Three Chinese ships spotted in disputed islands waters: Japan
TOKYO: Three Chinese government ships remained in the waters off disputed Tokyo-controlled islands for nearly 12 hours on Monday, Japan's coastguard said, as a long-running row shows no sign of fading. Maritime surveillance vessels were spotted in the 12-nautical-mile zone off the Senkaku islands, which China calls the Diaoyus, in the East China Sea shortly after 9:00 am, the coastguard said. They left the zone shortly before 9:00 pm. It is the latest episode in a fraught few months which have seen repeated stand-offs between official ships from both sides as they jostle over ownership of the strategically-important and resource-rich islands. In a separate maritime incident in the East China Sea, a foreign submarine was spotted sailing underwater near Kume, one of Japan's Okinawan islands, from late Sunday to early Monday, the dfence ministry said. The submarine was thought to be Chinese, Japanese media said. It sailed close to 12-nautical-mile territorial waters off Kume,