Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has landed in Hawaii as he makes his way to visit Pearl Harbor, the US naval base attacked by the Japanese in 1941, killing 2,300 US servicemen and thought to be responsible for causing the US to enter into World War Two in December of the same year. The visit is being viewed as historic as Abe will be the first Japanese leader to pay an official visit to the site since the bombing. Abe is due to offer prayers for the dead at Pearl Harbor but will not issue an apology. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hit back after the UN Security Council voted for a UN resolution on West Bank settlements by temporarily suspending all business between his foreign ministry and all 12 UN Security Council members; Britain, France, Russia, China, Japan, Ukraine, Angola, Egypt, Uruguay, Spain, Senegal and New Zealand. Netanyahu will also not meet with any of the foreign ministers of the 12 countries. The move is seen as largely symbolic as it is unlikely to affect trade or any pre-existing security arrangements. 

More than 3,000 people, including 200 divers, have been involved in a massive search for the bodies on the Russian military plane that crashed into the Black Sea with 92 people on board. The search is also to recover plane fragments and hopefully explain the reason behind the crash, although the Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov has said that he does not believe terrorism was "among the main versions" of the possible causes. So far only 11 bodies have been recovered and a national day of mourning was held on Monday.

China has lodged a protest with the United States for signing the 618.7 billion US dollars “National Defense Authorization Act,” that included a section that directs the US Department of Defense to conduct a program of senior military exchanges between the US and Taiwan. "We are resolutely against the Taiwan-related section in the US National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, and have lodged solemn representations with the US," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a news conference.

The school principal of a high school in Taiwan has resigned after photographs emerged of his students staging a mock Nazi rally as part of Christmas celebrations. The mock rally involved Nazi paraphernalia including swastika banners and uniforms. One student was photographed in a cardboard tank making a Nazi salute. Principle Cheng Hsiao-ming said he took “full responsibility” for the rally and apologized. Israel’s representative in Taiwan criticized the “rally” and the office of Taiwan’s leadership has also issued an apology. 

China resumed diplomatic relations with Sao Tome and Principe in Beijing on Monday, after the African nation cut "diplomatic ties" with Taiwan last week. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Sao Tome and Principe counterpart Urbino Botelho held talks at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, and signed a joint communique on resuming diplomatic relations. Although the African state is small with a population of only 193,000, the move is seen as symbolically important as the “one-China principle” has received increased attention following controversial remarks made by US President-elect Donald Trump. 

Thousands of people converged on the small city of Shaoshan, in central China's Hunan Province on Monday. The place is the hometown of Mao Zedong and Monday would have been the 123rd birthday of the leader of the Chinese revolution and founding father of the People's Republic of China. Songs associated with Mao's era were played loudly in the city square and people stood around a giant statue of the leader, as Mao impersonators performed and posed for photographs with visitors. In 2013, on celebrations to honor Mao’s 120th birthday, President Xi Jinping described him as “a great patriot and national hero.” 

A new report published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has said that cheetahs should be re-categorized from vulnerable to endangered. The report estimates that there are now just 7,100 cheetahs in the wild and are close to extinction. The report cites the example of Zimbabwe where numbers have dropped from 1,200 to 170 since 2000. Although cheetahs are predominately found in Africa, it is thought they originated in Asia, with the oldest fossilized cheetah bones found in China in 2008.