Most of it being facilitated by the Chinese and fought by the U.S.:
"China, Japan officials resume high-level talks" by Christopher Bodeen | Associated Press November 09, 2014
BEIJING — The foreign ministers of China and Japan held talks Saturday ahead of a hoped-for meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe after more than two years of frozen high-level contacts.
Tensions between Asia’s two biggest economies over a set of uninhabited islands have sparked air and sea encounters that have raised regional security concerns, and this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit is seen as a chance to ease the friction.
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The talks came a day after the sides issued a joint statement saying they had agreed to gradually resume political, diplomatic, and security dialogues.
China froze high-level contacts with Japan amid the island dispute and other contentious issues.
Friday’s statement noted that the sides acknowledged their ‘‘different positions’’ on the islands, called Diaoyu by China and Senkaku by Japan. Although Japan has refused China’s demand to acknowledge that the islands’ sovereignty is in dispute, the statement indicated that Tokyo was at least willing to concede that different views exist.
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Also in Beijing, Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington welcomed the improvement in bilateral ties, but said rebuilding the relationship would take time.
They really wanted a war.
‘‘We think that any steps that the two countries can take to improve the relationship and reduce the tensions are helpful — not just to those two countries but it’s helpful to the region,’’ Kerry said.
Related: "In Beijing, Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met Saturday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference for what was expected to be a discussion about the unrest in eastern Ukraine, indicating that intensified hostilities may lie ahead."
What was he saying?
The China-Japan statement said the sides agreed to hold dialogue and consultation to prevent the island dispute from further deteriorating and to establish crisis management mechanisms.
What you see here is more and more nations are going their own way. They are giving the U.S. lip service when they come by, but after they leave it's back to doing what is in their own best interest.
China was incensed by Japan’s move to nationalize the islands in 2012, sparking violent anti-Japanese protests and prompting it to send patrol boats to confront Japanese coast guard vessels in the surrounding waters.
China also strongly objected to a visit last year by Abe to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, which honors the nation’s war dead, including executed war criminals.
Yeah, well, every government honors their war criminals, mine as much as any other.
I'm not looking to dismiss the forgotten Holocaust™ of Asia, but that was a long time ago and I can't help but wonder why my Zionist war-pusher is bringing up all the bad memories. If I didn't know better I would say it's almost as if they are trying to find a reason to promote tension and hard feelings.
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"China, Japan agree to mend ties, paving way for summit" by Isabel Reynolds | Bloomberg News November 08, 2014
TOKYO — China and Japan agreed to build ‘‘mutual political trust’’ as they seek to defuse tensions over territory, heightening the prospect of an inaugural summit next week between their current leaders.
The two governments are in final negotiations for a summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese president Xi Jinping at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Beijing. The two leaders have not held direct talks since Abe came to power in December 2012.
‘‘The environment has been created and both Japan and China believe that a summit would be beneficial for both countries and for the peace and stability of the region,’’ Abe said in an interview with BS Fuji television Thursday.
We need a lot more of that in the world.
The two countries said in a joint statement they held differing positions over islands in the East China Sea, marking the first time Japan has acknowledged China’s claims to the territory.
Both nations agreed to gradually restart various political, diplomatic, and security talks that were frozen as ties deteriorated.
Relations between the world’s second- and third-largest economies have soured over the territorial dispute and lingering resentment over Japan’s role in occupying parts of Asia before World War II.
There they go again.
Any reductions in regional tensions will also benefit the United States, which is treaty-bound to defend Japan in the event of a conflict with China.
Quite the spin there! The Obama administration is the one that encouraged the hard-line Japanese position.
‘‘If they talk, there is a chance the number one security threat in East Asia will be turned into an economic opportunity for China and Japan,’’ said Rosita Dellios, associate professor of international relations at Bond University on Australia’s Gold Coast.
‘‘This is going to be a relief for Barack Obama. That last thing he needed was for the US to be dragged into a fight between Japan and China,’’ Dellios said.
Even as he was trying to get them to fight so he could intervene.
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The propaganda spin is so bad I'm ready to explode:
"Japanese regional officials approve restarting of two reactors" by Jonathan Soble | New York Times November 08, 2014
TOKYO — Japan moved closer to reviving part of its moribund nuclear power industry Friday, as a regional government gave its consent to restarting two reactors at a plant in its territory — one of a dozen facilities nationwide waiting to be switched back on after the Fukushima disaster three and a half years ago.
I'm surprised to see that dirty word even as 300 tons of radioactive water continue to leak into the Pacific day after day after day since it all started. The core material has broken containment and who knows what it is doing down in the earth. That's a real threat to this world, not self-serving self-creatiuons and SILLI things like ISIS that gets a handful of articles every day (except today).
The decision by the authorities in Kagoshima Prefecture, on the southern island of Kyushu, cleared an important obstacle to restarting the reactors, which were declared safe by Japan’s new nuclear regulatory agency in September but have been awaiting the go-ahead from politicians.
Japan’s 48 operable commercial reactors have been caught in a seesawing debate over safety since the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in March 2011, and none is currently producing power.
The two reactors in Kagoshima, at the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant, would be the first to be brought back online under the new safety standards introduced last year.
A restart at Sendai would smooth the way for others around the country. Electric utilities are seeking safety certification from the nuclear regulator for 20 reactors at 13 facilities.
That is still less than half the number of units that were in operation before Fukushima: Others are considered too old to upgrade or are too close to the disaster zone in the country’s northeast to be politically acceptable. Tens of thousands of Fukushima residents remain unable to return home.
And they won't be able to for the rest of their lives.
The nuclear debate has been notable for confusion about who, ultimately, must make the decision about whether to turn reactors back on. Delays have multiplied as a result. After the regulator certified the Sendai reactors, many analysts said they could be back online in a month; now the prognosis is for early next year.
In Kagoshima, politicians have mostly been sympathetic to the industry, as have leaders in many other areas with nuclear plants. These areas are often relatively poor and depend on the jobs and subsidies that come with them.
Is it worth the horrors of radiation?
The national government, led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, is also openly pronuclear.
Is that like being openly gay?
Yet with the public still anxious about safety, leaders at all levels have sought to shift the final say elsewhere. Japanese law does not give any one elected body outright control over nuclear plants, which are operated by private companies.
“This is an important decision and a big step toward restarting the power plant,” industry minister Yoichi Miyazawa said. He had flown to Kagoshima earlier this week to meet with prefectural leaders and press the case for allowing Sendai’s operations to resume.
Kagoshima’s governor, Yuichiro Ito, said he had “no choice” but to endorse resuming operations at the Sendai plant because the prefectural assembly had voted in favor of a pro-restart resolution earlier Friday. The resolution was submitted by private citizens groups, led by local businesses.
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So how can the U.S. throw a monkey wrench into all this good feeling?
"Hong Kong domestic workers struggle in risky jobs" by Jack Chang | Associated Press November 09, 2014
HONG KONG — More than 160,000 Indonesians, almost all women, have taken similarly perilous routes to jobs as maids, nannies, and housekeepers in Hong Kong, lured by salaries as much as five times higher than at home.
Now, they’re mourning two of their own — Seneng Mujiasih and Sumarti Ningsih, former domestic workers in their 20s who were found stabbed to death recently in the luxury apartment of a British investment banker, 29-year-old Rurik George Caton Jutting.
They think they can literally get away with murder as well as looting.
Jutting has been charged with two counts of murder in a case that has shocked the former British colony and shed light on the often hidden and dire circumstances facing many of these women.
All told, 320,000 foreign domestic workers clean, cook, and care for children in Hong Kong, making up nearly 5 percent of the city’s population, according to a 2013 report by the human rights group Amnesty International.
The women’s slayings elicit a mixture of horror and shame among Indonesians.
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Hong Kong’s domestic worker policies have drawn the attention of several UN human rights committees, with two of them calling for the repeal of the live-in requirement.
Oh, I see. Now that the coup-pushing protests have fizzled China needs to be attacked another way. Must be all the peace talk.
‘‘This is exploitation at its highest level,’’ said Norma Muico, a migrant rights researcher with Amnesty International. ‘‘Very rarely do you see this type of manipulation and way of extracting money from migrant domestic workers.’’
The U.S. $y$tem is based on it!
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Also see: China denies ivory smuggling claim
Yeah, you don't want the Chinese in Africa, not with all the resources located there.
Time to abort this post.
NEXT DAY UPDATE: Indonesians pray for Hong Kong stabbing victims
