part of the Spratlys. Philippine President Benigno Aquino recently warned that further incidents around the archipelago could potentially spark an arms race, forcing the country to bolster its military. In March, the Philippines complained that Chinese patrol boats had harassed a Philippine oil exploration vessel in disputed waters near the Spratlys. It subsequently filed a formal protest at the United Nations over China's claims to the Spratly islands and adjacent South China Sea waters.
China finds faults with Vietnam
Reuters 28 May 2011
China criticised Vietnam on Saturday for its offshore exploration of oil and gas in the contested South China Sea after Hanoi complained that three Chinese patrol boats had challenged a Vietnamese ship. The Vietnamese ship, the Binh Minh 02, detected the Chinese patrol boats approaching on radar at about 5 a.m. on Thursday (2200 GMT on Wednesday), the official Vietnam News Agency reported.
About an hour later, the three Chinese boats intentionally ran through the area where the Vietnamese ship was working, snapping cables the ship was using, then left the scene after about three hours, it said.
China's Foreign Ministry implied the fault for the incident lay with Vietnam. "China's stance on the South China Sea is clear and consistent. We oppose oil and gas operations conducted by Vietnam, which have undermined China's interests and jurisdictional rights in the South China Sea and violated the consensus both countries have reached on the issue," ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said. "What relevant Chinese departments did was completely normal marine law-enforcement and surveillance activities in China's jurisdictional sea area," she said in a statement posted on the ministry's website (
www.mfa.gov.cn). "China has been committed to safeguarding peace and stability in the South China Sea. We are willing to work together with relevant parties to seek a solution to related disputes," Jiang added.
Vietnam's Foreign Ministry protested against the incident by passing a diplomatic note to representatives of the Chinese embassy in Hanoi on Thursday. The incident this week took place in an area called Block 148 about 120 km (80 miles) off the south-central coast of Vietnam from the beach town of Nha Trang, the Vietnamese news agency said.
The South China Sea covers an area of more than 648,000 sq miles (1.7 million sq km), containing more than 200 mostly uninhabitable small islands, rocks and reefs. China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan all claim territories in the sea, which covers an important shipping route and is thought to hold untapped oil and gas reserves.
Vietnam: Voters Cast Ballots for Parliament
By Margie Mason, ap 23 May 2011
From candidates' resumes read in dead tone across crackling corner loudspeakers to propaganda art depicting smiling grandmothers dropping ballots in the box, Vietnam's government urged everyone to participate in the "right and obligation of all citizens" during Sunday's parliamentary elections. Though the fanfare leading up to the polling was grand, with parades and red banners streaming across roadways proclaiming, "Long live the glorious Communist Party of Vietnam," the 500 members elected to the lawmaking National Assembly will not alter the country's direction regardless of who's selected. And as soaring food and energy prices continue to stab poor voters, the only real change many here care about is taking a breath of economic relief. (See why Vietnam's political reshuffling won't fix a struggling economy.)
All of the 827 candidates have already been vetted by the Fatherland Front, a powerful party umbrella organization, and 86 percent of those running are Communist Party members — in a country where publicly calling for a multiparty system can result in long jail sentences.
Ninety-eight percent of the candidates were picked by the Fatherland Front, with only 15 nominating the
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