Philippines, Malaysia | featured news

Malaysian security forces killed 31 Filipino gunmen on the island of Borneo, officials said Thursday, and the government rejected calls by the United Nations for an end to the fighting.

Malaysian security forces found 13 bodies of suspected Philippine militants as they expanded their hunt for an elusive armed group on the island of Borneo on Wednesday, a day after an assault with fighter jets, mortars and hundreds of troops.

China recently established a larger army garrison and expanded the size of an ostensible legislature to govern a speck of land, known as Yongxing Island, more than 200 miles southeast of Hainan. The goal of that move, Mr. Wu said, is to allow Beijing to “exercise sovereignty over all land features inside the South China Sea,” including more than 40 islands “now occupied illegally” by Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia.