Ebisu, with its open-air, brick-and-mortar shopping centre Ebisu Garden Place draws more sophisticated shoppers.

BBC: Seeing Tokyo along the Yamanote Line

Effective, prompt retaliation from the air is hard to imagine if the mortar rounds and Katyushas are being launched, as they will be, from schools, hospitals and mosques.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Bolderdash

As you climb the 463 steps leading to the summit of the dome, you appreciate the builders' first great problem: how to haul 30 million kilograms of stone, brick and mortar many meters in the air.

FORBES: Dome of the Brave

"Marines responded to the attacks with overwhelming small arms and mortar fire, as well as close-air support, killing 36 anti-Iraqi forces, " the military said in a written statement.

CNN: Basra?bombs kill at least 68 Iraqis

For others, the issue has been whether Israel's now combined air-, sea- and ground-assault was "proportionate" to the rocket and mortar attacks it has suffered.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Defensive action

There were also unconfirmed reports that refugees were being shelled by mortar and artillery fire in the Pagarusa Valley, along Kosovo's western border with Albania, British Air Commodore David Wilby said.

CNN: 'Just go': Refugees describe terror in Kosovo

We stayed there for an hour under mortar attack with machine gun fire until eventually I walked out of the forest with my hands in the air and gave us up and was arrested.

BBC: November: Sally Becker