The United States has committed to boost the Philippines’ intelligence capabilities amid increased tensions with China over disputed territories in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea), the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said Saturday.
MANILA, Philippines—The Philippines has said that US forces are obliged to help defend Filipino troops, ships or aircraft under a 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty if they come under attack in the disputed Spratly Islands in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).
HONG KONG—China’s first aircraft carrier—a remodelled Soviet-era vessel—will go on sea trials next week, a report said Tuesday, amid escalating tensions in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).
BIGGEST, OLDEST AND ONLY WARSHIP The Philippine Navy flagship BRP Humabon (PF 11) steams in formation during a naval exercise with US Navy warships in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) on March 14, 2010. The Humabon is a World War II vintage destroyer escort/frigate acquired from the US in 1978. It is now deployed along the Scarborough Shoal, an atoll facing Zambales and which China claims. US NAVY
SAN FERNANDO CITY—The Philippines is flexing what little naval muscle it has amid rising tensions in the West Philippine Sea, also called the South China Sea.
MANILA, Philippines – Albay Governor Joey Salceda, a political ally of President Aquino, urged Filipinos on Sunday to band together and boycott China-made products in retaliation to Beijing ’s “bullying’’ in the country’s territory.
The United States yesterday said it will not side with any party in the Spratlys conflict, which is to say that the Philippines’ most powerful ally will not be coming to its aid should its spat with China escalate into a shooting war.
As the United States and China battle over the finer points of currency manipulation at the G-20 summit, American negotiators may want to take note of this startling testimonial to the productivity of Chinese workers: A construction crew in the south-central Chinese city of Changsha has completed a 15-story hotel in just six days. If nothing else, this remarkable achievement will stoke further complaints from American economic pundits that China’s economy is far more accomplished than ours in tending to such basics as construction.
Meanwhile, it’s easy to imagine the disorientation of Changsha residents who’d gone away, or who just hadn’t recently ventured into the downtown neighborhood of the new Ark Hotel: “Honey, I don’t remember a hotel there, do you?”
The work crew erected the hotel — a soundproofed, thermal-insulated structure reportedly built to withstand a magnitude 9 earthquake — with all prefabricated materials. In other words, a crew of off-site factory workers built the sections, and their on-site counterparts arranged them on the foundation for the Ark project.
Despite the frenetic pace of construction, no workers were injured — and thanks to the prefab nature of the process, the builders wasted very few construction materials. Below is a time-lapse video that shows the hotel being built from the ground up in less than a week:
