We should look to the Philippines, where barangays, or neighbourhood governments, help to empower communities
More than 1 000 people are dead or missing after flash floods that ravaged the southern Philippines as cities prepare for mass burials.
The Philippines offers a travelling academic extended tuition in the sensual sociology of food.
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/ 18 January 2011
Hundreds of thousands of people already reeling from floods across the Philippines have been told to expect further heavy rains until March.
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/ 27 December 2010
Phillipine President Benigno Aquino said on Monday investigators have identified a suspect in the Christmas day bombing of a church.
Police killed a gunman who took hostage a group of tourists on a bus in the Philippines capital, Manila, on Monday, a police official said.
A Filipino angry at being fired from the police was holding hostage 15 Hong Kong tourists and their driver on a bus in downtown Manila on Monday.
Thousands of people made homeless after a spectacular fire ripped through a slum in Manila queued for food on Monday.
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/ 14 January 2009
The Philippines is ready to resume peace talks with the country’s largest Muslim rebel group, government’s chief peace negotiator said on Wednesday.
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/ 15 December 2008
At least 22 people were killed and 34 others were reported missing after a ferry capsized in the northern Philippines, the coast guard said on Monday.
A Qantas flight en route to Australia made an emergency stop in Manila on Friday, and authorities discovered a big hole in its fuselage.
At least 229 people are dead after Typhoon Fengshen ravaged the central and southern Philippines — and more than 700 are missing after a ferry sank.
A Philippine ferry with more than 700 people on board capsized during a typhoon and most are missing, officials said on Sunday.
Typhoon Halong weakened as it crossed the northern Philippines on Sunday after displacing more than 7 000 people and causing landslides and flashfloods, officials said. Dozens of houses and other infrastructure were damaged in the northern provinces of Zambales, Pangasinan and Dagupan.
Climate change is one of the factors causing an increase in the incidence of diseases like malaria and dengue fever, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday. At least 150Â 000 more people are dying each year of malaria, diarrhoea, malnutrition and floods, all of which can be traced to climate change.
A strong earthquake measuring 6,9 struck in the ocean off the east coast of the Philippines on Monday night, but so far there have been no reports of damage, officials said. The quake, which struck at 10.11pm local time was centred about 175km east-south-east of Pandan, Catanduanes, in the central Philippines at a depth of 24,2km.
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/ 14 February 2008
Philippines security officials said on Thursday they had uncovered a plot by Islamic militants linked to the al-Qaeda network to assassinate President Gloria Arroyo. Her security chief, Brigadier General Romeo Prestoza, said Arroyo had been informed of the threat, which forced her to cancel a scheduled trip on Friday to the northern resort city of Baguio.
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/ 30 November 2007
Philippine authorities launched a manhunt on Friday for more suspects accused of helping stage a dramatic but short-lived rebellion against the government, which was put down by the military. The small band of primarily armed-forces officers, who seized a luxury hotel on Thursday, were bundled off by police after a lightning raid.
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/ 29 November 2007
Renegade Philippine soldiers who had holed up in a Manila hotel on Thursday calling for the overthrow of the government surrendered after elite forces battered down the door and fired tear gas into the lobby. Senator Antonio Trillanes, who led a failed mutiny in 2003 against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, was taken away in handcuffs.
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/ 29 November 2007
Fierce firefights broke out inside a five-star hotel in the Philippines capital on Thursday as government forces entered to arrest a group of military rebels, a reporter on the scene said. An armoured troop vehicle rammed repeatedly into the main door of the hotel and roared into the lobby amid a hail of gunfire.
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/ 29 November 2007
Philippine police gave around two dozen rebel soldiers until 7am GMT on Thursday to halt their attempted mutiny in a luxury hotel in Manila’s financial district. The soldiers, backed by a bishop, a senator and a former vice-president, took over the hotel and called for the overthrow of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
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/ 27 November 2007
At least four more people have been killed in floods and landslides in the Philippines due to a typhoon, taking the death toll from the storm to 12, relief officials said on Tuesday. Typhoon Mitag swirled out to sea on Monday after ripping through the north of the archipelago.
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/ 26 November 2007
Typhoon Mitag swirled out to sea on Monday after killing eight people, destroying homes and flooding rice paddies in the northern Philippines. Mitag, a category-one typhoon with winds of 120km/h at its centre, lost strength as it made landfall late on Sunday and did not directly hit the central Bicol region.
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/ 25 November 2007
Seven people have been killed and tens of thousands evacuated their homes as Typhoon Mitag approaches the eastern Philippines, disaster relief agencies said on Sunday. The approach of Mitag was affected by a tropical storm, named Hagibis, which hit the country last week and which is now heading back.
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/ 24 November 2007
Officials stepped up the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from coastal villages in the eastern Philippines and Vietnam as separate typhoons neared their coasts on Saturday. Typhoon Mitag was about 200km east of the Philippine island province of Catanduanes in the Bicol region late on Friday.
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/ 23 November 2007
Typhoon Mitag intensified as it churned towards the Philippines on Friday, triggering mass evacuations, flight cancellations and exacerbating heavy rains and flooding. In the central Bicol region, Philippines’ typhoon alley, people sought refuge in churches, schools and town halls as over 50 000 people fled their homes
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/ 26 October 2007
Joseph Estrada, the jailed former leader of the Philippines, walked free on Friday as President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo faced criticism for pardoning the playboy movie star. Arroyo set aside her ousted predecessor’s life sentence on Thursday, just six weeks after he was convicted on corruption charges.
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/ 20 October 2007
Philippine police confirmed on Saturday that military-grade explosives caused a powerful blast in an upscale Manila shopping mall and that they were reviewing security camera footage to look for suspects. The Glorietta mall blast at lunchtime on Friday killed nine people and wounded 120, although many of those wounded have been discharged after treatment.
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/ 19 October 2007
A bomb explosion in an upscale shopping mall in the Philippine capital, Manila, on Friday killed eight people and wounded more than 100, police and local officials said. Police initially suspected the blast was caused by an exploding gas cylinder in a restaurant, but police sources later said they found traces of plastic explosives at the site.
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/ 30 September 2007
Tropical depression Lekima swept off the Philippines on Sunday, leaving five people dead and four missing, a disaster official said, warning that floods and landslides could cause more havoc. Anthony Golez, deputy chief of the civil defence office, said thousands of people were marooned in the north of the country.
The worldwide illegal drugs trade has stopped growing for the first time since the mid-Nineteenth Century, although use and production of some drugs is rising fast in pockets, a senior United Nations official said on Wednesday. Methamphetamine abuse in East Asia and production of opium in Afghanistan are both growing at an alarming rate said Akira Fujino.
A strong earthquake of magnitude 6.5 hit the southern Philippines on Monday, the United States Geological Survey said. Mylene Carols of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said the quake was felt along the east coast of the island, but there were no reports of damage or injuries.