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spoken governor whose proposal to buy and develop a cluster of uninhabited islands claimed by both China and Japan has set off a territorial furor between the two countries.
• A look at the top candidates to lead Japan's main opposition party -- and potentially to become Japan's next prime minister -- suggests that Japan may soon get a more nationalist government. That could ratchet up already tense relations with China and South Korea over territorial disputes that have flared in recent weeks and brought anti-Japanese demonstrations to dozens of Chinese cities.
• There is little sign that Japanese have grown more nationalistic, but the ruling Democratic Party of Japan is expected to get clobbered in elections that Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda says he will call soon. Voters are angry over Noda's push to double the sales tax and his party's failure to bring promised change to Japan's stodgy politics.
• That leaves the opposition Liberal Democratic Party poised to regain the power it lost three years ago after decades of being Japan's dominant political force. Polls suggest the LDP would win the most seats in the more powerful lower house of parliament, although probably not a majority, so it would need to forge a governing coalition to rule.
• If the LDP regains power, its new leader, to be chosen in a Sept. 26 party vote, would almost certainly become the next prime minister.
• ___

• AKCAKALE, Turkey (AP) -- Rebels seized control of a border crossing on the frontier with Turkey on Wednesday, pulling down the Syrian flag and sending a stream of jubilant people pouring across the border into Turkey.
• An Associated Press reporter at the scene Wednesday said people were moving freely across the Tal Abyad crossing, crawling under barbed wire. Some appeared to be wounded.
• "I am a free Syrian!" one man shouted, throwing his hands in the air.
• Syria's rebels control several other border crossings into Turkey but Wednesday's capture of the Tal Abyad post is believed to be the first time they have taken the border area in the northern province of Raqqa.
• Taking control of border crossings helps the opposition ferry supplies into Syria and carve out an area of control, which is key as the rebels try to tip the balance in the civil war.

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