- Ukraine Destroys Three Russian Ships, Kyiv Says, as More Vessels Flee Newsweek
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- Head of Ukraine’s Security Service details how agency carried out Crimean Bridge explosion in October 2022 Meduza
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Tag Archives: vessels
Stroke: Older people should cut back on red meat – ‘Causes blockages in blood vessels’
He suggested other ways to get protein into the diet. “Poultry, most fish and meatless alternatives such as tofu, beans and legumes are the healthiest source of proteins to help reduce your risk,” he said.
This was backed by a study carried out by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Cleveland Clinic.
The paper, which was published in the Stroke Online journal in 2011, found that men who ate more than two red meat servings every day had a 28 percent higher stroke risk than those who ate about one third of a serving each day.
And it showed that people who ate the highest amounts of chicken or turkey each day had a 13 percent reduced stroke risk compared to those who ate one serving of red meat.
READ MORE: Arthritis: Certain seed has ‘significant’ anti-inflammatory properties – study
Protect Yourself Against Heart Attack and Stroke – Train Your Blood Vessels
A heart attack occurs when an artery carrying blood and oxygen to the heart becomes obstructed.
Short, repeated bouts of restricted circulation using a blood pressure cuff may be beneficial to one’s health.
The majority of heart attacks and strokes worldwide are ischemic, meaning that a clot or accumulation of plaque in an artery stops oxygen-rich blood from getting to the cells in the heart or brain. When blocked for too long, tissues die.
But an increasing number of studies suggest that brief, repeated periods of reduced circulation using a blood pressure cuff may help minimize tissue damage and avoid the worst consequences of heart attacks and strokes, similar to how exercising helps muscles adapt to more rigorous workouts. According to the research, the straightforward, noninvasive surgery may improve heart and vascular function, slightly decrease blood pressure, and lessen the workload of the heart.
In a recent review study that was published in the Journal of Physiology, James Lang, an assistant professor of kinesiology at Iowa State University, compiled the results of roughly 100 studies, some of which were his own. He said that “remote ischemic preconditioning” (RIPC) typically comprises five minutes of high pressure on a person’s arm followed by five minutes of relaxation, repeated three to four times.
A study participant sits in James Lang’s lab at Iowa State during a microvascular test. Credit: James Lang/Iowa State University
Numerous studies have demonstrated that a single RIPC session creates a protective window that peaks 48 hours later, but research from Lang’s team and other scientists has shown that preconditioning several days in a row may enhance the protection and support additional health benefits.
“I think there are a lot of possible applications and potential with RIPC: someone preparing for an upcoming surgery; people who have already had a heart attack or stroke, which puts them at higher risk of it happening again; people who can’t exercise, are pre-hypertensive or have sleep apnea,” said Lang.
RIPC could be helpful even for astronauts as well. To prevent cardiac and muscle atrophy brought on by microgravity in space, they often exercise for up to two hours every day, according to Lang. It could be a good idea to include blood pressure cuff sessions into their fitness routines.
Filling the gap
However, Lang noted that much more research is required to ensure that RIPC is effective in different contexts and for various population subgroups. Animal models from the 1980s and 1990s provide the majority of the knowledge on the underlying mechanisms and duration of protective effects.
“Unfortunately, a lot of researchers jumped quickly to large clinical studies in the early 2000s, and their results were inconsistent due to a host of outside influences like the participants’ medications, physical and genetic factors, age, and sex,” said Lang, adding a follow-up study from other researchers found propofol, a common form of anesthesia used in surgeries, suppresses the effects of RIPC, as well.
Since then, researchers like Lang have been working to fill the gap between animal research and big clinical trials.
“In the lab, we can do more controlled studies with human participants, try to figure out what factors influence RIPC and when the best time is to administer RIPC.”
Lang’s lab
In one study, Lang and his research team found a week of RIPC increased participants’ micro-circulatory capacity by as much as 50%. In another, they measured a modest blood pressure drop and a less active “fight or flight” response while the participants were resting.
“Together, it was improving the participants’ blood vessels and potentially reducing the workload of the heart.”
One of the ways Lang tests the effect of RIPC is by measuring how well a study participant’s blood vessels dilate when their skin is warm. Before and after RIPC, Lang attaches a small, nickel-sized device to a participant’s arm. A tiny heater warms up the skin while a doppler bounces a laser light into the micro-vessels below.
Like a weather radar picking up changes in the atmosphere, the doppler Lang uses in his lab measures changes in the flow of red blood cells as the participant’s blood vessel widens in response to the heat.
Lang explained a loss of blood vessel elasticity (i.e., the extent to which arteries can constrict or dilate) increases the risk of high blood pressure, heart attacks, and strokes, as well as dementia.
Currently, Lang is working with a researcher at Des Moines University to study how RIPC could help people with diabetes struggling with slow-healing wounds. High blood glucose levels can damage small blood vessels and nerves, and coat arteries with plaque, making it harder to get white blood cells and nutrients to cuts and sores.
While the side effects from RIPC are very low, Lang says anyone interested in trying it on their own, outside a research study, should talk to their physician first.
Reference: “Remote ischaemic preconditioning – translating cardiovascular benefits to humans” by James A. Lang and Jahyun Kim, 21 May 2022, The Journal of Physiology.
DOI: 10.1113/JP282568
Taiwan says multiple Chinese aircraft and vessels spotted in possible simulated attack
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said some of the aircraft and vessels had crossed the sensitive median line in the Taiwan Strait that separates the island from the Chinese mainland.
“Our military has broadcast warnings, deployed combat air patrol and naval vessels and activated land-based missile systems in response to the situation,” said the ministry.
By 5 p.m. in Taiwan, 14 vessels and 20 planes operated by the Chinese military had been detected around the Strait, according to a statement from the ministry. Of the 20 aircraft, 14 crossed the median line, it added.
The Chinese military has not yet issued a statement on the purpose of Saturday’s exercises.
The news follows a series of military drills that China has carried out around Taiwan since Thursday after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s controversial visit to the self-governing democratic island earlier this week.
The Chinese Communist Party views Taiwan as its territory, despite never having controlled it, and has long vowed to “reunify” the island with the Chinese mainland — by force if necessary.
Pelosi ignored its furious opposition to her visit by landing in Taipei on Tuesday evening as part of a larger Asia tour that wrapped up Friday with a last stop in Japan.
But the full ramifications of her visit are only now emerging, with China ramping up military exercises in the skies and waters around Taiwan and halting cooperation with the US on various issues.
On Friday, 68 Chinese warplanes were reported in the Taiwan Strait, according to Taiwan’s Defense Ministry. Of those, 49 entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone — a buffer of airspace commonly referred to as an ADIZ. That was just a few planes short of the record set last year when 56 Chinese warplanes entered the ADIZ on the same day.
Nineteen of the warplanes on Friday also crossed the median line dividing the Taiwan Strait, the ministry said.
On Thursday, China launched 11 ballistic missiles — some of which flew over the island of Taiwan and landed in Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone, prompting Tokyo to lodge a formal complaint with Beijing. That was the first time China had sent missiles over the island.
Also on Thursday, two Chinese drones flew near Japan’s Okinawa prefecture, prompting Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force to scramble fighter jets in response.
The drills are scheduled to last until Sunday local time in Beijing, according to Chinese state media.
Diplomatic fallout
The deteriorating situation in the Taiwan Strait has caused a diplomatic storm, with China lashing out against countries that have criticized its exercises and some regional powers calling for de-escalation.
Tensions ran high at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting of foreign ministers in Cambodia this week, where members had originally expected to discuss three main topics: the Myanmar crisis, the South China Sea, and the war in Ukraine.
But Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan added “a fourth hot stone … which has led to heated discussions about cross-strait relations,” said Cambodia’s Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn at a Saturday news conference in Phnom Penh.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken both attended the ASEAN meeting; on Thursday, Wang decried Pelosi’s visit as demonstrating the “bankruptcy” of US politics and credibility, calling it “manic, irresponsible and highly irrational behavior.”
A day later, after Beijing fired its missiles over Taiwan, Blinken said China had “chosen to overreact and use Speaker Pelosi’s visit as a pretext to increase provocative military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait.”
On Saturday, Sokhonn described the meeting as lively, saying he had to call all ministers to speak in a calm, dignified, polite, civilized and diplomatic manner.
“There were strong arguments, but in our opinion, it’s much better that we exchange words than less friendly means,” he said.
Japan and other G7 economies have urged China to halt its military drills and maintain the status quo in the region.
Beijing has not heeded those calls. Instead, it has responded by canceling future phone calls between Chinese and US defense leaders and annual naval meetings between the two countries. It has also canceled planned meetings between Chinese and Japanese officials.
China has also summoned the ambassadors of the US, Japan and various European countries.
On Friday, China’s Foreign Ministry announced a raft of countermeasures against the US, including sanctions against Pelosi and her immediate family.
China also suspended bilateral climate talks and shelved cooperation on issues including the repatriation of illegal immigrants and the investigation of transnational crimes and drug operations.
“We should not hold hostage cooperation on matters of global concern because of differences between our two countries,” Blinken told reporters on Saturday, speaking in Manila, the capital of the Philippines.
China’s decision to suspend climate talks “could have lasting consequences for the future of the region, the future of our planet,” and would punish the developing world rather than the US, he added.
We Finally Know How Deadly Fungal Meningitis Spreads in The Brain, And It’s Brutal
Disease-causing pathogens are notoriously dangerous foes that have evolved many tricks to thwart the body’s immune system. Among the most terrifying are ones that can sneak into the nervous system, even infecting the brain.
Now, a new study from researchers in the UK, Australia, and Singapore has captured a timelapse of destruction in lab-grown zebrafish, showing how a fungus that causes a rare type of meningitis spreads out of the bloodstream and into the brain.
As if squeezing between the tightly packed cells of the blood-brain barrier or hitching a ride inside immune cells bound for the brain (like many other pathogens do) wasn’t enough, it seems one meningitis-causing microbe that goes by the name of Cryptococcus neoformans has another trick in the bag: blocking and bursting small blood vessels in the zebrafish brain.
“The brain has very complex and effective defenses against microbes,” says senior author Simon Johnston, an infectious disease researcher at the University of Sheffield, UK.
“But we have identified a simple and effective method that microbes may use to escape the blood and enter the brain.”
Meningitis is a life-threatening disease caused by bacterial or fungal infections of the brain and spinal cord that lead to swelling and inflammation of the meninges, the protective membrane cloaking the central nervous system.
Meningitis can be fatal if not recognized and treated quickly; a problem made worse by the growing threat of antimicrobial-resistant infections, which are now the third leading cause of death worldwide.
Organ transplant recipients, folks with HIV/AIDS, and other people with weakened immune systems are most at risk of contracting fungal meningitis, which doesn’t spread directly between people and can only be picked up from the environment.
While there can be many microscopic culprits of meningitis, many of which are found in bug-filled soils, C. neoformans causes fungal meningitis, which is rarer than other forms of the disease that are preventable with vaccination. The pathogen is known to damage blood vessels, but exactly how remained unclear.
“We started this research because we knew there was unexplained blood vessel damage in some meningitis patients,” says Johnston, who in past work has exposed how C. neoformans manipulates immune cells.
In this study, Johnston and colleagues used fast-growing, see-through zebrafish to watch how C. neoformans behaves in blood vessels, which are stained purple in the image below. The C. neoformans fungal spores are depicted in fluorescent yellow.
Using high-resolution, live-cell imaging techniques, the researchers visualized the fluorescently-labeled blood-borne fungal invaders over several days. Microbes became lodged in blood vessels, restricting blood flow and blocking blood supply. As the infectious microbes multiplied, the blood vessels stretched and ruptured, releasing C. neoformans into the zebrafish brain tissue.
Yellow-tagged C. neoformans bursting out of purple-stained blood vessels. (University of Sheffield)
Even single C. neoformans cells could wedge in small blood vessels, seeding blood-vessel-blocking fungal masses; these looked eerily similar to fungal or bacterial masses found next to brain capillaries on post-mortem reports of people who had died of the disease.
In the zebrafish, blockages not only increased local blood pressure but as blood flow backed up, the fungal obstruction also increased the tension of the walls of nearby blood vessels, making them more prone to rupture.
“Previous research has focused on how microbes can break down the defenses of the brain or use immune cells as a route into the brain,” says Johnston. “We can demonstrate how, for some microbes, damaging blood vessels is a very effective method of invasion.”
On top of that – and this is most insightful – the team also found that C. neoformans masses built up on average two days before blood vessels burst, a tight window in which doctors might possibly intervene to stop an infection before the damage is done.
“Infections causing meningitis can be treated with antimicrobials, but patients are often very ill and a lot of damage can be caused before treatment is effective,” says Johnston.
Hopefully, understanding how fungal meningitis spreads in the brain will lead to new therapies that help limit damage to the brain’s blood vessels while antifungal treatments work to clear the infection.
Any such treatments are just a pipe-dream at this stage, as the imaging experiments were done in teeny tiny zebrafish.
Nevertheless, Johnston and colleagues think their findings might be relevant to other types of infections that damage or rupture blood vessels, although they note these mechanisms probably vary between microbial species.
The study was published in PLOS Pathogens.
Health: Corkscrew-shaped microrobot developed to swim through blood vessels and clear blockages
Corkscrew-shaped microrobot that uses a helical propeller to swim through blood vessels and clear blockages with clot-busting drugs is developed by scientists
- The robot was designed by engineers from the Chinese University of Hong Kong
- Its corkscrew-like propeller was inspired by the the tails of bacteria like E. coli
- The team tested it in a fake vein filled with pig’s blood, driving it with magnets
- It was five times more effective at breaking up clots than the drugs alone
- The team believe that the robot’s rotor helps the drugs circulate around the clot
Blood clots might be soon be cleared by using microscopic robots with screw-like propellers that swim through blood vessels bearing blockage-busting drugs.
Developed by engineers from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the microrobot design was inspired by the tails of bacteria like E. coli.
The tiny robot and its propeller are driven by the application of an external magnetic field — and it is capable of moving with and against the direction of the blood flow.
Tests in a fake vein filled with pig’s blood showed the robot makes its clot-dissolving ’tissue plasminogen activator’ cargo five times more effective than the drug alone.
The robot’s rotor, the team said, may help to circulate the drug around the blockage site — better breaking up the clots and reducing the risk of large fragments.
These are a risk when using the drug treatment alone — and with catheter-based alternative approaches — and can lead to additional blockages ‘downstream’.
As it is hard to navigate the robots long distances through the body, the researchers cautioned, the approach might be better applied to more accessible clots.
Blood clots might be soon be cleared by using microscopic robots with screw-like propellers that swim through blood vessels bearing blockage-busting drugs. The tiny robot and its propeller are driven by the application of an external magnetic field — and it is capable of moving with and against the direction of the blood flow
Developed by engineers from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the microrobot design was inspired by the tails of bacteria like E. coli (pictured). Tests in a fake vein filled with pig’s blood showed the robot makes its clot-dissolving ’tissue plasminogen activator’ cargo five times more effective than the drug alone
The study was conducted by roboticist Li Zhang and his colleagues at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
‘The helical structure is just like a propeller, so [the robot] can deliver the cargo from point A to point B,’ Professor Zhang told the New Scientist.
‘If you want to deliver some other thing that’s not a drug, that’s also possible. For example, therapies based on stem cells, or localised heating to kill cancer cells.’
To monitor the robot’s progress up the synthetic vein in their lab tests, Professor Zhang and his colleagues used so-called ultrasound Doppler tracking, which works by measuring the reflection of sound waves passing through the blood.
Pierre Gélat — a mechanical engineer from University College London who was not involved in the present study — told the New Scientist that ‘The ability that they have to steer the robot in in-vitro environments is quite nice.’
‘The challenges are in finding out whether this will fulfil unmet clinical needs further down the line and how you get there as well.’
The robot’s rotor, the team said, may help to circulate the drug around the blockage site — better breaking up the clots and reducing the risk of large fragments. Pictured: a clot
With their initial study complete, the researchers are now looking to conduct further trials of the microrobot in more realistic settings.
They will also be working to demonstrate that the design might indeed be used safely with the blood vessels of a real human patient.
The full findings of the study were published in the journal ACS Nano.
Shipowners make payoffs to free vessels held by Indonesian navy near Singapore- sources
A bird’s-eye view of ships along the coast in Singapore July 9, 2017. REUTERS/Jorge Silva/File Photo
SINGAPORE, Nov 14 (Reuters) – More than a dozen shipowners have made payments of about $300,000 apiece to release vessels detained by the Indonesian navy, which said they were anchored illegally in Indonesian waters near Singapore, according to sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
The dozen sources include shipowners, crew and maritime security sources all involved in the detentions and payments, which they say were either made in cash to naval officers or via bank transfer to intermediaries who told them they represented the Indonesian navy.
Reuters was not able to independently confirm that payments were made to naval officers or establish who the final recipients of the payments were.
The detentions and payments were first reported by Lloyd’s List Intelligence, an industry website.
Rear Admiral Arsyad Abdullah, the Indonesian naval fleet commander for the region, said in a written response to Reuters’ questions that no payments were made to the navy and also that it did not employ any intermediaries in legal cases.
“It is not true that the Indonesian navy received or asked for payment to release the ships,” Abdullah said.
He said there had been an increasing number of detentions of ships in the past three months for anchoring without permission in Indonesian waters, deviating from the sailing route or stopping mid-course for an unreasonable amount of time. All the detentions were in accordance with Indonesian law, Abdullah said.
The Singapore Strait, one of the busiest waterways in the world, is crowded with vessels waiting for days or weeks to dock at Singapore, a regional shipping hub where the COVID-19 pandemic has led to long delays.
Ships have for years anchored in waters to the east of the Strait while they wait to port, believing they are in international waters and therefore not responsible for any port fees, two maritime analysts and two shipowners said.
The Indonesian navy says this area comes within its territorial waters and it intends to crack down harder on vessels anchoring there without a licence.
A spokesperson for the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, a government agency, declined to comment.
CRAMPED DETENTION
Around 30 ships, including tankers, bulk carriers and a pipeline layer, have been detained by the Indonesian navy in the last three months and the majority have since been released after making payments of $250,000 to $300,000, according to two shipowners and two maritime security sources involved.
Making these payments is cheaper than potentially losing out on revenue from ships carrying valuable cargo, like oil or grain, if they are tied up for months while a case is heard in Indonesian court, two shipowners said.
Two crew members of detained ships said armed navy sailors approached their vessels on warships, boarded them and escorted the ships to naval bases on Batam or Bintan, Indonesian islands south of Singapore, across the Strait.
The ship captains and often crew members were detained in cramped, sweltering rooms, sometimes for weeks, until shipowners organised cash to be delivered or a bank transfer was made to an intermediary of the navy, two detained crew members said.
Abdullah, the Indonesian naval officer, said ship crew members were not detained.
“During the legal process, all crew of the ships were on board their ships, except for questioning at the naval base. After the questioning, they were sent back to the ships,” he said.
Stephen Askins, a London-based maritime lawyer who has advised owners whose vessels have been detained in Indonesia, said the navy was entitled to protect its waters but if a ship was detained, then some form of prosecution should follow.
“In a situation where the Indonesian navy seems to be detaining vessels with an intention to extort money it is difficult to see how such a detention could be lawful,” Askins told Reuters in an email. He declined to give details about his clients.
Marine Lieutenant Colonel La Ode Muhamad Holib, an Indonesian navy spokesperson, told Reuters in a written response to questions that some vessels detained in the last three months had been released without charge due to insufficient evidence.
Five ship captains were being prosecuted and two others had been given short prison sentences and fined 100 million rupiah ($7,000) and 25 million rupiah, respectively, Holib said, declining to elaborate further on the specific cases.
($1 = 14,240 rupiah)
Reporting by Joe Brock in Singapore; additional reporting by David Lewis in Nairobi; graphics by Gavin Maguire; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Philippines demands China remove vessels at 6 islands, reefs
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Philippine government said Wednesday that more than 250 Chinese vessels it believes are operated by militia have been spotted near six Manila-claimed islands and reefs in the disputed South China Sea and demanded that China immediately remove them.
The gathering of the Chinese-flagged vessels, along with four Chinese navy ships at a Chinese-occupied manmade island base, “is hazardous to navigation and safety of life at sea” and may damage coral reefs and threaten the Philippines’ sovereign rights, a government body overseeing the disputed waters said.
China has ignored a Philippine government diplomatic protest and a call more than a week ago by Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana for about 200 Chinese vessels to leave Whitsun Reef, stating that the maritime territory belongs to it and the Chinese vessels were sheltering from rough seas.
After carrying out aerial and maritime patrol missions, Philippine officials said 44 Chinese “maritime militia” vessels were still moored Monday at Whitsun Reef, which Manila calls Julian Felipe. More than 200 other vessels from the Chinese flotilla have apparently dispersed to five other areas in the Spratly group of islands, including three Chinese-occupied artificial islands, they said.
At least four Chinese navy ships were at Chinese-occupied Mischief Reef, the Philippine officials said. China took control of the reef in 1995, drawing strong protests from the Philippines and other claimant states.
About 45 Chinese vessels were in the vicinity of the Philippine-occupied island of Thitu, which Manila calls Pagasa, the officials said.
“The Philippines calls on China to immediately withdraw these vessels flying its flag,” the National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea said in a statement. “Neither the Philippines nor the international community will ever accept China’s assertion of its so-called `indisputable integrated sovereignty’ over almost all of the South China Sea.”
The interagency body led by President Rodrigo Duterte’s national security adviser released surveillance photos of the Chinese flotilla in the disputed areas, which the Philippine government says are in its internationally recognized exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, where it has exclusive rights to fish and harness potential undersea gas and oil deposits and other resources.
“Their swarming … poses a threat to the peaceful exercise of sovereign rights of the Philippines in its EEZ,” the task force said.
The Philippines regards the Spratlys, where it occupies nine islands and islets, as part of its western province of Palawan. But the resource-rich chain of islands, islets and atolls is also claimed by China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei. China has turned seven disputed reefs into missile-protected island bases, ratcheting up tensions in recent years.
The United States has expressed support to the Philippines, its long-time treaty ally, and accused China of using “maritime militia to intimidate, provoke and threaten other nations, which undermines peace and security in the region.” Beijing denied the vessels were part of a maritime militia.
Duterte has nurtured friendly ties with Beijing since taking office in 2016 and has been criticized for not immediately demanding Chinese compliance with an international arbitration ruling that invalidated Beijing’s historic claims to virtually the entire South China Sea. China has refused to recognize the 2016 ruling, which it called “a sham,” and continues to defy it.
Philippines sends fighter aircraft over Chinese vessels in South China Sea
MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippine military is sending light fighter aircraft to fly over hundreds of Chinese vessels in disputed waters in the South China Sea, its defence minister said, as he repeated his demand the flotilla be withdrawn immediately.
International concern is growing over what the Philippines has described as a “swarming and threatening presence” of more than 200 Chinese vessels that Manila believes were manned by maritime militia.
The boats were moored at the Whitsun Reef within Manila’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone..
The Philippine military aircraft were sent daily to monitor the situation, Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said in a statement late on Saturday.
Lorenzana said the military will also beef up its naval presence in the South China Sea to conduct “sovereignty patrols” and protect Filipino fishermen.
“Our air and sea assets are ready to protect our sovereignty and sovereign rights,” Lorenzana said.
The Chinese Embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It has said the vessels at Whitsun Reef were fishing boats taking refuge from rough seas and that there were no militia aboard.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte reaffirmed to China’s ambassador, Huang Xilian, the Philippines had won a landmark arbitration case in 2016, which made clear its sovereign entitlements amid rival claims by China, his spokesman said last week.
Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, China and Vietnam have competing territorial claims in the South China Sea, through which at least $3.4 trillion of annual trade passes.
Reporting by Karen Lema; Editing by Stephen Coates
Philippines says 200 Chinese vessels in Filipino EEZ
Chinese fishing boats set sail into the South China Sea, here seen on August 16, 2020.
VCG | Visual China Group | Getty Images
The Philippine government expressed concern after spotting more than 200 Chinese fishing vessels it believed were crewed by militias at a reef claimed by both countries in the South China Sea, but it did not immediately lodge a protest.
A government body overseeing the disputed region said late Saturday that about 220 Chinese vessels were seen moored at Whitsun Reef on March 7. It released pictures of the vessels lying side by side in one of the most hotly contested areas of the strategic waterway.
The reef, which Manila calls Julian Felipe, is a boomerang-shaped and shallow coral region about 175 nautical miles (324 kilometers) west of Bataraza town in the western Philippine province of Palawan. It’s well within the country’s exclusive economic zone, over which the Philippines “enjoys the exclusive right to exploit or conserve any resources,” the agency said in a statement.
The large numbers of Chinese boats are “a concern due to the possible overfishing and destruction of the marine environment, as well as risks to safety of navigation,” it said, although it added that the vessels were not fishing when sighted.
When asked if the Philippines would file a protest, Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. tweeted, “only if the generals tell me.”
Chinese Embassy officials did not immediately issue any comment. China, the Philippines and four other governments have been locked in a tense territorial standoff over the resource-rich and busy waterway for decades.
If I send my marines to drive away the Chinese fishermen, I guarantee you not one of them will come home alive.
Rodrigo Duterte
President of the Philippines
Critics have repeatedly called out President Rodrigo Duterte, who has nurtured friendly ties with Beijing since taking office in 2016, for not standing up to China’s aggressive behavior and deciding not to immediately seek Chinese compliance with an international arbitration ruling that invalidated Beijing’s historic claims to virtually the entire sea. China has refused to recognize the 2016 ruling and continues to defy it.
The arbitration body also ruled that China had breached its duty to respect the traditional fishing rights of Filipinos when Chinese forces blocked them from Scarborough Shoal off the northwestern Philippines in 2012. The Philippines, however, could also not deny Chinese fishermen access to Scarborough, according to the ruling. The decision did not specify any other traditional fishing areas within the Philippines’ exclusive zone where fishermen from China and other countries could be allowed to fish.
“When Xi says ‘I will fish,’ who can prevent him?” Duterte said two years ago as he defended his nonconfrontational approach, referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“If I send my marines to drive away the Chinese fishermen, I guarantee you not one of them will come home alive,” Duterte said then, adding that diplomatic talks with Beijing allowed the return of Filipinos to disputed fishing grounds where Chinese forces had previously shooed them away.
Duterte has sought infrastructure funds, trade and investments from China, which has also donated and pledged to deliver more Covid-19 vaccines as the Philippines faces an alarming spike in coronavirus infections.