorbikes attests to country's continuing upward mobility (M)

Vietnam's Trade Imbalance And Economy Keep Growing

Russian government plans to sell 50 million shares of OAO Lukoil Holding on New York Stock Exchange in 2001, reducing state holdings to 8.6 percent from 14.7 percent (S)

AMERICAN SHARE SALE FOR LUKOIL

Sports of The Times column says New York Jets have made right decision in retaining Vinny Testaverde; photo (S)

Sports of The Times; Jets Smart To Retain Testaverde

Acer Group names Wang Cheng-tang as its second president (S)

Acer Names an Executive

Michael McDermott, software tester at Edgewater Technology Inc, surrenders to police without resistance after shooting seven co-workers to death, Wakefield, Mass; victims are Janis Hagerty, Cheryl Troy, Louis Javelle, Craig Wood, Jennifer Bragg Capobianco, Rose Manfredi and Paul Marceau; chonology of other fatal workplace shootings; maps; photos (M)

7 Die in Rampage at Company; Co-Worker of Victims Arrested

Old upstate city of Elmira, New York, struggles to revive from decline of manufacturing while at same time confronting legacy of old factories that spewed chemicals into water and land; special concern centers on cancer cases among former and current students at Southside High School, which was built on land that supported diverse industry from Civil War to 1970's; photos; map; state has reports of 53 cancer cases among 7,500 current and former students since school opened in 1979, mostly leukemia, lymphoma and, more unusually, testicular; Andy Patros, whose 21-year-old son has testicular cancer, recalls jokes about nearby pond that never freezes; accounts of waste dumping and burying also quoted; athletic fields are now closed because of contaminants in soil (M)

Specter of Cancer Haunts a School; Industrial City of Elmira Confronts Environmental Legacy

Nintendo is reportedly in negotiations to buy Sega for about $2 billion; sales of Sega's game console, Dreamcast, missed its own forecasts by a million units, and company is expected to post its fourth consecutive annual loss when fiscal year ends in March; Sega has been struggling since Sony entered video game market in US in 1995; drawing; table (M)

Nintendo Is Reported in Talks to Buy Sega

Executive recruiting is a booming business, registering double-digit growth every year since 1992; recruiters at the smaller, privately held search firms that dominate the industry say their revenues have risen between 30 and 50 percent just over the last two years; boom is due to nation's long economic expansion and a shortage of management talent that has worsened as older executives retire or defect to rivals or hightechnology start-ups; trend also reflects investors' willingness to spend whatever it takes to hire the people who can achieve good financial results, as well as their decreasing tolerance of anyone who does not; photos; graph (M)

Management -- Wanted: One C.E.O., Ready to Work; Long Boom and a Shortage Of Top Executive Talent Fuel Growth of Recruiters

Rikki Samuels, writing in My Job column, describes giving ice skating lessons at Rockefeller Center, which she has been doing for 17 years; photo (M)

Labor Puzzle: As Need for Temporary Workers Soars, Pay Lags

Criminal pasts of Mike (Scuch) Squicciarini and Charlie the Hat, two ex-convicts, open doors to acting careers playing hoodlums on television and in movies; photo (M)

It Says 'Wise Guy' on Their Resumes

Amanda Hesser comment on good holiday drinks; photos; recipes (L)

Grown-Ups Don't Nog Eggs

 Holiday Shopping Season Could Be Worst in Decade  Despite widespread markdowns and a burst of last minute buying, this year's holiday shopping season is shaping up as among the worst in a decade, industry analysts said.    Consumers were treated to deep and widespread price reductions during the holiday season, and almost everywhere they reacted with restraint. Several of the nation's largest chains acknowledged that December sales were going to be lower than they had predicted at the beginning of the season. [Page A1.]  

BUSINESS DIGEST

I've been giving lessons at Rockefeller Center for 17 years. I skated there myself when I was 5. My father worked at Saks, and I'd go to the rink sometimes when he was working. Later I competed as an amateur skater. I made the nationals four times. In 1960, I almost made the Olympics.    I live uptown, and I get to work by roller skating through Central Park. I change into my ice skates when I get to work, of course, and when I get home at night I often put slippers on. Sometimes my feet do not touch shoes all day.  

I Let Students Fall by Design

Fisherman unwilling to accept limits on their catch are openly and violently defying Ecuador's efforts to preserve Galapagos Islands' delicate and threatened ecosystem; have attacked conservation installations, blockaded ports and harassed tourist groups; are protesting 1998 law that gave islands' residents greater autonomy and set up marine reserve out to 40 miles offshore; photos (M)

Where Darwin Mused, Strife Over Ecosystem

New York Philharmonic officials say orchestra is not close to naming a successor to Kurt Masur, with just over two years to go until Masur's contract with Philharmonic comes to an end; field of candidates under serious consideration appears to have widened; photos of Lorin Maazel, Christoph Eschenbach and Mariss Jansons, among conductors under consideration (M)

Philharmonic Broadens Search for A Conductor

League of Women Voters will close New York office because of mounting financial problems, after decades of sponsoring local political debates and publishing voter information guides; executive Barbara Barr says chapter is broke and has been unable to get foundation grants (S)

Voters' League To Shut Office In New York

Newark, New Jersey, firehouses get portable defibrillators, with grant from Medtronic company, but many people in cardiac arrest will not benefit from emergency treatment because city's Fire Department does not by policy respond to 911 calls that do not involve fires; residents will continue to rely on ambulances which have defibrillators but have average response time of 11 minutes, compared with Fire Department's two to three minutes; photo; department and union leaders resist national trend toward including first-response medical and rescue services; fire director Stanley Kossup says ambulance system works well (M)

New Defibrillators Raise Debate Over Firefighters' Role

Giuliani administration, in major push to divest city of thousands of properties acquired from tax-delinquent landlords over the decades, selects 21 teams of developers to transform 50 abandoned buildings and vacant lots in Harlem into housing, day care centers, and stores; number of city-owned buildings has already been reduced over last six years to 2,535, from 4,755; new plans include housing for the elderly on East 131st and 132d Streets, 63 apartments and day care center on West 144th Street and rehabilitation of desolate block of West 148th Street; photos; map; also proposed are television production studio and office for NBA Players Assn; 990 of 1,643 housing units will be for owners, mostly with moderate incomes; developers include Bluestone Orgn and Columbia University, which will build condominium units, faculty and student housing and day care center (M)

Homes and Shops to Rise on Abandoned Harlem Properties

Not since &quot;Nashville&quot; or maybe even &quot;The Godfather&quot; has Hollywood turned out an epic as resonant as Steven Soderbergh's densely layered study of the Mexican drug trade and its devastating impact on the United States. In weaving together multiple stories, this intricate thriller, adapted from a British mini-series, jumps from Tijuana to Washington to San Diego to suburban Ohio. Michael Douglas is the new American drug czar, Catherine Zeta-Jones the ruthless wife of a busted drug lord and Benicio Del Toro a Mexican policeman. Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman are a team of government agents whose bust of a cynical midlevel dealer (Miguel Ferrer) precipitates much of the drama. Shot with hand-held cameras, &quot;Traffic&quot; builds into a profound and gloomy meditation on greed, violence and contemporary ennui. — Stephen Holden

Teeming Mural of a War Fought and Lost

Fears that Japan could slip again into recession are rekindled as government reports rise in unemployment rate in November--to 4.8 percent from 4.7 percent in October--and a 2.3 percent drop in consumer spending, which accounts for 60 percent of country's economic activity; photo (M)

Unemployment Rises and Spending Falls in Japan

Altadis SA cancels 1.4 percent of its outstanding shares in effort to stem slide in stock price (S)

TOBACCO SHARES CANCELED

Congress braces for reshuffling as Census Bureau prepares to publish official population count, including state-by-state totals that will determine how many House seats each state will get; totals, for many states, will confirm gain or loss of power in Washington (M)

Census Data Is Due As Congress Braces For a Reshuffling

Three regional French airlines controlled by Air France will merge in 2001; they are Proteus Airlines, Flandre Air and Regional Airlines (S)

FRENCH AIRLINES MERGE

 Mild Optimism on Mideast  Officials expect that reactions to the Clinton peace plan will be qualified,  but positive enough to allow Israelis and Palestinians to go to Washington for intense negotiations.   PAGE A3    Siberia's Prize: The Sable  After a decade of industry chaos and fierce opposition from animal rights groups, Russia still holds a monopoly on the most sought-after of pelts: the Barguzin sable.   PAGE A8

INSIDE

Japanese stock market appears to be both a victim of country's economic slowdown and a contributor to it; Nikkei index is down 26 percent for the year, its worst performance since 1992; new low hit on Dec 21 sets off widespread concern about the economy; graph (M)

December 27, 2000

Headlines from December 27, 2000

Vietnam's Trade Imbalance And Economy Keep Growing

AMERICAN SHARE SALE FOR LUKOIL

Sports of The Times; Jets Smart To Retain Testaverde

Acer Names an Executive

7 Die in Rampage at Company; Co-Worker of Victims Arrested

Billboard 200

1

Black & Blue

Now 5

Human Clay

Oops!...I Did It Again

Historical Context for December 27, 2000