MANILA/BEIJING, — The Philippines will stick to its position on Sabina Shoal, it said on Thursday, even while exploring ways to ease tension in the area during “frank and candid” talks with China on managing disputes in the key waterway of the South China Sea.

The Southeast Asian nation’s sustained presence at the feature, aiming to monitor what it suspects to be China’s small-scale reclamation activities has angered Beijing, turning the shoal into their latest flashpoint in the contested waters.

During Wednesday’s meeting of officials in Beijing, China vowed to “firmly uphold its sovereignty” and reiterated a demand for the immediate withdrawal of a Philippine coast guard ship anchored at the shoal since April.

“I reaffirmed the Philippines’ consistent position and explored ways to lower the tension,” Philippine Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Theresa Lazaro said on X, posting a picture of her handshake with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong.

“We agreed to continue discussions on areas of co-operation, especially on hotline mechanism, coastguard cooperation, and marine scientific and technological co-operation.”

The two had a frank and candid exchange of views, the Philipine foreign ministry said in its statement.

The Sabina Shoal, which China refers to as Xianbin Reef, and Manila as Escoda Shoal, lies 150 km west of the Philippine province of Palawan, well within its exclusive economic zone.

The two nations have traded accusations of intentional ramming of each others’ vessels in a series of clashes last month, just after reaching a pact on resupply missions to a beached Filipino naval ship in the Second Thomas Shoal.

China claims sovereignty over most of the China Sea, overlapping into maritime zones of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

In 2016 the Hague arbitration tribunal voided China’s expansive and historical claims, a decision Beijing rejects.

The Philippine navy has said it has recently monitored 207 Chinese vessels, including ‘maritime militia boats’ within the country’s EEZ, with dozens observed near Sabina Shoal.
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SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea fired a ballistic missile toward the sea Thursday morning, South Korea’s military said, days after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to put his nuclear force fully ready for battle with its rivals. 

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a brief statement that the launch took place off North Korea’s eastern coast but gave no details, such as how far the weapon traveled. 

Japan’s prime minister’s office also alerted on its X account that North Korea had launched a suspected ballistic missile, but it did not provide details. 

The launch was North Korea’s first public weapons firing in more than two months. On July 1, North Korea claimed to have tested a new tactical weapon capable of delivering a “super-large” 4.5 ton-class warhead. 

In a speech Monday, Kim said he would redouble efforts to make his nuclear force fully ready for combat with the United States and its allies. He said North Korea faced “a grave threat” because of what he called “the reckless expansion” of a U.S.-led regional military bloc that is now developing into a nuclear-based one. 

Kim has made similar vows numerous times, but his latest threat came as outside experts believe North Korea will perform a nuclear test explosion or long-range missile test-launches ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November. 

Last week, North Korea also resumed launches of trash-carrying balloons toward South Korea. 

Since 2022, North Korea has significantly accelerated its weapons testing in a bid to perfect its capabilities to launch strikes on the U.S. and South Korea. The U.S. and South Korea have responded by expanding military drills that North Korea calls invasion rehearsals. 

Last month, Kim had held off from missile tests or other provocative military demonstrations as the United States and South Korea conducted large-scale summertime military exercises. North Korea issued statements berating the allies for raising tensions. 
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SEOUL/NEW DELHI — Samsung Electronics, the world’s top maker of smartphones, TVs and memory chips, is cutting up to 30% of its overseas staff at some divisions, three sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. 

South Korea-based Samsung has instructed subsidiaries worldwide to reduce sales and marketing staff by about 15% and the administrative staff by up to 30%, two of the sources said. 

The plan will be implemented by the end of this year and would impact jobs across the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa, one person said. Six other people familiar with the matter also confirmed Samsung’s planned global headcount reduction. 

It is not clear how many people would be let go and which countries and business units would be most affected. 

The sources declined to be named because the scope and details of the job cuts remained confidential. 

In a statement, Samsung said workforce adjustments conducted at some overseas operations were routine, and aimed at improving efficiency. It said there are no specific targets for the plans, adding that they are not impacting its production staff. 

Samsung employed a total of 267,800 people as of the end of 2023, and more than half, or 147,000 employees, are based overseas, according to its latest sustainability report. 

Manufacturing and development accounted for most of those jobs and sales and marketing staff was around 25,100, while 27,800 people worked in other areas, the report said. 

The “global mandate” on job cuts was sent about three weeks ago, and Samsung’s India operation was already offering severance packages to some mid-level employees who have left in recent weeks, one of the direct sources said. 

The total employees who may need to leave the India unit could reach 1,000, the person added. Samsung employs some 25,000 people in India. 

In China, Samsung has notified its staff about the job cuts that are expected to affect about 30% of its employees at its sales operation, a South Korean newspaper reported this month. 

Big challenges 

The job cuts come as Samsung grapples with mounting pressure on its key units. 

Its bread-and-butter chip business has been slower than its rivals in recovering from a severe downturn in the industry that drove its profit to a 15-year low last year. 

In May, Samsung replaced the head of its semiconductor division in a bid to overcome a “chip crisis” as it seeks to catch up with smaller rival SK Hynix in supplying high-end memory chips used in artificial intelligence chipsets. 

In the premium smartphone market, Samsung is facing stiff competition from Apple and China’s Huawei, while it has long lagged behind TSMC in contract chip manufacturing. And in India, which earns Samsung around $12 billion in annual revenue, a strike over wages is disrupting production. 

One of the sources familiar with the plans said the job cuts were being made in preparation for a slowdown in global demand for technology products as the global economy slows. Another source said Samsung is seeking to shore up its bottom line by saving costs. 

It was not immediately clear if Samsung will also cut jobs in its headquarters in South Korea. 

One of the sources said Samsung would find it difficult to lay off workers in South Korea because it was a politically sensitive issue. Conglomerate Samsung Group, of which the electronics giant is the crown jewel, is the country’s biggest employer and plays a key role in its economy. 

Job cuts could also stir labor unrest at home. A South Korean workers’ union at Samsung Electronics recently went on strike for several days, demanding higher wages and benefits. 

Shares in Samsung Electronics, South Korea’s most valuable stock, are trading at their lowest level in 16 months on Wednesday, as some analysts cut their profit estimates for the company recently, citing a weak recovery in demand for smartphones and personal computers.
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Taipei, Taiwan — As China is set to host bilateral talks with the Philippines this month, their South China Sea dispute is expanding from sea to air, increasing the risk of military confrontation, analysts warn.

The Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily newspaper on Monday published an article warning that “China-Philippines relations stand at a crossroads” over the South China Sea dispute.

The warning came after Filipino Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo told reporters at a diplomatic reception on September 4 that Beijing will host the next round of the Bilateral Consultative Mechanism meetings designed to manage differences between the two countries.

Manalo did not say on which date the talks would start this month but expressed hope the two countries would discuss an incident in late August when coast guard ships from both sides collided at a disputed shoal. Both countries blame the other for the collision, though video released by the Philippine coast guard appears to show the Chinese coast guard ship ramming their vessel, BRP Teresa Magbanua.

It was the second such collision of their coast guard ships in August at the disputed atoll.

Vincent Kyle Parada, a former defense analyst for the Philippine Navy and a graduate student at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, says the frequency of the sea clashes is pushing the two sides to expand their operations to the air.

“Over the past few weeks, China has been actively working to disrupt resupply missions to the ship and crew, to the point that after one such failed attempt, the Philippine government announced that essential supplies reached critical levels,” he told VOA Mandarin. “Manila did manage to resupply BRP Teresa Magbanua through a helicopter, signaling this potential shift.”

Parada added, “This potential shift from maritime to aerial resupply emissions in the future is obviously a risk because China has also been escalating aerial operations in the South China Sea.

“Beijing would increase its aerial presence in the Spratlys and send fighter jets to its artificial islands for extended deployments. I think the goal there really would be to make aerial resupply emissions an incredibly dangerous policy option for Manila. That way, it limits Manila’s ability to sustain a long-term presence in the disputed territories.”

According to the latest data from the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs, the administration of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has lodged 176 diplomatic protests with the Chinese government, which claims almost the entire South China Sea, putting it in conflict with Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and researcher at Xuanyuan (Hong Kong) Science and Technology Exchange Center, says any Chinese military moves in the airspace over the South China Sea are due to what he calls “illegal expansion” by the Philippines.

“Whether it’s Scarborough Shoal, Second Thomas Shoal or Sabina Shoal, these are all China’s sovereign territories,” he told VOA Mandarin, repeating Beijing’s claims. “If the Philippines wants to conduct patrols or resupply by air, this in itself is violating the security of China’s airspace, and China will inevitably take certain measures to intercept it.”

An article published on September 2 by the Beijing-based think tank South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative says since 2024, the Philippines has “repeatedly dispatched military aircraft to invade the islands and reefs of Spratly Islands and Macclesfield Bank” and also sent military aircraft to carry out airdrops and replenishment missions over the sea, indicating that “air intrusion is becoming another major path for the Philippines to cause trouble in the South China Sea.”

The article warned that if the Philippines insists on carrying out an “air invasion,” China will have to take corresponding measures, and “once there is friction or even collision, the consequences will be much more serious than the collision with a ship.”

Su Tzu-yun, a research fellow and director at the Division of Defense Strategy and Resources in Taiwan, says China is more likely to take coercive actions in the air, making it difficult for the Philippines to defend its sovereignty.

“China may first take measures to interfere, as it does with the United States and Australian military aircraft, and it will scatter thermal flares to interfere so that Philippine helicopters may not be able to get close,” Su told VOA Mandarin. “It may use jets to create turbulence, meaning it uses air from the jet tail to interfere with the Philippine helicopter when it’s flying.”

Su says Beijing is taking more aggressive interception actions, which greatly increase the risk of accidental conflict.

“The number of Chinese ships has increased. Second, coupled with the previous conflict between China and the Philippines in the sea, which caused injuries to Philippine coast guards, and now it threatens to use stronger means against the Philippine so-called aircraft, so it is moving the definition of gray zone operations closer to the direction of war.”

Philippine National Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro in August said the Philippines plans to purchase 40 new multirole fighter jets and mid-range missiles to strengthen its territorial defense, Reuters reported.

The U.S. in July repeated its commitment to the Philippines’ security after China’s increasingly assertive actions in the South China Sea. US reiterates ‘ironclad’ commitment to Philippines amid China actions in South China Sea.

Parts of the disputed South China Sea are believed to be rich in oil and gas, and the waters are an important transit point for trillions of dollars in annual shipping.

The Hague-based intergovernmental Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2016 unanimously ruled that China’s claim to almost all the South China Sea had “no legal basis,” which Beijing rejected.

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report. Some information for this report came from Reuters.
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JAKARTA, INDONESIA — During his three-day visit to Indonesia last week, Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church, urged Indonesians to live up to the promise represented by the nation’s own motto — “Unity in Diversity.”

While praising Indonesia’s constitution, which guarantees religious freedom, Francis also warned in an address following a meeting with President Joko Widodo that the diversity of the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation can also lead to conflict.

Francis emphasized the importance of interfaith dialogue to eliminate prejudices and build mutual respect. “This is indispensable for meeting common challenges, including that of countering extremism and intolerance, which through the distortion of religion attempt to improve their views by using deception and violence,” Francis said.

Indonesia’s statistical agency says that 87% of the country’s 280 million people are Muslim. However, 2.9% of the total population is Catholic, making its Christian community the third largest in Asia after the Philippines and China.

Indonesia’s struggle against religious intolerance

Despite legal guarantees of religious freedom, which includes a Religious Harmony bill signed into law in 2006, research by Human Rights Watch indicates a flare-up of religious intolerance.

Examples include the imprisonment of Jakarta’s Christian governor for blasphemy in 2016, violence against religious minorities; and problems faced by some Christian groups seeking to secure building permits for churches.

Novi from Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, a Catholic, who traveled to Jakarta to witness Pope Francis’ visit to Istiqlal Mosque, hopes the visit can encourage a revival of religious tolerance in the country.

“I’m really sad when I hear news reports saying that churches faced difficulties in setting up a church and require approval of the majority from the surrounding community and municipal and provincial office,” she said.

In 2006, a group of religious and community leaders established the Religious Harmony Forum (FKUB), dedicated to protecting religious harmony, including making recommendations to the mayor or regent on the construction of any new house of worship.

But according to Andreas Harsono, a senior Indonesian researcher at Human Rights Watch, the forum has been politicized over the years.

In hopes of quelling religious intolerance, Minister of Religious Affairs Yaqut Cholil Qoumas said a new presidential regulation is being developed that will no longer allow the FKUB to recommend the establishment of a house of worship. That right will remain with the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

Andreas Harsono of the Human Rights Watch sees this as a “step in the right direction.”

“The FKUB recommendations are proven to be the most damaging of the 2006 regulations on religious harmony. The religious harmony regulation basically makes the so-called majority have veto power over the minorities in Indonesia. It’s turning Indonesia into an intolerant Muslim-majority country,” he said.

Halili Hasan, executive director of the SETARA Institute, agrees with abolishing the FKUB’s right to recommend. He added that FKUB has not been able to prevent and handle various violations of freedom of religion and belief.

SETARA Institute is a think tank that advocates for democracy and human rights in Indonesia and releases an annual report on the condition of freedom of religion and belief.

The report in 2023 listed at least 65 places of worship that experienced disturbances throughout that year, ranging from objections to the construction of a house of worship to the sealing off of places of worship. That compares to 50 such incidents in the previous year.

Still, the Ministry of Religious Affair’s Religious Harmony Index survey for 2023 found a steady increase in religious harmony from 2020 to 2023. The index was scored from 0 to 100, with 100 being the most harmonious. The national score for 2023 was 76.02, the highest score recorded in the last five years.

Eli Trisiana is a Muslim and government civil servant who came to see Pope Francis.

“We need to hold a heart-to-heart dialogue with those deemed religious intolerant,’’ Eli Trisiana said. ‘’We cannot deal with them using violence. I think that is the best method to solve differences of opinion. In Islam there are verses taught to us that reconcile with non-believers, which is “unto you your religion and unto me my religion.”

Interfaith dialogue

During an interfaith dialogue at Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta, 87-year-old Pope Francis met with representatives of Indonesia’s six officially recognized religions — Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Protestantism and Catholicism — along with a representative for traditional beliefs.

Francis and the grand imam of the Istiqlal Mosque, Nasaruddin Umar, signed a “Human Fraternity” document declaring their commitment to interfaith harmony. The document calls for religious leaders to overcome two serious crises faced by the world: dehumanization and climate change.

The grand imam said he won’t let this signing be in vain and that he plans to follow up with a future plan of action that supports interfaith dialogue and true religious harmony.
…

washington — More than a year after China’s former foreign minister, Qin Gang, disappeared from public view, raising a host of questions, the Chinese government remains silent on his whereabouts.

A new report this week from The Washington Post, citing two former U.S. government officials, suggests Qin has been spared any jail time and now is nominally holding a low-ranking position at a publishing house under the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Earlier reports speculated that he was sentenced to life in prison or had died from suicide or torture.

Some are skeptical about the Washington Post report, while others see it as evidence of uncertainty and impermanence within the political system directed by the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP.

According to Sunday’s Washington Post report, Qin, 58, now works, at least on paper, for the World Affairs Press, a state-owned publishing house under the Foreign Ministry.

One of the former officials said Qin is “not going to jail, but his career is over.”

Before he disappeared from public view in July of last year, Qin was the youngest foreign minister since the founding of the CCP. A leading theory among Chinese political analysts is that Qin was removed because he had an affair with Fu Xiaotian, a prominent Chinese television journalist, and that the pair had a child born out of wedlock in the United States.

Some reports suggested that the Chinese government suspected Fu of sharing state secrets with foreign intelligence agencies, but these rumors have never been confirmed. Like Qin, Fu disappeared from public life for more than a year ago.

During a top-level political meeting in July, the Third Plenum of the 20th Central Committee, the CCP agreed to Qin’s request that he be removed from his post as a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Chinese state media reported. That followed an official announcement in February that said Qin had resigned as a parliamentary deputy.

A reporter from The Washington Post recently visited the bookstore of the World Affairs Press in Beijing, but employees there told the newspaper that they had not heard that Qin worked at the publishing house. A staff member who answered the phone said she did not know if the news was true. China’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Some observers pointed out that the Washington Post’s report is based on an anonymous source who has left office, and the authenticity still needs to be verified.

Neil Thomas, a fellow on Chinese politics at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, said on social media platform X, “The rumors of Qin Gang moving to World Affairs Press have been around for months. Sources are U.S. ex-officials and I don’t know what they do. But @nakashimae & @cdcshepherd are top reporters.”

Charles Smith, an encryption security expert, said on X that he doesn’t believe the article, which “even notes the ‘bookstore’ employees have never seen Qin. … He’s on an extended fishing vacation.” His tweet was accompanied by an image of a skeleton fishing underwater.

Last December, online news outlet Politico reported that Qin had been arrested for undermining national security and was tortured to death or committed suicide.

Yen-Ting, an X user who frequently comments on China’s social and political issues, tweeted, “It’s almost poetic justice, a ‘Wolf Warrior’ reduced to selling books while the regime’s whispers suggest he’s paid off the hook rather than locked up. This is China’s way of dealing w/ its wayward wolves: not through the claws of justice but by shoving them into obscurity.”

Kalpit A. Mankikar, a fellow in the Strategic Studies Program with the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, tweeted, “Once seen as Stalin’s heir, Soviet politician Georgy Malenkov fell from grace and was banished to Kazakhstan to manage a power plant. In #China, ex-foreign minister Qin Gang seems to have rehabilitated at a Party-run bookshop, says @washingtonpost.”

The Washington Post report also quoted current and former U.S. officials who had dealt with Qin as saying he lacked the diplomatic skills of his experienced colleagues to break out of the “Wolf Warrior” model.

One example is that Qin appeared to threaten the U.S. with China “erasing” Taiwan Strait’s median line, in a heated exchange with U.S. officials amid former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022.

American columnist James Pinkerton tweeted a reader’s online comment on the Washington Post report.

The reader Paul Messina said, “I believe that now that the Chinese economy is falling apart, Xi has realized that this ‘Wolf Warrior’ tactic has actually exacerbated the fall of Chinese industry. Besides aggravating the West, particularly the United States with this nonsense, it has led to multiple Western corporations leaving China, permanently closing their doors and factories in search of friendlier nations to do business.

“Vietnam and other nations have greatly benefited. Thus this idiot actually decreased the CCP’s prestige in the world. I believe that this is why his new ‘career’ is librarian. Xi made a big mistake with his ‘Wolf Warrior’ attitude towards the world. I believe that he now realizes this fact.”

Liu Jianchao, the head of the International Liaison Department of the CCP Central Committee, who is relatively moderate in terms of rhetoric and image, is considered a possible candidate to succeed Wang Yi as the next foreign minister.

According to The New York Times, as China is already seeking to soften its image in the U.S. and Europe and improve relations with some of its neighbors, appointing Liu may mean China is abandoning its “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy.

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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More than 1.2 million Vietnamese immigrants live in the United States, many of them having settled after the Vietnam war. More recently, a new wave of Vietnamese migration has sparked debate in the community about immigration and has become one of the main talking points this election season. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details from Texas, the state with the second-largest Vietnamese immigrant population in the country.
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SYDNEY — Australia will ban children from using social media with a minimum age limit as high as 16, the prime minister said Tuesday, vowing to get kids off their devices and “onto the footy fields.”

Federal legislation to keep children off social media will be introduced this year, Anthony Albanese said, describing the impact of the sites on young people as a “scourge.”

The minimum age for children to log into sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok has not been decided but is expected to be between 14 and 16 years, Albanese said.

The prime minister said his own preference would be a block on users aged below 16.

Age verification trials are being held over the coming months, the center-left leader said, though analysts said they doubted it was technically possible to enforce an online age limit.

“I want to see kids off their devices and onto the footy fields and the swimming pools and the tennis courts,” Albanese said.

“We want them to have real experiences with real people because we know that social media is causing social harm,” he told national broadcaster ABC.

“This is a scourge. We know that there is mental health consequences for what many of the young people have had to deal with,” he said.

Australia’s conservative opposition leader Peter Dutton said he would support an age limit.

“Every day of delay leaves young kids vulnerable to the harms of social media and the time for relying on tech companies to enforce age limits,” he said.

‘Easy to circumvent’

But it is not clear that the technology exists to reliably enforce such bans, said the University of Melbourne’s associate professor in computing and information technology, Toby Murray.

“We already know that present age verification methods are unreliable, too easy to circumvent, or risk user privacy,” he said. 

Analysts warned that an age limit may not in any case help troubled children.

It “threatens to create serious harm by excluding young people from meaningful, healthy participation in the digital world,” said Daniel Angus, who leads the digital media research centre at Queensland University of Technology.

“There is logic in establishing boundaries that limit young people’s access,” said Samantha Schulz, senior sociologist of education at the University of Adelaide.

“However, young people are not the problem and regulating youth misses the more urgent task of regulating irresponsible social media platforms. Social media is an unavoidable part of young people’s lives.”

The prime minister said parents expected a response to online bullying and harmful material present on social media.

“These social media companies think they’re above everyone,” he told a radio interviewer.

“Well, they have a social responsibility and at the moment, they’re not exercising it. And we’re determined to make sure that they do,” he said.

Australia has been at the forefront of global efforts to regulate social media platforms, with its online safety watchdog bumping heads notably with Elon Musk’s X over the content it carries.

 
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HANOI, VIETNAM — Emergency workers raced to evacuate thousands of people from severe floods Tuesday after Typhoon Yagi swept through northern Vietnam, killing 63 people and leaving 40 missing.

Yagi struck Saturday with winds in excess of 149 kilometers per hour, making it the most powerful typhoon to hit northern Vietnam in 30 years according to meteorologists.

The storm downed bridges, tore roofs off buildings, damaged factories and triggered widespread flooding and landslides.

The north of the country, densely populated and a major manufacturing hub for global tech firms including Samsung, is now battling historic flooding, meteorologists said.

Authorities have issued flood and landslide warnings for 429 communes across 17 northern provinces. 

One-story homes in parts of Thai Nguyen and Yen Bai cities were almost completely submerged in the early hours of Tuesday, with residents waiting on the roofs for help.

Rescue forces were trying to reach residential areas to retrieve older people and children. On social media, relatives of those stuck in floodwater posted desperate pleas for help and supplies.

In Hanoi, communities along the swollen and fast-moving Red River, which flows through the capital, were also partially under water, with people forced to evacuate in boats.

Downtown Hoan Kiem District was forced to relocate 460 people on Tuesday.

Crops including bananas, guavas and corn, which are usually sold in nearby markets, were all flooded.

‘Lost everything’

Phan Thi Tuyet, 50, who lives close to the river, said she had never experienced such high water.

“I have lost everything, all gone,” she told AFP, clutching her two dogs. 

“I had to come to higher ground to save our lives. We can not bring with us any of the furniture. Everything is under water now.”

As well as the dead and missing, flooding and landslides have also injured at least 752 people, officials at the ministry of agriculture said Tuesday.

Authorities stopped heavy vehicles crossing a major bridge over the Red River in central Hanoi Tuesday and suspended a train line across Long Bien bridge as the water level rose.

The action followed the dramatic collapse of a bridge higher up the river in northern Phu Tho province Monday.

Pictures showed half of the 375-meter Phong Chau bridge gone.

Five people who were crossing the bridge at the time have been rescued, but eight others were still missing Tuesday, authorities said.

Forecasters warned central Hanoi would be affected by flooding later Tuesday.

Hanoi authorities said more than 25,000 trees in the city had been uprooted in the storm. Huge trunks blocked key roads in the city centre, creating large traffic jams.

At least 24 people were killed as Yagi tore through southern China and the Philippines before hitting Vietnam.

Typhoons in the region are forming closer to the coast, intensifying more rapidly, and staying over land longer due to climate change, according to a study published in July.
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Beijing — China’s Defense Ministry on Monday announced joint naval and air drills with Russia starting this month, underscoring the closeness between their militaries as Russia presses its grinding invasion of Ukraine.

The ministry said the “Northern United-2024” exercises would take place in the Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk farther north, but gave no details.

It said the naval and air drills aimed to improve strategic cooperation between the two countries and “strengthen their ability to jointly deal with security threats.”

The notice also said the two navies would cruise together in the Pacific, the fifth time they have done so, and together take part in Russia’s “Great Ocean-24” exercise. No details were given.

China has refused to criticize Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, now in its third year, and blamed the U.S. and NATO for provoking President Vladimir Putin.

While China has not directly provided Russia with arms, it has become a crucial economic lifeline as a top customer for Russian oil and gas as well as a supplier of electronics and other items with both civilian and military uses.

Russia and China, along with other U.S. critics such as Iran, have aligned their foreign policies to challenge and potentially overturn the Western-led liberal democratic order. With joint exercises, Russia has sought Chinese help in achieving its long-cherished aim of becoming a Pacific power, while Moscow has backed China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and elsewhere.

That has increasingly included the 180-kilometer (110-mile) wide Taiwan Strait that divides mainland China from the self-governing island democracy that Beijing considers its own territory and threatens to invade.

Based on that claim, the Taiwan Strait is Chinese. Though it is not opposed to navigation by others through one of the world’s most heavily trafficked sea ways, China is “firmly opposed to provocations by countries that jeopardize China’s sovereignty and security under the banner of freedom of navigation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a daily briefing on Friday.

Mao was responding to a report that a pair of German navy ships were to pass through the strait this month for the first time in more than two decades. The U.S. and virtually every other country, along with Taiwan, considers the strait international waters.
…

HANOI — A bridge collapsed and a bus was swept away by flooding Monday as more rain fell following a typhoon Vietnam that has caused at least 59 deaths in the Southeast Asian country and disrupted businesses and factories in the export-focused northern industrial hubs, state media reported.

Nine people died when Typhoon Yagi made landfall in Vietnam on Saturday before weakening to a tropical depression, and at least 50 others have died in the consequent floods and landslides, state media VN Express reported. The water levels of several rivers in northern Vietnam were dangerously high.

A passenger bus carrying 20 people was swept into a flooded stream by a landslide in mountainous Cao Bang province Monday morning. Rescuers were deployed but landslides blocked their path.

In Phu Tho province, rescue operations were continuing after a steel bridge over the engorged Red River collapsed Monday morning. Reports said 10 cars and trucks along with two motorbikes fell into the river. Three people were pulled out of the river and taken to the hospital, but 13 others were missing.

Pham Truong Son, 50, told VNExpress that he was driving on the bridge on his motorcycle when he heard a loud noise. Before he knew what was happening, he was falling into the river. “I felt like I was drowned to the bottom of the river,” Son told the newspaper, adding that he managed to swim and hold on to a drifting banana tree to stay afloat before he was rescued.

Dozens of businesses in Haiphong province hadn’t resumed production by Monday because of the extensive damage to their factories, reported state media Lao Dong newspaper. The report said that the roofs of several factories were blown apart while water had seeped into industrial units, damaging finished goods and expensive equipment. Some companies said they still didn’t have electricity on Monday and that it would take at least a month to be able to resume production.

Toppled electricity poles meant that Haiphong and Quang Ninh provinces were still without power on Monday. The two provinces are industrial hubs, housing many factories that export goods, including EV maker VinFast and Apple suppliers Pegatrong and USI. Authorities are still assessing the damage to industrial units but initial estimates show that nearly 100 enterprises were damaged by the typhoon, resulting in losses amounting to millions of dollars, reported the newspaper.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh visited Haiphong city on Sunday and approved a package of $4.62 million to help the port city recover.

Typhoon Yagi was the strongest typhoon to hit Vietnam in decades when it made landfall Saturday with winds up to 149 kph. It weakened Sunday, but the country’s meteorological agency warned the continuing downpours could cause floods and landslides.

On Sunday, a landslide killed six people including an infant and injured nine others in Sa Pa town, a popular trekking base known for its terraced rice fields and mountains. Overall, state media reported 21 deaths and at least 299 people injured from the weekend.

Skies were overcast in the capital, Hanoi, with occasional rain Monday morning as workers cleared the uprooted trees, fallen billboards and toppled electricity poles. Heavy rain continued in northwestern Vietnam and forecasters said it could exceed 40 centimeters in places.

Yagi also damaged agricultural land where rice is mostly grown.

Before hitting Vietnam, Yagi caused at least 20 deaths in the Philippines last week and four deaths in southern China.

Chinese authorities said infrastructure losses across the Hainan island province amounted to $102 million with 57,000 houses collapsed or damaged, power and water outages and roads damaged or impassable due to fallen trees. Yagi made a second landfall in Guangdong, a mainland province neighboring Hainan, on Friday night.

Storms like Typhoon Yagi are “getting stronger due to climate change, primarily because warmer ocean waters provide more energy to fuel the storms, leading to increased wind speeds and heavier rainfall,” said Benjamin Horton, director of the Earth Observatory of Singapore.
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Manila, Philippines — The Philippines is not currently looking to extradite a Filipino pastor wanted for child sex trafficking in the United States, President Ferdinand Marcos said Monday after the suspect’s arrest.

Apollo Quiboloy, a self-proclaimed “Appointed Son of God” and ally of former president Rodrigo Duterte, surrendered in the southern city of Davao on Sunday amid a massive two-week police search of his sect’s sprawling compound.

The U.S. charged the Kingdom of Jesus Christ preacher in 2021 with sex trafficking of girls and women aged 12-25 to work as personal assistants, who were allegedly required to have sex with him.

“For the moment, we are not looking at extradition. We are focusing on the cases filed in the Philippines,” Marcos told reporters on the sidelines of a Manila conference.

It is not known if the United States has formally sought the extradition of Quiboloy, aged at least 74, according to the FBI.

Quiboloy, whose sect claims millions of followers, is facing charges in Manila of child abuse, sexual abuse and human trafficking.

Marcos also congratulated the police for arresting the pastor.

“We will demonstrate once again to the world that our judicial system in the Philippines is active, is vibrant, and is working well,” the president said.

Quiboloy is also sought by U.S. authorities for bulk cash smuggling and a scheme that brought church members to the United States using fraudulently obtained visas.

They were then forced to solicit donations for a bogus charity, raising funds that were instead used to finance church operations and the lavish lifestyles of its leaders, according to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.
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