New China rules allow detention of foreigners in South China Sea

New China rules allow detention of foreigners in South China Sea
Filipino fishermen and activists protest against alleged Chinese aggression at the disputed South China Sea as they stage a rally in front of the Chinese consulate in Makati, Philippines on June 11, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 15 June 2024
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New China rules allow detention of foreigners in South China Sea

New China rules allow detention of foreigners in South China Sea
  • China Coast Guard vessels have used water cannon against Philippine boats multiple times in the contested waters
  • Confrontations between China and the Philippines have raised fears of a wider conflict that could involve the US and other allies

SHANGHAI: New Chinese coast guard rules took effect Saturday, under which it can detain foreigners for trespassing in the disputed South China Sea, where neighbors and the G7 have accused Beijing of intimidation and coercion.
Beijing claims almost the entirety of the South China Sea, brushing aside competing claims from several Southeast Asian nations including the Philippines and an international ruling that its stance has no legal basis.
China deploys coast guard and other boats to patrol the waters and has turned several reefs into militarized artificial islands. Chinese and Philippine vessels have had a series of confrontations in disputed areas.
From Saturday, China’s coast guard can detain foreigners “suspected of violating management of border entry and exit,” according to the new regulations published online.
Detention is allowed up to 60 days in “complicated cases,” they say.
“Foreign ships that have illegally entered China’s territorial waters and the adjacent waters may be detained.”
Manila has accused the Chinese coast guard of “barbaric and inhumane behavior” against Philippine vessels, and President Ferdinand Marcos said last month called the new rules a “very worrisome” escalation.
China Coast Guard vessels have used water cannon against Philippine boats multiple times in the contested waters.
There have also been collisions that injured Filipino troops.
Philippine military chief General Romeo Brawner told reporters on Friday that authorities in Manila were “discussing a number of steps to be undertaken in order for us to protect our fishermen.”
Philippine fishermen were told “not to be afraid, but just to go ahead with their normal activities to fish there in our Exclusive Economic Zone,” Brawner said.
The Group of Seven bloc on Friday criticized what it called “dangerous” incursions by China in the waterway.
“We oppose China’s militarization, and coercive and intimidation activities in the South China Sea,” read a G7 statement at the end of a summit on Friday.
The South China Sea is a vital waterway, where Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei also have overlapping claims in some parts.
Most recently, however, confrontations between China and the Philippines have raised fears of a wider conflict over the sea that could involve the United States and other allies.
Trillions of dollars in ship-borne trade passes through the South China Sea annually, and huge unexploited oil and gas deposits are believed to lie under its seabed, though estimates vary greatly.
The sea is also important as a source of fish for growing populations.
China has defended its new coast guard rules. A foreign ministry spokesman said last month that they were intended to “better uphold order at sea.”
And the Chinese defense minister warned this month that there were “limits” to Beijing’s restraint in the South China Sea.
China has also been angered in the past by US and other Western warships sailing through the South China Sea.
The US Navy and others undertake such voyages to assert the freedom of navigation in international waters, but Beijing considers them violations of its sovereignty.
Chinese and US forces have had a series of close encounters in the South China Sea.


UK orders Apple to give it access to users’ encrypted accounts, Washington Post reports

A person holds an iPhone 15 Pro at the Apple campus, Sept. 12, 2023, in Cupertino, Calif. (AP)
A person holds an iPhone 15 Pro at the Apple campus, Sept. 12, 2023, in Cupertino, Calif. (AP)
Updated 08 February 2025
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UK orders Apple to give it access to users’ encrypted accounts, Washington Post reports

A person holds an iPhone 15 Pro at the Apple campus, Sept. 12, 2023, in Cupertino, Calif. (AP)
  • UK’s office of the Home Secretary has served Apple with a document called a technical capability notice, ordering it to provide the access, as per Washington Post

LONDON: Britain’s security officials have ordered that Apple create a so-called ‘back door’ allowing them to retrieve all the content any Apple user worldwide has uploaded to the cloud, The Washington Post reported on Friday citing people familiar with the matter.
Rather than break the security promises it made to its users everywhere, Apple is likely to stop offering encrypted storage in the UK, the report said, citing unnamed sources.
UK’s office of the Home Secretary has served Apple with a document called a technical capability notice, ordering it to provide the access, as per Washington Post.
Apple did not respond to a Reuters request for comment outside regular business hours.
Britain’s interior ministry did not immediately comment on the report.
Britain in January used its regulatory powers to launch an investigation into Apple and Google’s smartphone operating systems, app stores and browsers.

 

 


Migrants who break law ‘will be deported’: Polish prime minister

Migrants who break law ‘will be deported’: Polish prime minister
Updated 07 February 2025
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Migrants who break law ‘will be deported’: Polish prime minister

Migrants who break law ‘will be deported’: Polish prime minister
  • Tusk, whose centrist camp faces an electoral threat from the nationalists in the May presidential vote, has in past months vowed to suspend asylum rights partially and backed curbing benefits for Ukrainian refugees

WARSAW: Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Friday said his government would draw up plans to deport migrants who break the law of the EU country as Poland nears a key presidential election in May.
Tusk also reiterated criticism of the EU migrant relocation scheme during a press conference in the port city of Gdansk alongside European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen.
“Anyone who is hosted in Poland, takes advantage of our hospitality and violently violates the law will be deported from Poland,” Tusk said.
He added that the government was working on a “plan for an immediate response to organized crime and violent crime carried out by foreigners.”
He said an outline of the plan, drawn up by the justice and interior ministries, would be presented in the coming days.
Tusk, whose centrist camp faces an electoral threat from the nationalists in the May presidential vote, has in past months vowed to suspend asylum rights partially and backed curbing benefits for Ukrainian refugees.
On Friday, he also said Poland would not accept any “burdens” related to the EU migrant relocation scheme.
Last year, the EU significantly overhauled asylum rules, requiring member states to remove thousands of asylum-seekers from “frontline” states such as Italy and Greece.
Alternatively, they could provide money or other resources to under-pressure nations.
“If anyone in Europe were to say that Poland should take on even more burdens, then no matter who it is, I will tell them that Poland will not fulfill that. The end,” Tusk said.
He said Poland had already “opened its borders and hearts to two million refugees from Ukraine” following the Russian invasion and was facing illegal migration across its border with Belarus.
States in eastern Europe have accused Russia and its ally Belarus of pushing thousands of migrants over their borders in recent years as part of a campaign to destabilize Europe.

 


Zelensky says N Korean troops back on Russia front line

Zelensky says N Korean troops back on Russia front line
Updated 07 February 2025
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Zelensky says N Korean troops back on Russia front line

Zelensky says N Korean troops back on Russia front line
  • “There have been new assaults in the Kursk operation areas... the Russian army and North Korean soldiers have been brought in again,” Zelensky said
  • The Ukrainian leader said a “significant number” of opposing troops had been “destroyed“

KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that North Korean troops were back on the front line in Russia’s Kursk region, after reports Moscow had withdrawn them due to heavy losses.
More than 10,000 soldiers from the reclusive state were sent to Russia last year to help it fight back a shock Ukrainian offensive into the border region, according to South Korean and Western intelligence.
A Ukrainian military spokesman told AFP last Friday that Kyiv had not encountered activity or clashes with North Korean troops for three weeks.
“There have been new assaults in the Kursk operation areas... the Russian army and North Korean soldiers have been brought in again,” Zelensky said in his evening address.
The Ukrainian leader said a “significant number” of opposing troops had been “destroyed.”
“We are talking about hundreds of Russian and North Korean soldiers,” he added.
Kyiv captured dozens of border settlements in its Kursk assault six months ago, the first time a foreign army had crossed into Russian territory since World War II.
The North Korean deployment, never officially confirmed by Moscow or Pyongyang, was supposed to reinforce the Russian army and help them expel Ukraine’s troops.
But as of February Ukraine still holds swathes of Russian territory, something Zelensky sees as a bargaining chip in any future negotiations with Moscow.


UK’s Lammy warns US aid cuts could see China step into ‘gap’

UK’s Lammy warns US aid cuts could see China step into ‘gap’
Updated 07 February 2025
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UK’s Lammy warns US aid cuts could see China step into ‘gap’

UK’s Lammy warns US aid cuts could see China step into ‘gap’

LONDON: British Foreign Secretary David Lammy on Friday warned that US President Donald Trump’s moves to freeze foreign aid and dismantle the USAID agency could see “China and others step into that gap.”
The UK’s top diplomat pointed to reforms by Britain’s previous Conservative government to its foreign aid program as “a big strategic mistake” which the new Trump administration should “look closely at.”
In 2020 the UK government closed down the Department for International Development (DfID) and subsumed it into the Foreign Office, before slashing the aid budget the following year.
The moves earned widespread criticism at the time from aid groups and others in the sector, as well as the countries’ opposition parties.
“What I can say to American friends is it’s widely accepted that the decision by the UK with very little preparation to close down DfID, to suspend funding in the short term or give many global partners little heads up, was a big strategic mistake,” Lammy told the Guardian.
“We have spent years unraveling that strategic mistake. Development remains a very important soft power tool. And in the absence of development... I would be very worried that China and others step into that gap,” he added.
“So I would caution US friends to look closely at what went wrong in the United Kingdom as they navigate this decision.”
Trump on Friday called for the United States Agency for International Development to be shut down, in an escalation of his unprecedented campaign to dismantle the massive government aid agency that has prompted confusion and chaos among its global network.
His administration has already frozen foreign aid and ordered thousands of foreign-based staff to return to the United States, with reported impacts on the ground steadily growing.


Philippine vice president preparing for impeachment battle but silent on option to resign

Philippine vice president preparing for impeachment battle but silent on option to resign
Updated 07 February 2025
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Philippine vice president preparing for impeachment battle but silent on option to resign

Philippine vice president preparing for impeachment battle but silent on option to resign
  • A potential conviction and ban on Duterte holding office would be a major setback to one of the country’s most prominent political families

MANILA: Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte said Friday that her lawyers were preparing for a legal battle in her upcoming impeachment trial but refused to say if resignation was an option so she could preempt a possible conviction that would bar her from running for president in the future.

Duterte was speaking for the first time since the House of Representatives impeached her Wednesday on a raft of criminal charges, including plotting to have President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. assassinated, which she again denied. Marcos was her running mate in the 2022 elections but they have had a bitter falling out.
At the news conference, she underscored economic hardships and said the lives of Filipinos have become “much worse” due to skyrocketing costs of living.
“God save the Philippines,” Duterte said and asked her supporters to turn to social media to express their sentiments instead of holding street protests to avoid disrupting their lives.
A potential conviction and ban on Duterte holding office would be a major setback to one of the country’s most prominent political families that has been perceived as veering toward China.
The impeachment complaint focused on the alleged threats to Marcos, irregularities in the use of office funds and Duterte’s failure to stand up to Chinese aggression in the disputed South China Sea, according to proponents of the petition. The Senate is to take up the case when it reconvenes in June.
Marcos has boosted defense ties with Washington, Manila’s longtime treaty ally, as the Philippines faced China’s increasing aggressive actions in the contested waters.
The vice president’s father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, nurtured cozy ties during his term with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin while threatening to end US military engagements in the Philippines.
That backdrop has made the impeachment proceedings important to the US and China, whose rivalry for influence looms large in the region, said Jean Franco, a political professor at the state-run University of the Philippines.
“China will lose a perceived ally if Duterte gets convicted,” Franco said. The US, which saw its alliance with Manila called into question under the previous Duterte administration, would benefit, she said.
Asked if she was considering resignation, a move that would preempt a possible conviction that would block her from running in the 2028 presidential elections, Duterte refused to give a categorical reply.
“We’re still too far from those matters,” she said, adding that a large number of lawyers have signed up to join her impeachment defense.
She reiterated that she was open to seeking the presidency in 2028 when asked, but added that she has to assess her chances. The vice president’s popularity rating has declined in independent surveys, but she is still regarded as a leading presidential contender.
“We’re seriously considering that but it’s difficult to decide without the numbers,” she said.