CULT MEMBERS TOLD TO PREPARE FOR DEATH

The leader of a Japanese cult under investigation for Monday's deadly nerve-gas attack on the Tokyo subway system has warned his followers to get ready to die. "The time has come at last for you to awake and help me," Shoko Asahara said in a recorded message that was broadcast on radio yesterday. "You must act to ensure you do not have any regrets about death." TIME Tokyo correspondent Satsuki Oba says the cult, a Buddhist sect called Sublime Truth, owns a radio frequency in Russia and broadcasts daily three-hour messages from eastern Russia that can be heard in Japan. Oba says police have removed a number of severely malnourished people from cult headquarters near Mt. Fuji, including a 23-year-old woman who told police that members had been given drugs earlier in the week. The cult claims to have 30,000 members in Russia, 10,000 in Japan, plus others in the U.S. and Germany.