MANILA, Philippines—Officials say a landslide triggered by heavy rains has buried alive three miners who were resting in their bunkhouse in South Cotabato. Civil defense officer Roy Dorado said Thursday that two other miners were slightly injured at the same site in South Cotabato province’s T’boli township when rushing floodwater eroded a portion of the [...]
AJDABIYA—Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi suffered a major blow Wednesday with the defection of his foreign minister even as his forces again proved too strong for the rebels’ rag-tag army. Foreign minister Mussa Kussa became the most senior figure yet to defect from the Gadhafi regime since a popular uprising against his iron-clad 42-year rule erupted [...]
WASHINGTON—The United States and Britain have inserted covert intelligence agents into Libya to make contact with rebels and to gather data to guide coalition air strikes, a report said Wednesday. The White House refused to comment on the apparent shadow war in Libya, and also declined to discuss another report that President Barack Obama had [...]
ANGELES CITY—Some 20,000 drivers here stopped plying their routes at 7 a.m. on Thursday, stranding thousands of commuters on the way to work, school or market. Drivers protesting the nine oil price increases since January belong to 14 jeepney organizations and 208 tricycle groups operating within the city, according Rey Gueco, spokesperson of the Piston [...]
CEBU CITY—(UPDATE) A passenger vessel and a cargo ship collided shortly before 6 a.m. Thursday in the waters off Lawis Ledge in Talisay City, southern Cebu. But no one was hurt when MV Superferry 2 hit the starboard quarter of the MV General Romulo, a cargo vessel, at 5:50 a.m., said Cebu Coast Guard Station [...]
MANILA, Philippines—President Benigno Aquino III has approved an executive order granting fuel subsidies for a month to public utility jeeps and tricycles to address the series of exorbitant price hikes in recent weeks. Aquino said the government would release P500 million for the subsidies. He said the government would distribute “smart cards” to holders of [...]
BAGUIO CITY, Philippines—The Court of Appeals (CA) on Thursday set aside the order of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez placing under preventive suspension an official implicated in the euro-general scandal. In a 14-page decision, the appeals court’s 4th division, through Associate Justice Josefina Guevarra-Salonga, reversed and set aside the six month preventive suspension imposed by the Office [...]
MANILA, Philippines—Half of Filipinos want former President Ferdinand Marcos buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, the national heroes’ cemetery, a survey by the Social Weather Stations released Wednesday found. The First Quarter 2011 Social Weather Survey, conducted on March 4 to 7, asked 1,200 adult respondents nationwide, “In your opinion, is the body of [...]
MANILA, Philippines—The House of Representatives is having a hard time filling up the 11-member prosecution team in the impeachment trial of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez because some of the candidates were linked to the previous administration. “They should have no baggage from the past administration. They should have absolutely no ties with the previous administration,” said [...]
MANILA, Philippines — This Thursday’s afternoon session of the Maguindanao massacre trial was rescheduled to next week after a ballistician failed to present documents in court to prove his credibility as an expert witness. Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes of the Quezon City regional trial court Branch 221 ordered that the testimony of Elmer Piedad be deferred [...]
MANILA, Philippines—The Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) Wednesday guaranteed the safety of Chinese nationals serving sentences in the Philippine prisons. BJMP Director Rosendo Dial downplayed the possibility of Filipino inmates attacking Chinese prisoners as a result of Wednesday’s executions in China. “We are maintaining normal security procedures in our jails nationwide,” he told [...]
JAKARTA, Indonesia – An alleged mastermind of the 2002 Bali bombings that killed more than 200 people has been arrested in Pakistan, an Indonesian counter-terrorism official said Wednesday. “Umar Patek was arrested in Pakistan,” the official told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on condition of anonymity, without giving details about where or how Tuesday’s arrest was made. [...]
OSAKA—Japan is considering draping crippled reactor buildings at the Fukushima nuclear plant with a fabric to reduce radiation, and using a tanker to siphon off contaminated water, a report said Wednesday. The government did not explicitly confirm the report, but Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Japan’s leaders and nuclear experts were discussing “every possibility, [...]
