China is sending the fleet to the sensitive region to demonstrate its claim of sovereignty to the islands.
China is in disputes with Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines and Vietnam, over the Spratly and Paracel Island chains, among others. ASEAN meeting in Phnom Penh, the foreign ministers of the ten member Association of Southeast Asian Nations agreed to begin talks with China on a binding code of conduct in the South China Sea. Chinese media say fleet of 30 fishing boats left China’s Hainan Province on Thursday, the fleet is headed toward what China calls the Nansha Islands, internationally known as the Spratly Islands.One of the vessels is a 3,000-ton vessel that will supply food and fuel to the other ships. The fleet also has an ad-hoc branch of China’s ruling Communist Party.
Observers call it one of the biggest fleets in Hainan’s history. The contingent is scheduled to carry out activities on the South China Sea for 20 days.The ministers failed to issue a joint statement. This was due to disagreement between Cambodia and the Philippines over whether to mention recent confrontations at sea between China and the Philippines near the disputed Scarborough Shoal.
China is in disputes with Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines and Vietnam, over the Spratly and Paracel Island chains, among others. ASEAN meeting in Phnom Penh, the foreign ministers of the ten member Association of Southeast Asian Nations agreed to begin talks with China on a binding code of conduct in the South China Sea. Chinese media say fleet of 30 fishing boats left China’s Hainan Province on Thursday, the fleet is headed toward what China calls the Nansha Islands, internationally known as the Spratly Islands.One of the vessels is a 3,000-ton vessel that will supply food and fuel to the other ships. The fleet also has an ad-hoc branch of China’s ruling Communist Party.
Observers call it one of the biggest fleets in Hainan’s history. The contingent is scheduled to carry out activities on the South China Sea for 20 days.The ministers failed to issue a joint statement. This was due to disagreement between Cambodia and the Philippines over whether to mention recent confrontations at sea between China and the Philippines near the disputed Scarborough Shoal.
“We have agreed to speed up negotiations in order to finalize the delimitation in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, as well as in the Kerch Straight, as soon as possible,” Yanukovych told journalists after a meeting of a Russian-Ukrainian intergovernmental commission near the Black Sea city of Yalta on Thursday.
The Russian-Ukrainian maritime border in the Kerch Strait which links the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea, has long been a bone of contention between the two states. It was remaining undefined since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Ukraine unilaterally established a maritime border with Russia in the 1990s, saying it was based on the Soviet-era administrative border between the two republics. Russia has repeatedly denied the existence of Soviet administrative borders.
According to Soviet-era maps, the border between Russia and Ukraine was directly down the middle of the Kerch Strait. However, the man-made Kerch-Yenikal Channel, which is navigable for large ships, then falls into Ukrainian waters.
Up to 9,000 ships pass through the Kerch Strait each year. Ukraine charges Russian ships passing through the Kerch-Yenikal Channel for navigation and pilotage services.
In the summer of 2003, a bitter dispute broke out between Russia and Ukraine over the Tuzla Island in the middle of the Kerch Strait, which came to a head when Russia tried to construct a dam on the island. Ukraine accused Russia of encroaching on its territory.
In line with Thursday’s preliminary agreement, the Tuzla Island would be considered Ukraine’s territory, a souse in the Russian delegation said.
Meanwhile, a senior Russian lawmaker said he believed the agreement was in Russia’s interests and in line with “historical justice.”
“As for Tuzla Island, there has always been an opinion that it belongs to Ukraine,” Dmitry Sablin, the first deputy head of the Russian parliamentary committee in charge of relations with the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), said.
Russian political analyst Alexei Vlasov said he believed the agreement was a result of a “compromise” between Russian and Ukraine.
“Moscow and Kiev have both made certain concessions,” he said without specifying.
A solar storm was due to arrive Saturday
morning and last through Sunday, slamming into Earth’s magnetic field.
Scientists said it will be a minor event, and they have notified power
grid operators, airlines and other potentially affected parties.
“We don’t see any ill effects to any systems,” said forecaster Joe Kunches at the US Space Weather Prediction Center in Colorado.
There’s a bright side to stormy space weather: It tends to spawn colorful northern lights as the charged particles bombard Earth’s outer magnetic field. Shimmering auroras may be visible at the United States-Canada border and northern Europe this weekend, Kunches said.
The storm began on Thursday when the sun unleashed a massive flare that hurled a cloud of highly charged particles racing toward Earth at 3 million mph (4.8 million kph). It was the sixth time this year that such a powerful solar outburst has occurred. None of the previous storms caused major problems.
In severe cases, solar storms can cause power blackouts, damage satellites and disrupt GPS signals and high-frequency radio communications. Airlines are sometimes forced to reroute flights to avoid the extra radiation around the north and south poles.
In 1989, a strong solar storm knocked out the power grid in Quebec, causing 6 million people to lose electricity.
Juha-Pekka Luntama, a space weather expert at the European Space Agency, said utility and navigation operators “will certainly see something, but they will probably find ways to deal with any problems.”
The storm is part of the sun’s normal 11-year cycle of solar activity, which is supposed to reach peak storminess next year.
“We don’t see any ill effects to any systems,” said forecaster Joe Kunches at the US Space Weather Prediction Center in Colorado.
There’s a bright side to stormy space weather: It tends to spawn colorful northern lights as the charged particles bombard Earth’s outer magnetic field. Shimmering auroras may be visible at the United States-Canada border and northern Europe this weekend, Kunches said.
The storm began on Thursday when the sun unleashed a massive flare that hurled a cloud of highly charged particles racing toward Earth at 3 million mph (4.8 million kph). It was the sixth time this year that such a powerful solar outburst has occurred. None of the previous storms caused major problems.
In severe cases, solar storms can cause power blackouts, damage satellites and disrupt GPS signals and high-frequency radio communications. Airlines are sometimes forced to reroute flights to avoid the extra radiation around the north and south poles.
In 1989, a strong solar storm knocked out the power grid in Quebec, causing 6 million people to lose electricity.
Juha-Pekka Luntama, a space weather expert at the European Space Agency, said utility and navigation operators “will certainly see something, but they will probably find ways to deal with any problems.”
The storm is part of the sun’s normal 11-year cycle of solar activity, which is supposed to reach peak storminess next year.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says
she is outraged by reports of a new massacre in Syria and is demanding
that the U.N. Security Council take action to stop the violence. She
also called for an immediate cease-fire in the area of the massacre so
that U.N. monitors can get there.
Ms. Clinton said in a statement on Friday that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime is deliberately killing innocent civilians as it tries to put down 16 months of unrest and that history will judge the Security Council if it fails to act.“History will judge this council,” she said. “Its members must ask themselves whether continuing to allow the Assad regime to commit unspeakable violence against its own people is the legacy they want to leave.”Although she did not mention them by name, Ms. Clinton’s warning was directed at Russia and China, which have blocked previous U.N. efforts to impose sanctions on Syria.
A day earlier, activists’ groups said the Syrian troops have massacred more than 200 people in Traimseh, while the state media said the opposition fighters carried out the carnage in order to frame the Syrian government and draw international condemnation before the forthcoming meeting of the UN Security Council.The carnage has sparked international condemnation.
Kofi Annan, the special joint envoy, said he was shocked by the massacre.
“I am shocked and appalled by news coming out of the village of Traimseh, near Hama, of intense fighting, significant casualties, and the confirmed use of heavy weaponry such as artillery, tanks and helicopters,” Annan said in a statement Friday.UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called on UN member nations to take collective and decisive action to immediately and fully stop the tragedy unfolding in Syria, following reports of mass killings in the country.At least 100 people, including children, were reportedly killed by government forces and militias on Thursday in a village near the central city of Hama. In a statement on Friday, Ban said he is outraged by the mass killings.Ban said he condemns, in the strongest possible terms, the indiscriminate use of heavy artillery and shelling of populated areas, including firing from helicopters. He added that these acts cast doubt on President Bashar al-Assad’s recent commitment to joint special envoy for the Arab League and UN Kofi Annan’s peace plan, which Syria had agreed to. UN Security Council must hold a vote to extend the UN observer mission before it expires next Friday.
Efforts to seek concerted action are continuing as council members are divided over how to deal with Syria.
The chief of the UN supervision mission to Syria, Maj- Gen Robert Mood, said here Friday that “from our presence in Hama province we can verify continuous fighting yesterday in the area of Traimseh, which involved mechanized units, indirect fire, as well as helicopters,” Mood told reporters in a briefing.
He said the UN Supervision Mission in Syria “stands ready to go in and seek verification of facts if and when there is a credible ceasefire.”
Media agencies
Ms. Clinton said in a statement on Friday that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime is deliberately killing innocent civilians as it tries to put down 16 months of unrest and that history will judge the Security Council if it fails to act.“History will judge this council,” she said. “Its members must ask themselves whether continuing to allow the Assad regime to commit unspeakable violence against its own people is the legacy they want to leave.”Although she did not mention them by name, Ms. Clinton’s warning was directed at Russia and China, which have blocked previous U.N. efforts to impose sanctions on Syria.
A day earlier, activists’ groups said the Syrian troops have massacred more than 200 people in Traimseh, while the state media said the opposition fighters carried out the carnage in order to frame the Syrian government and draw international condemnation before the forthcoming meeting of the UN Security Council.The carnage has sparked international condemnation.
Kofi Annan, the special joint envoy, said he was shocked by the massacre.
“I am shocked and appalled by news coming out of the village of Traimseh, near Hama, of intense fighting, significant casualties, and the confirmed use of heavy weaponry such as artillery, tanks and helicopters,” Annan said in a statement Friday.UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called on UN member nations to take collective and decisive action to immediately and fully stop the tragedy unfolding in Syria, following reports of mass killings in the country.At least 100 people, including children, were reportedly killed by government forces and militias on Thursday in a village near the central city of Hama. In a statement on Friday, Ban said he is outraged by the mass killings.Ban said he condemns, in the strongest possible terms, the indiscriminate use of heavy artillery and shelling of populated areas, including firing from helicopters. He added that these acts cast doubt on President Bashar al-Assad’s recent commitment to joint special envoy for the Arab League and UN Kofi Annan’s peace plan, which Syria had agreed to. UN Security Council must hold a vote to extend the UN observer mission before it expires next Friday.
Efforts to seek concerted action are continuing as council members are divided over how to deal with Syria.
The chief of the UN supervision mission to Syria, Maj- Gen Robert Mood, said here Friday that “from our presence in Hama province we can verify continuous fighting yesterday in the area of Traimseh, which involved mechanized units, indirect fire, as well as helicopters,” Mood told reporters in a briefing.
He said the UN Supervision Mission in Syria “stands ready to go in and seek verification of facts if and when there is a credible ceasefire.”
Media agencies
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