SAN ANTONIO, ZAMBALES, Philippines: Australian and Filipino troops held exercises on Friday near flashpoint South China Sea waters claimed by China, with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos hailing them as an “extremely important” example of close cooperation.
China deploys hundreds of coast guard, navy and other vessels to patrol and militarize reefs in the South China Sea, which it claims almost entirely despite an international ruling that its position has no legal basis.
Friday’s joint drills took place at a naval base about 240 kilometers east of Scarborough Shoal, a rich fishing ground that China seized from the Philippines in 2012 after a tense standoff.
“Considering that there have been so many events that attest to the volatility of the region, this kind of exercise, this kind of close strategic cooperation between countries around the region is extremely important,” Marcos told reporters.
“It is an important aspect of how we prepare for any eventuality,” he said of the drills, which he watched with Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles.
These are the first major air, sea and land drills between the two countries. They simulated retaking an enemy-controlled island.
About 1,200 Australian soldiers and 560 Filipino marines stormed a beach in the drill, arriving in amphibious assault vehicles, by parachute and on US Osprey aircraft.
Two advanced Australian F-35 fighter jets provided close air support, and Australian warships secured the surrounding waters.
The exercise came after Chinese coast guard vessels fired water cannon and blocked a Philippine resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea on August 5.
The Philippine Navy deliberately grounded a World War II-era vessel on the shoal and set up a tiny garrison in 1999 to check China’s advance in the area.
On Tuesday, a second Philippine mission managed to deliver supplies to the outpost.
The Chinese coast guard said it had decided to allow the resupply on humanitarian grounds as the Philippine vessels “did not carry illegal building materials for large-scale reinforcements.”
The Philippines hosted a meeting this week with its fellow members in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China to negotiate a code of conduct in the South China Sea.
Philippine, Australian troops practice retaking island in South China Sea drill
https://arab.news/vdsj3
Philippine, Australian troops practice retaking island in South China Sea drill
- Friday’s joint drills took place at a naval base about 240 kilometers east of Scarborough Shoal
- About 1,200 Australian soldiers and 560 Filipino marines stormed a beach in the drill
France calls for witnesses after ex-teacher charged with sexual abuse of 89 minors
- In May last year, a French court sentenced retired doctor Joel Le Scouarnec to 20 years in prison after he confessed to sexually abusing or raping 298 patients between 1989 and 2014
GRENOBLE, France: A French prosecutor on Tuesday appealed for further testimony in a mass abuse case across nine countries, after charging a 79-year-old former educator with rape and sexual assault of 89 minors since the 1960s.
Prosecutor Etienne Manteaux spoke to reporters in the southeastern city of Grenoble to publicize the case of the former teacher, who had also confessed to killing his terminally ill mother and his elderly aunt.
In an unusual move, French authorities named the suspect, Jacques Leveugle, who was born in 1946 in Annecy, an Alpine town an hour’s drive away from Grenoble.
“This name must be known because the aim is to enable potential victims to come forward,” the prosecutor said.
When asked why prosecutors did not reveal the information when Leveugle was placed under investigation, Manteaux said that it was a “somewhat unusual case, and we wanted to first ensure the veracity of the facts.”
Then “it became essential to allow victims who could not be identified and who were not going to be heard to come forward,” he added.
Leveugle, who is accused of committing sexual crimes against minors between 1967 and 2022, has been in custody since his indictment in 2024, the prosecutor said.
In May last year, a French court sentenced retired doctor Joel Le Scouarnec to 20 years in prison after he confessed to sexually abusing or raping 298 patients between 1989 and 2014.
Of those, more than 250 victims were under 15 years old.
Victims and child rights advocates say that case highlighted systemic flaws that allowed Le Scouarnec to repeatedly commit sexual crimes.
Leveugle allegedly committed the crimes against minors in Germany, Switzerland, Morocco, Niger, Algeria, the Philippines, India, Colombia, and the French overseas territory of New Caledonia, where he worked as a freelance teacher and instructor, said the prosecutor.
His varied roles included instructor of speleology, or the study of caves, and French teacher.
“He traveled to these different countries and in each of these places where he settled to provide tutoring and teach, he would meet young people and have sexual relations with them,” according to the prosecutor.
The number of victims was established from writings compiled on a USB drive by the man, which refer to “sexual relations” with minors aged 13 to 17.
The USB stick on which the documents were stored by the man was discovered by his nephew, who was “questioning his uncle’s emotional and sexual life,” Manteaux added.
It “contains 15 tomes of very dense material, and investigators will review and read all of these writings and identify 89 minors,” he said.
During the investigation, the man also confessed to suffocating his mother — a terminally ill cancer patient — with a pillow in the 1970s, according to the prosecutor.
He also suffocated his 92-year-old aunt, also with a pillow, in the 1990s, the prosecutor said.
Leveugle had to travel and the aunt “begged him not to go.”
“He decided to kill her too, so while she was asleep, he took a pillow and suffocated her,” the prosecutor said.
In his “memoirs,” the man had written that he had “killed two people,” Manteaux said.
A separate murder investigation has been launched.
The suspect “justifies his actions by saying that he would like someone to do the same for him if he found himself in this end-of-life situation,” the prosecutor said.
