At least three Chinese ships and 10 fishing boats were seen within the vicinity of the Ayungin Shoal last Wednesday despite the diplomatic protest filed by the Philippines against China’s intrusion in the area.
Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said that the vessels were spotted by security forces that conducted surveillance operations at about 5 a.m.
“We saw a frigate. We saw CMS (Chinese maritime surveillance) maritime ships. We have pictures and we have sent them to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA),” Gazmin said in a press briefing.
“Based on [the photos] that I saw yesterday, there were two CMS and one frigate,” he added.
Gazmin added that about 10 fishing boats or dinghies were also seen in the area, which is well within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.
He said the deployment of a Chinese military frigate to the area is “unusual.”
“As far as we're concerned, it (Ayungin) is not a disputed (area). It’s ours,” the defense chief said.
Meanwhile, Gazmin said that the military will not send additional ships to the shoal but the resupply mission to the Filipino contingent in the area will go on as scheduled.
"We will be using an unarmed Navy ship for our resupply and replenishment missions to our forces there," he said.
The Filipino contingent in the shoal are in BRP Sierra Madre, a landing ship tank which ran aground off the Shoal several years back.
Ayungin Shoal is 105.77 nautical miles from Palawan and forms part of the 200 nautical miles of the Philippine continental shelf under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Ayungin Shoal is part of the Kalayaan Island Group off Palawan and is one of the areas occupied by the Philippines in the West Philippine Sea, the subject of a territorial row in the region.
Last week, a Chinese ship harassed a utility boat of Kalayaan Island town with 147 civilians that included the group of town mayor Eugenio Bito-onon.
Bito-onon claimed that the Chinese vessel started chasing the Queen Seagull utility boat while they were passing by the Ayungin Shoal.
The mayor said the Chinese vessel, which came from the eastern side of the shoal, used its powerful floodlights and sailed toward their boat several times. The Chinese warship reportedly came as close as 50 meters to their boat.
The chase, which reportedly lasted for about an hour, ended when the Queen Seagull reached the area around Half Moon Shoal, where a Chinese gunboat got stuck last year.
On Tuesday, the DFA announced that the Philippines had filed a protest against the illegal deployment of Chinese vessels around the Ayungin Shoal
The protest, which was filed last May 10, complained about the provocative presence of two CMS and one warship around the area.
The Philippines has asked China to respect its sovereign rights and jurisdiction over its continental shelf.
“China’s interference with the sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the West Philippine Sea is a violation of international law,” DFA spokesman Raul Hernandez said in a press conference last Tuesday.
China claims virtually the entire West Philippine Sea while the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei and Taiwan have overlapping claims in the area.-The Philippine Star
Malaysian police have arrested three prominent opposition figures, including Keadilan party vice-President Tian Chua, under the Sedition Act.
A student has also been charged with sedition over his call for protests against alleged election fraud.
Tensions have been high following the 5 May elections, where the ruling coalition secured a simple majority.
It was Barisan Nasional 's worst election result ever, securing just 46.6% of the popular vote.
The government said that the elections were free and fair, but the Anwar Ibrahim-led opposition said the results were marred by fraud, alleging multiple irregularities.
The opposition have held several rallies around the country to protest, drawing crowds.
'Politically-motivated prosecution'
Right after his contentious victory in the recent general election Prime Minister Najib Razak made an appeal for national reconciliation, the BBC's Southeast Asia correspondent Jonathan Head reports.
The prospects for that, never promising, have now collapsed following the arrest of such a prominent opposition politician, our correspondent adds.
On his Twitter feed, Tian Chua said he was detained as he was about to board a flight. He urged Malaysians not to be "overtaken by fear", but to "continue to assemble peacefully & have faith".
Opposition activists Haris Ibrahim and Tamrin Ghafar are also being held by police.
There are also reports of police raiding newspaper offices and seizing opposition newspapers.
In a statement, the Keadilan party called for the "immediate release of Tian Chua and Haris" and an end to the "politically-motivated prosecution" of opposition and activists.
Mr Najib's "talk of a national reconciliation after the recent elections... has proven to be meaningless," it said.
Meanwhile, Adam Adli was arrested earlier this month after he reportedly told members of a public forum to "go down to the streets to seize back our power", AP news agency reported.
The 24-year-old pleaded not guilty to the charge at a Kuala Lumpur court, and was released on bail on Thursday. If found guilty, he faces up to three years in jail.
Activists have argued that Malaysia's sedition law is used to stifle dissent.
"The [sedition] law is open to abuse," Fadiah Nadwa Fikri, Mr Adli's lawyer, told AFP news agency.
"It's an infringement to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly."
In a statement on Wednesday, human rights group Amnesty International called for Mr Adli's "unconditional release" and said that the Sedition Act "has been implemented over the years to repress political dissent".
Prime Minister Najib Razak said in July 2012 that the government would seek to repeal Malaysia's sedition law, replacing it with a National Harmony Act. However, the law is currently still in force.-British Broadcasting Corporation
A mistake by a crane operator caused a 10-hour blackout over about a third of Vietnam and parts of neighbouring Cambodia, officials say.
Vietnamese state electricity company EVN said in a statement that the blackout happened on Wednesday after the operator knocked a tree down.
It fell onto the main north-south high voltage power transmission line.
Electricity supplies in Ho Chi Minh City and in Phnom Penh were affected before power was restored on Thursday.
About 22 of Vietnam's 63 provinces were blacked out, officials say, and most of the south-east of the country was without power.
Officials say it was one of the worst power cuts in Vietnam's history.
Vietnam provides Cambodia with about 40% of its national electricity supplies.
Local media in Phnom Penh said that the entire length of the city's popular riverfront area lay in darkness, as crowded restaurants served tourists by candlelight and water supplies - that rely on electricity - began to dry up.
Correspondents say that the outage caused scores of garment and seafood factories to close and exposed the fragility of Vietnam's power grid.
In addition there were heavy traffic jams in many other cities and towns as traffic lights failed.
Traffic jams
Vietnamese state-owned newspaper Thanh Nien reported that the incident cost EVN $700,000 (£465,000) in lost revenue.
It is widely acknowledged that Vietnam's power generation sector needs modernising.
Last year the chairman of the independent US federal agency Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im Bank) pushed for infrastructure deals worth $1.5bn related to satellite communication, thermal power and renewable energy.
EVN has a power supply monopoly in Vietnam, but has been criticised for frequent power cuts in many parts of the capital Hanoi as temperatures soar to 40C.
Last year the EVN chairman was fired for enormous losses incurred by the company.-British Broadcasting Corporation
Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario warned on Thursday that territorial rows in Asia are "causing considerable tension that could lead to conflict" as several countries face off with China over island claims.
Speaking at a Tokyo business conference, Del Rosario said China's "nine-dash line claim encompassing almost the entire South China Sea" is "excessive."
"In addition to the South China Sea, we have in Northeast Asia, home to Asia's biggest economic powerhouses, several disputes that have adversely affected relations between and among Japan, China and the Republic of Korea.
"The competing territorial and maritime disputes are causing considerable tension that could lead to conflict," he warned.
China is believed to be boosting its naval capability in the Pacific and has been criticized by neighbors for what is seen as an increasingly aggressive stance in the region, particularly in its multiple territorial disputes.
Chinese maritime surveillance vessels have been frequently spotted in the 12-nautical-mile zone off the Tokyo-controlled Senkaku islands, which China calls the Diaoyus, in the East China Sea since Tokyo nationalized three of the outcrops in September.
China says it has sovereign rights over nearly all of the South China Sea, even waters far away from its main landmass and approaching the coasts of Southeast Asian countries.
The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also claim parts of the sea, and the area has for decades been regarded as a potential trigger for major military conflict in the region.
All claimants, except Brunei, have troops stationed on various islands and atolls in the Spratlys -- the biggest archipelago in the sea -- to assert their claims.-Interaksyon
Singapore on Thursday reported a surprise expansion in its economy in the first quarter, helped by a surge in financial services.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) expanded 1.8 percent in January-March on a quarter-on-quarter, seasonally adjusted and annualised rate, said the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI).
The figure is much better than the government's advanced estimate of a 1.4 percent contraction.
Year-on-year, the Singapore economy grew by 0.2 percent in Q1, much better than the government's flash estimate of a 0.6 percent contraction.
Stronger performance in the finance and insurance sector spurred Singapore's economy in the first quarter.
The sector recorded a 50.6 percent quarterly growth to about S$10.2 billion in Q1, partly supported by a rise in trading of equities and foreign exchange.
Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) deputy managing director, Ong Chong Tee, said: "We've seen some pickup in general investment banking, wealth management activities, so fees and commission for example have grown quite strongly in the first quarter.
"As a whole, as long as the global environment remains fairly 'risk-on' for example, we think financial sector activity should continue to hold up for the rest of the year. But...because it is sentiment-sensitive, that number can be fairly volatile in terms of financial sector activities."
The services sector, which accounted for 70 percent of Singapore's economy, grew 7.9 percent on-quarter. This helped to mitigate the 12.3 percent contraction in manufacturing.
Meanwhile, MTI says the outlook for the electronics sector is positive as global recovery continues.
The construction sector grew by 16.5 percent on-quarter, reversing a 3.9 percent contraction in the previous quarter, boosted by a strong rebound in private sector building activities.
Looking ahead, MTI said Singapore's economic growth should "improve gradually" for the rest of the year in tandem with an expected rise in global demand for exports, supported by domestic drivers such as the construction and services sectors.
It kept its growth forecast at 1.0-3.0 percent this year, barring downside risks.
"Fiscal uncertainties in the US remain with the failure of Congress to raise the debt ceiling, while the eurozone is prone to a potential flare-up of the sovereign debt crisis," MTI said in its statement.
"Other uncertainties include the risk of an escalation in regional geopolitical tensions and a possible outbreak of respiratory viruses."
Despite the surprise expansion in Q1, some economists said there are still some concerns.
Selena Ling, head of Treasury Research & Strategy at OCBC, said: "What really didn't change is that we still have a tight labour market, unemployment rate still remains low, labour productivity still remain in contraction territory.
"So, no sign of celebration yet as far as the productivity push is concerned. And, I think, so far the wage cost element is fairly muted.
"But going forward, I think the foreign manpower curbs are really going to hurt."
In April, headline inflation rose by 1.5% year-on-year, the lowest in nearly three years.
This was due largely to falling car prices.
The cost of transportation, which has an index weighting of 16%, gained 0.5% in April from a year earlier due to a fall in the average price of the Certificate of Entitlement (COE).
The average price of COEs has fallen about 25% from its peak, according to MAS' Mr Ong.
Meanwhile, the MAS said core inflation - which excludes housing and private transportation costs - could pick up as a result of economic restructuring efforts and potential increase in wages.
The central bank expects core inflation to come in at the higher end of 2 percent towards the end of the year.
For the full year, MAS expects headline inflation to hover at 3 to 4 percent and between 1.5 and 2.5 percent for core inflation.-Channel News Asia
