Al-Shabab, the rebels linked to al-Qaida, have discouraged many parents from getting their children inoculated against polio, a disease that is an incipient problem in this Horn of Africa nation long plagued by armed conflict and disease, according to health workers who spoke to The Associated Press.

The al-Shabab extremists have been pushed out of virtually all of Somalia's cities and face continued military pressure from African Union and government troops. Health workers are gaining access to more children to give the life-saving polio vaccine. But some mothers and fathers are refusing the inoculation, apparently heeding the advice of the Islamic militants who warn that the vaccination exercise is part of a foreign conspiracy to kill or weaken Somali children.

Vaccination workers who walked door to door in the capital, Mogadishu, were turned away by some parents who often didn't state why they objected to the vaccination. One man told the workers to leave immediately because they were carrying "toxic things."

Al-Shabab militants are spreading rumors against the polio vaccine in communities where they still have some influence, alleging the vaccine can make girls barren and that it is manufactured in Christian countries, said a senior United Nations health worker in Somalia, who insisted on anonymity because he isn't authorized to speak about the vaccination program.

Al-Shabab did not respond to questions about the allegations that they are spreading rumors against the vaccination campaign.

"Al-Shabab are paranoid about potential infiltration by spy agencies disguised as humanitarian workers. That's probably a principal reason for discouraging vaccination," said Abdi Aynte, the director of the Somali-based think-tank Heritage Institute for Policy Studies.

Somali government officials say the numbers of parents who reject the immunization campaign are far fewer than those embracing it, but health workers don't want to leave any unvaccinated. They warn that it is important for every child to get the polio vaccine in order to eradicate in Somalia the disease that causes limb paralysis and can be fatal.

"It's a big challenge," said Safiyo Mohamed, a vaccination worker in Mogadishu. She said in rejecting the vaccine some families had brought up the case in Libya where foreign health workers including five Bulgarian nurses faced charges of deliberately infecting Libyan children with HIV in 1990s.

The polio vaccine, which is administered orally, is recommended for children aged 10 and under, but some parents are questioning why a 10-year-old needs protection against polio, said Biyod Yasin, a vaccination worker at Mogadishu's Hamarweyne Mother Child Centre.

At a world vaccine summit in Abu Dhabi last month, global health leaders and philanthropists presented a six-year, $5.5 billion plan that they hope will eradicate all types of polio disease.

The World Health Organization says Somalia is experiencing an outbreak of polio. WHO reported earlier this month that a 4-year-old Somali girl near the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya and two of her contacts tested positive for polio, the first confirmed cases in Kenya since July 2011. Four polio cases have been confirmed in Somalia so far this year, including two in Mogadishu. A vaccination campaign targeting 440,000 children began here on May 14, and a second round of the campaign that started Tuesday aim to vaccinate 644,000 children under the age of 10.

Health workers say they vaccinate hundreds each week despite the resistance. That the health workers can move around at all is a stunning turnaround in Somalia, which when al-Shabab radicals ran most of the country refused western medical care and food aid to desperate Somalis. The extremists imposed a strict form of Muslim Shariah law and carried out public whippings and beheadings.

With many regions of Somalia, including the capital, Mogadishu, under the rule of the moderate Muslim government and enjoying relative peace for the first time in 20 years, health care workers are expanding vaccination programs throughout the country. Health workers can now reach 40 percent of south-central Somalia, where the influence of the hardline Islamic insurgents is highest. Three years ago, health workers could access only 15 to 20 percent of that territory.

The years of conflict in Somalia has resulted in the country having child and maternal mortality rates that are among the highest in the world. One in every five Somali children dies before their fifth birthday, according to WHO, often for reasons including parental illiteracy and negligence.

"I don't want any of my children injected with that thing which I don't know what it is made of," said Nurto Hussein, a mother of seven who lives in Mogadishu. "They make the children sick instead of curing them. I put my trust in Allah."

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama will tell Americans they are getting a good deal out of healthcare reform during a trip to California on Friday, where an argument is raging over whether it is living up to its name as the Affordable Care Act.

Support for the reform in California, the nation's most populous state, is seen as crucial to the success of Obama's signature domestic policy when millions of uninsured Americans are able to choose health plans beginning on October 1.

At issue are prices for the new health plans proposed by insurance companies and made public late last month. Supporters of "Obamacare" said the prices were lower than expected and hailed them as an early sign of success, but opponents quickly took issue and said they would make insurance more expensive than what is currently on the market.

People with incomes well below the poverty level will do well since their coverage will be eligible for government subsidies, said Joseph Antos, a health policy expert with the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

"It's going to be the one's further up who end up paying. It's also the taxpayer who is going to end up picking up the cost of the subsidies that are going to be offered nationwide," he said.

It may take months before Americans can fully gauge the value of the plans they will be offered in October. The premium rates figuring into the California argument are only preliminary, while details - such as how large the network of doctors is in each plan - remain unknown.

With six million uninsured residents, California has been one of the quickest states to develop its own health insurance exchange. Healthcare advocates hope that as many as one million uninsured Californians will sign up for the new plans in the first year and lead other states to do the same.

"Implementation needs momentum and creating momentum in California is a really good move for them. It's a large market and a positive media market for the President. He's going to get coverage when he goes to California. And what they need to do right now is amp up the visibility around implementation," said Dan Mendelson, chief executive of research firm Avalere Health.

Covered California, the California state exchange, said on May 23 that it had given initial approval to 13 different companies to sell plans on the insurance exchange, from big names like Anthem Blue Cross of California, part of WellPoint Inc, to smaller players such as Health Net Inc and Molina Healthcare Inc.

Rates would be from 2 percent above to 29 percent below the 2013 average premium for small employer plans, according to state exchange officials. The cost to a 40-year-old would be between $40 to $300 per month for a mid-level plan, depending on their income level and subsidies.

"Obviously, there is more work to do on affordability. Even in the best of circumstances, health insurance isn't cheap," said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a statewide consumer advocacy coalition.

RATE SHOCK

Billed as a success by the state and federal governments and health economists that first day, the rates have since come under fire. Healthcare policy expert and Forbes commentator Avik Roy said that prices were in fact going up as much as 146 percent for some people when compared with prices for individual plans for sale now in California.

This "rate shock" argument - that rates would be too high to be affordable - sprung up again. It had been espoused by insurance executives and Republicans, but was quieted earlier last month after low proposed premiums were released by a few other states including Washington, Oregon and Vermont.

Obama is expected to defend this critical piece of his reform - the affordability of insurance on the health insurance exchange in California due to competitions and premiums - during his speech in San Jose, White House spokesman Jay Carney said earlier this week during a briefing.

Enrollment is essential for the success of these insurance exchanges as the government seeks to get millions of Americans to sign up and provide a diverse enough risk pool to make the insurance competitive. The government will pay subsidies to people who earn less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level.

"It's premature right now for people to be figuring out whether they can afford this," said Linda Blumberg, health economist at the Urban Institute.

Marketing for the new insurance plans in California and other states running their own exchanges is expected to take off in July. Blumberg hopes that is when information about the benefits of these insurance products will become clearer: that they provide essential benefits like maternity coverage; that they cannot deny customers based on preexisting conditions; and that there is financial assistance.

Those and other changes under the health law, such as men and women paying the same price on the exchange, are some of the reasons why it is difficult to compare California's announced prices for 2014 with currently available individual plans.

In addition, there are up to four tiers of health exchange products under Obama's health law, starting with a minimum amount of coverage set by the government and climbing higher.

"The policies are different - generally more comprehensive. They offer better coverage, less out of pocket costs," said Gerald Kominski, director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

(Editing by Michele Gershberg, Fred Barbash and Leslie Gevirtz)

Thats one reading of athats still got people in D.C. buzzing.

First off, well say that no one currently in the administration is quoted in the piece as saying anything like Holder should quit to save us grief. But an unnamed Democratic former official does say that, pretty much.

The White House is apoplectic about him, and has been for a long time, says this anonymous source of Mr. Holder.

One of the administrations main complaints about the attorney general is that he does not manage or foresee problems, adds this source.

This is hearsay, right? The Times reporter hasnt actually heard anybody in the White House express those views only a secondary source who claims to have heard them expressed. That weakens the case, as any lawyer will tell you.

But anonymous carping through the media is a time-honored Washington way of easing out officials who have become a liability. Its supposed to give said official a hint without anyone directly telling them. That way, theres deniability. The White House can say the person is stepping down of their own accord.

And Holder has definitely been producing some bad headlines for the Obama team. In particular, many Republicans and somecharge that Holder may have committed perjury by telling Congress under oath that hed never heard of any potential prosecution of reporters under the Espionage Act, when hed signed off on a Justice Department warrant for the communications records ofreporterthat named the journalist as an espionage co-conspirator.

I think hes taken actions that demand explanation, said Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona on CBS's Face the Nation.

Lots of Democrats say all this talk is blowing things way out of proportion.of Maryland pointed out over the weekend that Mr. Rosen hasnt been prosecuted. The real target of the warrant was Rosens source in the government, said Representative Van Hollen.

It is often the practice in cases where you have investigations that you target somebody for the purpose of gathering information with never having any intention of prosecuting them, Van Hollen said on Fox News Sunday.

still has Holders back, say administration officials for the record. Firing him now, or pushing him out, would be just giving in to partisan critics, in this view. And the AG has powerful personal defenders in the West Wing, including special assistant to the president Valerie Jarrett.

But Holders longtime critics prefer to see the New York Times story as the precursor to an internal campaign to ease Holder out.

Assuming this is a smoke signal from the White House, it indicates that Barack Obama wont ask Holder to leave.... However, its a big hint that the West Wing wont be too engaged in defending him and would like to see him leave on his own, writes Ed Morrissey on the conservative Hot Air! website. Its not quite a shove, at least not yet, but its certainly a nudge.

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After four years of development, Microsoft unveiled the Xbox One entertainment console and touted it as an all-in-one solution for playing games, watching TV and doing everything in between. Microsoft wants the Xbox One to be central to your living room, so it packed the new Xbox with such features as the ability to change TV channels through voice commands.

Although the device won't go on sale until later this year, at a price that hasn't been disclosed yet, Microsoft invited attendees of Tuesday's announcement event to take a closer look at the system.

Based on limited time with the device, the Xbox One feels like an improvement over its predecessor. But it fails to include features some fans have demanded, including the ability to play games bought for the existing Xbox 360 system.

Of course, many particulars about the Xbox One could change between now and when it's released. The specific date hasn't been revealed. More details are expected in three weeks at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the gaming industry's annual convention in Los Angeles.

For now, the system looks to be a thoughtful piece of technology, but there's still a lot that isn't known.

DESIGN: With contrasting matte and gloss finishes, the Xbox One is the slickest video game console so far, although we don't yet know what Sony's upcoming PlayStation 4 will look like. (Nintendo's Wii U is already out, although sales have fallen short of the company's forecasts.) The Xbox's outer shell, which Microsoft calls "liquid black," features vented flourishes and all the inputs and outputs one might need, including multiple USB ports and HDMI pass-through.

KINECT: The new version of the Xbox's camera-based Kinect system comes with better motion and voice detection, including the ability to recognize faces, tell if you're smiling or talking and gauge your heart rate. It appears as sexy as the Xbox console and has been overhauled under the hood. It's three times more sensitive and has a larger, 60-degree field of view. In a demo, the doodad's high-definition camera easily displayed crystal-clear 1080p video and could detect up to seven people, though it lagged as more folks stood in front of it. The basic motion detection appears vastly improved, but the voice detection feature wasn't made available to try out, adding to the list of unknowns.

PERFORMANCE: The system seems to work harmoniously together. For example, by combining the Kinect's face detection ability with the machine's wireless controllers, it recognized almost magically when users swapped controllers.

CONTROLLER: The new controller's layout is mostly unchanged, but the bulky battery bump is gone from the back. The smoother Xbox One controller boasts a new directional pad and vibrating trigger buttons. The triggers pulsated in tandem with such imagery as a character's heart beating and a car revving up during a demo with a prototype controller.

REQUIREMENTS: Luckily, the Xbox One won't require a constant connection to the Internet, but there's a possibility that some of the key features wouldn't work as well or at all. The Kinect system is required and will come with the machine, rather than sold separately as has been the case with the Xbox 360. The Xbox One also will feature privacy settings so it doesn't feel like the Kinect's camera is always watching you.

LIMITATIONS: Xbox 360 games won't work on the Xbox One because the underlying technology is different, according to Microsoft. Microsoft was vague about how the Xbox One will handle previously played games bought from other gamers, though it confirmed used games will work somehow. There had been talk that Microsoft might restrict used games on the new machine.

GAMES: What games? Despite the fact that such titles as "Call of Duty: Ghosts," ''FIFA 14" and "Forza Motorsport 5" were teased during Tuesday's flashy presentation, actual games weren't available to try out afterward. Microsoft said it plans to focus on Xbox One titles at the E3 conference, which starts June 11.

The Xbox One shows promise with a sleek shell and a new Kinect detector that seems to perform fine at least if you don't try to confuse it with too many people at once. But the lack of games is notable, as are lingering questions about what it can do without an Internet connection. There are too many questions about the Xbox One, even after experiencing not just hearing what Microsoft has planned. At this point, it's too early to say whether Microsoft or Sony is leading in the latest round of the console wars. They'll have to duke it out at E3.

___

Online:

http://www.xbox.com

___

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang

Freddie Mac said Thursday the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 3.89 percent. That's below the previous record of 3.91 percent reached three weeks ago.

Records for mortgage rates date back to the 1950s.

The average on the 15-year fixed mortgage ticked down to 3.16 percent. That's down from a record 3.21 percent three weeks ago.

Mortgage rates are lower because they track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which fell below 2 percent. They could fall even lower this year if the Fed launches another round of bond purchases, as some economists expect.

Average fixed mortgage rates hovered around 4 percent at the end of 2011. Yet many Americans either can't take advantage of the rates or have already done so.

High unemployment and scant wage gains have made it harder for many people to qualify for loans. Many don't want to sink money into a home that they fear could lose value over the next few years.

Mortgage applications have fallen slightly on a seasonally adjusted basis over the past four weeks, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac's chief economist, said that until hiring picks up and unemployment drops significantly, the impact of lower mortgage rates will remain muted.

Previously occupied homes are selling just slightly ahead of 2010's dismal pace. New-home sales in 2011 will likely be the worst year on records going back half a century.

Builders hope that the low rates could boost sales next year. Low mortgage rates were cited as a key reason the National Association of Home Builders survey of builder sentiment rose in December to its highest level in more than a year.

But so far, they have had little impact on the depressed housing market.

To calculate the average rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country Monday through Wednesday of each week. The average rates don't include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.

The average fee for the 30-year loan fell to 0.7 from 0.8; the average on the 15-year fixed mortgage was unchanged at 0.8.

For the five-year adjustable loan, the average rate declined to 2.82 percent from 2.86 percent. The average on the one-year adjustable loan fell to 2.76 percent from 2.80 percent.

The average fee on the five-year adjustable loan rose was unchanged at 0.7; the average on the one-year adjustable-rate loan was unchanged at 0.6.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lois Lerner, an Internal Revenue Service official who revealed that the agency was giving extra scrutiny to conservative groups, will assert her constitutional right not to answer questions from a congressional committee on Wednesday, her lawyer said in a letter obtained by Reuters.

"She has not committed any crime or made any misrepresentation but under the circumstances she has no choice but to take this course," Lerner's attorney, William Taylor, wrote to the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is holding hearings into the IRS scandal.

Lerner is the chief of the IRS tax-exempt unit, which has been accused of using partisan criteria to decide which groups applying for tax-exempt status should receive extra scrutiny. According to an inspector general's report, the office searched for groups with "Tea Party" or "patriots" in their names.

Taylor said he had advised Lerner to assert her Fifth Amendment right in part due to allegations made by the committee chairman, Darrell Issa, that she had provided false and misleading information to Congress.

The Fifth Amendment provides individuals with protection against self-incrimination.

According to a second document obtained by Reuters, Issa has issued a subpoena to demand that Lerner attend his panel's hearing on Wednesday, the third congressional hearing in less than a week since the scandal first erupted.

At least three congressional committees are investigating the matter.

Issa spokesman Ali Ahmad said in a statement on Tuesday: "Chairman Issa remains hopeful that she will ultimately decide to testify tomorrow about her knowledge of outrageous IRS targeting of Americans for their political beliefs."

Lerner apologized for the targeting at a tax conference on May 10, setting off a wave of criticism, congressional probes and a Justice Department investigation.

Issa, a Republican who is an aggressive critic of President Barack Obama, in a letter to Lerner last week said "it appears that you provided false or misleading information on four separate occasions last year in response to the Committee's oversight."

Taylor is a Washington-based lawyer with Zuckerman Spaeder LLP. The law firm's website cites Taylor's experience with "high-profile civil and criminal matters, often under intense media scrutiny."

He notably defended Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, against criminal charges related to a sexual assault accusation. The criminal charges were dismissed, and a related civil suit was settled.

(Reporting by Kim Dixon; Editing by Karey Van Hall and Eric Beech)

However, many of those purchases involved properties that were subject to foreclosures or short sales, indicating the housing market is far from recovered.

The survey by San Diego-based DataQuick also showed the median sales price in the region fell nearly 3 percent last month from December to $326,000 less than half the peak price of $665,000 reached in 2007 but up from the low of $290,000 recorded in 2009.

A total of 5,479 new and existing homes were sold in the nine-county area, according to DataQuick. The figure was down nearly 27 percent from December but marked a 10.3-percent improvement over January 2011.

The December-to-January drop was normal for the season, while the January-to-January jump showed real improvement, DataQuick said.

The year-over-year increase in January marked the seventh annual jump in a row,the firm said.

Home sales were buoyed by "lower prices, ultra-low mortgage rates, a modestly improved economy and a record level of investor purchases," DataQuick said in a statement.

The lower median price in January was "a reflection of how skewed the market has become toward distressed, lower-cost properties," DataQuick President John Walsh said in the statement. "The higher-end sales have slowed in recent months as many struggle to qualify for loans and others just sit tight."

Distressed property sales the combination of foreclosure and short sales made up more than half of all sales of existing homes. Absentee buyers, who mostly are investors, bought more than a quarter of all homes sold, DataQuick reported

The poll, conducted in the wake of the allegations, found that Cain’s popularity among registered Republicans declined by 9 points since the days before the allegations of the scandal were published. Among Republicans polled last week, on October 27 and 28, 66 percent said they had a favorable opinion of Cain. But just 57 percent of those polled on November 4 and 5 said they had a favorable opinion of the former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza.

The drop off comes primarily from Cain’s less enthusiastic supporters. The percentage of Republicans who say they hold a ‘very favorable’ opinion of him has dropped by only 3 percentage points. The percentage of voters who say they hold a ‘somewhat favorable’ view of him has dropped by 6 points.

The sexual harassment allegations seem unlikely to go away: they have been widely reported, and 88 percent of Republicans say they have heard of them, as have 81 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of independents.

That said, Republicans remain somewhat uncertain on the whether or not there is any truth to the allegations. Thirty-two percent say they think it is likely that the allegations are true, while 27 percent they are likely untrue. Very few — 7 percent — say they strongly believe the allegations are true, and just 10 percent say they strongly believe the allegations are untrue. Twenty-four percent say they don’t know. Among independents who have an opinion, most believe the allegations to be likely true. However, over half of independents express no opinion.

Almost half of Republicans say the reported allegations have no bearing on how they feel about Cain. But 35 percent say it makes them feel less favorably about him, while just 14 percent say it improves their opinion of him.

The results suggest that while many Republicans are still giving Cain the benefit of the doubt, the longer the story stays in the news, the worse things will get for him.

An ABC/Washington Post poll conducted in the first three days after the story broke on Monday October 31 saw little change in Cain’s popularity. Most Republicans surveyed said the allegations were not serious, and Cain ran within 2 points of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney on the ballot.

Moreover, the Cain campaign reported a large outpouring of donations to the campaign in the days following the allegations, as many conservatives stood by him, calling the allegations a “high tech lynching.”

But the continuing decline suggests that the allegations are sinking into voters’ consciousness. The longer the story stays in the news and the more details that emerge, the more Cain is likely to see his support erode.

The Ipsos poll was conducted from November 4 to November 5, and surveyed 836 registered voters, including 343 Republicans.

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Supported by Republicans, the bill would avoid a rate increase for students with new subsidized Stafford loans if lawmakers pass it, as expected, on Thursday. Democrats generally opposed the measure, which would provide some students a deal in the first years of the new system before ratcheting up interest rates later.

"As the economy continues to recover and at a time when market interest rates are at historic lows, more than 7 million students who rely on these loans to finance postsecondary education should not be burdened with additional college debt as they seek to graduate, launch a career or a business, start a family or buy a house," the White House Office of Management and Budget said in a memo announcing its opposition.

The top Republican on the Education Committee, Rep. John Kline of Minnesota, said Obama was standing against many of the ideas he included in his own budget.

"The legislation is based on the president's own proposal and provides a solid basis for negotiation through the legislative process," Kline said.

Interest rates on new subsidized Stafford loans are set to double, from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent, for new loans on July 1. Lawmakers said they wanted to avoid that but were divided on how, exactly, to accomplish that. With most lawmakers set to leave Washington for the Memorial Day holiday, time is running short.

"They'll be out all next week," said Terry Hartle, a top official with the higher education lobbying group the American Council on Education. "They'll have four weeks to figure it out."

Senate Democrats are weighing a number of options for avoiding the rate increase.

Lobbying from consumer groups and student organizations is adding pressure and is set to escalate as students leave campus for the summer.

"The House is poised to throw college students under the bus by approving a student loan plan that drives up their costs," said Christine Lindstrom, higher education director for the consumer advocacy group US PIRG.

"Students are better off letting the subsidized Stafford loan rate double to 6.8 percent on July 1" than agreeing to the House Republicans' plan, she added.

Some Democrats are seeking an extension of the current rates until Congress takes up a higher education bill later. Republicans have rejected that as costly and irresponsible.

"I would love to have the rates at 2 percent. It's just not realistic," Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., said during hearings on the bill.

A two-year extension of the 3.4 percent rate for subsidized Stafford loans would cost taxpayers about $9 billion.

Last week, the GOP-led House Education and the Workforce Committee approved its bill, which would offer some students a better deal at first. Democratic critics warned that graduates would face steadily climbing rates and costs over the long haul if the markets change.

"I'm not really thrilled with the Republican plan, which would make student loan interest rates a variable interest rate and could rise above 6.8 percent, which is what the interest rate would rise to if Congress did nothing," said Rep. Mark Takano, a California Democrat who taught in public high schools before his 2012 election to Congress. "The Republican plan is unacceptable and worse than if we do nothing."

Under the GOP proposal, student loans would be reset every year and based on 10-year Treasury notes, with added percentage points. For instance, students who receive subsidized or unsubsidized Stafford student loans would pay the Treasury rate, plus 2.5 percentage points.

Current subsidized Stafford loans are offered at a fixed 3.4 percent rate and unsubsidized Stafford loans are offered at 6.8 percent. The interest rate on loans to parents and graduate students is 7.9 percent.

Using Congressional Budget Office projections, the GOP plan would translate to a 5 percent interest rate on all Stafford loans in 2014, but the rate would climb to 7.7 percent for loans in 2023.

Stafford loan rates would be capped at 8.5 percent, while loans for parents and graduate students would have a 10.5 percent ceiling under the GOP proposal.

In his budget proposal, Obama included flexible rate student loan rates pegged to 10-year Treasury bills. The president did not limit interest rates but included a smaller added interest rate. His plan also expanded income-based repayment options and loan forgiveness.

___

Follow Philip Elliott on Twitter: www.twitter.com/philip_elliott

KYOTO, Japan (Reuters) - Japanese author Haruki Murakami made his first public appearance in his homeland in 18 years on Monday, describing his newest novel, which was an instant-best seller, as a story that takes place in the real world, unlike many of his other novels.

"Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage" has attracted positive reviews, with readers spotting familiar Murakami themes such as people bonding through pain.

Publisher Bungeishunju made the rare decision to print 1 million copies within a week of its April release in Japan.

The novel is about a lonely 36-year-old engineer named Tsukuru Tazaki, who embarks on trips in Japan and Finland to overcome his most painful experience - broken friendships.

"Usually things are divided into the real and unreal, but I was wondering how it will be if I bring all of that into the stage of the real world," Murakami told an audience of about 500 fans in Kyoto.

"People get hurt and close their minds, but as time passes, they gradually open up, and they grow as they repeat that. This novel is about growth."

The fans who won a lottery to attend the event were surprised that the 64-year-old, whose fiction is often surreal and who has made a handful of speeches overseas in recent years but none in Japan, was actually speaking to the public.

"I am a fan of his novels but I have never seen him in person nor heard his voice. Is he a normal person?" Hiroko Yamada, 40, asked as she waited for the event to start.

Murakami said he decided to speak in public to honor his friend Hayao Kawai, a psychologist who died in 2007.

"It's not like I get purple dots all over myself when I am in front of many people. I like to go around on the bus and the subway and live a normal life," he joked.

"I want you to think of me like an endangered species - it's fine to look at me from far away, but be careful because I may bite if you come near and talk to me or touch me."

(Editing by Robert Birsel)