Top Asian News 4:59 a.m. GMT

How can you get under the skin of an Asian country? Diplomatic body searches, bomber flights, shrine statues and even doormats have set governments on edge. Here's a nation-by-nation look at Asia's figurative, and in one case literal, sacred cows: ___ SOUTH KOREA South Korea takes offense first, and most regularly, with Japan, largely over disputes stemming from Tokyo's 35-year colonization of the Korean Peninsula in the early 20th century. But President Donald Trump has proven surprisingly good at pushing buttons in Seoul in recent months. During his campaign, Trump suggested that the United States would let South Korea defend itself from North Korean aggression if Seoul didn't pay more for the stationing of 28,500 American troops in the country.

NEW DELHI (AP) — An overnight passenger train derailed in southern India, killing at least 32 people and injuring 50 others in the latest accident to hit the country's massive, disaster-prone rail network. Seven coaches of the Hirakand Express were thrown off the tracks around midnight Saturday, some landing on a goods train that was on a parallel track, said Divisional Railway manager Chandralekha Mukherji. Rescue workers were trying to cut open the mangled coaches Sunday morning near the Kuneru railway station in the Vizianagram district of Andhra Pradesh state. The train was traveling between Jagdalpur in Chhattisgarh state to Bhuvaneshawar in Orissa.

TOKYO (AP) — A Japanese government panel studying a possible abdication of Emperor Akihito is set to release an interim report that supports enacting special legislation that is applicable only to him. The six-member panel is looking at how to accommodate Akihito's apparent abdication wish expressed last August when he cited concerns that his age and health conditions may start limiting his ability to fulfill his duties. The report to be released Monday evening will pave the way for a parliamentary discussion. Media reports were published detailing its proposals. The panel, after interviewing constitutional and monarchy experts, has agreed that allowing an abdication was the most appropriate way to meet Akihito's request, but that setting a permanent system covering all future emperors would be difficult.

BANGKOK (AP) — A look at recent developments in the South China Sea, where China is pitted against smaller neighbors in multiple disputes over islands, coral reefs and lagoons in waters crucial for global commerce and rich in fish and potential oil and gas reserves: ___ EDITOR'S NOTE: This is a weekly look at the latest developments in the South China Sea, home to several territorial conflicts that have raised tensions in the region. ___ CHINA SLAMS ABE FOR DIVIDING ASEAN China is not happy with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's high-profile visits to the Philippines, Australia, Indonesia and Vietnam over concerns that he may be trying to pull the rug out from under Beijing's efforts to pacify its neighbors in and around the South China Sea.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A powerful magnitude 7.9 earthquake struck deep under Papua New Guinea on Sunday, causing damage and blackouts but no tsunami hours after the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued an alert for nearby islands. The mid-afternoon quake struck at a depth of 167 kilometers (103 miles) beneath the eastern province of Bougainville, where Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands meet in a continuous South Pacific archipelago, said Chris McKee, assistant director of Papua New Guinea Geophysical Observatory in Port Moresby. No casualties were reported. But there was damage in parts of central Bougainville and the major town of Arawa, Aloysius Laukai, manager of New Dawn FM Bougainville radio station, said in an email.

NEW DELHI (AP) — A traditional bull-taming sport banned by India's top court was performed in parts of southern India on Sunday but tens of thousands of protesters demanded the sport be allowed to resume unhindered. The Tamil Nadu state government had signed an executive order Saturday allowing Jallikattu contests to take place Sunday. The order bypassed a 2014 directive from the Supreme Court that banned the sport on grounds of animal cruelty. The order will last only six months and could be appealed in court by animal rights groups. The sport, performed during the four-day "Pongal" or winter harvest festival, is hugely popular in Tamil Nadu, and large crowds have protested on a Chennai beach since Tuesday demanding the sport be allowed.

SYDNEY (AP) _ The ship involved in the recently halted hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 returned to port in western Australia on Monday, where officials from the countries that funded the fruitless search gathered to thank them and to defend their decision to end the hunt despite recommendations from investigators that it continue. Transport officials from Australia, Malaysia and China met in the Western Australia state capital of Perth to greet the crew of Fugro Equator, who were ordered to return last week after the countries officially suspended the nearly three-year search for the plane in the Indian Ocean.

GAUHATI, India (AP) — Rebels ambushed a patrol vehicle in India's northeast Sunday, killing two paramilitary soldiers, and the ongoing government counterattack has killed several rebels, police said. A firefight between troops and the rebels was ongoing, said Ashok Sahai, the top police official of Assam state. It took place in Jairampur, in Tinsukhia district on the state border with Arunachal Pradesh. Rebels participating in the attack included the United Liberation Front of Assam and groups from neighboring Manipur state, Sahai said. No one has claimed responsibility. The rebels used a crude bomb and rocket-propelled grenades and hand grenades to attack the paramilitary vehicle.

BEIJING (AP) — China's top prosecutor's office said Sunday it is conducting a bribery investigation into a high-ranking official who was the mayor of a port city at the time of a warehouse explosion that killed 173 people. The two-sentence announcement about Huang Xingguo by the national prosecutor's office made no mention of the explosion in a warehouse in Tianjin, a city of 15 million people east of Beijing. But other officials have been punished on charges they took bribes to ignore safety violations that led to the blast, one of China's deadliest workplace accidents. Investigators found the warehouse held illegal stores of the combustible fertilizer ammonium nitrate, which caught fire and caused a series of blasts.

BEIJING (AP) — Authorities in China say they've recovered the bodies of 12 people killed inside a hotel overrun by a landslide. State media reported Sunday that rescuers were able to pull out everyone trapped underneath rocks and debris after the Friday night landslide in Hunan province. The official Xinhua News Agency said 3,000 cubic meters (105,000 cubic feet) of debris tumbled down a slope behind the three-story hotel in Nanzhang county. The largest rock weighed 150 tons. The amount of debris hampered rescuers worried about the rocks caving in or sliding further. The cause of the collapse remains under investigation.