China has sent two patrol ships to a group of islands at the centre of a territorial row with Japan, state news agency Xinhua reported on Tuesday after Tokyo said it would nationalise them. Xinhua said the two marine surveillance ships had reached the waters around the Diaoyu islands - known in Japan as the Senkaku islands - to "assert the country's sovereignty". The move came hours after the Japanese ambassador to Beijing was summoned to the foreign ministry to protest Japan's decision to buy three of the islands. The islands will be formally owned by Japan's Coast Guard, that country's government said. Wen ... (full story)