A Philippine ferry with more than 700 people on board capsized during a typhoon and most are missing, officials said on Sunday.
Flash floods and landslides triggered by Typhoon Fengshen have left at least 14 people dead and forced the evacuation of thousands in the Philippines.
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 150 000 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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/ 5 December 2007
After putting his seedlings to bed in the world-famous Banaue rice terraces in the northern Philippines, farmer Gabriel Balicdon works as a tourist guide and buys rice from the grocer. Built by Ifugaos — illiterate mountain farmers and woodcarvers — at about the same time the Pyramids of Egypt and the Great Wall of China were being constructed, the terraces look like giant staircases leading to the clouds.
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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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/ 22 November 2007
Thousands of people were being evacuated on Thursday as tropical storm Mitag gained strength, becoming a typhoon as it neared the eastern Philippines, officials said. Mitag, packing winds of 120km/h with gusts of 150km/h was barrelling towards the Bicol peninsula, south-east of the capital, Manila, the local weather bureau said.
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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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/ 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.
A strong typhoon off the Philippines’ mountainous north forced authorities to close schools in the capital for a second day on Thursday as disaster-response teams braced for possible floods and landslides. Typhoon Sepat was roaring over the Pacific Ocean with sustained winds of 185km/h and gusts of up to 220km/h.
Thousands of people have fled their homes on the southern Philippine island of Jolo as troops pursue Muslim militants blamed for killing more than 20 soldiers, officials said on Saturday. Jolo brigade commander Colonel Anthony Supnet said his troops would continue to hunt the gunmen, even though they had broken up into smaller groups and scattered.
Philippine troops shelled Muslim rebel positions and raked them with helicopter fire overnight on the southern island of Jolo after a day of intense fighting in which at least 58 people, including 26 troops, were killed. The fighting that broke out on Thursday morning is the heaviest in the volatile Philippine south for almost three years.
There may be "Aida" and even some "Fans" — but the jumble of Asean acronyms isn’t music to anyone’s ears. For the hundreds of reporters who can’t tell their Aasroc from their Elto, the blizzard of bureaucracy at the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) meetings can be pretty daunting.
The Roman Catholic Church in Manila has laid down a dress code after parishioners complained they were being distracted by women wearing skimpy shorts, plunging necklines and men wearing sports jerseys during Mass. The Manila archdiocese in this predominantly Roman Catholic country issued guidelines recently to all churches in Manila.
The enormous grey whale shark glides effortlessly in the murky waters off Donsol in the eastern Philippines, its distinctive pale yellow spotted back and fins clearly visible as excited tourists prepare to enter the water from nearby outrigger canoes. They swim to within a few metres of these gentle giants of the deep as their guide makes sure they give the whale shark plenty of room to move.
A pig in a tutu, a porker on a bike, a hog on a drip — it was no ordinary parade that snaked its way through the Philippine town of Balayan on Sunday. In Balayan, south of Manila, a centuries-old religious festival is all that’s needed to kill, clothe, parade and consume the neighbourhood pigs.
Filipinos braced themselves for allegations of fraud and more violence on Monday as a lengthy vote count followed congressional and local elections marred by ambushes and shoot-outs. At least six people were killed during polling, which was expected to maintain the political status quo.
The reporter’s morning routine is the same as everyone else’s except for one subtle difference, he scans his fellow commuters for would-be assassins. ”When I get on public transport I look around to see if any of the passengers have suspicious bulges,” said the journalist, who declined to be named.
Traffic accidents worldwide claim about 1,2-million lives a year and injure millions more, the World Health Organisation said on Monday. Every day 1 000 people under the age of 25 are killed in traffic accidents, with 90% of these deaths occurring in low to middle-income countries mainly in Africa and Asia, it said.