1.   Chinese Premier Li Peng demanded Monday that Japan back off its claim to a group of contested islets lest relations between the countries deteriorate further.

2.   National television stations marked the holiday by broadcasting programs featuring interviews with police officers guarding the contested islets.

3.   Provoked by Turkish journalists who raised their national flag on a contested islet in the Aegean Sea, Greece threatened Monday to use force to end the dispute.

4.   There are hundred of contested islets in the Aegean, which both countries claim are theirs.

5.   The Greek authorities launched protested over the patrol boat collision, which occured off the contested Imia islet over which the rival neighbours almost went to war in January.