Vietnam has accused the Chinese Coast Guard of sinking a fishing boat near a disputed island chain, authorities said yesterday, ahead of key UN-backed ruling on claims in the flashpoint South China Sea.
Two Vietnamese boats were chased by a pair of Chinese Coast Guard ships on Saturday afternoon off Vietnam’s Quang Ngai province, the Vietnam Fisheries Society said in a statement.
One ship was boarded by Chinese coast guards who forced the crew overboard, the society said, while a second vessel was prevented from reaching the stranded fishermen.
“Chinese men jumped onto fisherman Vo Van Luu’s boat, struck the Vietnamese sailors and... sunk the vessel,” forcing five crew members overboard, the statement said.
The five fishermen remained in the sea until dark, when the second Vietnamese vessel was able to approach the area.
The society “condemned” the incident and demanded compensation from China. There was no immediate comment from China on the allegations.
Beijing lays claim to virtually all of the South China Sea, putting it at odds with Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines, which also have claims.
Vietnam and China frequently trade diplomatic barbs over the disputed Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島).
China is encouraging patriotic tourists to visit the contested Paracels. Such acts have deepened already simmering anti-Chinese sentiment in Vietnam.
At least three Chinese were killed in 2014 when rioting broke out in Vietnam after Beijing sent an oil rig into the contested waters.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS