MANILA – China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, in defiance of a 2016 international arbitration ruling, is the “gravest external threat since World War II” to the Philippines, the acting head of the nation’s Supreme Court has said. At a forum in Manila on Saturday, Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio encouraged Filipinos to […]

MANILA, Philippines — Acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio disputed yesterday Malacañang’s claim that “no power on earth” can enforce an international arbitral court’s ruling invalidating China’s massive claim in the South China Sea and the West Philippine Sea. Speaking at the first general assembly and forum of the Akademyang Filipino at the University of the […]

It may be a tall task, but Filipinos should start educating 1.4 billion Chinese people that their belief that China owned the entire South China Sea is a “gigantic fraud,” acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio said on Monday. “The Chinese government today would not comply with the [arbitral] ruling until the Chinese people understand that […]

Acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio rejected Malacañang’s recent claim that “no power on earth” could enforce the UN arbitral court’s ruling which invalidated China’s Nine-Dash Line claim in the West Philippine Sea. Carpio pointed out that the navies of the US, Britain, Japan and other naval had been able to regularly carry out freedom-of-navigation operations […]

Duterte appointees poised to dominate high court MANILA — A high-profile critic of Beijing’s military buildup in the South China Sea has lost his bid to become the Philippine Supreme Court’s next chief justice. Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and three other contenders, lost to Associate Justice Lucas Bersamin, who took the oath on Wednesday […]

President Rodrigo Duterte’s decision not to appoint Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio as chief justice of the Supreme Court had nothing with to do with their differences over the government’s South China Sea policy, Malacañang said Thursday. “Walang kinalaman. Si Presidente hindi naman tinitingnan ‘yung background kung kalaban siya, minura siya,” presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo […]

Construction of a new base to support China’s archaeological studies in the South China Sea began in Qionghai, Hainan Province, on Tuesday. Hu Bing, deputy director of the National Cultural Heritage Administration, said the base is planned as a complex of facilities for research, underwater excavation and conservation of historical heritage in the South China […]

The US Navy sent two warships through the Taiwan Strait Wednesday, just days ahead of a planned meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Stockdale, accompanied by the Henry J. Kaiser-class underway replenishment oiler USNS Pecos, transited the strait, US Pacific Fleet explained to Business Insider […]

Tensions flared up in Ukraine this week when Russian naval vessels rammed a Ukrainian tugboat in the Sea of Azov on Nov. 25. The sea, over which Ukraine and Russia share navigation rights, has become a flashpoint since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Over the last six months, Russian forces have been unlawfully detaining […]

There haven’t been a lot of aircraft intercepts in the South China Sea even as tensions in the region become increasingly uneasy, a top Air Force general said Monday. As China continues to build up contested islands in the region, U.S. Air Force strategic bombers such as the B-52 Stratofortress have not been overtly threatened […]