Top Asian News 4:17 a.m. GMT

BANGKOK (AP) — A soccer player who has refugee status in Australia pleaded outside a Bangkok court on Monday for Thailand to not send him home to Bahrain, which is seeking his extradition to serve a prison sentence for a crime he denies. "Please speak to Thailand, don't send me to Bahrain. Bahrain won't defend me," a chained Hakeem al-Araibi shouted to reporters outside court as he was escorted by prison guards into the hearing. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison sent a letter last month urging Thailand to stop the extradition, and soccer governing bodies and human rights activists have urged the country to let him return to Australia where he lives and plays for a semi-professional team in Melbourne.

SYDNEY (AP) — Emergency workers are using boats and helicopters to rescue people from flooded parts of northern Australia where forecasts call for more heavy rainfall. More than 1,100 people had been rescued from their homes on Sunday night and evacuation efforts were continuing Monday. Queensland state Premier Anastasia Palaszczuk told reporters Monday that more rain in Townsville and the surrounding area over the next two days could cause flash flooding. The floodgates of the city's dam were opened earlier to prevent the Ross River from breaking its banks, flooding some suburbs. Townsville Mayor Jenny Hill had described the rainfall as a "one-in-100-year event" and said Monday, "We're not out of the woods yet."

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A director at the operator of Tonga's undersea internet cable said Monday he can't rule out sabotage as being the reason the cable broke and plunged the Pacific nation into virtual darkness for almost two weeks. Repair crews found two breaks along the vital fiber-optic cable that connects Tonga with the rest of the world, Piveni Piukala, a director of Tonga Cable Ltd., said Monday. Several kilometers (miles) away, they found two more breaks and rope entangled on the separate domestic cable that connects the main island with some of Tonga's outer islands. Piukala said the crew members on a specialized repair ship found the rope attached to the domestic cable for about 100 meters (109 yards) and the cable was twisted and damaged along that length.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Senior U.S. and South Korean officials met Sunday to discuss an expected second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Trump's special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, arrived in South Korea earlier amid reports that he'll meet North Korean officials soon to work out details for the summit. Trump told CBS' "Face the Nation" that "the meeting is set" with Kim, but he provided no further details about the meeting expected around the end of February. The president said there was "a very good chance that we will make a deal." With the North under economic penalties and the U.S.

NEW DELHI (AP) — India said it is closely monitoring the detention of several Indian students in the U.S. and has urged authorities there to not deport them against their will. Indian news reports say as many as 129 Indians were among those detained Jan. 30 by U.S. immigration authorities in connection with enrollment at a fake university. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said that the university was set up by authorities as part of sting operation to catch people violating the terms of their visas. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement Saturday that it has been in contact with U.S.

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — India's prime minster paid a daylong visit to disputed Kashmir on Sunday to review development work as separatists fighting Indian rule called for a shutdown in the Himalayan region. Shops and businesses were closed while thousands of armed government forces and commandos in flak jackets spread out across Kashmir and closed off roads with razor wire and iron barricades to prevent protests and rebel attacks during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit. India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim it in its entirety. Rebels have been fighting Indian rule since 1989, demanding Indian-controlled Kashmir be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has confirmed there are now nine men — up from six earlier this week — being force-fed under court order in a detention center in El Paso. One of the hunger strikers, a 22-year-old man from India who called The Associated Press on Friday, described being dragged from his cell three times a day and strapped down on a bed. He said a group of people force-feed him by pouring liquid into tubes pushed through his nose. The man, who AP is identifying only by his last name Singh out of family concerns for his safety, stopped eating more than a month ago.

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit strategy took another blow Sunday when Nissan canceled plans to make its new SUV in northern England amid continued uncertainty over the country's future relations with the European Union. Nissan said it decided not to build the X-Trail model at its existing U.K. plant, canceling plans announced two years ago after May's government made undisclosed concessions designed to ensure the carmaker's ability to compete after Brexit. The company said it instead plans to consolidate production of the next generation X-Trail at its plant in Kyushu, Japan, where the model is currently produced.

PATNA, India (AP) — Seven people were killed and 29 injured when nine coaches of a New Delhi-bound train derailed early Sunday in eastern India, officials said. Most of the passengers were asleep when the train jumped the tracks. Soon after the accident, hundreds of villagers rushed to help rescuers and members of India's disaster management to pull out people trapped in the twisted metal and overturned coaches. Indian Railways official Rajesh Dutt Bajpai said that by noon Sunday, the rescue work was over. Two of the injured were in critical condition, he said. The cause of the accident is being investigated.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia announced on Sunday that the last child refugees held on the Pacific atoll of Nauru will soon be sent to the United States, ending the banishment of children under the government's harsh asylum-seeker policy. The psychiatric and physical suffering of children has been the major criticism of the government's policy since 2013 to send asylum seekers who attempt to reach Australia by boat to an immigration camp on Nauru or men-only facilities on Papua New Guinea. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the last four asylum-seeker children on Nauru would soon be resettled with their families in the United States under a deal struck in the final months of President Barack Obama's administration.