The Jim Bakker Show

Natural disasters in China kill more than 800 since June

Flooding in China one of the many natural disasters

BEIJING (Reuters) – More than 800 people have died and about 200 are missing in a series of natural disasters that have struck China since June, the worst casualty figures since a similar period in 2011, state media said on Tuesday.

Large parts of central, eastern and northern China have been hit by flooding this summer, while a typhoon left a wave of destruction this month and a freak tornado killed at least 98 in the eastern province of Jiangsu in June.

Since the year began, 1,074 people have died in natural disasters, 833 of them since June, with 270 missing, Xinhua news agency cited the Ministry of Civil Affairs as saying.

Direct economic losses have reached 298 billion yuan ($44.63 billion) this year, with about 400,000 houses destroyed and 6.24 million residents relocated, the ministry added.

Separately, the government on the southern island province of Hainan issued a typhoon warning for a tropical storm that is expected to hit in the early hours of Wednesday.

($1=6.6769 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

China says South Korea’s THAAD decision harms foundation of trust

A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor is launched during a successful intercept test, in this undated handout photo provided by the U.S. Department of Defense, Missile Defense Agency.

BEIJING/SEOUL (Reuters) – Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has criticized South Korea’s decision to deploy an advanced U.S. anti-missile defense system to counter threats from North Korea, saying it harmed the foundation of their trust.

The announcement by South Korea and the United States this month that they would deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) unit has already drawn protests from China that it would destabilize regional security.

The decision is the latest move to squeeze the increasingly isolated North Korea, but China worries the system’s radar will be able to track its military capabilities. Russia also opposes the deployment.

“The recent move by the South Korean side has harmed the foundation of mutual trust between the two countries,” Wang was quoted by South Korean media as telling South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se.

China’s foreign ministry, in a later statement, cited Wang as saying that South Korea should think twice about the deployment and value the good momentum of ties between Beijing and Seoul.

“THAAD is most certainly not a simple technical issue, but an out-and-out strategic one,” Wang said late on Sunday on the sidelines of a conference of foreign ministers from the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations in Vientiane.

Yun told Wang the deployment was aimed at protecting South Korea’s security and that it would not damage China’s security interests, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said.

In a meeting with North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho, who is also in Laos, Wang said China and North Korea were traditional friends, and China was committed to the Korean peninsula’s denuclearization and to resolving problems through talks, the ministry added.

At a separate meeting in Beijing, Fan Changlong, one of the vice chairmen of the Central Military Commission that controls China’s military, told U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice that the THAAD deployment would only worsen tension on the Korean peninsula.

“The United States must stop this kind of mistaken action,” China’s Defence Ministry cited Fan as saying.

South Korea and the United States have said THAAD would only be used in defense against North Korean ballistic missiles.

North Korea has launched a series of missiles in recent months, the latest last week when it fired three ballistic missiles that it said was a simulated test of preemptive strikes against South Korean ports and airfields used by the U.S. military.

The missiles flew 500-600 km (300-360 miles) into the sea off its east coast and could have hit anywhere in South Korea if the North intended, the South’s military said.

North Korea came under the latest round of U.N. Security Council sanctions in March after its fourth nuclear test in January and the launch of a long-range rocket the following month.

(Reporting by Jack Kim, additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel)

Exclusive: Top Obama aide to take call for South China Sea calm to Beijing

By Matt Spetalnick and David Brunnstrom

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice will urge Beijing next week to avoid escalation in the South China Sea when she makes the highest-level U.S. visit to China since an international court rejected its sweeping claims to the strategic waterway.

Even as Washington has sought to keep a lid on the situation, Rice – in an interview with Reuters – vowed that the U.S. military would continue to “sail and fly and operate” in the South China Sea, despite a Chinese warning that such patrols could end “in disaster.”

With less than six months remaining of President Barack Obama’s tenure, Rice’s broader mission in her July 24-27 trip is aimed at keeping overall ties between the world’s two largest economies, which she called “the most consequential relationship we have,” on track at a time of heightened tensions. “I’ll be there to advance our cooperation,” she said.

But the trip, due to be formally announced later on Friday, follows a July 12 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague that China has no historic title over the waters of the South China Sea. Beijing has angrily rejected the verdict and pledged to pursue claims that conflict with those of several smaller neighbors.

“I’ve been in communication with our Chinese counterparts over the last couple of weeks … We understand each other’s perspectives clearly,” Rice said when asked what message she would deliver to the Chinese. “We’ll urge restraint on all sides.”

Her trip, to include Beijing and Shanghai, will coincide with visits by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to Laos and the Philippines where he is expected to try to reassure Southeast Asian partners of Washington’s commitment.

The United States is also using quiet diplomacy to persuade claimants like the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam not to move aggressively to capitalize on The Hague ruling, U.S. officials have said.

TEST OF U.S. CREDIBILITY

How Washington handles the aftermath of the ruling is widely seen as a test of U.S. credibility in a region where it has been the dominant security presence since World War Two but is now struggling to contain an increasingly assertive China.

China has responded to the ruling with sharp rhetoric. But a senior official said, “So far there has not been precipitous action” and Washington was hoping confrontation could be avoided.

“We are not looking to do things that are escalatory,” another senior U.S. official said. “And at the same time we don’t expect that they (the Chinese) would deem it wise to do things that are escalatory.”

Despite that view, two Chinese civilian aircraft conducted test landings at two new military-length airstrips on reefs controlled by China in the Spratly Islands shortly after the arbitration ruling.

And signaling Beijing’s plans to further stake its claim to contested waters, a Chinese state-run newspaper said that up to eight Chinese ships will offer cruises to the South China Sea over the next five years.

China has blamed the United States for stirring up trouble in the South China Sea, a strategic waterway through which more than $5 trillion of trade moves annually.

Citing international rules, the United States has conducted freedom-of-navigation patrols close to Chinese-held islands where China has been bolstering its military presence.

Rice is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping during her visit and her agenda will include North Korea, economic issues and human rights. She will also lay the groundwork for Obama’s talks with Xi at a G20 summit in China in September, U.S. officials said.

But with the South China Sea issue looming large, Rice, who has led U.S. policymaking on China, said the United States and China have “careful work to do to manage our differences.”

She also said the administration would not allow crises in other parts of the world, from Syria to Turkey to Ukraine, to distract from Obama’s signature policy of “rebalancing” toward Asia. “We don’t have the luxury as the world’s leading power to devote our attention to one region and ignore another,” she said.

(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick and David Brunnstrom; Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

U.S. says its forces will keep operating in South China Sea

BEIJING (Reuters) – U.S. military forces will continue to operate in the South China Sea in accordance with international law, the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations John Richardson said on Wednesday during a visit to a Chinese naval base.

China has refused to recognize a ruling by an arbitration court in The Hague that invalidated its vast territorial claims in the South China Sea and did not take part in the proceedings brought by the Philippines.

China has repeatedly blamed the United States for stirring up trouble in the South China Sea, a strategic waterway through which more than $5 trillion of trade moves annually.

China, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam all have rival claims, of which China’s is the largest.

The United States has conducted freedom of navigation patrols close to Chinese-held islands, to Beijing’s anger, while China has been bolstering its military presence there.

Meeting Yuan Yubai, commander of the Chinese North Sea Fleet, Richardson “underscored the importance of lawful and safe operations in the South China and elsewhere professional navies operate”, the U.S. Navy said.

U.S. forces would keep sailing, flying and operating wherever international law allows, Richardson added.

“The U.S. Navy will continue to conduct routine and lawful operations around the world, including in the South China Sea, in order to protect the rights, freedoms and lawful uses of sea and airspace guaranteed to all. This will not change.”

Freedom of navigation patrols carried out by foreign navies in the South China Sea could end “in disaster”, a senior Chinese admiral said over the weekend.

State news agency Xinhua said on Wednesday that countries outside the region should stay out of the South China Sea issue lest they cause unwanted problems.

“Western countries have a long history of failing to establish orderly rule over parts of the world. The Middle East is a classic example,” it said.

Richardson said he was supportive of the deepening of relations between the U.S. and Chinese navies.

“But I will be continuously reassessing my support conditioned on continued safe and professional interactions at sea. In this area we must judge each other by our deeds and actions, not just by our words,” he added.

The United States has complained that Chinese aircraft and ships have performed “unsafe” maneuvers while shadowing U.S. ships and planes, particularly in the South China Sea.

Speaking in Sydney on Wednesday, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden assured key ally Australia there would be no retreat from Washington’s pivot to the Asia-Pacific region, regardless of who wins November’s presidential election.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Heavy rain disrupts trains, flights in Chinese capital

BEIJING (Reuters) – Persistent heavy rain on Wednesday caused widespread disruption in the Chinese capital, Beijing, forcing the delay and cancellation of hundreds of flights and the closure of some subway stations.

Beijing’s steamy summer months are often marked by dramatic rainstorms, one of which in 2012 killed 37 people.

At a meeting of the top government body, the Politburo standing committee, President Xi Jinping urged officials to be prepared for rescue work and flood control efforts as China is in its flood season, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The Beijing city government issued an orange alert, the second highest in China’s four-tier warning system, over the rain, and warned it could continue overnight, with a total of 100 mm (3.9 inches) of rain expected in some areas.

More than 200 flights were canceled at Beijing’s main international airport, and a handful of subway stations shut, the government said.

Pictures on social media showed cars making their way slowly through flooded streets in parts of the city.

Some high speed rail services were also delayed, the rail authority said.

There were no reports of any casualties.

Large parts of central and eastern China have been inundated with rain this summer, killing more than 200 people.

Since Monday, 13 people have been killed and 62 have gone missing amid rains in north and northwest China, Xinhua said.

(Reporting by Beijing newsroom; Additional reporting by Jake Spring; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

China fears that Pokemon Go may aid locating military bases

File photo of a virtual map of Bryant Park displayed on the screen as a man plays the augmented reality mobile game "Pokemon Go" by

By Paul Carsten

BEIJING (Reuters) – Not everyone loves Pokemon GO, the mobile game that has become an instant hit around the world since a limited release just a week ago.

The augmented reality game, in which players walk around real-life neighborhoods to hunt and catch virtual cartoon characters on their smartphone screens, has been blamed in the United States for several robberies of distracted mobile phone users and car crashes.

A U.S. senator has asked the developers of the game to clarify its data privacy protections.

And although the game is not available in China, the world’s biggest smartphone and online gaming market, some people there fear it could become a Trojan horse for offensive action by the United States and Japan.

“Don’t play Pokemon GO!!!” said user Pitaorenzhe on Chinese microblogging site Weibo. “It’s so the U.S. and Japan can explore China’s secret bases!”

The conspiracy theory is that Japan’s Nintendo Co Ltd which part owns the Pokemon franchise, and America’s Google can work out where Chinese military bases are by seeing where users can’t go to capture Pokemon characters.

The game relies on Google services such as Maps.

The theory is that if Nintendo places rare Pokemon in areas where they see players aren’t going, and nobody attempts to capture the creature, it can be deduced that the location has restricted access and could be a military zone.

“Then, when war breaks out, Japan and the U.S. can easily target their guided missiles, and China will have been destroyed by the invasion of a Japanese-American game,” said a social media post circulated on Weibo.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said he was unaware of reports that the game could be a security risk and that he didn’t have time to play with such things. He gave no further details.

Other government ministries did not respond to faxed questions about the game.

UNDETERRED FANS

But the calls for a boycott, and the fact that Pokemon GO hasn’t even been released in China, have not deterred fans.

“I really looked forward to playing the Pokemon artificial reality game since they first announced it. I really liked Pokemon as a kid,” said Gan Tian, a 22-year-old student at Tsinghua University. She plays an unofficial version with an artificial map based on countries where the game is available.

But for many others in the country, playing is proving a challenge. Not only is the game not on Chinese app stores, but Google services are blocked in China.

Nintendo has given no indication as to when or whether Pokemon GO will be released in China.

Niantic, the lab that developed the game, declined to comment on Friday on an eventual launch. Chief executive John Hanke said in an interview that it would be technically possible to launch in China, but noted a host of complex rules and restrictions.

(Reporting by Beijing Newsroom and Shanghai Newsroom; Additional reporting by Megha Rajagopalan, Ben Blanchard, Jake Spring and Jeremy Wagstaff; Editing by Ian Geoghegan and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

U.S. launches quiet diplomacy to ease South China Sea tensions

A ship of Chinese Coast Guard is seen near a ship of Vietnam Marine Guard in the South China Sea

By Lesley Wroughton and John Walcott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is using quiet diplomacy to persuade the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and other Asian nations not to move aggressively to capitalize on an international court ruling that denied China’s claims to the South China Sea, several U.S. administration officials said on Wednesday.

“What we want is to quiet things down so these issues can be addressed rationally instead of emotionally,” said one official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private diplomatic messages.

Some were sent through U.S. embassies abroad and foreign missions in Washington, while others were conveyed directly to top officials by Defense Secretary Ash Carter, Secretary of State John Kerry and other senior officials, the sources said.

“This is a blanket call for quiet, not some attempt to rally the region against China, which would play into a false narrative that the U.S. is leading a coalition to contain China,” the official added.

The effort to calm the waters following the court ruling in The Hague on Tuesday suffered a setback when Taiwan dispatched a warship to the area, with President Tsai Ing-wen telling sailors that their mission was to defend Taiwan’s maritime territory.

The court ruled that while China has no historic rights to the area within its self-declared nine-dash line, Taiwan has no right to Itu Aba, also called Taiping, the largest island in the Spratlys. Taipei administers Itu Aba but the tribunal called it a “rock”, according to the legal definition.

The U.S. officials said they hoped the U.S. diplomatic initiative would be more successful in Indonesia, which wants to send hundreds of fishermen to the Natuna Islands to assert its sovereignty over nearby areas of the South China Sea to which China says it also has claims, and in the Philippines, whose fishermen have been harassed by Chinese coast guard and naval vessels.

‘UNKNOWN QUANTITY’

One official said new Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte remains “somewhat of an unknown quantity” who has been alternately bellicose and accommodating toward China.

Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said that ahead of the ruling he had spoken to Carter, who he said told him China had assured the United States it would exercise restraint, and that the U.S. government made the same assurance.

Carter had sought and been given the same assurance from the Philippines, Lorenzana added.

China, for its part, repeated pleas for talks between Beijing and Manila, with Foreign Minister Wang Yi saying the it is time to get things back on the “right track” after the “farce” of the case.

On Thursday, the official newspaper of China’s ruling Communist Party said China had shown it can fix territorial issues via talks, pointing to agreement reached with Vietnam over their maritime boundary in the Gulf of Tonkin and ongoing talks with South Korea.

“China is a faithful defender of the principle that countries large and small are equal and has consistently upheld using consultations to resolve border issues on the basis of sovereign equality and mutual respect,” the People’s Daily said in a commentary.

Meanwhile, two Chinese civilian aircraft landed on Wednesday at two new airports on reefs controlled by China in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, a move the State Department said would increase tensions rather than lower them.

“We don’t have a dog in this fight other than our belief … in freedom of navigation,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told a briefing on Wednesday. “What we want to see in this very tense part of Asia, of the Pacific, rather, is a de-escalation of tensions and we want to see all claimants take a moment to look at how we can find a peaceful way forward.”

CONTINGENCY PLANHowever, if that effort fails, and competition escalates into confrontation, U.S. air and naval forces are prepared to uphold freedom of maritime and air navigation in the disputed area, a defense official said on Wednesday.

Democrat Ben Cardin of Maryland, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said confrontation is less likely if the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and other countries work with the United States rather than on their own.

“I don’t think China wants a confrontation with the United States,” he told reporters. “They don’t mind a confrontation with a Vietnamese fishing boat, but they don’t want a confrontation with the United States.”

The court ruling is expected to dominate a meeting at the end of July in Laos of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which includes the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and his Chinese counterpart, Foreign Minister Wang, will attend the ministerial.

Sino-American relations suffered two fresh blows on Wednesday as a congressional committee found China’s government likely hacked computers at the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the United States challenged China’s export duties on nine metals and minerals that are important to the aerospace, auto, electronics and chemical industries.

(Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Yara Bayoumy, and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Kieran Murray, Grant McCool and Lincoln Feast)

Likely hack of U.S. banking regulator by China covered up: probe

By Jason Lange and Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Chinese government likely hacked computers at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in 2010, 2011 and 2013 and employees at the U.S. banking regulator covered up the intrusions, according to a congressional report on Wednesday.

The report cited an internal FDIC investigation as identifying Beijing as the likely perpetrator of the attacks, which the probe said were covered up to protect the job of FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg, who was nominated for his post in 2011.

“The committee’s interim report sheds light on the FDIC’s lax cyber security efforts,” said Lamar Smith, a Republican representative from Texas who chairs the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology.

“The FDIC’s intent to evade congressional oversight is a serious offense.”

The report was released amid growing concern about the vulnerability of the international banking system to hackers and the latest example of how deeply Washington believes Beijing has penetrated U.S. government computers.

The report did not provide specific evidence that China was behind the hack.

Shane Shook, a cyber security expert who has helped investigate some of the breaches uncovered to date, said he did not see convincing evidence in the report that the Chinese government was behind the FDIC hack.

“As with all government agencies, there are management issues stemming from leadership ignorance of technology oversight,” Shook said.

Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang repeated that China opposed hacking and acted against it.

People should provide evidence for their accusations and not wave around speculative words like “maybe” and “perhaps”, he told reporters.

“This is extremely irresponsible.”

The FDIC, a major U.S. banking regulator which keeps confidential data on America’s biggest banks, declined to comment. Gruenberg is scheduled to testify on Thursday before the committee on the regulator’s cyber security practices.

Washington has accused China of hacking computers at a range of federal agencies in recent years, including the theft of more than 21 million background check records from the federal Office of Personnel Management beginning in 2014.

WATCHDOG MEMO

The compromise of the FDIC computers by a foreign government had been previously reported in May and some lawmakers had mentioned China as a possible suspect, but the report on Wednesday for the first time cited a 2013 memo by the FDIC’s inspector general, an internal watchdog, as pointing toward China.

“Even the former Chairwoman’s computer had been hacked by a foreign government, likely the Chinese,” the congressional report said, referring to Gruenberg’s predecessor, Sheila Bair, who headed the FDIC from 2006 until 2011 when Gruenberg took over as acting chairman.

Bair could not be immediately reached for comment.

A redacted copy of the 2013 FDIC inspector general’s memo seen by Reuters said investigators were unable to determine exactly which files had been extracted from agency computers.

But a source familiar with the FDIC’s internal investigation said the areas of the regulator’s network that were hacked suggested the intruders were seeking “economic intelligence.”

In all, hackers compromised 12 FDIC workstations, including those of other executives such as the regulator’s former chief of staff and former general counsel, and 10 servers, the congressional report said.

It accused the FDIC of trying to cover up the hacks so as not to endanger the congressional approval of Gruenberg, who was nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in November 2012.

A witness interviewed by congressional staff said the FDIC’s current head of its technology division, Russ Pittman, instructed employees not to disclose information about the foreign government’s hack, the report said.

The witness said the hush order was to “avoid effecting the outcome of Chairman Gruenberg’s confirmation,” according to the report. Pittman could not immediately be contacted for comment.

The report also provided details of data breaches in which FDIC employees leaving the regulator took sensitive documents with them. It said current FDIC officials have purposely concealed information about breaches that had been requested by Congress.

U.S. intelligence officials believe Beijing has decreased its hacking activity since signing a pledge with Washington last September to refrain from breaking into computer systems for the purposes of commercial espionage.

At the same time, Obama has acknowledged difficulties in keeping government information secure. In addition, Republican opponents have said that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of state could have exposed classified information to foreign governments.

(Reporting by Jason Lange and Dustin Volz; Additional reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston, and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Grant McCool)

China vows to protect South China Sea sovereignty

Protesters throws flowers while chanting anti-Chinese slogans during a rally by different activist groups over the South China Sea disputes, along a bay in metro Manila

By Ben Blanchard and Martin Petty

BEIJING/MANILA (Reuters) – China vowed to take all necessary measures to protect its sovereignty over the South China Sea and said it had the right to set up an air defense zone, after rejecting an international tribunal’s ruling denying its claims to the energy-rich waters.

Chinese state media called the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague a “puppet” of external forces after it ruled that China had breached the Philippines’ sovereign rights by endangering its ships and fishing and oil projects.

Beijing has repeatedly blamed the United States for stirring up trouble in the South China Sea, where its territorial claims overlap in parts with Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

“China will take all necessary measures to protect its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests,” the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily said in a front page commentary on Wednesday.

The case, covering a region that is home to one of the world’s busiest trade routes, has been seen as a test of China’s rising power and its economic and strategic rivalry with the United States.

Underscoring China’s rebuffing of the ruling, state media said that two new airports in the Spratlys, on Mischief Reef and Subi Reef, both received test flights from civilian aircraft on Wednesday.

Beijing called the Philippines’ claims of sovereignty in the South China Sea “baseless” and an “act of bad faith”. In a government white paper published on Wednesday, China also said its fishing boats had been harassed and attacked by the Philippines around the disputed Spratly Islands.

“On whether China will set up an air defense zone over the South China Sea, what we have to make clear first is that China has the right to… But whether we need one in the South China Sea depends on the level of threats we face,” Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin told reporters in Beijing, adding that China hoped to return to bilateral talks with Manila.

“We hope that other countries don’t use this opportunity to threaten China, and hope that other countries can work hard with China, meet us halfway, and maintain the South China Sea’s peace and stability and not turn the South China Sea in a source of war.”

U.S. officials have previously said they feared China may respond to the ruling by declaring an air defense identification zone in the South China Sea, as it did in the East China Sea in 2013, or by stepping up its building and fortification of artificial islands.

China’s Liu also took aim at the judges on the tribunal, saying that as not one of them was Asian they could not possibly understand the issue and it was unfair of them to try.

COMPLICATED, UNCLEAR

The Philippines reacted cautiously to the ruling late on Tuesday, calling for “restraint and sobriety”, but the mood at President Rodrigo Duterte’s cabinet meeting on Wednesday was “upbeat”, presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said.

Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said he had spoken to U.S. counterpart Ash Carter ahead of the ruling who told him China had assured the United States it would exercise restraint, and the U.S. made the same assurance. Carter had sought and been given the same assurance from the Philippines, Lorenzana added.

“The ruling can serve as a foundation on which we can start the process of negotiations which hopefully will eventually lead to the peaceful settlement of the maritime dispute in the South China Sea,” Charles Jose, a spokesman for the Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs, said.

One of the lawyers who argued the Philippines’ case said how and when the country would enforce the tribunal’s ruling was complicated.

“There’s no timeline for this game. It might have an extended period of gestation,” said Florin Ternal Hilbay, a former solicitor general. “I would assume our diplomats have read the decision and understand the complexities and consequences of enforcing the decision.”

Global intelligence firm Stratfor said fishermen from China or the Philippines were the greatest potential disruptors in the region, beyond the easy control of law enforcement.

“The greatest struggle for both countries will be to rein them in, preferably before they get to sea, lest they disrupt the delicate peace,” Stratfor said in a note.

In moves likely to antagonize Beijing, the coastguards of Japan and the Philippines took part in simulated rescue and medical response exercises off Manila Bay on Wednesday, part of what the two countries have called efforts to improve maritime security and combat crime and piracy.

Japan and China are involved in a separate territorial dispute in the East China Sea and Beijing has warned Tokyo against meddling in the South China Sea dispute.

PIVOT PRESSURE

Beijing’s ambassador to the United States earlier blamed the rise in tension in the region on the United States’ “pivot” toward Asia in the past few years. Cui Tiankai said the arbitration case “will probably open the door of abusing arbitration procedures.

“It will certainly undermine and weaken the motivation of states to engage in negotiations and consultations for solving their disputes,” Cui said at a forum of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. “It will certainly intensify conflict and even confrontation.”

South Korea on Wednesday announced the planned location of a U.S. THAAD anti-missile defense unit against North Korea’s missile and nuclear threats, a system that has angered China and prompted a North Korean warning of retaliation.

President Barack Obama’s top Asia policy adviser, Daniel Kritenbrink, said the United States had no interest in stirring tensions in the South China Sea as a pretext for involvement in the region.

“We have an enduring interest in seeing territorial and maritime disputes in the Asia Pacific, including in the South China Sea, resolved peacefully, without coercion and in a manner that is consistent with international law,” Kritenbrink said at the same forum.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen boarded a navy frigate in southern Taiwan ahead of its departure for the South China Sea early on Wednesday, a regular patrol pushed forward due to the Hague decision, which Taipei rejected.

“This patrol mission is to show the determination of the Taiwan people to defend our national interest,” Tsai said from the warship.

China considers self-ruled Taiwan a breakaway province to be united with the mainland eventually, and by force if necessary.

(Additional reporting by Manuel Mogato in Manila, John Walcott and David Brunnstrom in Washington, Engen Tham in Shanghai and JR Wu in Tapei.; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Nick Macfie)

Mass killings, forced evictions threaten indigenous, minority groups to point of “eradication”: rights group

By Lin Taylor

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Mass killings, forced evictions and conflicts over land put indigenous and minority groups at risk of being eradicated from their ancestral lands, a human rights group said on Tuesday.

From Ethiopia, China and Iraq, the combination of armed conflicts and land dispossession has led to the persecution of minority groups and the erosion of cultural heritage, according to a report by the Minority Rights Group (MRG).

Carl Soderbergh, MRG director of policy and communications, said while discrimination against ethnic or religious minorities is not new, the level of targeted abuse is getting worse.

“The conflict that’s happening in Syria and Iraq right now is leading to the massive displacement of smaller and very ancient religious minorities like the Yazidis and the Sabean Mandeans,” said Soderbergh, lead author of the ‘State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2016’ report.

“They are essentially at risk of being totally eradicated in their traditional areas of origin.”

Civil conflicts and sectarian tensions have engulfed Iraq since 2003 when a U.S.-led coalition toppled Saddam Hussein. In 2014, Islamic State militants declared a caliphate after capturing swathes of Iraq and Syria.

Minorities including the Yazidi, Turkmen, Shabak, Christians and Kaka’i have been disproportionately affected by the recent violence in Iraq.

According to U.N. officials, Islamic State, also referred to as ISIS, has shown particular cruelty to the Yazidis, whom they regard as devil-worshippers, killing, capturing and enslaving thousands.

The persecution of Yazidis was recognized as genocide by the United Nations in June.

“It is getting worse. Whether it’s armed groups like ISIS or (Nigerian Islamist group) Boko Haram or it’s governments, there’s this targeting of heritage that we’re seeing, which is extremely worrisome,” Soderbergh said.

He said many minorities and indigenous peoples also face forced resettlement or evictions from their ancestral lands to make way for large-scale infrastructure or agricultural businesses, which further threatens their cultural heritage and identity.

For example, in parts of East Africa, governments are pushing for pastoralist communities to switch to settled farming with supporters saying such a move will create better food security, curb conflict between herders and farmers and free up land.

But Maasai herdsmen say the privatization and subdivision of their ancestral lands threatens ancient pastoralist practices, endangering livestock on which they depend and eroding communal rights to land and natural resources.

“Once a community is removed from the land, they really struggle to maintain their cultures and convey their cultures to the next generation,” Soderbergh said.

By 2115, it is estimated that at least half of the approximately 7,000 indigenous languages worldwide will die out, the report said.

Although some governments see these groups as a threat to the state, Soderbergh said minorities and indigenous peoples must be included in decisions that affect their communities.

(Reporting by Lin Taylor @linnytayls, Editing by Katie Nguyen.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters that covers humanitarian issues, conflicts, global land and property rights, modern slavery and human trafficking, women’s rights, and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories)

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