The big news in the east of the mercator projection are the chinese anti-japan riots. This blog post has a nice recap and links about it:

http://www.isidorsfugue.com/2012/09/the-impact-of-chinas-anti-japan.html

The blog also talks about how the riots affected one japanese mother living in China. In addition to that story, two people that I know have also been affected by these riots.

• One japanese friend of mine living in China lost a job, since the company owner felt it safer not to have japanese staff.
• One chinese friend of mine has been receiving nasty messages from the extended family, for living and working in Japan.

People I know over the internets (in Brazil, US and Europe) seem quite unaware about these news. Not really surprising: news from one side of the globe take time to reach the other side, even in this instant communication age — unless you hold a special interest in it. What is a bit surprising for me is how the Japanese people I know also seem to be quite passive towards these. Few seem to hold an opinion more complex than “meh”, if any at all.

Fascinating.