Seven Chinese ships were in waters around islands at the center of a bitter dispute with Japan on Tuesday, the day before the anniversary of Tokyo's nationalization of part of the chain.

The Chinese coastguard flotilla is the biggest seen in waters around the Tokyo-administered Senkakus since eight government ships were tracked there in April, a spokesman for the Japanese coastguard said.

North and South Korea held a second round of talks Tuesday on reopening their Kaesong joint industrial zone -- five months after it was shut down during soaring military tensions.

The newly formed Kaesong joint committee first met last week but was unable to reach any agreement on the timing for resuming operations at the complex.

Brazil President Dilma Rousseff Monday accused the United States of spying on oil giant Petrobras for its own "economic and strategic" reasons -- not for national security.

The latest allegations of online snooping by the National Security Agency emerged Sunday night when TV Globo reported Brazilian oil giant Petrobras -- world leader in deep-water oil exploration -- was among those targeted, along with Google and the French foreign ministry.

Norway shifted right in elections Monday, setting the stage for a new Conservative-led government with the anti-immigrant Progress Party, two years after Muslim-hating Anders Behring Breivik's deadly rampage.

Early projections reported by the government's statistical office immediately after voting ended at 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) showed the four parties on the center-right winning 93 of the 169 seats in parliament.

The U.N. rights chief Monday raised fresh concerns for the safety of Sri Lankan journalists and activists she said had been harassed by the authorities for meeting with her.

Navi Pillay told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva she was worried about those she met during her week-long visit to the island, which is emerging from decades of ethnic war.

A controversial law limiting the sale of alcohol near schools and mosques in Turkey came into force Monday, exposing another faultline between secular liberals and the conservative Islamic-rooted government.

The law, approved last May, was one of the sparks for anti-government protests that swept the country last June and was used by activists as an example of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's attempted "Islamization" of the largely secular country.

Pakistani politicians on Monday backed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's calls to begin peace talks with the Taliban aimed at ending more than a decade of bloodshed.

Representatives from the main coalition and opposition parties who had met for an All Parties Conference (APC) asked the government to "initiate the dialogue" with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

Spanish police have detained three Britons for distributing nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, at a bar in the upmarket tourist resort of Marbella on the Costa del Sol, the interior ministry said Monday.

The manager of the bar and two female bartenders sold balloons filled with nitrous oxide, which induces euphoria and laughter when inhaled, for five euros ($6.50) a dose, it said in a statement.

Police and hundreds of protesters clashed Monday in Istanbul in the latest unrest over a 14-year-old left in a coma during anti-government demonstrations in June.

Police used tear gas and water cannons to attempt to disperse a crowd marching on Istanbul's main court buildings shouting "We want justice for Berkin Elvan".

A bus carrying scores of passengers plunged down a steep cliff in western Guatemala on Monday, killing at least 43 people and injuring 40 others, firefighters said.

Cecilio Chacaj, a fire department spokesman, said the bus fell 70 meters (230 feet) to the ground after careening off the road in the municipality of San Martin Jilotepeque, 64 kilometers (40 miles) west of the capital.