MANILA, May 3 (Reuters) – The Philippine Supreme Court ordered the government and security agencies on Friday to protect the environment in disputed areas of the South China Sea, responding to fishermen’s complaints of inaction against illegal Chinese activity. The top court said it had issued a writ instructing heads of key ministries, the coastguard, […]

  “Speech is the faculty by which men conceal their thoughts,” the legendary Napoleonic diplomat, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, once observed. In many ways, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s latest visit to China, his fourth in less than three years, illustrated Talleyrand’s reflections on talk. His stopover was filled with cordial rhetoric that concealed simmering tensions […]

  THE FOREIGN MINISTRY HAS CONDEMNED CHINA FOR VIOLATING VIETNAM’S SOVEREIGNTY BY IMPOSING A UNILATERAL FISHING BAN IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA. China’s agriculture ministry announced the ban on Wednesday, which it said would apply to both Chinese as well as foreign vessels, warning violators would be detained and fined by Chinese authorities. Vietnam calls […]

MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte and other government officials must enforce the Supreme Court’s writ of kalikasan order directing them to protect and rehabilitate the marine environment in the West Philippine Sea (WPS), former Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said on Saturday. Failure to heed the special order, which covers three-Philippine-claimed reefs in the […]

  INDONESIA has sunk dozens of foreign boats within just hours to deter illegal fishing in its waters bordering the highly contended South China Sea, as the country continues to assert its sovereign authority over the area. As many as 51 foreign boats were sunk by Indonesia authorities as a warning to other nations, Fisheries […]

  A US Navy warship colliding with a Chinese vessel could spark the beginning of a South China Sea war, warns James Holmes, Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College in Rhode Island. Although the prospect sounds hypothetical, a similar event took place in 2001 when a Chinese fighter jet slammed unto a […]

  The Black Sea bumping incident amounted to little as diplomatic fracases go. In part that’s because the setting differed markedly from the Western Pacific today. The U.S. task force cruised along mainland Soviet shores where no one disputed Moscow’s sovereignty. This was not contested turf like China’s South China islands—ground wrested from China’s neighbors […]

  Beijing will seek to add bases to provide security to One Belt, One Road infrastructure projects, Pentagon report says. The US Defense Department expects China to add military bases around the world to protect its investments in its ambitious One Belt, One Road global infrastructure programme, according to an official report released on Thursday. […]

  MANILA (UPDATE) – The Supreme Court on Friday issued a writ of kalikasan in response to a petition seeking protection of the marine environment in the disputed West Philippine Sea, sources told ABS-CBN News. In an en banc ruling, the high court granted the plea filed by the Integrated Bar of the Philippines and […]

  China continues building up its military to transform from regional power to “world-class,” investing heavily in modernization and expanding its global influence, according to a new Pentagon report that was released on Thursday. The report highlights how China is rushing towards that goal by using covert techniques to steal foreign military technologies and “leapfrogging” […]