HANOI, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Vietnam has been ramping up its dredging and landfill work in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, creating another 330 acres of land since December last year, a U.S. think tank said in a report.
The expansion, much larger than 120 acres it had created between 2012 and 2022, made Vietnam second only to China in terms of island buildup in the Spratly Islands, Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said in the report this week, citing satellite imagery.
The sea is one of the world’s most contested waterways, where more than $3 trillion of trade passes each year.
China, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have lodged competing claims for some or all of the Spratly Islands.
The recent expansion by Vietnam was the most noticeable at Barque Canada Reef, called Bai Thuyen Chai in Vietnam, where the report, produced by CSIS’s Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), said 210 acres of land was created in the past year.
It said Vietnam’s efforts have remained focused on dredging and landfill, with construction of infrastructure yet to begin.
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Nov 17 (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida committed to pursuing mutually-beneficial relations in their first face-to-face talks in a year, a sign that Asia’s two largest economies are looking to patch up strained ties.
The countries should “focus on common interests” and reaffirm their “strategic relationship of mutual benefit and give it new meaning,” Xi told Kishida as they sat across from one another at a table flanked by their delegations.
In a joint statement in 2008, Japan and China agreed to pursue a “mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests” designed to ensure frequent leadership exchanges on issues such as security.
But the phrasing has been used less frequently in recent years as the historic rivals have clashed over a series of issues such as territorial disputes, trade tensions and Taiwan, the democratic island that Beijing claims as its own.
Most recently, ties have been tested by China’s ban on Japanese seafood following Tokyo’s decision to release treated water from its crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea in August.
Kishida said he had strongly urged Xi to drop the ban and also sought the swift release of the businessman, which has dealt an outsized blow to their close economic ties.
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VATICAN CITY, Nov 15 (Reuters) - The Vatican has confirmed a ban on Catholics becoming Freemasons, a centuries-old secretive society that the Catholic Church has long viewed with hostility and has an estimated global membership of up to six million.
The department, known as the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith, issued its opinion, dated Nov. 13 and countersigned by Pope Francis, in response to a bishop from the Philippines alarmed by the growing number of Freemasons in his country.
The same office said last week that transgender people can be baptized, serve as godparents and act as witnesses at Catholic weddings.
The letter on Freemasons cited a 1983 declaration, signed by the late Pope Benedict XVI, at the time the Vatican’s doctrine chief, stating that Catholics “in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion”.
According to the United Grand Lodge of England, modern Freemasonry “is one of the oldest social and charitable organisations in the world”, rooted in the traditions of medieval stonemasons.
It lists the late Queen Elizabeth’s husband Prince Philip, former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, late actor Peter Sellers, former England soccer manager Alf Ramsey and authors Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Conan Doyle as famous Freemasons from the past.
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The U.S. executives dined with Xi on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum following a day of talks between the Chinese leader and U.S. President Joe Biden, aimed at steadying relations between the world’s two largest economies.
Executives from U.S. corporate giants such as Apple’s (AAPL.O) Tim Cook, BlackRock’s (BLK.N) Laurence Fink, Broadcom’s (AVGO.O) Hock Tan, Bridgewater Associates’ Ray Dalio and Pfizer’s (PFE.N) Albert Bourla were at the dinner tables.
Xi also met Tesla (TSLA.O) CEO Elon Musk, telling him that he supports the company’s development in China, according to a statement from the auto maker’s Weibo Account on Thursday.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and other senior U.S. officials also attended the event, which generated controversy due to reported high ticket costs for companies seeking to brush shoulders with Xi.
Mike Gallagher, the Republican chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives’ select committee on China, had called it “unconscionable” that U.S. companies would pay thousands of dollars to join a dinner with a government the United States says is committing genocide against Muslim Uyghurs.
China has grown more suspicious of engagement with Western companies, in line with Xi’s emphasis on self-reliance and national security, and this year it has cracked down on some U.S. consultancy and due-diligence firms, further damaging investor confidence.
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PARIS, Nov 16 (Reuters) - France on Thursday condemned violence by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, calling it a “policy of terror” aimed at displacing Palestinians and urging Israeli authorities to protect Palestinians from the violence.
“Concerning the West Bank, I’d like to express the strongest condemnation by France of the violence carried out by the settlers against the Palestinians,” foreign ministry spokesperson Anne-Claire Legendre told a press conference.
She said the Israeli authorities needed to take the necessary measures to protect the Palestinian population and warned that the settlement policy harmed the two-state solution.
Speaking in Geneva on Thursday, Turk said he was deeply concerned about the intensification of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war and it has been under military occupation since, while Israeli settlements have consistently expanded.
Palestinians envisage the West Bank as part of a future independent state also including Gaza and East Jerusalem.
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SILKYARA, India, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Rescuers drilled about one-third of the way into the debris of a collapsed highway tunnel in India by Friday morning to reach 40 workers trapped inside for five days, officials said.
Drilling had penetrated through about 21 metres (70 feet) of debris, Devendra Singh Patwal, a disaster management officer, told Reuters.
Another officer with the rescue team inside the tunnel said the trapped men were doing fine.
The workers have been supplied with food, water and oxygen through a pipe and authorities have been in contact with them via walkie-talkies.
The 4.5 km (3 mile) tunnel in the northern state of Uttarakhand is part of the Char Dham highway, one of the most ambitious projects of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
Authorities have not said what caused the tunnel to cave in on Sunday morning, but the region is prone to landslides, earthquakes and floods.
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MANILA, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said on Friday he will meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the sidelines of the APEC Summit in San Francisco to discuss tensions and formulate ways forward in the South China Sea.
“We will get the view of the Chinese president on what we can do to bring down the temperature, to not escalate the situation in the West Philippine Sea,” Marcos said in a video message.
“We will put together the ways forward because we are continuously trying to maintain the peace,” Marcos said ahead of a meeting with Xi at the sidelines of the APEC Summit in San Francisco.
Marcos said he also discussed South China Sea issues with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2016 said the line on China’s maps had no legal basis, which Beijing rejects.
The Department of Foreign Affairs also called on China to remove all “illegal structures” it built within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, cease reclamation in those areas and be accountable for the damage the activities caused.
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Ukraine’s prosecutor general said in May that he was investigating the alleged role of Belarus in the forced transfer of more than 19,000 identified children from Russian-occupied territories since the conflict broke out, including to Russia.
The findings by the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale School of Public Health, which receives U.S. State Department funding, shared with Reuters are the most extensive to date about the alleged role of Belarus in the Russian relocation program for Ukrainian children.
Russia has said previously that it is offering humanitarian aid to those wishing to flee Ukraine voluntarily and rejects accusations of war crimes.
Among the key findings detailed in the 39-page report were that children had been transported from at least 17 cities in Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions in what Yale researchers described as an ongoing practice.
“Russia’s systematic effort to identify, collect, transport, and re-educate Ukraine’s children has been facilitated by Belarus,” the report said.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry and the office of the prosecutor general, which oversees war crimes investigations, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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There’s a lot we can do in labs, the snag is often when you try to bring it to scale. Regardless, doing this is like trying to clean your lungs while still smoking
Yeah it’s a huge effort to do large scale biochar production. The dream is to take all those waste stems they’re burning and sequester the carbon in the soil. This will improve soil quality and improve air quality by stopping the burning, but it will cost big bucks.
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Click here to see the summaryMyanmar’s military has battled ethnic minority and other insurgencies for decades but a 2021 coup has brought unprecedented coordination between anti-military forces that are mounting the biggest challenge to the army in years. A parallel government formed by pro-democracy politicians to oppose the military, and allied with some insurgent factions, has launched a “Road to Naypyitaw” campaign which it says is aimed at taking control of the capital. Myanmar has been in turmoil since the 2021 coup, when the military ousted a government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, ending a decade of tentative democratic reform. The 2021 coup dashed hopes for reform and triggered a groundswell of opposition that has united pro-democracy activists in towns and cities with ethnic minority forces fighting for self-determination in hinterlands. The Arakan Army (AA) rebel group fighting for autonomy in Rakhine State said on Wednesday that dozens of police and military men had surrendered or been captured as its forces advanced. Separately, a video posted on social media by anti-military forces in Kayah State, and verified by Reuters, showed wounded junta troops surrendering to insurgents, who were seen offering medical help. — Saved 73% of original text.
COLOMBO, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka’s top court ruled on Tuesday that former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his brother, former Prime Minister Mahinda, were among several government officials whose conduct contributed to the country’s worst economic crisis in decades.
The court was ruling was on a petition filed against 13 former officials by rights group Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) which said the Rajapaksa brothers and others were responsible for the crisis.
“Their actions, omissions and conduct contributed to the crisis,” the ruling said.
The two Rajapaksa brothers, two former central bank governors and President Ranil Wickremesinghe were among those named in the landmark TISL petition.
“Looking forward, we hope that this acts as a warning to elected representatives and public officials as they make critical decisions that have serious implications on the lives of citizens,” said Nadishani Perera, TISL Executive Director.
Sri Lanka’s economy collapsed as it shrank 7.8% last year, pummelled by long power cuts, soaring inflation, a plunging rupee and record high interest rates caused by the worst financial crisis in over seven decades.
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