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An escalating series of clashes in the South China Sea between the Philippines and China could draw the U.S., which has a mutual defense treaty with the Philippines, into the conflict. A 60 Minutes crew got a close look at the tense situation when traveling on a Philippine Coast Guard ship that was rammed by the Chinese Coast Guard... After the Chinese Coast Guard ship — 269 feet long and nearly twice the size of the Cape Engaño — pulled away, the Filipino crew found a three-and-a-half foot hole in the hull.... The ship Vega and her team was on...

An influential evangelist preacher from the Philippines accused of sex trafficking and sexual abuse has been arrested, the interior minister said on Sunday. Apollo Quiboloy, self-proclaimed 'owner of the universe' and 'appointed son of god', is wanted on charges of child and sexual abuse and related allegations of human trafficking. He has denied wrongdoing. 'Apollo Quiboloy has been caught,' Interior Secretary Benjamin Abalos Jr. said on his Facebook page, without specifying how or where he had been. The pastor is also on the FBI's 'most wanted' list in the United States on separate charges of sex trafficking and bulk cash...

A resupply mission to the Philippine Coast Guard’s flagship stationed at a contested South China Sea feature was blocked by 40 Chinese vessels in the latest incident around Escoda Shoal, according to Manila.Two Philippine Coast Guard 44-meter-long patrol boats, BRP Cabra (MRRV-4409) and BRP Cape Engaño (MRRV-4411), approached Escoda to resupply agency flagship BRP Teresa Magbanua (MRRV-9701) on Monday morning. The vessels carried food, supplies, a contingent of journalists and a “special ice cream treat” from Commandant Adm. Ronnie Gil Gavan for Teresa Magbanua’s crew to celebrate National Heroes’ Day. Stationed at Escoda since April, the Japanese-made multi-mission response vessel...

MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines wants to upgrade its military with mid-range missiles and advanced fighter jets, two senior security officials said on Thursday, spending at least $33 billion as it modernises its defence in the face of growing regional tensions. The military wants to acquire more cutting-edge weaponry, armed forces chief Romeo Brawner told reporters, hours after Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro announced the Philippines was reviewing offers to buy more weapons. "We are wanting to get more of the latest weapons systems. That includes the mid-range capability," Brawner told a joint media conference with U.S. Indo-Pacific Commander Samuel Paparo...

MANILA—The US military is open to the possibility of escorting Philippine ships in the disputed South China Sea, depending on consultations under the allies’ 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, the head of US Indo-Pacific Command said Tuesday amid a spike in hostilities between Beijing and Manila in the disputed waters. Adm. Samuel Paparo’s remarks, which he made in response to a question during a news conference in Manila with Philippine Armed Forces chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., provided a glimpse of the mindset of one of the highest American military commanders outside the US mainland on a prospective operation that would...

The Philippines and China have again clashed in the South China Sea, with Manila and Beijing trading accusations of responsibility for the latest maritime skirmish between the two neighbors amid their fight over sovereignty of the disputed waters. The incident occurred Sunday within the Spratly Islands, a disputed archipelago that is claimed by the Philippines and China, along with several other Asian nations. The Phillipines accused China of ramming and causing the engine failure of a Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources vessel that was on a "humanitarian mission" to resupply Filipino fisherman. It said eight ships of China's navy...

Korbein Schultz, a U.S. Army soldier and intelligence analyst, pleaded guilty today to all charges against him in the indictment returned by a federal grand jury in March 2024 charging him with conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information, exporting technical data related to defense articles without a license, conspiracy to export defense articles without a license, and bribery of a public official. “The defendant abused his access to restricted government systems to sell sensitive military information to a person he knew to be a foreign national,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National...

Five hundred years ago, no one suspected the 16th-century vessel the Nao Victoria would become the stuff of legend. In 1519, a Portuguese consul called the Spanish carrack “very old and patched up” and unfit to even “sail … to the Canaries.” Nevertheless, the Nao Victoria was chosen for a five-ship expedition, crewed by 270 men, that would come to be known as one of the most significant journeys in the history of human exploration. The captain of this unprecedented adventure was Portuguese explorer Fernão de Magalhães, anglicized Ferdinand Magellan. On September 20, 1519, he set sail aboard the flagship...

Dozens of workers from around the world may have been trafficked into the UK to work for a small family-owned Scottish fishing firm, a BBC investigation has revealed. Thirty-five men from the Philippines, Ghana, India and Sri Lanka were recognised as victims of modern slavery by the Home Office after being referred to it between 2012 and 2020. The workers were employed by TN Trawlers and its sister companies, owned by the Nicholson family, based in the small town of Annan on the southern coast of Scotland. The TN Group denied any allegation of modern slavery or human trafficking and...

Aug. 13 (UPI) -- A U.S. Army soldier and intelligence analyst with top secret security clearance pleaded guilty Tuesday to selling American military secrets to China... Korbein Schultz of Fort Campbell, Tenn., faces decades in federal jail after pleading guilty Tuesday to a six-count indictment...He was also accused of trying to recruit other members of the U.S. military to join the conspiracy.... Information...included deployment information in support of NATO in Eastern Europe, manuals for the HH-60 helicopter, the F-22A fighter jet and operation of Intercontinental Ballistic Missile systems... U.S. military exercises with allies South Korea and the Philippines...[and] information on...

The president of voting machine company Smartmatic, Roger Piñate, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on bribery and money-laundering charges in order to get election contracts in the Philippines. Smartmatic was founded in 2000, and its voting machines have been used in elections in Venezuela and the Philippines. According to the Miami Herald, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez chose Smartmatic to replace the country’s previous machines in 2004.

The Department of Justice indicted a number of executives from the voting machine company Smartmatic Thursday, including founder and President Roger Pinate, on a series of federal money laundering and bribery charges. "A federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida returned an indictment today charging three executives of an election voting machine and service provider company and a former Chairman of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) of the Republic of the Philippines for their roles in an alleged bribery and money laundering scheme to retain and obtain business related to the 2016 Philippine elections," DOJ released Thursday. A...

Three senior executives at the voting machine company Smartmatic have been charged in a massive bribery scheme. In a press release on Thursday, the Department of Justice confirmed that between 2015 and 2018, Roger Alejandro Pinate Martinez, 49, a Venezuelan citizen and resident of Boca Raton, Jorge Miguel Vasquez, 62, a U.S. citizen and resident of Davie, Florida, funnelled around $1 million in bribes to Juan Andres Donato Bautista, 60, the former Chairman of the Filipino Commission of Elections (COMELEC). Four Men Charged in Philippine Bribery and Money Laundering Scheme : https://t.co/kEDlpAV26q pic.twitter.com/3OKw5qZBEn — Criminal Division (@DOJCrimDiv) August 8, 2024...

The Biden administration has warned China against continuing to conduct armed attacks on the Philippines, but China has blatantly ignored the warning, repeatedly harassing Philippine naval vessels and severely injuring its sailors over the past several months. Beijing, for its part, has accused Washington of using the Philippines as a pawn and seems to have every intention of continuing to escalate the dispute. That dispute centers on the Second Thomas Shoal, a disputed reef within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines, but also within China’s illegal “nine-dash line” maritime claim in the South China Sea. The Daily Signal depends...

A video of the incident shows seven small boats surrounding RHIBs next to Sierra Madre. According to the Philippine military, the China Coast Guard used blaring sirens and strobe lights to disorient the personnel. Tear gas and rocks were also thrown at and onto the Philippine vessels. A Chinese military aircraft was also claimed to be flying overhead in what was described as “a further display of excessive force and intimidation.”A Philippine Navy RHIB transporting supplies, including seven disassembled and packaged CAR-15 rifles, was towed away from Sierra Madre, surrounded on by Chinese vessels and boarded. An image released by...

A Philippine sailor suffered severe injuries when Chinese forces blocked an Armed Forces of the Philippines resupply mission in the South China Sea, Pentagon officials confirmed to USNI News. The AFP mission to resupply the BRP Sierra Madre (LT-57) outpost at Second Thomas Shoal also resulted in damage to an unknown number of Philippine vessels.The Philippine sailor was injured as a result of the “PRC vessels’ dangerous and deliberate use of water cannons, ramming, and blocking maneuvers,” reads a Monday statement from Office of the Secretary of Defense spokesperson U.S. Army Maj Pete Nguyen to USNI News.This is the third...

The Pacific appears increasingly nearer to war as Chinese vessels encircled and boarded military resupply boats belonging to a key American ally. Tensions erupted as the Chinese Coast Guard seized ships of a Philippine Navy resupply mission that was underway near the Second Thomas Shoal. The Armed Forces of the Philippines revealed pictures of the Monday confrontation in a social media post, calling the attack “coercive, aggressive, and barbaric.”(Snip) Videos show the resupply mission turning to blows as China became involved. In one clip, Chinese sailors could be seen waving and swinging axes, machetes and other melee weapons as the...

One minute video of Chinese Coast Guard swarming resupply Philippine’s boat attacking with hatchets, machetes, spears. —- The Armed Forces of the Philippines releases to media late June 19 videos from soldiers aboard rigid hull boats, from aboard the BRP Sierra Madre, and drones to show how the China Coast Guard violently disrupted a routine mission to bring supplies for and rotate troops assigned to the BRP Sierra Madre in the West Philippine Sea. The mission happened on June 17, resulting the the destruction of two rigid hull inflatable boats, theft of equipment, and the amputation of one soldier's thumb.

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus. The clandestine operation has not been previously reported. It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found. Through phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, the military’s propaganda efforts morphed into an anti-vax campaign. Social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits and the first...

The U.S. military launched a clandestine program amid the COVID crisis to discredit China’s Sinovac inoculation – payback for Beijing’s efforts to blame Washington for the pandemic. One target: the Filipino public. Health experts say the gambit was indefensible and put innocent lives at risk.... ...The clandestine operation has not been previously reported. It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found. Through phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, the military’s propaganda efforts morphed into an anti-vax campaign.....