The air forces of the Philippines and Japan are gearing up for joint exercises in Cebu this week to enhance their interoperability on disaster response. More than 150 airmen from the Philippine Air Force (PAF) and Japan Air Self-Defense Force will take part in the exercise called “Doshin Bayanihan” from Oct.

The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer Sazanami took part in the drill, the ministry said, three days after it became the first SDF ship to sail through the Taiwan Strait, along with vessels from Australia and New Zealand, according to sources familiar with the matter.

An old image of a joint US-Japan military drill has been falsely shared as showing a standoff between Chinese and US vessels near a disputed shoal in the South China Sea in024. The 2017 picture was featured as a thumbnail for a video -- viewed hundreds of thousands of times -- posted by a channel which has repeatedly shared misinformation.