China says 11 fishermen missing near Philippines

[Monseratto]

Hope the mainlanders don't get any funny ideas...

[Associated Press – 1 hour 29 minutes ago

BEIJING (AP) — China said Wednesday it had lost contact with 11 fishermen allegedly taken away by armed men in disputed South China Sea waters.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the men were on the vessel Qiongqionghai 09063 when it was intercepted by armed men who fired warning shots in the air on Tuesday morning near Half Moon Shoal not far from the Philippines.

Xinhua said a second Chinese fishing boat operating nearby outran another boatload of armed men. Two other boats in the area were mobilized to conduct a search, but had turned up nothing by Wednesday morning, it said.

China lays claim to virtually the entire South China Sea and is locked in an increasingly heated dispute with the Philippines, Vietnam and others over rights to energy resources, fishing grounds and island outposts.

An official from the Fishing Port Monitoring Center at the port of Tanmen on China's southern island province of Hainan confirmed the Xinhua report. But he said he had no other details and declined to give his name as is common among Chinese bureaucrats.

[111prez]

Baka puede nalang kontratahin ng goberyo na ang Abu Sayyaf Grouip nalang ang magbabantay sa Spratleys?

Tutal, ilang taon na yang hindi ma resolba resolba ng gobyerno ang problema sa ASG eh di pakinabangan nalang

[Monseratto]

I'm sure the Mainlanders might respond in kind. It might escalate into something messy...

Beijing tells PH to free Chinese fishermen arrested for poaching off Palawan, return boat

Beijing tells PH to free Chinese fishermen arrested for poaching off Palawan, return boat
By: Reuters
May 7, 2014 2:03 PM

InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5

MANILA, Philippines -- (UPDATE2 - 6:06 p.m.) China's foreign ministry said on Wednesday that it had asked the Philippines to hand back a Chinese fishing boat and its crew seized by Philippines police in disputed waters in the South China Sea.

The Philippines should stop taking provocative actions, ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing.

Maritime police arrested a Chinese fishing boat with 11 crewmen and a haul of about 500 turtles off a disputed shoal in the Spratly Islands but within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone, a senior official said on Wednesday.

The Chinese fishing boat was intercepted off Half Moon Shoal on Tuesday, said Chief Superintendent Noel Vargas, head of the Philippine National Police maritime group.

"The fishing boat is now being towed to Palawan where appropriate charges will be filed against them," Vargas said.

The shoal is some 100 kilometers from southwestern Palawan.

Chinese crew to be charged - PNP

National police spokesman Reuben Sindac said the 15-tonne Chinese boat had been intercepted Tuesday while fishing off Half Moon Shoal, west of the major Philippine island of Palawan, in what he said were Philippine waters.

The Chinese crew will be further charged with violating anti-poaching laws after a huge haul of some 500 turtles was found on board, he added.

Sindac said the Chinese vessel was intercepted along with a Filipino-manned fishing boat that also had a catch of around 40 protected turtles.

Half of the turtles aboard the two boats were already dead, Sindac said, adding the Filipino fishermen were also detained.

It was not clear whether the two boats were working together when they were caught.

China angrily responds

China angrily responded that it had "undisputable sovereignty" over the Half Moon Shoal, which it calls the Ban Yue Reef, and urged the Philippines to "stop taking further provocative action".

"Relevant authorities from China have arrived at the scene," Beijing's foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters at a regular briefing.


"We ask the Philippines side to give their explanation and deal with this case properly," Hua added.

"We ask the Philippines side to release the vessel and the crew, and we urge the Philippines side to stop taking further provocative action."

Xinhua report: armed men took fishers

Earlier, Chinese state agency Xinhua reported that contact had been lost with the 11 fishermen after they were intercepted by "armed men" and their ship seized.

The Xinhua report said the fishermen were on board the fishing boat Qiongqionghai 09063, which was intercepted at about 10 a.m. (0200 GMT) in waters off Half-Moon Shoal in the Spratly Islands, citing a fishing association in Qionghai on China's southern island province of Hainan.

The report did not mention a Philippine police presence.

"Several armed men forced themselves onto the boat and fired four or five shots in the air. They then took control of the boat," Xinhua said.

A second fishing boat escaped, but then encountered another armed boat, though it was able to get away, the report added.

The Qionghai government has sent other trawlers operating close by to help look for the fishermen, but has yet to find them, Xinhua said.

Reuters was not immediately able to reach officials in Hainan for comment.

China claims almost the entire oil- and gas-rich South China Sea, rejecting rival claims to parts or all of it from Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei.

There are frequent tensions in the South China Sea between China and the other claimant nations, particularly Vietnam and the Philippines, both of which say Beijing has harassed their ships in the waters there.

On Tuesday, China warned Vietnam not to disturb activities of Chinese companies operating near disputed islands in the South China Sea, after Hanoi condemned as illegal the movement of a giant Chinese oil rig into what it says is its territorial waters. With a report from Agence France-Presse, PNA/Xinhua

[Monseratto]

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>