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China has “enforced maritime management and exercised sovereign jurisdiction” over an uninhabited reef in the disputed South China Sea, planting the country’s flag on the tiny sand bank just kilometers from a key Philippine military outpost. Photographs released by Chinese state-run media on Saturday showed China Coast Guard officers unfurling the flag as part of an effort to effectively seize Sandy Cay reef, which Beijing calls Tiexian Jiao, earlier this month. The reef, located in the flash point Spratly Island chain, is also claimed by Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines. Sandy Cay also sits just over 3 kilometers from Thitu...

China is rapidly building an airstrip on an artificial island in disputed South China Sea waters, recent satellite pictures show, potentially ramping up tensions with several Southeast Asian neighbours. Fiery Cross in the Spratly Islands was little more than a reef when China began land reclamation works to turn it into an island in late 2014.

Satellite images show China is building an island on a reef in the disputed Spratly Islands large enough to accommodate what could be its first offshore airstrip in the South China Sea, a leading defense publication said on Friday. The construction has stoked concern that China may be converting disputed territory in the mineral-rich archipelago into military installations, adding to tensions waters also claimed by Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Brunei.

(CNN) -- Five young men died Saturday when the car they were in drove off the end of a private airstrip near Ocala, Florida, became airborne for 200 feet and slammed into an oak tree, authorities said. "This had to be the worst vehicle crash that I have ever seen during my career," said Randy Robinson, a spokesman for the Emergency Medical Services Alliance with 27 years on the job. The 2008 BMW was split in two in the wreck, which happened at 3:45 a.m., said Lt. Mike Burroughs, a spokesman for the Florida Highway Patrol Troop B. He told...

5 dead after crash at "fly-in" community runway Associated Press - January 26, 2008 2:44 PM ET OCALA, Fla. (AP) - Florida Highway Patrol says five young men are dead today after a car they were riding in crashed after traveling off an airport runway. The runway is at the exclusive "fly-in" community of Jumbolair Aviation Estates. The crash at the community, which is also the home of actor John Travolta, happened at about 3:45 a.m. According to a preliminary FHP investigation, a 2008 gray BMW with 5 occupants, ages 18 to 20, was traveling at a high rate of...