[AnNahar] Three Chinese government ships entered waters around disputed islands controlled by Tokyo on Sunday, Japan's coastguard said.
The Chinese maritime surveillance vessels were spotted inside the 12-nautical-mile zone off the Senkaku islands, which China calls the Diaoyus, in the East China Sea shortly after 10:00 am (0100 GMT), the coastguard said.
Territorial waters extend by a maximum of 12 nautical miles from coastlines under international law.
The move marked the latest in a long line of stand-offs between official ships from both sides as Beijing and Tokyo jostle over ownership of the strategically important and resource-rich islands.
A long-simmering territorial row that dates back four decades blistered in September when Tokyo nationalized three islands in the chain, in what it said was a mere administrative change of ownership.
The central government's move was intended to preempt a purchase by the Tokyo city government led by nationalist governor Shintaro Ishihara at the time.
Tokyo's move prompted angry anti-Japan demonstrations across China, which has intensified claims to the islands it says should have been "returned" after World War II.
[Ynet] In University of Kurdistan, students debate whether to forge diplomatic ties with Israel. Debate judge tells Ynet 'arguments focused on historical connection between Jews, Kurds, says believes can have 'fruitful ties'
"Should Iraqi Kurdistan have open diplomatic relations with Israel?" Students in the University of Kurdistan think the answer is yes, at least that is the position that won during an unusual debate held in the university in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.
More than 200 students from all of the university's faculties showed up to take part. In the event, two teams numbering three people each faced off in front of a judges' panel.
Susan Mandelvey, head of the university's public relations and one of the members of the judges' panel spoke to Ynet and said: "We see ourselves as an institution in which people can openly express their opinions."
At the end of the debate, the judges' panel decided that the team arguing for relations with Israel was victorious, and afterwards the audience echoed their decision vehemently voting in favor for relations with the Jewish state.
Another judge in the Erbil debate said: "The arguments of the winning team focused on the historic relations between Jews and Kurds. I also believe that we can have good and fruitful relations with Israel."
Nonetheless, she diplomatically evaded giving further details on the character of those relations when pressed for an answer, saying "because I judged the debate I am barred from fully stating my own opinion. I need to remain neutral."
Iraqi Kurdistan was formed in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War. Its formation was further spurred by the American invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Iraqi Kurds, who number around five million, enjoy the highest level of autonomy of the entire 30 million strong Kurdish population spread world wide, located mostly in Iran, Syria and Turkey.
In wake of Kurdish aspirations and independent identity, tension between the central regime in Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... and Masoud Barzani, Iraqi Kurdistan's regional government president since 2005, have become common.
Two persecuted people
Head of the university's student union, Uda Sarhang, a student of international relations, recalled the debate and said: "The central argument for those calling for open ties with Israel was that a majority of Mideast countries have ties with Israel; ties conducted peacefully despite their dislike of Israel. So, why can't we have the same ties?"
Sarhang, who admitted to also supporting the idea of ties with Israel, claimed that an additional argument made during the debate was the current relations conducted by Jewish Kurds and Kurdistan.
Despite the victory registered by those in favor, there were of course those who vehemently opposed the forging of any such type of relations.
"A number of the arguments that were made against the relations were religious claims, as well as additional arguments regarding Israel's treatment of Paleostinians," Sarhang said.
Prof. Ofra Bengio from Tel Aviv University's Dayan Center, who conducts extensive research on the topic of Kurds in the Mideast, spoke to Ynet and said that the debate was indeed a very unusual occurrence.
"This is not a common thing, not in Kurdistan and not anywhere," Prof. Bengio said, adding that "from what I gathered from meeting Kurds from different regions of Kurdistan, there is some kind of sense of a shared fate between us and Kurds, at least in the sense that we are both minorities in a region not interested in our self-determination."
Regarding the question of whether Kurdistan should have diplomatic ties with Israel, Prof. Bengio said: "Both sides are hesitant. The Kurdish side has strong interests dictating that it should not pursue ties with Israel, first and foremost because Kurds still don't have a state, and hence cannot really forge diplomatic ties with Israel."
Nonetheless, it is worth noting that in 2008 history was made when Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, shook the hand of then Defense Minister Ehud Barak during an international summit in Greece.
Afterwards, in wake of the handshake, Iraqi parliament members called on Talabani to apologize and resign.
Chechnya's government is constructing one of the largest mosques in Israel in the village of Abu Ghosh, near Jerusalem, in a project that both the villagers and the Chechen president see as renewing ties severed 500 years ago.
Construction of the mosque, near the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway, began four years ago, at the private initiative of residents who had raised funds. However, work had to stop when those funds ran out.
Through the mediation of a Chechen-born Jew, the villagers established ties with the Chechen government, which agreed to contribute more than $2 million to build the mosque as well as another $1 million to upgrade the approach road, says village council head Salim Jaber. Jaber and other village officials made the deal during a visit to Chechnya two years ago.
Today the building, about 4,000 square meters in area, is almost complete. A recent decision calls for the erection of four minarets, as is customary in the Caucasus area. The road already has two symbolic turrets, built by Chechen experts.
Abu Ghosh is one of the only Arab villages outside Jerusalem to have emerged from the 1948 War of Independence unscathed, due mainly to the residents' cooperation with Israeli forces. Today, Jewish Israelis flock to the village on weekends to enjoy Abu Ghosh's well-known hummus and other culinary offerings.
Traditionally it is believed that the residents of Abu Ghosh trace their ancestry to the Caucasus region. According to Palestinian historian Aref Al-Aref, the first villagers came from a region called Ingusha, located between Chechnya and Georgia. They arrived here as soldiers in the army of Ottoman Sultan Selim I, who conquered Palestine in 1516. The name Abu Gosh, according to geographer and place names expert Yehuda Ziv, is a corruption of the name Ingush.
Village council leader Jaber said, We always knew we had come from the Caucasian mountains. We welcome the renewed connection."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
