ABOARD BRP SINDANGAN: It was a heart-pounding moment far out in the disputed South China Sea: One of at least five Chinese coast guard ships aggressively approached and sideswiped a Philippine patrol vessel, creating a loud, jarring noise that sent its Filipino crew scrambling to lower rubber fenders to cushion the boat’s hull.
As the high-seas faceoff unfolded Tuesday, two Chinese coast guard ships used water cannons against a smaller supply boat carrying a Filipino admiral and his sailors. The high-pressure spray shattered the boat’s windshield and mildly injured the admiral and four sailors with glass shards and splinters of debris.
“That’s very concerning and very worrisome,” Vice Adm. Alberto Carlos later told reporters, after witnessing firsthand the Chinese actions against the supply boat Unaizah Mae 4, which he was aboard.
As the highest-ranking Filipino military commander overseeing the disputed waters, Carlos joined the trip to ensure that any confrontation would not spiral out of control, the navy said.
It was the latest showdown in one of the world’s most hotly disputed waters that many fear could descend into a larger conflict that puts the United States and China on a collision course.
Tuesday’s hostilities off the Philippine-occupied Second Thomas Shoal lasted about five hours starting after dawn and were witnessed by two Associated Press journalists. The journalists were invited to join the trip aboard the Philippine coast guard ship BRP Sindangan, which was sideswiped by the Chinese coast guard ship in a tense and dangerous moment they caught on camera.
The Philippines adopted a strategy last year of exposing China’s increasingly assertive actions in the disputed sea by embedding journalists on its coast guard patrol ships. Manila said the “transparency campaign” aims to pressure China to abide by international law, including anti-collision regulations.
It has publicly released coast guard videos and photos of dangerous Chinese actions against Philippine forces, including the use by China’s coast guard of a military-grade laser that temporarily blinded Filipino crew in an incident last year that angered Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
The campaign has sparked a war of words with Beijing, which has accused the Philippines of hyping up the disputes and allowing itself to be used as a pawn in US efforts to contain China’s rise.
Aboard the BRP Sindangan, the journalists witnessed up close how a mission to deliver food, water and other supplies to a long-marooned warship was partly thwarted by a Chinese blockade of at least 26 ships, including coast guard and suspected militia vessels.
They caught on video and camera how the Chinese ships shadowed, surrounded and blocked the two Philippine coast guard ships and two small supply boats carrying Filipino sailors to the disputed shoal.
Aside from China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei also have overlapping claims in the resource-rich and busy waterway, where a bulk of the world’s commerce and oil transits.
Beijing claims almost the entire sea, a key global trade route. In the last decade, China has turned barren reefs into seven islands that now serve as missile-protected island bases, including three with runways, that have bolstered its capability to fortify its territorial claims and patrols.
In response, Washington has been strengthening an arc of military alliances in the Indo-Pacific, including with the Philippines, Vietnam and other countries at odds with China in the disputed sea.
After China effectively seized another disputed atoll, the Scarborough Shoal off the northwestern Philippines, in 2012, Manila brought its disputes with Beijing to international arbitration and largely won. China, however, rejected the 2016 ruling of the UN-backed tribunal that invalidated its expansive claims on historical grounds and continues to defy the decision.
Filipino officials said the latest confrontation was particularly serious because of the injuries sustained by its navy personnel and damage to their vessel.
“The systematic and consistent manner in which the People’s Republic of China carries out these illegal and irresponsible actions completely negates any of its calls for peaceful dialogue and de-escalation of tensions in the West Philippine Sea,” Jonathan Malaya, a spokesperson for a Philippine government task force dealing with the South China Sea disputes, told a news conference on Wednesday, using the Philippine name for the long-troubled waters.
China blamed the Philippines for the hostilities.
“China has unwavering determination and will in safeguarding its legitimate rights. The Philippines’ attempt of making infringements and provocations will not succeed,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mao Ning said Wednesday in Beijing.
After the US repeated a warning that it’s obligated to defend the Philippines, its longtime treaty ally, in case of an armed attack, Mao urged Washington “to refrain from using the Philippines as a pawn to destabilize the South China Sea.”
In Washington, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the latest incidents demonstrated China’s “reckless disregard for the safety of Filipinos and also for international law,” and that China was interfering with “lawful Philippine maritime operations.”
Filipino officials said they would continue to assert Philippine rights in the disputed sea.
“We continue to view with great alarm the continuing dangerous maneuvers and dangerous actions,” Marcos told reporters Wednesday in Melbourne, Australia, where he attended a Southeast Asian summit that had the territorial disputes high on its agenda.
China coast guard flexes its might against the Philippines in disputed waters as journalists look on
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China coast guard flexes its might against the Philippines in disputed waters as journalists look on
- Latest showdown in one of the world’s most hotly disputed waters that many fear could descend into a larger conflict
- The Philippines adopted a strategy last year of exposing Beijing’s increasingly assertive actions in the disputed South China Sea
Travel ban may shut door for Afghan family to bring niece to US for better life
- President Donald Trump signed the ban Wednesday, similar to one in place during his first administration but covers more countries
- Myanmar, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen also banned along with Afghanistan
IRMO, S.C.: Mohammad Sharafoddin, his wife and young son walked at times for 36 hours in a row over mountain passes as they left Afghanistan as refugees to end up less than a decade later talking about their journey on a plush love seat in the family’s three-bedroom suburban American home.
He and his wife dreamed of bringing her niece to the US to share in that bounty. Maybe she could study to become a doctor and then decide her own path.
But that door slams shut on Monday as America put in place a travel ban for people from Afghanistan and a dozen other countries.
“It’s kind of shock for us when we hear about Afghanistan, especially right now for ladies who are affected more than others with the new government,” Mohammad Sharafoddin said. “We didn’t think about this travel ban.”
President Donald Trump signed the ban Wednesday. It is similar to one in place during his first administration but covers more countries. Along with Afghanistan, travel to the US is banned from Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
Trump said visitors who overstay visas, like the man charged in an attack that injured dozens of demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado, earlier this month, are a danger to the country. The suspect in the attack is from Egypt, which isn’t included in the ban.
The countries chosen for the ban have deficient screening of their citizens, often refuse to take them back and have a high percentage of people who stay in the US after their visas expire, Trump said.
The ban makes exceptions for people from Afghanistan on Special Immigrant Visas who generally worked most closely with the US government during the two-decade war there.
Thousands of refugees came from Afghanistan
Afghanistan was also one of the largest sources of resettled refugees, with about 14,000 arrivals in a 12-month period through September 2024. Trump suspended refugee resettlement on his first day in office.
It is a path Sharafoddin took with his wife and son out of Afghanistan walking on those mountain roads in the dark then through Pakistan, Iran and into Turkiye. He worked in a factory for years in Turkiye, listening to
YouTube videos on headphones to learn English before he was resettled in Irmo, South Carolina, a suburb of Columbia.
His son is now 11, and he and his wife had a daughter in the US who is now 3. There is a job at a jewelry maker that allows him to afford a two-story, three-bedroom house. Food was laid out on two tables Saturday for a celebration of the Muslim Eid Al-Adha holiday.
Sharafoddin’s wife, Nuriya, said she is learning English and driving — two things she couldn’t do in Afghanistan under Taliban rule.
“I’m very happy to be here now, because my son is very good at school and my daughter also. I think after 18 years they are going to work, and my daughter is going to be able to go to college,” she said.
Family wants to help niece
It is a life she wanted for her niece too. The couple show videos from their cellphones of her drawing and painting. When the Taliban returned to power in 2021, their niece could no longer study. So they started to plan to get her to the US at least to further her education.
Nuriya Sharafoddin doesn’t know if her niece has heard the news from America yet. She hasn’t had the heart to call and tell her.
“I’m not ready to call her. This is not good news. This is very sad news because she is worried and wants to come,” Nuriya Sharafoddin said.
While the couple spoke, Jim Ray came by. He has helped a number of refugee families settle in Columbia and helped the Sharafoddins navigate questions in their second language.
Ray said Afghans in Columbia know the return of the Taliban changed how the US deals with their native country.
But while the ban allows spouses, children or parents to travel to America, other family members aren’t included. Many Afghans know their extended families are starving or suffering, and suddenly a path to help is closed, Ray said.
“We’ll have to wait and see how the travel ban and the specifics of it actually play out,” Ray said. “This kind of thing that they’re experiencing where family cannot be reunited is actually where it hurts the most.”
Taliban criticize travel ban
The Taliban criticized Trump for the ban, with leader Hibatullah Akhundzada saying the US was now the oppressor of the world.
“Citizens from 12 countries are barred from entering their land — and Afghans are not allowed either,” he said on a recording shared on social media. “Why? Because they claim the Afghan government has no control over its people and that people are leaving the country. So, oppressor! Is this what you call friendship with humanity?”
Colombian presidential contender in critical condition after shooting
- Miguel Uribe was speaking to supporters in the capital when a gunman shot him twice in the head and once in the knee
- Defense minister Pedro Sanchez announced a roughly $725,000 reward for information about who was behind the shooting
BOGOTA: A prominent Colombian right-wing presidential candidate is in critical condition after being shot three times during a campaign event in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said.
Thirty-nine-year-old Senator Miguel Uribe was speaking to supporters in the capital when a gunman shot him twice in the head and once in the knee before being detained.
Images from the scene showed Uribe slumped against the hood of a white car, smeared with blood, as a group of men tried to hold him and stop the bleeding.
A security guard managed to detain the suspected attacker, a minor who is believed to be 15 years old.
Uribe was airlifted to the hospital in “critical condition” where he is undergoing a “neurosurgical” and “peripheral vascular procedure,” the Santa Fe Clinic in Bogota confirmed.
Uribe’s wife posted on his X account that “he is fighting for his life at this moment.”
Police director Carlos Fernando Triana said the suspect was injured in the affray and was receiving treatment.
Two others – a man and a woman – were also wounded, and a Glock-style firearm was seized.
“Our hearts are broken, Colombia hurts,” Carolina Gomez, a 41-year-old businesswoman, said as she prayed with candles for Uribe’s health.
The motive for the attack is not yet publicly known. Colombia’s defense minister Pedro Sanchez vowed to use law enforcement’s full capabilities and offered a roughly $725,000 reward for information about who was behind the shooting.
In a video address to the nation posted on social media, President Gustavo Petro also promised investigations to find the perpetrators of the “day of pain.”
“What matters most today is that all Colombians focus with the energy of our hearts, with our will to live ... on ensuring that Dr. Miguel Uribe stays alive.”
In an earlier statement, Petro condemned the violence as “an attack not only against his person, but also against democracy, freedom of thought, and the legitimate exercise of politics in Colombia.”
The shooting was similarly condemned across the political spectrum and from overseas, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling it “a direct threat to democracy.”
But Rubio also pointed blame at Petro, claiming the attack was the “result of the violent leftist rhetoric coming from the highest levels of the Colombian government.”
“President Petro needs to dial back the inflammatory rhetoric and protect Colombian officials,” the top US diplomat said.
Uribe, a strong critic of Petro, is a member of the Democratic Center party, which announced last October his intention to run in the 2026 presidential election.
Authorities said that there was no specific threat made against the politician before the incident. Like many public figures in Colombia, Uribe had close personal protection.
The country is home to several armed guerrilla groups, powerful cartels and has a long history of political violence.
Uribe is the son of Diana Turbay, a famed Colombian journalist who was killed after being kidnapped by Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel.
One of his grandfathers was former Colombia president Julio Cesar Turbay, who led the country from 1978 to 1982.
Supporters gathered outside the facility, lighting candles and clutching crucifixes as they prayed for his recovery.
Uribe’s party said in a statement Saturday that an “armed individual” had shot the senator from behind.
The party leader, former president Alvaro Uribe, described the shooting as an attack against “a hope for the country.”
Miguel Uribe – who is not related to Alvaro – has been a senator since 2022. He previously served as Bogota’s government secretary and city councilor.
He also ran for city mayor in 2019, but lost that election.
Donald Trump rewarding loyalists with pardon spree
- Trump is doling out pardons ‘that look like they’re almost quid pro quo for financial donations’
- Among those receiving a pardon was Paul Walczak, a nursing home executive convicted of tax crime
WASHINGTON: Reality TV stars. Former lawmakers. A sheriff. A nursing home executive. A drug kingpin.
What do they have in common?
They are among the Americans convicted of crimes who have received pardons from President Donald Trump since he took office in January.
And while US presidents have doled out questionable pardons in the past, Trump is doing so “in a bigger, more aggressive way with sort of no sense of shame,” said Kermit Roosevelt, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
“The pardon power has always been a little bit problematic because it’s this completely unconstrained power that the president has,” Roosevelt said.
“Most presidents have issued at least some pardons where people look at them and they say: ‘This seems to be self-serving’ or ‘This seems to be corrupt in some way.’“
But Trump is doling out pardons “that look like they’re almost quid pro quo for financial donations,” Roosevelt said.
Among those receiving a pardon was Paul Walczak, a nursing home executive convicted of tax crimes and whose mother attended a $1-million-per-plate fund-raising dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in April.
Other beneficiaries of Trump pardons include reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, who were serving lengthy prison sentences for bank fraud and tax evasion.
Their daughter, Savannah, is a prominent Trump supporter and gave a speech at last year’s Republican National Convention.
More than half a dozen former Republican lawmakers convicted of various crimes have also received pardons along with a Virginia sheriff sentenced to 10 years in prison for taking $75,000 in bribes.
On his first day in office, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 supporters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 as they sought to prevent congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
The next day, Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who had been serving a life sentence for running the “Silk Road” online marketplace that facilitated millions of dollars of drug sales.
Barbara McQuade, a former prosecutor who now teaches law at the University of Michigan, said Trump is not the first president to be accused of “allowing improper factors to influence their pardon decisions.”
Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton’s pardon of a commodities trader whose wife was a major Democratic donor and Biden’s pardon of his son, Hunter, and other family members all drew some criticism.
“(But) Trump is in a class by himself in both scope and shamelessness,” McQuade said in a Bloomberg opinion column.
“To him, pardons are just another deal.
“As long as a defendant can provide something of value in return, no crime seems too serious,” she said.
Democratic lawmaker Jamie Raskin, in a letter to Ed Martin, Trump’s pardon attorney at the Justice Department, asked what criteria are being used to recommend pardons.
“It at least appears that you are using the Office of the Pardon Attorney to dole out pardons as favors to the President’s loyal political followers and most generous donors,” Raskin wrote.
Martin for his part has made no secret of the partisan nature of the pardons recommended by his office.
“No MAGA left behind,” Martin said on X after the pardon of the bribe-taking Virginia sheriff, a reference to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.
Lee Kovarsky, a University of Texas law professor, said Trump’s “pardon spree” opens up a “menacing new frontier of presidential power” that he calls “patronage pardoning.”
By reducing the penalty for misconduct, Trump is making a “public commitment to protect and reward loyalism, however criminal,” Kovarsky said in a New York Times opinion piece.
Rwanda quits Central African bloc in dispute with Congo
- Kigali had expected to assume the chairmanship of the 11-member bloc at a meeting on Saturday in Equatorial Guinea
- Instead, the bloc kept Equatorial Guinea in the role, which Rwanda’s foreign ministry denounced as a violation of its rights
KIGALI: Rwanda has said it would withdraw from the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), underscoring diplomatic tensions in the region over an offensive this year by Rwanda-backed M23 rebels in eastern Congo.
Kigali had expected to assume the chairmanship of the 11-member bloc at a meeting on Saturday in Equatorial Guinea.
Instead, the bloc kept Equatorial Guinea in the role, which Rwanda’s foreign ministry denounced as a violation of its rights.
Rwanda, in a statement, condemned Congo’s “instrumentalization” of the bloc and saw “no justification for remaining in an organization whose current functioning runs counter to its founding principles.”
It wasn’t clear if Rwanda’s exit from the bloc would take immediate effect.
The office of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi said in a statement that ECCAS members had “acknowledged the aggression against the Democratic Republic of Congo by Rwanda and ordered the aggressor country to withdraw its troops from Congolese soil.”
M23 seized eastern Congo’s two largest cities earlier this year, with the advance leaving thousands dead and raising concerns of an all-out regional war. African leaders along with Washington and Doha have been trying to broker a peace deal.
Congo, the UN and Western powers accuse Rwanda of supporting M23 by sending troops and weapons.
Rwanda has long denied helping M23, saying its forces were acting in self-defense against Congo’s army and ethnic Hutu militiamen linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide that killed around 1 million people, mostly ethnic Tutsis.
US President Donald Trump’s administration hopes to strike a peace accord between Congo and Rwanda that would also facilitate billions in Western investment in the region, which is rich in minerals including tantalum, gold, cobalt, copper and lithium.
ECCAS was established in the 1980s to foster cooperation in areas like security and economic affairs among its member states.
Chinese ship runs aground off Philippines-occupied island in the disputed South China Sea
- Confrontations have spiked between Chinese and Philippine coast guard and navy ships in the disputed waters in recent years
PUERTO PRINCESA: A Chinese ship ran aground in stormy weather in shallow waters off a Philippines-occupied island in the disputed South China Sea, prompting Filipino forces to go on alert, Philippine military officials said Sunday.
When Filipino forces assessed that the Chinese fishing vessel appeared to have run aground in the shallows east of Thitu Island on Saturday because of bad weather, Philippine military and coast guard personnel deployed to provide help but later saw that the ship had been extricated, regional navy spokesperson Ellaine Rose Collado said.
No other details were immediately available, including if there were injuries among the crewmembers or if the ship was damaged, Collado said.
Confrontations have spiked between Chinese and Philippine coast guard and navy ships in the disputed waters in recent years.
“The alertness of our troops is always there,” Col. Xerxes Trinidad of the Armed Forces of the Philippines told reporters. But when they saw that a probable accident had happened, “we tried to provide assistance as professionals” in accordance with international law on helping distressed vessels at sea.
“We’re always following international law,” Trinidad said.
Filipino villagers living in a fishing village on Thitu, which they call Pagasa island, immediately informed the Philippine military and coast guard after seeing the Chinese ship lying in the shallows about 1.5 nautical miles (2.7 kilometers) from their village, said MP Albayda, a local Filipino official, told The Associated Press.
“They got worried because the Chinese were so close but it was really the strong wind and waves that caused the ship to run aground,” said Albayda, adding that other Chinese ships pulled the stricken vessel away.
The stricken ship resembled what the Philippine military had repeatedly said were suspected Chinese militia ships, which had backed the Chinese coast guard and navy in blocking and harassing Philippine coast guard and military vessels in the disputed waters, a busy conduit for global trade and commerce.
Thitu Island is home to a Philippine fishing village and Filipino forces and is the largest of nine islands and islets occupied by the Philippines. It lies about 26 kilometers (16 miles) from Subi Reef, which China transformed into an island base along with six other barren reefs to reinforce its claim to virtually the entire South China Sea.
Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan are also involved in the long-simmering territorial standoffs, an Asian flashpoint that many fear could pit China and the United States in a major conflict.
The US does not lay any claim to the South China Sea but has repeatedly warned that it’s obligated to defend the Philippines, it’s longtime treaty ally, if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.
