Japan says it is engaged in talks with China to resolve a territorial dispute that has disrupted ties between the two Asian powers.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura on Wednesday confirmed reports that Vice Foreign Minister Chikao Kawai secretly met last week with senior Chinese officials in Shanghai. He said the talks were part of Tokyo's effort to continue to communicate with Beijing "at various levels" regarding the island dispute in the East China Sea.

As gray winter skies descend on Moscow, Russians are adjusting to a political winter. Since taking office nearly six months ago, President Vladimir Putin has methodically reduced civic space in Russia by advocating new laws on treason, blasphemy, libel, Internet censorship and curbs on public protest.

Then on Monday, Russians saw a new twist: a well-known opposition activist, Leonid Razvozzhayev, shouting to reporters that he had been kidnapped off a sidewalk in Kyiv, Ukraine, and forcibly brought to Moscow for trial.

Together, Abu Musa, Greater Tunbs and Lesser Tunbs amount to fewer than 26 square kilometers of sand and scrub. But their location in the middle of Persian Gulf shipping and tanker lanes near the Strait of Hormuz gives the islands huge strategic importance.

Spanish police said they have broken up a major Chinese criminal operation that illegally shipped Chinese products to Spain for distribution throughout Europe.

Spanish police chief Ignacio Cosido said Wednesday authorities detained 83 suspected members of a crime syndicate in nationwide raids on homes and businesses the previous day. The suspects include 58 Chinese nationals, 17 Spaniards and eight other foreign nationals.

Representatives of the Colombian government and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia [FARC] rebels are meeting Wednesday in Oslo for peace talks aimed at ending Latin America's oldest insurgency.

The talks in the Norwegian capital are the first between the two sides in a decade. They are expected to set the stage for a second phase of negotiations to take place in Cuba, which will focus on such issues as political rights and drug trafficking.

Cuba and Norway are serving as mediators for the talks.

European Union governments Tuesday imposed their toughest sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program. EU and U.S. officials say sanctions are vital to curbing Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions. But some analysts say the sanctions have failed to do that and are causing Iranians to suffer as the value of Iran's currency plummets.

Shuttling across the narrow Strait of Hormuz are Iran's high speed smugglers.

Using boats equipped with 200 horsepower engines, they take goods - everything from luxury perfume to livestock - from Oman across to Iran, avoiding import duties on the way.

Burma's president will hold onto his role as leader of the ruling party, despite concerns heading into the 2015 general election.

"The Party President is President Thein Sein, all the EC members agreed to this," said Union Solidarity and Development Party spokesperson Htay Oo. "The Vice Presidents are Thura U Shwe Mann, myself and Thura U Aye Myint — all together there's three."

Heading into the party vote Tuesday in the administrative capital of Naypyidaw, there had been talk the military-backed USPD might replace Thein Sein with his main rival, Lower House Speaker Shwe Mann.

French authorities say police have arrested 39 people in a sting on an Albanian and Kosovar heroin trafficking network.

Japan says it has spotted seven Chinese naval ships near one of its islands, as tensions between the two Asian powers remain high over a territorial dispute in the East China Sea.

Japan's Defense Ministry says the Chinese ships were spotted early Tuesday by Japanese aircraft about 50 kilometers outside Yonaguni Island, Japan's westernmost island.

The ministry said the ships were in the contiguous zone, an area just outside Japan's territorial waters in which Japan has certain rights under international law.