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Bon Festival

Obon or just Bon is a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the departed (deceased) spirits of one's ancestors. This Buddhist custom has evolved into a family reunion holiday during which people return to ancestral family places and visit and clean their ancestors' graves, and when the spirits of ancestors are supposed to revisit the household altars. It has been celebrated in Japan for more than 500 years and traditionally includes a dance, known as Bon-Odori.

The festival of Obon lasts for three days; however its starting date varies within different regions of Japan. When the lunar calendar was changed to the Gregorian calendar at the beginning of the Meiji era, the localities in Japan reacted differently and this resulted in three different times of Obon. "Shichigatsu Bon" (Bon in July) is based on the solar calendar and is celebrated around 15 July in areas such as Tokyo, Yokohama and the Tohoku region. "Hachigatsu Bon" (Bon in August) is based on the solar calendar, is celebrated around the 15th of August and is the most commonly celebrated time. "Kyu Bon" (Old Bon) is celebrated on the 15th day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, and so differs each year. "Kyu Bon" is celebrated in areas like the northern part of the Kantō region, Chūgoku, Shikoku, and the Southwestern islands. These three days are not listed as public holidays but it is customary that people are given leave.

Obon shares some similarities with the predominantly Mexican observance of el Día de los Muertos, such as customs involving family reunion and care of ancestors' grave sites.

Obon is a shortened form of Ullambana (Japanese: urabon'e). It is Sanskrit for "hanging upside down" and implies great suffering. The Japanese believe they should ameliorate the suffering of the "Urabanna".

Bon Odori originates from the story of Maha Maudgalyayana (Mokuren), a disciple of the Buddha, who used his supernatural powers to look upon his deceased mother. He discovered she had fallen into the Realm of Hungry Ghosts and was suffering.Greatly disturbed, he went to the Buddha and asked how he could release his mother from this realm. Buddha instructed him to make offerings to the many Buddhist monks who had just completed their summer retreat, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. The disciple did this and, thus, saw his mother's release. He also began to see the true nature of her past unselfishness and the many sacrifices that she had made for him. The disciple, happy because of his mother's release and grateful for his mother's kindness, danced with joy. From this dance of joy comes Bon Odori or "Bon Dance", a time in which ancestors and their sacrifices are remembered and appreciated. See also: Ullambana Sutra.

As Obon occurs in the heat of the summer, participants traditionally wear yukata, or light cotton kimonos. Many Obon celebrations include a huge carnival with rides, games, and summer festival food like watermelon.

The festival ends with Toro Nagashi, or the floating of lanterns. Paper lanterns are illuminated and then floated down rivers symbolically signaling the ancestral spirits' return to the world of the dead. This ceremony usually culminates in a fireworks display.

Your Party fares well, but other new parties face uphill battle

Your Party fared well in Sunday's House of Councillors election, racking up 10 of the 121 seats up for grabs, while none of the other new parties achieved significant results.

Your Party chief Yoshimi Watanabe, however, ruled out any possibility of joining the ruling coalition led by the Democratic Party of Japan, saying, "It would make sense to me to reject a marriage proposal from someone who has been all talk and no action."

The projections showed that the Sunrise Party of Japan headed by former trade minister Takeo Hiranuma and the New Renaissance Party led by former health minister Yoichi Masuzoe obtained only one seat each, while the Spirit of Japan Party, set up by local government leaders, failed to win any seats at all.

Your Party emerged as the biggest gainer in the upper house election and enjoyed popularity among city voters in particular, against a backdrop of sagging support for the DPJ and the main opposition Liberal Democratic Party.

"Since we have no seats up for grabs, it's astounding we may be able to obtain 10 seats," former administrative reform minister Watanabe, who leads the party comprising a total of six lawmakers, said on a TV program shortly after voting ended at 8 p.m.

Your Party attained three and seven seats in the electoral and proportional representation constituencies, respectively, among a total of the 44 candidates it fielded in the first upper house election since its launch last August.

DPJ President and Prime Minister Naoto Kan has shown interest in forming a partnership with Your Party as exit polls showed that the ruling coalition, which also includes the People's New Party, is certain to lose its majority in the 242-seat upper chamber.

But Watanabe, who is resolutely against immediate tax increases, has ruled out any possibility of tying up with Kan, who has promoted the need for a sales tax hike to rebuild the nation's tattered finances, maintaining that more drastic administrative reforms must be carried out first.

"We've argued that fiscal consolidation is possible and social security services can be ensured without a tax hike, and this idea has spread considerably," Watanabe said on TV.

"Your Party is a party seeking to make clear what should be done," he said. "It's different from the flip-flopping DPJ."

As Watanabe has advocated a sweeping realignment of the political landscape, however, he may move to join hands with the DPJ once he determines that his party can sway the course of the management of government, observers say.

"If we hold a casting vote, we can push ahead with our ideas," he said earlier.

Voters who responded to the exit polls showed that many in their 30s to 50s cast ballots for Your Party in the proportional representation section, coming third after the DPJ and the LDP. Especially among voters in their 40s, 18.0 percent said they voted for Your Party, only 2.7 points less than the LDP.

US-Russia Spy Exchange Brings Quick End to Case

Russia and the United States have completed the largest spy exchange since the Cold War. On Friday, at an airport in Vienna, Austria, an American plane and a Russian plane landed, parked side by side and exchanged occupants.

The United States freed ten admitted Russian agents. The men and women were arrested in late June and pleaded guilty on Thursday.

In exchange, Russia released four Russians serving prison sentences on charges of spying for the West. The men include Igor Sutyagin, an arms researcher who always denied the charges. Some considered him a political prisoner.

The United States deported nine Russians and an American citizen born in Peru. Some raised children while living quiet lives as married couples. An eleventh suspect disappeared after being freed on bail in Cyprus.

The group was accused of trying to gain information on American nuclear weapons, foreign policy and politics for the SVR -- Russia's foreign intelligence service.

The way both countries are handling the issue suggests that "neither side is interested in starting a fight." So says Andrei Koztunof of the New Eurasia Foundation in Moscow. Russia's Foreign Ministry praised the exchange, saying, "The action was taken in the general context of improved Russian-U.S. relations."

The ten were only charged with plotting to act as undeclared foreign agents. They were not charged with the more serious crime of espionage, so the extent of their success as spies is not clear.

ROBERT BAUM: "The only allegations against her was that she communicated with a Russian official through a laptop to laptop communication, without the government specifying the nature of the communications."

Peruvian-born Vicki Pelaez was a columnist for a Spanish-language newspaper in New York. Her lawyer said she never knew that her husband of many years, Juan Lazaro, was really a Russian named Mikhail Vasenkov.

The arrests took place in four states: New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Virginia. The Justice Department announced the arrests on June twenty-eighth, four days after the so-called hamburger summit.

President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ate hamburgers at a restaurant near Washington. That day, Mr. Obama said the two countries had succeeded in "resetting" their relationship.

The ten Russian agents cannot return to the United States without special permission. They are also barred from making any money in the United States by selling their story.