VOA News

September 29, 2014 1:40 AM

The Philippines and the United States have launched an annual military exercise in the South China Sea, near waters where China is engaged in bitter territorial disputes with its neighbors.

Around 5,000 sailors and Marines from both countries began 11-days of maritime maneuvers on Monday. The Philippine Bilateral Exercises, or "Phiblex" is designed to test the readiness of the two allies to respond to emergencies of any kind.

The two countries will practice boat raids, beach landings, live fire exercises and armored maneuvers near the Spratly islands and Scarborough Shoal, where China has been involved in a string of tense confrontations with rival claimants.

http://www.voanews.com/content/us-ph...s/2465762.html


Vietnam has yet again condemned China after the latter completed a runway for military aircraft on an island in the East Sea (the Vietnamese term for the South China Sea) over which Hanoi claims sovereignty.
“Vietnam has incontestable sovereignty over the Hoang Sa Islands,” Le Hai Binh, the Vietnamese foreign ministry spokesman, said at a press briefing Thursday, using the Vietnamese name for the Paracel chain.
The building of the new facility stretching across Woody Island, part of the Paracels, violates the resolution on China-Vietnam maritime issues signed in October 2011 and the Declaration on the Conduct of the Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) in 2002, Binh said.
He dismissed the building of the military airstrip as "invalid".
http://www.thanhniennews.com/politic...and-32306.html