
Philippines tells China to mind its own business over maritime drills
CNN
China has no business telling the Philippines what it can or cannot do within its waters, Manila's Defense Ministry said on Wednesday, rejecting Beijing's opposition to its ongoing coast guard exercises.
China claims almost the entire South China Sea, where about $3 trillion worth of ship-borne trade passes each year. In 2016, an arbitration tribunal in The Hague ruled that claim, which Beijing bases on its old maps, was inconsistent with international law. Philippines Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told reporters that Beijing had "no authority or legal basis to prevent us from conducting these exercises" in the South China Sea because "their claims ... have no basis".
The alleged drug traffickers killed by the US military in a strike on September 2 were heading to link up with another, larger vessel that was bound for Suriname — a small South American country east of Venezuela – the admiral who oversaw the operation told lawmakers on Thursday according to two sources with direct knowledge of his remarks.

The two men killed as they floated holding onto their capsized boat in a secondary strike against a suspected drug vessel in early September did not appear to have radio or other communications devices, the top military official overseeing the strike told lawmakers on Thursday, according to two sources with direct knowledge of his congressional briefings.











