HONG KONG/MANILA: The Philippines will file a case against China over the disputed South China Sea at an arbitration tribunal in The Hague next week, subjecting Beijing to international legal scrutiny over the increasingly tense waters for the first time.
Manila is seeking a ruling to confirm its right to exploit the waters in its 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) as allowed under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), its team of US and British lawyers said.
A ruling against China by the five-member panel of the Permanent Court of Arbitration could prompt other claimants to challenge Beijing, experts said. But while legally binding, any ruling would effectively be unenforceable as there is no body under UNCLOS to police such decisions, legal experts said.
China, which has refused to participate in the case, claims about 90 percent of the South China Sea, displaying its reach on official maps with a so-called nine-dash line that stretches deep into the maritime heart of Southeast Asia.
The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have claims to parts of the potentially energy-rich waters.
The UN convention gives a country 12 nautical miles of territorial control with claim to sovereign rights to explore, exploit and manage natural resources within 200 miles. China claims several reefs and shoals in Manila’s EEZ.
The head of the Philippines’ legal team, Paul Reichler, a lawyer at US law firm Foley Hoag, told Reuters a submission would be sent electronically on Sunday, meeting a March 30 deadline set by the tribunal. Manila filed an initial complaint in January 2013. Legal experts said it could take months for the panel to weigh the case. Diplomats and experts who follow the tensions in the South China Sea said Manila was going ahead despite pressure from China to delay or drop its submission.
“They’ve crossed a significant line here ... the pressure to withdraw before actually mounting an argument has been intense but they’ve stayed the course,” said Carl Thayer, from the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra.
Arbitration would clarify Manila’s rights to fishing and other resources in its EEZ as well as rights to enforce its laws in those areas, Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario said.
“We see arbitration as an open, friendly and durable solution to the dispute,” del Rosario told a business forum recently.
China reiterated this week that it would not take part.
“We demand the Philippines ends it mistaken actions and stop going further down this wrong path to prevent bilateral relations from being further harmed,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a news briefing on Wednesday.
“China’s determination and resolve to protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity is unwavering.”
Diplomats said the case was the focus of growing interest across East Asia and beyond given China’s assertiveness in both the South and East China Seas.
Washington has stiffened its rhetorical support for Manila’s action, even as it insists it does not take sides in regional territorial disputes.
The State Department warned this month of the “ambiguity” of some claims to the South China Sea and called for disputes to be solved legally and peacefully, through means such as arbitration.
Tensions have been on full display in recent weeks.
Earlier this month, Manila protested action by Chinese coastguard ships to block two Philippine civilian vessels resupplying marines on the disputed Second Thomas Reef.
The Philippines instead air-dropped supplies to the marines, who live on an old military transport ship rammed onto the reef in 1999 to mark Manila’s territory. While Chinese vessels regularly surround the reef, it was the first time China had blocked a routine re-supply mission, a move Thayer said could have been related to the arbitration case.
Further north, the two sides have traded angry words over the Scarborough Shoal, where in January Philippine officials said a Chinese coastguard ship fired water cannon at Filipino fishermen.
Manila says both reefs lie within its EEZ. China says they are part of its territory.
Much further to the south, Chinese naval ships staged exercises in January at the James Shoal, a submerged reef within Malaysia’s EEZ.
Less visibly, China has applied pressure behind the scenes, attempting to isolate the Philippines within the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), one regional diplomat said.
“China has let us all know that they are very angry ... The message is clear: You must not support this in any way,” said the envoy, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Diplomatic sources in Vietnam have told Reuters that China put pressure on Hanoi over joining the case at the tribunal. A Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesman last month said Hanoi reserved the right to apply “all necessary and appropriate peaceful means” to protect its sovereignty.
Malaysian officials have given no indication they are planning to join the action or launch their own case.
Manila raises stakes with Beijing, seeks arbitration over S. China Sea
Manila raises stakes with Beijing, seeks arbitration over S. China Sea
UN migration agency says aid to Rohingya in Indonesia reinstated
- Chief of mission, Jeff Labovitz, said there is no current planned reduction in services
JAKARTA: The United Nations’ migration agency has reinstated its humanitarian assistance to Rohingya refugees in Indonesia, its chief of mission in Jakarta told Reuters on Tuesday.
Chief of mission, Jeff Labovitz, said there is no current planned reduction in services.
A Reuters report last week cited the agency as saying it would slash aid to hundreds of Rohingya sheltering in the city of Pekanbaru on the island of Sumatra.
Dalai Lama says his successor to be born outside China
- Tibetans worldwide want the institution of the Dalai Lama to continue after the 89-year-old’s death
- Tibetan tradition holds that the soul of a senior Buddhist monk is reincarnated in the body of a child on his death
NEW DELHI: The Dalai Lama’s successor will be born outside China, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism says in a new book, raising the stakes in a dispute with Beijing over control of the Himalayan region he fled more than six decades ago.
Tibetans worldwide want the institution of the Dalai Lama to continue after the 89-year-old’s death, he writes in “Voice for the Voiceless,” which was reviewed by Reuters and is being released on Tuesday.
He had previously said the line of spiritual leaders might end with him. His book marks the first time the Dalai Lama has specified that his successor would be born in the “free world,” which he describes as outside China. He has previously said only that he could reincarnate outside Tibet, possibly in India where he lives in exile.
“Since the purpose of a reincarnation is to carry on the work of the predecessor, the new Dalai Lama will be born in the free world so that the traditional mission of the Dalai Lama – that is, to be the voice for universal compassion, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, and the symbol of Tibet embodying the aspirations of the Tibetan people – will continue,” the Dalai Lama writes.
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, fled at the age of 23 to India with thousands of other Tibetans in 1959 after a failed uprising against the rule of Mao Zedong’s Communists.
Beijing insists it will choose his successor, but the Dalai Lama has said any successor named by China would not be respected.
China brands the Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for keeping alive the Tibetan cause, as a “separatist.”
When asked about the book at a press briefing on Monday, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry said the Dalai Lama “is a political exile who is engaged in anti-China separatist activities under the cloak of religion.
“On the Tibet issue, China’s position is consistent and clear. What the Dalai Lama says and does cannot change the objective fact of Tibet’s prosperity and development.”
Supporters of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan cause include Richard Gere, a follower of Tibetan Buddhism, and Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the US House of Representatives. His followers have been worried about his health, especially after knee surgery last year. He said in December that he might live to be 110.
In his book, the Dalai Lama says he has received numerous petitions for more than a decade from a wide spectrum of Tibetan people, including senior monks and Tibetans living in Tibet and outside, “uniformly asking me to ensure that the Dalai Lama lineage be continued.”
Tibetan tradition holds that the soul of a senior Buddhist monk is reincarnated in the body of a child on his death. The current Dalai Lama was identified as the reincarnation of his predecessor when he was two.
The book, which the Dalai Lama calls an account of his dealings with Chinese leaders over seven decades, is being published on Tuesday in the US by William Morrow and in Britain by HarperNonFiction, with HarperCollins publications to follow in India and other countries.
He expressed faith in the Tibetan government and parliament-in-exile, based with him in India’s Himalayan city of Dharamshala, to carry on the political work for the Tibetan cause.
“The right of the Tibetan people to be the custodians of their own homeland cannot be indefinitely denied, nor can their aspiration for freedom be crushed forever through oppression,” he writes. “One clear lesson we know from history is this: if you keep people permanently unhappy, you cannot have a stable society.”
Given his advanced age, he writes, his hopes of going back to Tibet look “increasingly unlikely.”
Ukraine’s biggest drone attack on Moscow kills one, disrupts air and train transport
- Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that at least 69 drones were destroyed that approached the city in several waves
- Moscow and its surrounding region, with a population of at least 21 million, is one of the biggest metropolitan areas in Europe
Ukraine targeted Moscow early on Tuesday in what seemed its biggest drone attack of the war on the Russian capital, killing at least one person, sparking fires and suspending air and train transport in the region, authorities said.
“Today at 4 a.m. a massive drone attack began on Moscow and the Moscow region,” Moscow Region Governor Andrei Vorobyov said in a post on the Telegram messaging app. “At the moment, one person is known to have died and three were injured.”
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that at least 69 drones were destroyed that approached the city in several waves.
Moscow and its surrounding region, with a population of at least 21 million, is one of the biggest metropolitan areas in Europe, alongside Istanbul.
Russia’s aviation watchdog said flights were suspended at all four of Moscow’s airports to ensure air safety after the attacks. Two other airports, in the Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod regions, both east of Moscow, were also closed. Vorobyov said that at least seven apartments were damaged and residents forced to evacuate in a multi-story building in the Ramenskoye district of the Moscow region, about 50 km (31 miles) southeast of the Kremlin.
Rail infrastructure at the train station in the Domodedovo district, about 35 km south of Moscow, was damaged as result of falling drone debris, RIA news agency reported.
Baza, a news Telegram channel that is close to Russia’s security services, and other Russian news telegram channels posted videos of several residential fires around Moscow that they said were sparked by the attacks. The strikes came as the United States is pushing for an end to the three-year war that Russia started with its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. On Tuesday, US and Ukrainian teams are scheduled to meet for peace talks in Saudi Arabia.
Governors of Ryazan region, just southeast of the Moscow region, and the Belgorod region on border with Ukraine, also said that their regions were under drone attacks. Several settlements in the Belgorod region were left without power, the regional governor said.
A November drone attack on Moscow, the largest in the war at that point, led to the destruction of at least 34 drones. At least one civilian was killed and dozens of homes wrecked around the capital.
Kyiv has often said that its strikes inside Russia are aimed at destroying infrastructure key to Moscow’s overall war efforts and are in response to Russia’s continued bombing of Ukraine.
Both sides deny targeting civilians in the attacks, but thousands of them have died in the conflict so far, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.
Former Philippine president Duterte arrested for crimes against humanity
- Duterte was arrested after landing at Manila’s international airport following a brief trip to Hong Kong
- Duterte is still hugely popular among many in the Philippines, and he remains a potent political force
MANILA: Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte was arrested Tuesday in Manila by police acting on an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant citing crimes against humanity tied to his deadly war on drugs.
The 79-year-old faces a charge of “the crime against humanity of murder,” according to the ICC, for a crackdown in which rights groups estimate tens of thousands of mostly poor men were killed by officers and vigilantes, often without proof they were linked to drugs.
“Early in the morning, Interpol Manila received the official copy of the warrant of the arrest from the ICC,” the presidential palace said in a statement.
“As of now, he is under the custody of authorities.”
The statement added that “the former president and his group are in good health and are being checked by government doctors.”
Duterte was arrested after landing at Manila’s international airport following a brief trip to Hong Kong.
Speaking to thousands of overseas Filipino workers there on Sunday, the former president decried the investigation, labelling ICC investigators “sons of whores” while saying he would “accept it” if an arrest were to be his fate.
The Philippines quit the ICC in 2019 on Duterte’s instructions, but the tribunal maintained it had jurisdiction over killings before the pullout, as well as killings in the southern city of Davao when Duterte was mayor there, years before he became president.
It launched a formal inquiry in September 2021, only to suspend it two months later after Manila said it was re-examining several hundred cases of drug operations that led to deaths at the hands of police, hitmen and vigilantes.
The case resumed in July 2023 after a five-judge panel rejected the Philippines’ objection that the court lacked jurisdiction.
Since then, the government of President Ferdinand Marcos has on numerous instances said it would not cooperate with the investigation.
But Undersecretary of the Presidential Communications Office Claire Castro on Sunday said that if Interpol would “ask the necessary assistance from the government, it is obliged to follow.”
Duterte is still hugely popular among many in the Philippines who supported his quick-fix solutions to crime, and he remains a potent political force. He is running to reclaim his job as mayor of his stronghold Davao in the May mid-term election.
Charges have been filed locally in a handful of cases related to drug operations that led to deaths, only nine police have been convicted for slaying alleged drug suspects.
A self-professed killer, Duterte told officers to fatally shoot narcotics suspects if their lives were at risk and insisted the crackdown saved families and prevented the Philippines from turning into a “narco-politics state.”
At the opening of a Philippine Senate probe into the drug war in October, Duterte said he offered “no apologies, no excuses” for his actions.
“I did what I had to do, and whether or not you believe it or not, I did it for my country,” he said.
Australian police say crime ring preyed on Jewish ‘vulnerability’
- New South Wales Police said Tuesday that 14 people had been arrested and charged with 65 offenses, including taking part in a “criminal group,” arson and destroying property
SYDNEY: Australian police said Tuesday they have charged 14 members of an organized crime ring accused of menacing the country with attacks dressed up as religiously motivated hate crimes.
Jewish neighborhoods in Sydney city have in recent months seen synagogues daubed in anti-Semitic graffiti, buildings firebombed in the dead of night and cars torched by vandals.
Although the crime wave stoked fears about rising anti-Semitism in Australia, police said they no longer believed many of these incidents were driven by “ideology.”
Instead, police said it appeared to be an attempt by organized criminals to gain favor by carrying out high-profile attacks — and then tipping off authorities later.
New South Wales Police said Tuesday that 14 people had been arrested and charged with 65 offenses, including taking part in a “criminal group,” arson and destroying property.
“None of the individuals we have arrested... have displayed any form of anti-Semitic ideology,” NSW Police deputy commissioner David Hudson said Monday evening after a series of raids.
“I think these organized crime figures have taken an opportunity to play off the vulnerability of the Jewish community,” he added.
The most alarming incident was the discovery of explosives in an abandoned caravan alongside a purported list of Jewish targets.
At the time, NSW Premier Chris Minns said the caravan appeared to be part of a foiled “mass casualty” terror plot.
Police now believe it was nothing more than a carefully constructed “criminal con job.”
“I can reveal that the caravan was never going to cause a mass casualty event, but instead was concocted by criminals who wanted to cause fear for personal benefit,” senior officer Krissy Barrett said on Monday evening.
Police said they suspected the same “individual or individuals” were behind both the anti-Semitic attacks and the caravan hoax.
“It was about causing chaos within the community, causing threat, causing angst, diverting police resources away from their day jobs to have them focus on matters that would allow them to get up to, engage in other criminal activity,” said deputy commissioner Hudson.
“There are a variety of reasons why individuals do this.”
