KAKAMMPI News

The Chinese foreign ministry has dismissed accusations against China on the South China Sea issue by certain countries. Relevant countries' groundless accusations and deliberate smears against China on the South China Sea issue are unacceptable, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Thursday. Spokesperson Lin Jian made the remarks at a regular news briefing when asked to comment on a statement issued by the U.S., Japan and the Philippines after their trilateral summit. The statement expressed so-called "serious concerns about China's behavior in the South China Sea" and called on China to abide by the 2016 Arbitral Tribunal. Lin said China strongly opposes the practice of bloc politics by said countries, firmly opposes any acts that stoke and drive up tensions and harm other countries' strategic security and interests, and is seriously against forming exclusive groupings in this region. Noting that the award of the South China Sea Arbitration is ill...

The United States on Thursday stopped the UN from recognizing a Palestinian state by casting a veto in the Security Council to deny Palestinians full membership of the world body. It vetoed a draft resolution that recommended to the 193-member UN General Assembly that "the State of Palestine be admitted to membership" of the UN. Britain and Switzerland abstained, while the remaining 12 council members voted yes. "The United States continues to strongly support a two-state solution. This vote does not reflect opposition to Palestinian statehood, but instead is an acknowledgment that it will only come from direct negotiations between the parties," Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood told the council. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the U.S. veto in a statement as "unfair, unethical, and unjustified." The Palestinian president said the move reveals a duplicitous U.S. foreign policy, which, on the one hand, claims to support the two-...

Students of the UP Diliman College of Science (UPD-CS) and the Republic Polytechnic in Singapore (RP) immersed themselves in the month-long Temasek Foundation International Specialists’ Community Action and Leadership Exchange (TFI SCALE) Programme, the first half taking place in Singapore on September 6 to 19, 2023, and the second half in the Philippines last March 31 to April 8, 2024. The TFI SCALE Programme aims to promote cultural, cognitive, social, and emotional engagements among Southeast Asian youths. In the 9th iteration of the program, students from the National Institute of Geological Sciences (UPD-CS NIGS), Institute of Biology (UPD-CS IB), and National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (UPD-CS NIMBB) collaborated with students from RP’s School of Applied Sciences. As part of the program in the Philippines, the exchange students visited Mt. Pinatubo, the Las Piñas-Parañaque Wetland Park (LPPWP), and the Parañaque Science High School (ParSci) to explore t...

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines on Thursday asserted its right to strengthen relationships with the United States and Japan as it urged China to evaluate its approach in the South China Sea. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., United States President Joe Biden, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met last week in Washington for a historic trilateral summit aimed at boosting economic and security ties. In a statement, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said the trilateral cooperation is an “admirable aspiration that should not be considered a threat by any peace-loving country.” “It is the sovereign choice and decision of the Philippines to strengthen our alliance with the United States and our strategic partnership with Japan, in accordance with our national interests and in line with our independent foreign policy,” the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said in a statement. According to the agency, the trilateral initiative will deliver valuable capacity-buildin...

The United States received an advance notice of Israel's reported strike on Iran but did not endorse the operation or play any part in its execution, U.S. media quoted officials as saying. NBC and CNN, citing sources familiar with the matter and a U.S. official, respectively, said Israel had provided Washington with pre-notification of the strike.

Philstar.com Chinese students wait for the arrival of French President Emmanuel Macron at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou on April 7, 2023. AFP / Ludovic Marin MANILA, Philippines — The Chinese Embassy on Thursday criticized the allegations related to the presence of Chinese students in Cagayan province, saying the claims fuel distrust and animosity toward Beijing. Reps. Joseph Lara (Cagayan) and Faustino Dy IV (Isabela) have filed separate resolutions to probe the alleged surge of Chinese nationals in the Cagayan Valley, noting their presence poses risk to the country’s national security. According to Lara, there are over 4,600 Chinese nationals studying and staying in Tuguegarao City. In a statement, the Chinese Embassy called the accusations against educational exchanges between Manila and Beijing “unfounded.” It said these claims were “yet another malicious sleight of hand to incite suspicion and hatred of China.” “Individual Philippine politicians are hyping up China-...

Migrant worker-sending Philippines has moved forward from the COVID-19 pandemic by posting a 55-year high in the number of deployed overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). Fresh data from the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) showed that the Philippines had deployed 2,330,720 land- and sea-based migrant workers in 2023, higher compared to the 2,156,742 OFWs deployed in pre-pandemic 2019. But various countries’ travel restrictions, economic recessions and labor market closures in 2020 plummeted OFW deployment figures in 2020 by 74.5%. Only 549,841 OFWs were deployed that year. From 2020 to 2023, OFW deployments rose by 323.9%. Meanwhile, the government’s first record of deployed OFWs showed that 3,694 overseas contract workers (OCWs) were deployed in 1969. Even the numbers of deployed land-based OFWs (1,752,094) and seafarers (578,626) both reached historic highs, DMW data show. Given that the pandemic shut down worker deployments abroad in 2020, the 2023 numbers for land-based and sea-...