1. Japan arrests Chinese skipper

    Japan’s coastguard* on Sunday arrested the captain of a Chinese fishing boat that allegedly* intruded* into Japanese territorial waters.

    The captain, Zhang Tianxiong, 47, was arrested on charges of violating fishing laws in Japan’s exclusive economic zone, Jiji Press said, quoting the coastguard.

    The Chinese Consulate General in Nagasaki said on Monday that Zhang, of Fujian, and 10 seamen were in custody in Japan.

    2. Iran’s military power

    The United States fears Iran’s growing military power because it is now able to compete with Israel and the West, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in comments carried by an Egyptian newspaper on Monday.

    A senior U.S. military official said on Friday Iran had become the biggest threat to the United States. Israeli President Shimon Peres warned on Sunday that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely.

    3. Bangkok floods

    Advancing pools of filthy* water threatened the Thai capital’s subway system on Monday and surrounded the emergency headquarters set up to deal with flooding that has claimed more than 500 lives nationwide.

    Bangkok Gov. Sukhumbhand Paribatra has ordered evacuations* in 11 of Bangkok’s 50 districts and partial evacuations apply in seven more.

    4. Hungarian tourists killed

    Eleven Hungarian tourists were killed late Sunday when a speeding tour bus overturned* at a Red Sea resort town in southeastern Egypt, police and medical officials said.

    The crash also injured 27 Hungarian tourists. It took place at the entrance of Hurghada, 510 kilometers southeast of Cairo, according to Egypt’s state-run news agency MENA. Four children were among the injured.

    5. Guatemalan election

    Retired general and former intelligence director Otto Perez Molina of the conservative Patriotic Party won an easy and early victory in Guatemala on Sunday in a runoff* race against tycoon-turned-political populist Manuel Baldizon of the Democratic Freedom Revival party.

    Perez garnered* 54 percent of the vote to Baldizon’s 46 percent.

    Perez, 61, is the first former military leader elected president in Guatemala in the 25 years since the end of brutal military rule.

    6. Nigeria attacks

    Residents fearfully left their homes on Saturday to bury their dead in northeast Nigeria following a series of coordinated* attacks that killed at least 69 people and left a new police headquarters in ruins, government offices burned and symbols of state power destroyed.

    7. Bhutto murder case

    A Pakistani court on Saturday indicted* five Islamist militants and two police officers in the high-profile assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, prosecutors* said.

    Bhutto, the first female prime minister in the Muslim world, was killed in a gun and suicide attack in 2007 in one of the most shocking events in Pakistan’s turbulent* history.

 (SD-Agencies)