Oil spill from ship sinking off Philippines

The Philippines is in a race against time to contain an oil spill after a tanker carrying close to 1.5 million liters of industrial fuel capsized and sank off the country's coast, reports Saudi Gazette.

There are fears the "enormous" spill - which is already stretching out over several kilometers - could reach the shore of the capital, Manila, Coast Guard spokesman Rear Admiral Armando Balilo told reporters.

The ship was one of two that sank in the region on Thursday, with the second going down just off Taiwan's southwestern coast.

Both Taiwan and the Philippines are seeing large amounts of rain as Typhoon Gaemi moves through the area, causing widespread flooding.

The typhoon made landfall in mainland China on Thursday evening local time, with authorities declaring the highest tier disaster warning.

It first struck Taiwan on Wednesday evening, killing three as it made its way across the island.

Four counties and cities in Taiwan saw more than a thousand millimeters of rainfall during a 14-hour period ending Thursday afternoon.

The Philippines avoided a direct hit by Gaemi, but the storm intensified seasonal monsoon rains, triggering widespread flooding across large swathes of Metro Manila and its suburbs.

Despite the heavy rains, the MT Terra Nova, which sails under the Philippines' flag, had not broken any regulations around traveling in heavy weather, according to Rear Admiral Balilo.

The tanker was heading for the central Philippine city of Iloilo when it sank, with 17 crew members on board.

One died, but 16 were successfully rescued, officials said. Authorities are investigating whether bad weather was a factor.

The Coast Guard is now "racing against time" to contain the spill, which could - if all of the oil leaks - become the biggest in the country's history.

High winds and rough seas were hampering their attempts, however.

Even if they managed to avoid a catastrophe of that magnitude, Rear Admiral Balilo said it would "definitely affect the marine environment".

Pando Hicap, chairman of local fishing group Pamalakaya, said the spill was "alarming" because fishermen's livelihoods were "dependent on the waters".

"They don't have any alternative," he told news agency AFP.

Meanwhile, to the north in Taiwan, all nine sailors were initially reported missing after their Tanzania-flagged cargo ship Fu Shun went down.

The Myanmar nationals were forced to abandon the sinking ship, Hsiao Huan-chang, head of the fire agency, told AFP.

"They fell into the sea and were floating there," he said.

The first attempts to reach the crew, who were wearing lifejackets, were hampered by the low visibility and high winds, but by the end of Thursday three had been reported rescued.

The typhoon was originally expected to hit further north, but the mountains of northern Taiwan steered it slightly south towards the city of Hualien.

The typhoon is expected to weaken as it tracks over the mountainous terrain of Taiwan before re-emerging in the Taiwan Strait towards China.

A second landfall is expected in the Fujian province in southeastern China later on Thursday. Several rail operators in China have also suspended operations.

US Indo-Pacific foreign security policy

According to Nikkei Asia, an emerging quadrilateral group, between the United States, Japan, Australia and the Philippines, has become the core of Washington's foreign security policy in the Indo-Pacific, quickly overtaking the Quad in priority.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin held a series of meetings in Hawaii with his counterparts from the three countries last Thursday to set an "ambitious course" for peace, stability and deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. The four-way alliance has reportedly been nicknamed the "Squad" by Pentagon officials.

The four nations have held maritime military drills in April and are expected to hold more later this year.

Ashley Tellis, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the Quad, a gathering of the US, Japan, India and Australia, has "an appearance of slippage" due to scheduling problems caused by the elections in India, an upcoming one in the U.S., and the wars in Europe and the Middle East.

But Tellis said these developments have put the role of the Quad in perspective.

"Where balancing China is concerned, the Quad is only one arrow among many in the US quiver," he said. "It has its greatest value in peacetime.

"In militarized crises and conflict with China, the minilaterals like AUKUS and the 'Squad', and most importantly, the US-Japan alliance will prove to be far more important than the Quad," he said.

"That is not to denigrate the Quad. It is simply underscoring a strategic fact of life," the former special assistant to President George W. Bush added.

Dhruva Jaishankar, executive director of the Observer Research Foundation America, said the newfound attention on the Squad grouping comes at a time when China has fired water cannons at Philippine supply ships in the South China Sea to prevent delivery of construction materials to the BRP Sierra Madre, a World War II-era ship grounded on the Second Thomas Shoal to bolster Manila's sovereignty.

"That's really where China's applying the greatest pressure at this time, even more than Taiwan, and it's really a test of the US alliance," Jaishankar said.

China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson has previously said the water cannon firings were a response to the ships intruding "without China's permission" and a "serious infringement" on Chinese sovereignty

New Delhi had hoped to convene a Quad summit earlier in the year, to coincide with a possible visit by US President Joe Biden visit to India in January, but the US leader was unable to make it citing a tight schedule.

India also explored a Quad summit before the Indian elections that began on April 19, according to Jaishankar. That too was thwarted by Biden's March 07 State of the Union address and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishdia's state-level visit to the US on April 10.

"Clearly the triangle of the US, Japan and Australia is far more important," said Kent Calder, director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, adding that "a series of strategic triangles (including the U.S., Japan and South Korea, and the US, Japan and Philippines) are really the core of US foreign policy now."

The professor noted that all of these strategic triangles have clear functional purposes. The Biden administration is "too busy for more talk shops," he said. "The Quad under current circumstances does have that problem."

But Lisa Curtis, director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, said the Squad is not a "replacement" for the Quad and should rather be seen as a supplement.

"India is an important part of the US Indo-Pacific strategy. It's a critical part," she said.

"In the event that there's any kind of conflict or crisis, either in the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea, India will play a critical role in keeping an eye on the Indian Ocean region and the Malacca Strait," she said.

The difference between the Quad and the Squad is the presence of the word "deterrence." Despite its formal name of Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, the Quad has stayed away from security issues.

Joint statements issued after the past three Quad leaders summits have included references of "peace" and "stability" of the region but has never spoken about deterrence.

This is out of consideration for India, who has had a tradition of non-alignment, more recently known as strategic autonomy.

 

Saudi Navy carries out evacuation operation from Sudan

The Royal Saudi Naval Forces (RSNF) carried out the operation that evacuated citizens, other nationals, diplomats and international officials from Sudan on Saturday, the Foreign Ministry announced. The RSNF conducted the operation with the support of various branches of the armed forces.

The Ministry said, “66 persons from Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Egypt, Tunisia, Pakistan, India, Bulgaria, Bulgaria, Philippines, Canada, and Burkina Faso were among the evacuated.” The number of evacuated Saudi citizens was 91 persons.

All the Saudi citizens and nationals of other countries have arrived safely in Jeddah. This has come in the implementation of the directives of the Kingdom’s leadership, the Ministry said.

The batches arrived in Jeddah at King Faisal Naval Base and were received by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Eng. Waleed Al-Khereiji.

Al-Khereiji said that the journey of the evacuation was long, starting from Khartoum, passing through a number of regions in Sudan until reaching Port Sudan, and with the cooperation of government agencies in the Kingdom. He affirmed that an important role of the operation was done by Ministry of Defense that implemented this plan.

“We all celebrate the return of our sons and the sons of brotherly and friendly countries to the land of Saudi Arabia, which coincided with the celebration of Eid Al-Fitr.”

Saudi Arabia has worked to provide all the main needs for the foreign nationals, in preparation for facilitating their departure to their countries.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Prince Faisal Bin Farhan received a phone call from his Kuwaiti counterpart Sheikh Salem Abdullah Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.

Sheikh Salem voiced sincere congratulations on successful evacuations by Saudi ships of citizens from 11 countries from Sudan to Jeddah.

Sheikh Salem expressed Kuwait's appreciation and gratitude to the Saudi foreign minister for the Kingdom's efforts to ensure the evacuation of Kuwaiti citizens from Sudan.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had announced earlier on Saturday the start of arranging the evacuation of Saudi citizens and a number of nationals from other countries from Sudan to Jeddah by sea on 5 Saudi ships. The second Saudi ship was carrying Saudia airline crew who was targeted in Khartoum airport.

It is noteworthy that after a week of fighting between two factions of the country’s military leadership, at least 400 people have been killed in Sudan.

Record heatwave scorching much of Asia

A record-smashing heatwave has been scorching South and South-east Asia, with temperatures so searing in places like India’s West Bengal that people there are frying eggs under the heat of the noonday sun, reports The Straits Time.

Meteorologists have been tracking temperatures of as high as 45 deg C in India, Thailand and Myanmar, and 42 to 43 deg C in Bangladesh, Laos, Vietnam, Nepal and China. These are temperatures that most of these countries have not experienced in decades.

Populations across the continent are cranking up their air-conditioners and electric fans, seeking shelter in shopping malls and in their offices, or praying for rain.

People are dying of heatstroke as they gather in thick, large crowds under the sun, and students are landing in hospitals as their schools bake in the heat.

Power grids are stretched beyond their capacities, and farmers are looking at failed harvests.

The continent is experiencing the worst April heatwave in its history, said climatologist and weather historian Maximiliano Herrera, who tracks extreme weather on his Twitter account.

“It will just get worse,” he warned.

Climatologists and scientists say this is just the start of a long dry spell that will likely be exacerbated by the El Nino weather phenomenon forecast to hit later in 2023. Asia will have to brace itself for even warmer days ahead, they warn.

At least 13 people died from heatstroke in India’s western Maharashtra state after attending a state award ceremony on Sunday that drew over a million people.

In Ahmedabad, the most populous city in Gujarat state, the air had been so hot and humid that asphalt on a freshly laid road did not harden, but instead melted.

At least two other states in India – Tripura in the north-east and West Bengal in the east – have ordered schools to shut this week as the temperature rose above 40 deg C.

In the Philippines, where the temperature hit 37 deg C, close to 150 secondary schoolchildren in a province south of capital Manila suffered heatstroke after a power outage hit their school. Seven of them fainted; two had to be taken to a hospital. The school has classrooms crammed with some 60 students each, and only electric fans to cool them.

The surge in power demand is already straining power grid capacities in poorer nations like Bangladesh, which is being forced to cut power to millions of people.

India is also warning of blackouts as higher use of air-conditioners and irrigation pumps depletes fuel used by its power plants.

But scientists are not laughing. It is warmer now because of climate change, they say.

Dr Fahad Saeed, regional lead for climate policy at Climate Analytics said, “This year’s record heat in Thailand, China and South Asia is a clear climate trend and will cause public health challenges for years to come.”

India’s scorching temperatures are making its population of over 1.4 billion – set to become the world’s largest – more vulnerable to illness and hunger, he said.

China has already seen major disruptions to industrial production in recent years because of extreme weather. It was gripped by a severe drought in 2022 that impacted the Yangtze River – a key conduit used to irrigate farms and power the massive Three Gorges Dam power station.

 

US to establish new naval bases in Philippines

The Pentagon on Monday announced the locations of four new naval bases in the Philippines, securing three of the spots in the northeastern part of the island to better counter Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific.

The US will create two naval bases in the Cagayan province covering Luzon, the northern portion of the Philippines archipelago that lies directly across from Taiwan in the South China Sea. Naval Base Camilo Osias will be located near the municipality of Santa Ana, Cagayan. The other base in Caguyan will be near the Lal-lo Airport. Another military base, called Melchor Dela Cruz, will be located in Gamu, Isabela, also on the Luzon point. A fourth military base will be located at Balabac Island in the province of Palawan, located in the western part of the Philippines near the Spratly Islands, a major archipelago in the disputed South China Sea.

Tensions between the US and China are high over fears that Beijing will seek to take control of Taiwan in the coming years. China has also angered its regional neighbors with aggressive efforts to assert control over the South China Sea, which is crucial to global trade.

America’s new bases in the Philippines will provide a major boost to the US presence in the region, as part of efforts to neutralize China’s influence.

Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said the expansion in the Philippines makes our training more resilient.

“It is about creating regional readiness but also being able to respond to any type of disaster or any type of humanitarian disaster that could arise in the region,” she told reporters at a Monday briefing.

Beijing has reacted angrily to the expansion of the US military in the Philippines.

A spokesperson for China’s embassy in the Philippines said the agreement will seriously endanger regional peace and stability and drag the Philippines into the abyss of geopolitical strife and damage its economic development.

 

is tantamount to quenching thirst with poison and gouging flesh to heal wounds,” “Creating economic opportunities and jobs through military cooperation the spokesperson said after US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland traveled to the Philippines last month.

Washington already operates five military bases in the Philippines on a rotational basis, meaning they cannot station troops there permanently.

Those camps are located near Manila and in the south and east of the Philippines — but none were in the northern Luzon province, which is more strategically located.

The US reached an agreement for the bases with the Philippines in 2014 called the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the four new military bases in February during a trip to Manila, the capital of the Philippines, but did not disclose the planned locations.

Austin at the time called it a big deal and a sign of the ironclad partnership with the Indo-Pacific nation.

The US has already pledged US$82 million for improvements at the existing five bases in the Philippines and intends to invest more funds to get the new camps up and running.

 

 

Focus should be on oil and gas, not maritime dispute, Beijing urges Philippines

China and the Philippines should not be distracted by their disputes in the South China Sea and should instead focus on advancing cooperation on oil and gas exploration in the region, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said when wrapping up his week-long tour of Southeast Asia.

Wang said the two countries would continue to “properly manage their disputes” and push for oil and gas exploration in the South China Sea.

Wang’s trip that included stopovers in Myanmar, Indonesia and Brunei was part of Beijing seeking to consolidate its ties with the region.

In an interview with state media posted on the Ministry’s website, Wang highlighted China’s desire to move the focus away from maritime disputes to joint exploration of resources in the waters. “Both sides believe that the South China Sea issue is only partial to the entirety of Sino-Philippines relations,” Wang said, discussing the outcomes of his Manila visit. “We should not let such one percent difference derail the 99 percent of our relations.”

Separately during Wang’s tour, China and Brunei set up a working group on energy cooperation, the ministry said on Friday, without providing details.

The Philippine government in October lifted a ban on offshore oil and gas exploration, reopening the door to joint energy development with China.

Two years ago, the two governments signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly explore undersea oil and gas, a way of defusing their corner of a broader regional dispute.

In 2016, an international tribunal in The Hague upheld the Philippines’ challenge to Beijing’s territorial claims to almost all of the South China Sea, but Beijing has never accepted the ruling. President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration has promised to shelve the dispute in exchange for Beijing’s economic aid.

As the Duterte administration nears its end, Beijing has sought to reaffirm support for its neighbour, promising half a million doses of Covid-19 vaccines, US$1.34 billion in loan pledges for infrastructure projects and US$77 million in grants.

Wang said the supply of vaccines to the Philippines showed Beijing’s willingness to help the Philippines overcome its Covid-19 pandemic challenges.

China and the Philippines also announced an arrangement for fast-track border crossing during the pandemic for certain personnel, and opened the Bank of China’s yuan clearing business in the Philippines.

China would continue to take part in the Philippine side’s infrastructure plans and actively promote cooperation on major projects to lay a better foundation for the Philippines’ long-term development, Wang said.

He said China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations were working together to advance post-pandemic recovery. “Facts once again show that adherence to regional and a multilateral mechanism is more important than ever,” he said.