Asia: Row turns to wartime past

The decision may stoke tensions between China and Japan – already at their lowest point in years.

China has called for a site where such experiments were conducted to be given UN world heritage status.

The UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged both nations to defuse their growing crisis.

Tensions between Japan and China began to mount earlier this month, when Tokyo approved a set of controversial history textbooks, which critics say whitewashed its wartime record.