Philippines, US hold joint naval exercise as Manila seeks to boost territorial defense

Philippines, US hold joint naval exercise as Manila seeks to boost territorial defense
Vice Admiral Karl Thomas, Commander of the US 7th Fleet, delivers a speech during the opening ceremony of Sama Sama 2023 in Manila on Oct. 2, 2023. (AFP)
Short Url
Updated 02 October 2023
Follow

Philippines, US hold joint naval exercise as Manila seeks to boost territorial defense

Philippines, US hold joint naval exercise as Manila seeks to boost territorial defense
  • Drills take place as tensions rise between Manila, Beijing over dispute in South China Sea
  • Japan, Canada, UK, Australia, France also sending navy personnel to take part this year

MANILA: Philippine and US navies on Wednesday launched their joint exercise and were joined by seven partner countries, as Manila seeks to boost its naval warfare capabilities and readiness to confront security challenges in the region.

Exercise Sama Sama started off as Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training in 1994 between the Philippines and America but changed into its current form in 2017. It seeks to increase interoperability, foster regional cooperation, and tackle non-traditional challenges.

This year, more than 1,800 navy personnel are taking part in the drills from Oct. 2 to 13, including from Japan, Canada, the UK, Australia, and France, while New Zealand and Indonesia are sending observers.

Philippine Navy Chief Vice Admiral Toribio Adaci Jr. noted that Sama Sama equips participating nations to “face an array of threats together,” from territorial defense to countering transnational crimes.

“For us in the Philippine Navy this activity serves as a vital platform for capacity building and empowers us to refine our naval warfare capabilities.

“This exercise enhances our readiness to confront a wide spectrum of security challenges,” Adaci said during his speech at the opening ceremony.

“This year, our interoperability exercises with the US Navy will center on warfighting serials, reinforcing our readiness for joint operations in the face of evolving threats.

“With this show of force and active engagement of our allies and partners, Sama Sama transcends (mere) military exercises. It is a symbol of our enduring partnerships and our shared commitment to security and stability in the Asia-Pacific region,” he added.

The exercises are taking place as tensions continue to rise between Manila and Beijing over territorial claims in the South China Sea.

The Philippines and China have repeatedly sparred in the resource-rich South China Sea, as Beijing maintained its claim over the region in its entirety while other nations also have claims.

Vessels of the two countries have faced off several times this year in areas Manila said is part of its exclusive economic zones.

Sama Sama also reflects increased defense engagements between the Philippines and the US since President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took office last year, after relations ebbed during the previous administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, who leaned more toward Beijing.

Through Sama Sama, the Philippines was seeking to build relationships with allies and partner nations to boost its territorial defense capabilities, Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, said.

“When it comes to territorial defense, we cannot do it alone. So, we have to leverage our alliances and our partnerships with like-minded nations. So that’s what we are doing,” Brawner told Arab News.

“Part of our defensive posture in the West Philippine Sea is doing operations together with our partners. So, the joint sail, joint exercises, these are all part of that overall build-up of our defensive posture in the area.”


Protester in Atlanta sets self on fire outside Israeli consulate

Police stand guard in Washington, DC. (AFP file photo)
Police stand guard in Washington, DC. (AFP file photo)
Updated 02 December 2023
Follow

Protester in Atlanta sets self on fire outside Israeli consulate

Police stand guard in Washington, DC. (AFP file photo)
  • The United States has seen an uptick in Anti-Semitic, anti-Arab and Islamophobic threats and violence since the start of Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza in October

WASHINGTON: A protester outside the Israeli consulate in Atlanta was in critical condition Friday after setting themself on fire, in what police said was likely an “extreme” political statement.
“A Palestinian flag was reported at the location and was part of the protest,” said Darin Schierbaum, police chief of the southern US city.
He said the incident was “likely an extreme act of political protest.”
A security guard was also injured after trying to stop the protester, according to emergency first responders.
“Both individuals sustained burns,” Atlanta Fire Chief Roderick Smith told journalists.
He did not specify the age or gender of the protester.
“The security guard noticed that the individual was attempting to set themselves afire” shortly after the protester arrived outside the consulate building around noon (1700 GMT), Smith said.
The guard “immediately attempted but failed to stop the individual.”
The guard was burned on his wrist and leg, Smith said, while the protester was in critical condition with “full thickness” burns to their body. Both were taken to the hospital, he added.
“We actually have dedicated patrols that are occurring at this location and other Jewish and Muslim communities in the city,” Schierbaum added.
The United States has seen an uptick in Anti-Semitic, anti-Arab and Islamophobic threats and violence since the start of Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza in October.
Earlier this week a US man was charged with attempted murder over the shooting of three men of Palestinian descent in Vermont, and a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy was stabbed to death in Illinois in October.
 

 


Philippines builds new coast guard station on island in South China Sea

Philippines builds new coast guard station on island in South China Sea
Updated 01 December 2023
Follow

Philippines builds new coast guard station on island in South China Sea

Philippines builds new coast guard station on island in South China Sea

THITU ISLAND: The Philippines inaugurated a new coast guard monitoring base Friday on an island occupied by Filipino forces in the disputed South China Sea and plans to expand joint patrols with the US and Australia to counter China’s “pure bullying” in the strategic waterway, a Philippine security official said.
High-seas faceoffs between Chinese and Philippine ships have intensified this year in the contested waters, fueling fears of a larger conflict that could involve the US. The US has repeatedly warned that it’s obligated to defend the Philippines, its oldest treaty ally in Asia, if Filipino forces come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.
China has accused the US of meddling in an Asian dispute and sowing discord in the region.
National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano and other Philippine officials flew to Thitu Island on an air force plane on Friday and led a ceremony to open the newly constructed, two-story center that will have radar, ship-tracking and other monitoring equipment to monitor China’s actions in the hotly disputed waters and other problems, including sea accidents.
“It’s no longer gray zone. It’s pure bullying,” Ano told reporters after the seaside ceremony, describing the actions of Chinese ships as openly flouting international law.
Dwarfed by China’s military might, the Philippines decided this year to allow an expansion of the US military presence in its local camps under a 2014 defense pact.
It also recently launched joint sea and air patrols with the United States and Australia in a new deterrence strategy that puts the two allied powers on a collision course with Beijing.
Ano said the separate joint patrols involving the US and Australia would continue and could expand to include other nations like Japan once a security agreement being negotiated by Tokyo and Manila was concluded.
“We’re open to like-minded countries to join as observers or participants,” Ano said.


How does climate change affect farming and food security?

How does climate change affect farming and food security?
Updated 01 December 2023
Follow

How does climate change affect farming and food security?

How does climate change affect farming and food security?
  • As fossil fuel emissions heat the planet, they are driving extreme weather from heavy rains and droughts to heatwaves
  • Such events can affect crops, ruin farmland and make it harder for farmers to work, threatening everyone’s access to food

LONDON: As impacts from prolonged droughts to extreme heat worsen, climate change is threatening the world’s ability to produce enough nutritious food and ensure everyone has access to it. 

At COP28 in Dubai, more than 130 country leaders on Friday called for global and national food systems to be rethought to address climate change — the first such official recognition at a UN climate summit of growing worries about food security and planet-heating emissions from agriculture. 

Here’s how global food systems and climate change affect each other, and what might be done about rising risks: 

How is climate change threatening food security? 

As fossil fuel emissions heat the planet, they are driving more extreme weather — from heavy rains and droughts to heatwaves — as well as gradual sea level rise. All can affect crops, ruin farmland and make it harder for farmers to work. 

A warming climate also is bringing crop diseases and pests into new locations or making infestations more severe, ruining more harvests and reducing yields. 

Such problems, combined with other pressures on food systems — from growing conflict to crop export restrictions by food-producing countries and speculation in markets — mean food is becoming less affordable and more people are going hungry. 

The UN World Food Programme estimates that 333 million people face “acute” food insecurity in 2023 in the 78 countries where it works — a huge boost from about 200 million prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Alex Flores walks on a dry area of Lake Titicaca, Latin America's largest freshwater basin, as it is edging towards record low levels, on Cojata Island, Bolivia on October 26, 2023. (REUTERS/File)

Crop failures are not a new phenomenon, with surpluses in some regions long making up for shortfalls in others, but scientists fear stronger climate impacts could drive simultaneous failures across major global “breadbaskets,” resulting in a swift rise in global hunger. 

What is being done to address these threats? 

Around the world, many farmers are adapting to climate extremes in a variety of ways, from digging irrigation ponds to trap floodwater and store it for dry times, to adopting new climate-smart seeds and bringing back hardy traditional crops. 

But some challenges — such as more frequent and extreme heatwaves that can make it difficult for farmers to work outside — are harder to counter. 

Money to help small-scale farmers — who supply about a third of the world’s food — adapt to climate risks is also falling dramatically short. 

In 2021, they received only about $2 billion, or 0.3 percent of total international climate finance from public and private sources, according to Amsterdam-based think-tank Climate Focus. 

With little outside help available, many such farmers — who have contributed little to the emissions heating up the planet — are paying the costs of climate adaptation themselves. 

The Climate Focus survey of 13 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America found nearly 440 million small-scale farmer households now spend about $368 billion annually on adaptation costs, or about $838 each per year. 

Analysts say efforts to shore up global food security also need to reach well beyond farms, to try to rein in speculators in food markets, discourage export clampdowns and revamp increasingly overwhelmed humanitarian aid systems. 

Can we find ways to grow more food to make up for the losses? 

Expanding the amount of land being farmed — or boosting the use of fossil-fuel-based fertilizers and developing new crop varieties — have long been accepted ways to grow more food. 

But agricultural land expansion often comes at the expense of forests and other natural ecosystems that are critical to conserve because their vegetation absorbs and stores climate-heating carbon dioxide emissions in order to grow, helping to curb climate change. 

For example nearly 20 percent of the vast Amazon rainforest has now been lost, largely to soybean farming and cattle ranching. 

Scientists fear additional deforestation could over time turn the forest into a dry savanna, imperiling rainfall for agriculture across South America — and sabotaging the world’s climate and biodiversity protection goals. 

Efforts to intensify the amount of food grown on a set land area have shown some success but often require large amounts of expensive fossil fuel-based fertilizers. 

In recent years, however, more environmentally friendly farming methods are gaining new adherents, from the United States to India. 

But food analysts say the best way to increase global supplies is not to grow more but to reduce the huge amount of food wasted each year. 

While the world produces enough food for everyone, about a third of it is lost or wasted along the supply chain from field to fork, according to the United Nations, which says the average person wastes 74 kg (163 lb) of food each year. 


US to press for extending Gaza truce: White House

US to press for extending Gaza truce: White House
Updated 01 December 2023
Follow

US to press for extending Gaza truce: White House

US to press for extending Gaza truce: White House
  • “We continue to work with Israel, Egypt, and Qatar on efforts to extend the humanitarian pause in Gaza,” a White House National Security Council spokesperson said
  • President Joe Biden and his national security team “will continue to remain deeply engaged as we look to free the remaining hostages"

WASHINGTON: The United States will continue to press for extending a truce in Gaza, the White House said Friday, as intense fighting erupted once again in the Israel-Hamas war.
“We continue to work with Israel, Egypt, and Qatar on efforts to extend the humanitarian pause in Gaza,” a White House National Security Council spokesperson said.
Under the truce which lasted a week, Hamas militants released 80 Israeli hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners. More humanitarian aid was also delivered into war-devastated Gaza.
But the prospects of reestablishing a truce were being stymied because “Hamas has so far failed to produce a list of hostages that would enable a further extension of the pause,” the NSC spokesperson said.
President Joe Biden and his national security team “will continue to remain deeply engaged as we look to free the remaining hostages,” the NSC spokesperson said.
On Thursday, Washington’s top diplomat, Antony Blinken, also called for a truce extension while meeting Israeli and Palestinian officials during a visit to the region.
The fighting began on October 7 when Hamas militants broke through Gaza’s militarized border into Israel.
During the unprecedented attack, Hamas killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped around 240, according to Israeli authorities.
In response, Israel vowed to eliminate Hamas and unleashed an air and ground military campaign in Gaza that the Hamas authorities who run Gaza say has killed almost 15,000 people, also mostly civilians.


UK operation underway to relocate Afghans from Pakistan

UK operation underway to relocate Afghans from Pakistan
Updated 01 December 2023
Follow

UK operation underway to relocate Afghans from Pakistan

UK operation underway to relocate Afghans from Pakistan
  • Around 1,500 have been flown to Britain from Islamabad since start of Operation Lazurite in October
  • At least 4,000 eligible people still in Pakistan or trapped in Afghanistan; UK aims to conclude operation by end-2023

LONDON: The UK has begun a mission to bring thousands of Afghans who worked with British forces to Britain from Pakistan.

Armed Forces Minister James Heappey told The Independent that the UK owed the 1,500 Afghans already relocated as part of the mission “an enormous debt,” and that it was “great” to have brought them to the country “at last.”

Operation Lazurite began in early October when the government decided to relocate all Afghans in Pakistan eligible to come to the UK, after The Independent found 3,000 such people stranded in hotels in Islamabad at British taxpayers’ expense.

This happened after the UK stopped funding hotels in Britain for Afghans coming to Britain in November 2022, and instead required them to find somewhere in the country to live themselves before they could be relocated.

On Sept. 26, then-Foreign Secretary James Cleverly laid the ground for the start of the operation after meeting Pakistan’s caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-Ul-Haq Kakar in London, during which he praised “Pakistan’s support in hosting and facilitating (the) exit of Afghan nationals.”

Around 1,300 Afghans eligible to come to the UK remain in Islamabad, and around 2,700 more remain trapped in Afghanistan or are staying in other parts of Pakistan. The British Ministry of Defence plans to conclude the operation by the end of 2023.

Heappey told The Independent that the UK “know(s) who worked for us, therefore we know who is eligible. There are very, very few eligibility decisions left really to be taken. We know who we’ve got to bring out, both from Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

He added: “We are working at the best speed we can to get people here. We are really grateful to councils and communities across the country who are assisting us in that and to the Pakistan government for their continued support.

“We owe these people an enormous debt. They are not here illegally, quite the reverse. They are here because they did great work for and with the British Armed Forces during their time in Afghanistan. It’s great at last to be able to welcome them to their new permanent homes in the UK.”

So far, 1,100 of the Afghans relocated to the UK are at the Garats Hay army base near Loughborough, which is only intended to house people for a few days.

Several have now been there for a number of weeks. Other bases across the UK have also taken in Afghans on the scheme.

Around 700 houses have been earmarked for longer-term settlement, with 500 of those to be guaranteed for families for up to three years. The MoD is also working with local councils and private landlords.

Heappey said: “The properties offered are taken from stock that is not currently being used by service families, to avoid impact on our (MoD) people.

“Where there is not suitable service family accommodation to fit the needs of ARAP (Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy) families, alternative accommodation will be procured.”