MANILA: Chinese ships are no longer at the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea and Philippine boats can resume fishing, the Philippine defense minister said on Friday, calling the Chinese departure a “welcome development.”
Philippine fishermen could access the shoal unimpeded for the first time in four years, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said, capping off a startling turnaround in ties since his country rattled China in 2013 by challenging its maritime claims at an international tribunal.
The departure of the Chinese coast guard comes after President Rodrigo Duterte’s high-profile visit to Beijing and follows his repeated requests for China to end its blockade of the shoal, a tranquil lagoon rich in fish stocks.
“Since three days ago there are no longer Chinese ships, coast guard or navy, in the Scarborough area,” Lorenzana told reporters.
“If the Chinese ships have left then it means our fishermen can resume fishing in the area.”
Though the Scarborough Shoal is comprised of only a few rocks poking above the sea some 124 nautical miles off the Philippine mainland, it is symbolic of the country’s efforts to assert its maritime sovereignty claims.
Lorenzana did not explain the circumstances of the Chinese vessels leaving the shoal, which was the centerpiece of a case Manila filed in 2013 at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague.
Asked on Friday about the return of Philippine fishermen to the shoal, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang made no mention of a coast guard withdrawal.
The two countries “were able to work together on issues regarding the South China Sea and appropriately resolve disputes,” Lu told a regular briefing.
The Hague court in July declared that despite the Scarborough Shoal being located within the Philippines’ 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone, no one country had sovereign rights to it, so that all claimants may fish there.
China has refused to recognize the case or the award, which also invalidated the nine-dash line on Chinese maps denoting its claims to most of the South China Sea.
China seized Scarborough Shoal — claimed by Beijing as Huangyan island and by Manila as Panatag — in 2012.
The previous administration’s pursuit of the case infuriated China, but it appears to have changed its stance since Duterte took office and started praising Beijing, often in the same sentences as his perplexing verbal attacks on longtime ally the United States.
Reuters exclusively reported on the eve of Duterte’s visit to China that Beijing would consider granting Philippine fishermen conditional access to the shoal.
An end to the standoff over the shoal is still a complex and potentially combustible issue for both countries.
Some Philippine commentators say Manila may object to any reference to its fishermen being “permitted” by China to return, while Beijing might be wary of appearing to be softening its position on what it calls “indisputable” sovereignty.
Philippines says China vessels have left Scarborough Shoal
Philippines says China vessels have left Scarborough Shoal
Four Pakistan security forces killed as ex-PM Khan supporters flood capital
More than ten thousand protesters armed with sticks and slingshots took on police in central Islamabad on Tuesday afternoon, AFP journalists saw, less than three kilometers (two miles) from the government enclave they aim to occupy.
Khan was barred from standing in February elections that were marred by allegations of rigging, sidelined by dozens of legal cases that he claims were confected to prevent his comeback.
But his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has defied a government crackdown with regular rallies. Tuesday’s is the largest in the capital since Khan was jailed in August 2023.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said “miscreants” involved in the march had killed four members of the paramilitary Rangers force on a city highway leading toward the government sector.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the men had been “run over by a vehicle.”
“These disruptive elements do not seek revolution but bloodshed,” he said in a statement. “This is not a peaceful protest, it is extremism.”
The government said Monday that one police officer had also been killed and nine more were critically wounded by demonstrators who set out toward Islamabad on Sunday.
The capital has been locked down since late Saturday, with mobile Internet sporadically cut and more than 20,000 police flooding the streets, many armed with riot shields and batons.
The government has accused protesters of attempting to derail a state visit by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who arrived for a three-day visit on Monday.
Last week, the Islamabad city administration announced a two-month ban on public gatherings.
But PTI convoys traveled from their power base in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and the most populous province of Punjab, hauling aside roadblocks of stacked shipping containers.
“We are deeply frustrated with the government, they do not know how to function,” 56-year-old protester Kalat Khan told AFP on Monday. “The treatment we are receiving is unjust and cruel.”
The government cited “security concerns” for the mobile Internet outages, while Islamabad’s schools and universities were also ordered shut on Monday and Tuesday.
“Those who will come here will be arrested,” Interior Minister Naqvi told reporters late Monday at D-Chowk, the public square outside Islamabad’s government buildings that PTI aims to occupy.
PTI’s chief demand is the release of Khan, the 72-year-old charismatic former cricket star who served as premier from 2018 to 2022 and is the lodestar of their party.
They are also protesting alleged tampering in the February polls and a recent government-backed constitutional amendment giving it more power over the courts, where Khan is tangled in dozens of cases.
Sharif’s government has come under increasing criticism for deploying heavy-handed measures to quash PTI’s protests.
“It speaks of a siege mentality on the part of the government and establishment — a state in which they see themselves in constant danger and fearful all the time of being overwhelmed by opponents,” read one opinion piece in the English-language Dawn newspaper published Monday.
“This urges them to take strong-arm measures, not occasionally but incessantly.”
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said “blocking access to the capital, with motorway and highway closures across Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has effectively penalized ordinary citizens.”
The US State Department appealed for protesters to refrain from violence, while also urging authorities to “respect human rights and fundamental freedoms and to ensure respect for Pakistan’s laws and constitution as they work to maintain law and order.”
Khan was ousted by a no-confidence vote after falling out with the kingmaking military establishment, which analysts say engineers the rise and fall of Pakistan’s politicians.
But as opposition leader, he led an unprecedented campaign of defiance, with PTI street protests boiling over into unrest that the government cited as the reason for its crackdown.
PTI won more seats than any other party in this year’s election but a coalition of parties considered more pliable to military influence shut them out of power.
stm-jts/sco
Russia’s Medvedev warns West over discussing nuclear weapons for Ukraine
MOSCOW: Senior Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday that if the West supplied nuclear weapons to Ukraine then Moscow could consider such a transfer to be tantamount to an attack on Russia, providing grounds for a nuclear response.
The New York Times reported last week that some unidentified Western officials had suggested that US President Joe Biden could give Ukraine nuclear weapons, though there were fears such a step would have serious implications.
“American politicians and journalists are seriously discussing the consequences of the transfer of nuclear weapons to Kyiv,” Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president from 2008 to 2012, said on Telegram.
Medvedev said that even the threat of such a transfer of nuclear weapons could be considered as preparation for a nuclear war against Russia.
“The actual transfer of such weapons can be equated to the fait accompli of an attack on our country,” under Russia’s newly updated nuclear doctrine, he said.
China sends naval, air forces to shadow US plane over Taiwan Strait
- The US Navy’s 7th fleet said a P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft had flown through the strait
BEIJING: China’s military said on Tuesday it deployed naval and air forces to monitor and warn a US Navy patrol aircraft that flew through the sensitive Taiwan Strait, denouncing the United States for trying to “mislead” the international community.
Around once a month, US military ships or aircraft pass through or above the waterway that separates democratically governed Taiwan from China — missions that always anger Beijing.
China claims sovereignty over Taiwan and says it has jurisdiction over the strait. Taiwan and the United States dispute that, saying the strait is an international waterway.
The US Navy’s 7th fleet said a P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft had flown through the strait “in international airspace,” adding that the flight demonstrated the United States’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.
“By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations,” it said in a statement.
China’s military criticized the flight as “public hype,” adding that it monitored the US aircraft throughout its transit and “effectively” responded to the situation.
“The relevant remarks by the US distort legal principles, confuse public opinion and mislead international perceptions,” the military’s Eastern Theatre Command said in a statement.
“We urge the US side to stop distorting and hyping up and jointly safeguard regional peace and stability.”
In April, China’s military said it sent fighter jets to monitor and warn a US Navy Poseidon in the Taiwan Strait, a mission that took place just hours after a call between the Chinese and US defense chiefs. (Reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Additional reporting and writing by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
Ukraine says Russia launched ‘record’ 188 drones overnight
KYIV: Russia staged a record number of drone attacks overnight over Ukraine, damaging buildings and “critical infrastructure” in several regions, the air force said Tuesday.
“During the night attack, the enemy launched a record number of Shahed strike unmanned aerial vehicles and unidentified drones,” the air force said, referring to Iranian-designed drones and putting the figure at 188.
President of Chile denies sexual harassment complaint
- Chilean President Gabriel Boric denies claims he sexually harassed a woman over a decade ago
Santiago: Chilean President Gabriel Boric was accused in a criminal complaint of sexually harassing a woman over a decade ago, an allegation he “categorically” denies, a lawyer said Monday.
“The president ... rejects and categorically denies the complaint,” attorney Jonatan Valenzuela said in a statement, referring to an alleged event in 2013.
The complaint was filed on September 6 in the local prosecutor’s office of Magallanes, in the far south of Chile where Boric is from.
Cristian Crisosto, who heads the Magallanes prosecutor’s office, confirmed “there is a criminal case related to the facts listed,” adding that there was a special team at the agency investigating the complaint.
According to Valenzuela, the complaint was filed by a woman who at the time sent Boric 25 emails that were “unsolicited and non-consensual,” including one with explicit images.
More than 10 years later, the woman “filed a complaint without any basis whatsoever against now-president Gabriel Boric.”
Boric, now 38, was 27 at the time and had just completed his law degree.
“My client never had an emotional relationship or friendship with her and they have not communicated since July 2014,” Valenzuela added.
The accusation against Boric comes as his administration is dealing with a separate scandal over sexual abuse after former crime czar and ex-deputy interior minister Manuel Monsalve was arrested this month on suspicion of raping his subordinate.
Boric, who is ineligible to run for reelection after his four-year presidential term ends in 2026, has special immunity and must first be subject to an impeachment trial by the justice department to be formally investigated.
