Philippine fruit impounded amid China sea spat

A week ago we reported that following what China said was a response to counter "Japanese military aircraft disrupting the routine patrols of Chinese administrative aircraft" over th

Philippine farmer Liezl Balmaceda has never heard of Madonna, but the US pop star's endorsement of coconut water may help change her impoverished life for the better.

While most consider the Middle-East a hot-bed of geopolitical risk (prone to flare at any moment), it seems hot money flows and territorial disputes are rapidly turning the South China Sea into a powder-keg.

Philippine government websites are under heavy attack from hackers, apparently from China, amid a tense territorial dispute between the two countries in the South China Sea, officials said Thursday.While some Philippine hackers have reportedly launched retaliatory attacks, the government appealed to them for restraint, said Roy Espiritu, spokesman of the government's information technology office.

A US Navy minesweeper has run aground in a protected marine sanctuary in the Philippines, the US embassy in Manila said Thursday. The USS Guardian ran aground on the Tubattaha Reef on Wednesday night "during normal transit", it said. The extent of the damage to the ship and the cause of the accident was still not known, it added.

MANILA, Philippines – A Canadian man facing charges of illegal possession of firearms opened fire in a Philippine courtroom Tuesday, killing two people and wounding a prosecutor before police fatally shot him, officials said. The suspect, John H. Pope, appeared in court in central Cebu city, where he resided, to face the charges when he pulled out a gun and shot a lawyer and a physician who filed a case against him, police said. He then fired at a prosecutor in the hallway of the building before responding police fatally wounded him, said Cebu police chief Mariano Natuel.

Philippine President Benigno Aquino travels to China this week on a mission to secure billions of dollars in trade deals, with both sides looking to rebuild goodwill amid a bruising territorial row.Aquino's five-day visit starting Tuesday is held against the backdrop of increasingly strident Philippine accusations of Chinese aggression and bullying in their dispute over competing claims to parts of the South China Sea.