The Daily News

Russia will conduct missile launches and torpedo tests as part of a surprise inspection of its Pacific naval fleet, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Friday.The drills come amid heightened tension in the Asia-Pacific region, as the United States and South Korea conduct joint air exercises following an intercontinental ballistic missile test by North Korea."The main objective of this inspection is to increase the ability of the Armed Forces to repel the aggression of a probable enemy from the direction of ocean and sea…

Singapore's Keppel Corporation has confirmed it has been in talks with the Brazilian oil company Petrobras to built an FPSO vessel for the Buzios field offshore Brazil.In a statement on Friday, responding to an article by Upstream Daily News, Keppel Corp. said: "The company wishes to confirm that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Keppel Shipyard Limited, is in advanced discussions with Petrobras in respect of a contract to build a floating production storage and offloading vessel for the Buzios field offshore Brazil…

The United States has blacklisted six companies, including several based in China, and four ships accused of illicit exports of North Korean coal, the Treasury Department said on Tuesday.The United Nations Security Council banned North Korean coal exports in 2017. The 15-member body has unanimously boosted sanctions on North Korea since 2006 in a bid to choke off funding for Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic missile programs."The DPRK (North Korea) continues to circumvent the U.N. prohibition on the exportation of coal, a key revenue generator that helps fund its weapons of mass destruction programs," U.S. Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement."The North Korean regime often uses forced labor from prison camps in its mining industries…

China’s foreign ministry said Monday the country had asked Malaysia to safeguard the rights of Chinese nationals it had detained for trespassing in its waters, and investigate the case according to the law.Malaysia’s maritime authorities said on Saturday they had detained 60 Chinese nationals and six Chinese-registered fishing vessels.Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at a daily news briefing in Beijing that officials from China’s embassy in Malaysia have visited the sailors, and that the vessels were in Malaysian waters when they were detained.Malaysia reported 89 intrusi

KVH Industries, a provider of mobile connectivity and inertial navigation systems, has introduced a new digital content service called KVH Link to help shipowners, operators and managers provide rest-time entertainment for seafarers and increase onboard productivity.KVH Link provides timely and popular news, sports, movies, TV, music, karaoke, podcasts, documentaries, trending social videos, in the most popular languages among seafarers.Building on KVH’s past experience providing content for crew well-being and its patented IP-MobileCastTM technology for content delivery, KVH Link provides timely and popular news, sports, movies, TV…

Canadian and U.S. government representatives will arrive in Mexico on Tuesday to sign the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said.The three countries have come to an agreement over labor, steel and aluminum, he said at his regular daily news conference. (Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon and Abraham Gonzalez, Editing by Frank Jack Daniel)

A Chinese oil survey vessel that has been embroiled in a tense standoff with Vietnamese vessels in the South China Sea left Vietnamese-controlled waters on Thursday after more than three months, marine data showed.The Chinese vessel, the Haiyang Dizhi 8, was speeding away from Vietnam's exclusive economic zone towards China on Thursday under the escort of at least two Chinese ships, according to data from Marine Traffic, a website that tracks vessels.China claims almost all the energy-rich waters of the South China Sea but neighbors Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims.Tension between Hanoi and Beijing…

A Chinese survey vessel on Saturday extended its activities to an area closer to Vietnam's coastline, ship tracking data showed, after the United States and Australia expressed concern about China's actions in the disputed waterways.The Haiyang Dizhi 8 vessel first entered Vietnam's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) early last month where it began a weeks-long seismic survey, triggering a tense standoff between military and coastguard vessels from Vietnam and China.The Chinese vessel…

The U.S. military said one of its warships sailed near the disputed Scarborough Shoal claimed by China in the South China Sea on Sunday, angering Beijing at a time of tense ties between the world's two biggest economies.The busy waterway is one of a growing number of flashpoints in the U.S.-China relationship, which include a trade war, U.S. sanctions and Taiwan.China struck a more aggressive tone in its trade war with the United States on Friday. The tough talk capped a week that saw China unveil new retaliatory tariffs in response to a U.S.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has banned all foreign scientific research off the country's Pacific coast and told the navy to chase away unauthorised vessels, despite earlier allowing Chinese oceanographers to operate there. There was no clear explanation for the about-face by the mercurial Duterte, who has cultivated warm ties with China, ostensibly to attract loans and investments and lessen Manila's dependence on the United States. The area of focus is Benham Rise, which the United Nations in 2012 declared part of the Philippines' continental shelf.

Port Taranaki is committed to providing world-class assets and service excellence to support the cruise industry, chief executive Guy Roper says. Mr Roper took part in a panel discussion of leaders from “emerging ports” at today’s Cruise New Zealand 2017 Conference. This is the first time Port Taranaki has participated at a Cruise New Zealand conference. Prior to the conference, Roper highlighted that, as the gateway to the region, Port Taranaki is prepared and ready for more cruise ships. “We feel a real responsibility to ensure that passengers get a warm welcome as they disembark to discover what our region has to offer,” Roper said. “For that reason, Port Taranaki ensures cruise ships are planned for, catered for and have the required space needed on our wharves.

Indonesia renamed the northern reaches of its exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea as the North Natuna Sea on Friday, the latest act of resistance by Southeast Asian nations to China's territorial ambitions in the maritime region. Seen by analysts as an assertion of Indonesian sovereignty, part of the renamed sea is claimed by China under its contentious maritime boundary, known as the 'nine-dash line', that encompasses most of the resource-rich sea. Several Southeast Asian states dispute China's territorial claims and are competing with China to exploit the South China Sea's abundant hydrocarbon and fishing resources. China has raised the ante by deploying military assets on artificial islands constructed on shoals and reefs in disputed parts of the sea.

China opposes the use of freedom of overflight as an excuse to harm its security, the country's foreign ministry said on Friday, after two U.S bombers flew over the disputed South China Sea.   Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang made the comments at a daily news briefing in Beijing.   Reporting by Ben Blanchard;

China appears to have largely completed major construction of military infrastructure on artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea and can now deploy combat planes and other military hardware there at any time, a U.S. think tank said on Monday. The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), part of Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the work on Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief Reefs in the Spratly Islands included naval, air, radar and defensive facilities. The think tank cited satellite images taken this month, which its director, Greg Poling, said showed new radar antennae on Fiery Cross and Subi. "So look for deployments in the near future," he said. China has denied U.S. China's Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

China said on Thursday that it hoped the entry into service of Japan's second big helicopter carrier, the Kaga, did not mean a return to the country's past militaristic history. The ship, along with its sister the Izumo, gives Japan's military greater ability to deploy beyond its shores as it pushes back against China's growing influence in Asia. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that in recent years Japan had exaggerated the "China threat" as an excuse to expand its military. "I also want to say that the Kaga was sunk by the U.S. military in World War Two. Japan should learn the lessons of history," Hua told a daily news briefing.

China said on Tuesday it was waiting for an official word on why Japan plans to send its largest warship on a three-month tour through the South China Sea, but that it hopes Japan can be responsible. China claims almost all the disputed waters and its growing military presence has fuelled concern in Japan and the West, with the United States holding regular air and naval patrols to ensure freedom of navigation. The Izumo helicopter carrier, commissioned only two years ago, will make stops in Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka before joining the Malabar joint naval exercise with Indian and U.S. naval vessels in the Indian Ocean in July, sources told Reuters.

The United States is ready to confront China should it continue its overreaching maritime claims in the South China Sea, the head of the U.S. Pacific fleet said on Wednesday, comments that threaten to escalate tensions between the two global rivals. China claims most of the resource-rich South China Sea through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. Neighbours Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims. The United States has called on China to respect the findings of the arbitration court in The Hague earlier this year which invalidated its vast territorial claims in the strategic waterway. But Beijing continues to act in an "aggressive" manner, to which the United States stands ready to respond, Admiral Harry Harris, head of the U.S.

China's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday declined to say if it supported an executive order by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte declaring part of the disputed Scarborough Shoal a marine sanctuary off-limits to fishermen. The dispute over the Scarborough Shoal is one of several involving South East Asian countries seeking to counter China's growing assertiveness in the South China Sea. Since 2012, China has deployed its coastguard to block the shoal from Filipinos, despite its location within the 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone of the Philippines. Duterte plans to make a unilateral declaration barring fishermen from exploiting marine life at a tranquil lagoon that was central to years of bitter squabbling, and the basis of an arbitration case brought, and won, by the Philippines.

The U.S. Navy destroyer that sailed near Chinese-claimed islands in the South China Sea last week was under orders from the Third Fleet headquarters in San Diego, a first aimed at bolstering U.S. maritime power in the region, two sources said. The USS Decatur on Friday challenged China's "excessive maritime claims" near the Paracel Islands, part of a string of islets, reefs and shoals over which Beijing has territorial disputes with its neighbours. It was the first time such a freedom of navigation operation has been conducted without the Japan-based Seventh Fleet in command and was a test of changes aimed to allow the U.S. Navy to conduct maritime operations on two fronts in Asia at the same time, two sources told Reuters. The sources spoke on condition that they were not identified.

China said on Wednesday South Korea's coast guard should not have been operating in part of the sea where one of Seoul's patrol boats sank last week during an operation to crack down on a group of Chinese fishing boats. South Korean coast guard vessels regularly chase Chinese boats for fishing illegally off its coast, at times resulting in violent confrontations. The disputes are an irritant in relations between China and U.S. ally South Korea, even as their economic relations grow close and they share concerns about North Korea's nuclear weapons and missile programmes. South Korea's Ministry of Public Safety and Security, which oversees the coast guard, said one of its patrol boats sank last week during an anti-illegal fishing operation off the Korean peninsula's west coast.

China lodges protest with Seoul over the incident. Three Chinese fishermen were killed on Thursday in a fire that broke out on their boat when South Korean coastguard men trying to apprehend them for illegal fishing threw flash grenades into a room they were hiding in, a South Korean official said. Disputes over illegal fishing are an irritant in relations between China and U.S. ally South Korea, even as their economic relations grow close. They also share concern about North Korea's nuclear weapon and missile programmes. The three men were believed to have suffocated, a coastguard official in the South Korean port city of Mokpo said, adding that the incident was being investigated.

Increasingly assertive action by China's coast guard ships in the South China Sea risks destabilising the region, according to the authors of new research tracking maritime law enforcement incidents across the vital trade route. While the risks of full-blown naval conflict dominates strategic fears over the disputed waterway, the danger of incidents involving coast guards should not be underestimated, said Bonnie Glaser, a regional security expert at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

Suez Canal traffic data showed that 284 ships transited the canal, with a total load of 14.34m tonnes, from 19 to 24 August 2016, reports Daily News Egypt. Compared to July 2015, before the inauguration of the New Suez Canal, the average daily number of transiting vessels totaled 47 vessels, with an average load of 2.76 million tonnes per day. The number of vessels that passed through the new canal coming from the west through the northern entrance was 135, with a daily average of 27 vessels, and a total load of 7.65m tonnes, recording a daily average of 1.27m tonnes. Meanwhile, 149 ships transited the canal coming from the south, with a daily average of 25 vessels, and a total load of 9.26m tonnes, recording a daily average of 1.54m tonnes.