With Philippines visit, US VP Harris shows support against ‘intimidation’ in South China Sea

US Vice President Kamala Harris tours the village of Tagburos in Palawan, Philippines, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2022. (AP Photo)
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Updated 23 November 2022
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With Philippines visit, US VP Harris shows support against ‘intimidation’ in South China Sea

  • Harris is highest-ranking American official to visit Palawan, island off disputed South China Sea
  • Philippines, China have long-running dispute over strategic, resource-rich waterway

MANILA: The historic visit of US Vice President Kamala Harris to a Philippine island off the South China Sea this week was meant to showcase Washington’s support for one of its oldest security allies in Asia, experts have said, as the Southeast Asian country faced what she called “intimidation and coercion” in the disputed waterway.

Harris’ stop on Palawan, an island facing the South China Sea, was part of a three-day visit to the Philippines amid high geopolitical tensions in the region.

She was the highest-ranking American official to have visited the isle, her arrival taking place just days after an incident between the Philippine navy and the Chinese coastguard.

Onboard a Philippine vessel docked in Puerto Princesa bay on Tuesday, Harris said the US and broader international community “have a profound stake in the future of this region.”

“America’s prosperity relies on the billions of dollars that flow through these waters every day. And we are proud to work with you in your mission,” she added.

“As an ally, the United States stands with the Philippines in the face of intimidation and coercion in the South China Sea.”

The South China Sea is a strategic and resource-rich waterway claimed by China almost in its entirety, but other countries, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei, also have overlapping claims.

In 2016, an international tribunal in The Hague dismissed China’s sweeping claim, a ruling that was rejected by Beijing as it continued to send fishing vessels and raise structures in the region, part of which is a Philippine exclusive economic zone.

A Philippine military commander said on Monday that a Chinese coastguard ship “forcefully retrieved” a piece of rocket that was being towed by a Philippine vessel, a claim that China has denied.

“Beijing just can’t seem to stop harassing and coercing its smaller neighbors,” Gregory B. Poling, a South China Sea expert from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Arab News.

The Philippine government has filed hundreds of diplomatic protests against Chinese activity in the South China Sea in the past few years. Amid increasing tensions with Beijing, the Philippines established in May three coast guard outposts on three islands in the disputed maritime area to monitor ship movements.

Harris’ trip also came amid strained relations between China and the US, particularly over Taiwan, the democratically governed island China regards as its own.

“(But) I don’t think China was a primary audience; the Philippines was,” Poling said. “It sends China the same message: That the United States is committed to standing with its ally.

“The trip sends a message of reassurance to the Philippines, that the United States remains committed to modernizing the alliance and defending Filipino lives and rights in the South China Sea.”

Arsenio Andolong, a spokesperson from the Philippines’ Department of National Defense, said Harris’ visit sent a strong message that Washington considered Manila “an important ally.”

“The defense department sees this as a really clear message that they will stand by their obligations under the MDT (mutual defense treaty),” Andolong told Arab News.

The treaty is a 70-year-old pact stipulating that the Philippines and US would support each other if either were attacked by an external party.

Harris’ trip was “valuable” as it showed how the US “will live up to its obligations” under the treaty, Stephen Cutler, security expert and former FBI legal attache, told Arab News.

“I also hope that they will go far beyond the military significance,” Cutler said. “I think what she does, by coming here and making the kinds of comments that she did, was to show that the United States is interested in a lot more than simply military matters.”


Schoolgirls, policeman among five killed in roadside blast in Pakistan’s Balochistan

Updated 4 sec ago
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Schoolgirls, policeman among five killed in roadside blast in Pakistan’s Balochistan

QUETTA: At least five people, including three schoolgirls and a policeman, were killed in a roadside blast in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province on Friday morning, police said, in the latest incident of violence to hit the restive region.
The blast appeared to target a police van passing by a girls school in the Mastung district of the province, according to police and local administration officials.
Fateh Baloch, in-charge of the Mastung police station, said the police mobile van came under attack when it was on a routine patrol on Friday morning.
“Five people, including a police constable and three minor schoolgirls, were killed and 13 others injured in the blast,” Baloch told Arab News.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast.
“We have cordoned-off the area and are shifting the injured to the hospital,” Baz Muhammad Marri, the Mastung deputy commissioner, told Arab News.
Balochistan, which borders Iran and Afghanistan and is home to major China-led projects such as a strategic port and a gold and copper mine, has been the site of a decades-long separatist insurgency by ethnic Baloch militants. The province has lately seen an increase in attacks by separatist militants.
On Tuesday, five people were killed in an attack by armed men on the construction site of a small dam in Balochistan’s Panjgur district. The outlawed Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), the most prominent of several separatist groups, claimed responsibility for the attack along with killing of two other persons in Kech and Quetta districts.
This month, 21 miners working at privately run coal mines were killed in an attack by unidentified gunmen.
The separatists accuse the central government of exploiting Balochistan’s mineral and gas resources. The Pakistani state denies the allegation and says it is working to uplift the region through development initiatives.
Besides Baloch separatists, the restive region also has a presence of religiously motivated militant groups, who frequently target police and security forces.
Islamabad says militants mainly associated with the Pakistani Taliban frequently launch attacks from Afghanistan and has even blamed Kabul’s Afghan Taliban rulers for facilitating anti-Pakistan groups. Kabul denies the allegation.

- This article originally appeared on Arab News Pakistan


Australian judge rules senator broke race law by telling rival legislator to return to Pakistan

Updated 8 min 22 sec ago
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Australian judge rules senator broke race law by telling rival legislator to return to Pakistan

  • Sen. Mehreen Faruqi, a 61-year-old engineer, moved to Australia with her husband in 1992 as skilled economic migrants
  • Justice Angus Stewart found that Sen. Pauline Hanson had engaged in ‘seriously offensive’ and intimidating behavior

MELBOURNE: An Australian judge ruled on Friday that anti-immigration party leader Sen. Pauline Hanson breached racial discrimination laws by crudely telling Pakistan-born Sen. Mehreen Faruqi to return to her homeland.

Faruqi sued Hanson in the Federal Court over a 2022 exchange on the social media platform X, then called Twitter, under a provision of the Racial Discrimination Act that bans public actions and statements that offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate people because of their race, color or national or ethnic origin.

Following the news that Queen Elizabeth II had died, Faruqi, deputy leader of the Australian Greens party, posted: “I cannot mourn the leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonized peoples.”

The 70-year-old leader of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party replied that Faruqi had immigrated to take “advantage” of Australia, and told the Lahore-born Muslim to return to Pakistan, using an expletive.

Hanson has been known for her views on race since her first speech to Parliament in 1996 in which she warned Australia was “in danger of being swamped by Asians” because of the nation’s non-discriminatory immigration policy. She once wore a burqa in the Senate as part of a campaign to have Islamic face coverings banned.

Faruqi, a 61-year-old qualified engineer, moved to Australia with her husband in 1992 as skilled economic migrants.

Justice Angus Stewart found that Hanson had engaged in “seriously offensive” and intimidating behavior.

The post was racist, nativist and anti-Muslim, Stewart said.

“It is a strong form of racism,” he said.

Stewart ordered Hanson to delete the offensive post and to pay Faruqi’s legal costs. Stewart expected those costs would “amount to a fairly substantial sum.”

Faruqi welcomed the ruling as a vindication for “every single person who has been told to go back to where they came from. And believe me, there are too many of us who have been subjected to this ultimate racist slur, far too many times in this country. Today’s ruling tells us that telling someone to go back to where they came from is a strong form of racism,” Faruqi told reporters.

“Today is a good day for people of color, for Muslims and all of us who have been working so hard to build an anti-racist society,” she said.

Hanson said she was “deeply disappointed” by the ruling and would appeal.

The verdict demonstrated an “inappropriately broad application”of the section of the Racial Discrimination Act that she had breached, particularly in how that section impinged upon freedom of political expression, Hanson said in a statement.

Hanson’s lawyers argued that that her post was exempt from the law because of constitutionally implied freedom of political communication.

Hanson said she considered the queen’s death a matter of public interest and that Faruqi’s views on the death were also a matter of public interest.

Stewart found that Hanson’s tweet did not respond to any point made in Faruqi’s tweet.

“Sen. Hanson’s tweet was merely an angry ad hominem attack devoid of discernible content (or comment) in response to what Sen. Faruqi had said,” Stewart wrote in his decision.

Stewart described Hanson’s testimony as “generally unreliable,” rejecting her claim that she did not know Faruqi’s religion when she posted.

Hanson told the court she had called for a ban on Muslim immigration in the past, but she described that as her personal opinion rather than her minor party’s policy.

She conceded she had once said in a media interview she would not sell her house to a Muslim, but would not say whether she had meant what she had said.

Australia is an increasingly multicultural society. Australians born overseas or have at least one overseas-born parent became a majority in the latest census in 2021.


Russia hands former US consulate employee nearly 5-year jail term

Updated 22 min 14 sec ago
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Russia hands former US consulate employee nearly 5-year jail term

  • Robert Shonov worked for more than 25 years for the US consulate until 2021, when Moscow imposed restrictions on local staff working for foreign missions

MOSCOW: A Russian former employee of the US consulate in Russia’s Far Eastern city of Vladivostok has been sentenced to four years and ten months in prison for “secret collaboration with a foreign state,” Russian agencies said Friday.
Robert Shonov worked for more than 25 years for the US consulate until 2021, when Moscow imposed restrictions on local staff working for foreign missions.
Afterward, he worked as a private contractor compiling press accounts from publicly accessible Russian media, according to the US State Department.
He was arrested this year on suspicion of passing secret information about Russia’s war in Ukraine to the United States in exchange for money.
According to the judgment published on the website of Valdivostok’s Primorye court, 400,000 roubles (€4,000) and an electronic device linked to the commission of the offense were seized.
In September 2023, Russia also expelled two US diplomats it accused of acting as liaison agents for Shonov.
According to Washington, Shonov had only been hired by the US consulate to carry out routine monitoring of freely accessible Russian media.
In recent years, several US citizens have been arrested and sentenced to long jail terms in Russia. Others are being held pending trial.
Washington, which supports Ukraine militarily and financially against Russia’s invasion, accuses Moscow of wanting to exchange them for Russians held in the United States.
The United States and Russia exchanged prisoners including The Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in a landmark swap in August, but several US nationals and dual nationals remain in detention in Russia.


North Korea says record test was new Hwasong-19 intercontinental ballistic missile

Updated 56 min 24 sec ago
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North Korea says record test was new Hwasong-19 intercontinental ballistic missile

  • The Hwasong-19, like North Korea’s other latest ICBMs, demonstrated the range to strike nearly anywhere in the United States
  • The launch drew swift condemnation from Washington and its allies in South Korea, Japan and Europe, as well as the UN chief

SEOUL: North Korea flexed its military muscle with the test of a huge new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile dubbed Hwasong-19, state media said on Friday, amid international uproar over its troops deployed to aid Russia in Ukraine.
The launch on Thursday flew higher than any previous North Korean missile, according to the North as well as militaries in South Korea and Japan that tracked its flight deep into space before it splashed down in the ocean between Japan and Russia.
State news agency KCNA lauded it as “the world’s strongest strategic missile.”
While questions remain over North Korea’s ability to guide such a missile and protect a nuclear warhead as it reenters the atmosphere, the Hwasong-19, like North Korea’s other latest ICBMs, demonstrated the range to strike nearly anywhere in the United States.
“The new-type ICBM proved before the world that the hegemonic position we have secured in the development and manufacture of nuclear delivery means of the same kind is absolutely irreversible,” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said while overseeing the launch, KCNA reported.
The launch, days before Tuesday’s US presidential election, drew swift condemnation from Washington and its allies in South Korea, Japan and Europe, as well as the United Nations secretary-general.
“The missile continues to underwrite the growing credibility of North Korea’s strategic deterrent capabilities,” said Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, adding that Kim appeared specifically interested in communicating that message to the United States.
HEAVIER PAYLOADS
The Hwasong-19 will deploy alongside the Hwasong-18, which was first launched last year and is also powered by solid fuel, KCNA said.
Solid-fuel missiles do not need to be fueled immediately ahead of launch, are often easier and safer to operate and require less logistical support than liquid-fuel weapons.
“It can be stored and moved anywhere, allowing for excellent mobility, stealth and survivability,” said Kim of the University of North Korean Studies.
Photos released by KCNA showed a large, multi-stage missile launched from a canister carried by a transporter-erector-launcher vehicle. The agency showed photos from cameras that appeared to be attached to the missile, taking images of stage separations and the earth.
“The increased length likely means a greater fuel capacity, which directly affects thrust and potentially increases range,” Kim said.
But North Korea’s existing missiles already had the range to reach anywhere in the United States, and the Hwasong-19’s expanded capacity combined with larger payload section is more likely designed to be able to carry heavier, and potentially multiple, nuclear warheads, he said.
“North Korea may continue testing to see if, during the final reentry phase, the warheads can separate and each head toward individual targets,” Kim added.
The Hwasong-19 flew of 1,001.2km for 85 minutes and 56 seconds before landing in the sea off the east coast of the Korean peninsula, with a maximum altitude of 7,687.5km, KCNA said.


India’s capital chokes in smog after firework ban flouted

Updated 01 November 2024
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India’s capital chokes in smog after firework ban flouted

  • New Delhi’s traffic-clogged streets are home to more than 30 million people and the city regularly ranks as one of the most polluted ones
  • The Indian capital is blanketed in cancer-causing acrid smog each year, primarily blamed on stubble burning by farmers in neighboring regions

NEW DELHI: India’s capital New Delhi was wreathed in poisonous smog Friday, with air pollution worsening after a fireworks ban was widely flouted for raucous celebrations for the Hindu festival of lights, Diwali.
New Delhi’s traffic-clogged streets are home to more than 30 million people, and the city is regularly ranked as one of the most polluted urban areas on the planet.
The city is blanketed in cancer-causing acrid smog each year, primarily blamed on stubble burning by farmers in neighboring regions to clear their fields for plowing, as well as factories and traffic fumes.
But air worsened Friday after a thunderous night of firecrackers lit as part of Diwali celebrations, despite city authorities last month banning their sale and use.
City police had seized nearly two tons of fireworks before Diwali, but the crackers remained readily available for sale in neighboring states.
Many residents celebrated at home, holding a family meal and lighting small candles in praise of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi and symbolising the victory of light over darkness.
Others launched firework rockets and booming crackers, rocking the densely packed city throughout the night.
Police are often reluctant to act against violators, given the strong religious sentiments attached to the crackers by Hindu devotees.
Critics say arguments between rival politicians heading neighboring states — as well as between central and state-level authorities — have compounded the problem.
India’s Supreme Court last month ruled that clean air was a fundamental human right, ordering both the central government and state-level authorities to take action.
“Delhi’s toxic air is killing us softly with its smog,” the Times of India wrote in an editorial last week, as the winter pollution returned.
“It is nothing new, but what doesn’t cease to amaze, year after year, is the state’s stilted response.”
Levels of fine particulate matter — dangerous microparticles known as PM2.5 pollutants that enter the bloodstream through the lungs — surged to more than 23 times the World Health Organization recommended daily maximum.
Soon after dawn, pollutant levels topped 345 micrograms per cubic meter, according to monitoring firm IQAir, which listed air in the sprawling megacity as “hazardous.”
It listed New Delhi as worst in the world, just above smoke-choked Lahore in neighboring Pakistan, 400 kilometers (250 miles) to the northeast.
The New Delhi government has previously sought to cut pollution by restricting vehicle traffic, including a scheme that only allowed cars with odd or even number license plates to travel on alternate days.
Authorities have also imposed seasonal bans on construction work and on diesel-powered vehicles from entering the city.