Abe sends ritual offering to war-linked shrine during autumn festival

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a ritual offering Tuesday to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine, which has been a source of friction with Japan's neighbors that suffered from its wartime militarism, at the start of its autumn festival.But Abe is likely to refrain from visiting the Shinto shrine in Tokyo during its four-day festival, apparently out of consideration for relations with China and South Korea at a time when Tokyo needs to cooperate with them in countering the growing nuclear and missile threats from North Korea.Abe made the "masakaki" tree offering under the name of the prime ministe…READ FULL ARTICLE