Philippines

MANILA, Oct 26 (NNN-PNA) – Four people died in a landslide that hit a remote village in Quezon province of the Philippines, a Philippine Air Force spokesperson said, today.

Colonel Ma. Consuelo Castillo, chief of the Philippine Air Force Public Affairs Office, said, bodies of the four buried alive by the landslide that struck the village on Tuesday night were retrieved yesterday.

Local and military officials in the province confirmed the incident, saying the landslide buried five houses at the foot of the mountain.

MANILA, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) -- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Tuesday said it has approved a 175-million-U.S. dollar loan to improve connectivity and climate resilience of roads in India's Madhya Pradesh state.

The Manila-based bank said the project will upgrade about 500 km of state highways and major district roads to a standard two-lane feature.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The United States renewed a warning Monday that it would defend the Philippines in case of an armed attack under a 1951 treaty, after Chinese ships blocked and collided with two Filipino vessels off a contested shoal in the South China Sea.

MANILA, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- A fire broke out on a motor tanker while anchored off Batangas province, south of Manila, on Sunday, killing two people, officials said.

The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) initially reported that one died from the blaze that razed the vessel Motor Tanker Sea Horse at around 9 a.m. local time. The fire raged for two hours before firefighters extinguished it.

Joselito Sinocruz, the manager of Port of Batangas, said in an updated report that two died and two others were still missing from the accident.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A Chinese coast guard ship and an accompanying vessel rammed a Philippine coast guard ship and a military-run supply boat Sunday off a contested shoal, Philippine officials said, in an encounter that heightened fears of an armed conflict in the disputed South China Sea.

A top Philippine security official told The Associated Press there were no injuries among the Filipino crew members and an assessment of the damage to both vessels was underway.

MANILA, Oct 6 (Reuters) - An anonymous bomb threat that prompted the Philippines to put all its commercial airports on heightened security alert is "most likely a hoax", the aviation police chief said on Friday.

Authorities ordered 42 airports across the country to step up security after receiving an anonymous email threat that planes flying out of Manila to several tourist destinations could explode.

MANILA, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) Monday said it has approved a loan of 66.1 million euros (72.3 million U.S. dollars) as additional financing to support Armenia in building earthquake-resilient schools and strengthening its capacity for seismic disaster risk management.

"Armenia is located in a seismically active region and is prone to earthquakes that can cause significant human suffering and economic losses," said ADB Senior Project Officer in Armenia Gohar Mousaelyan.

MANILA, Sept 26 (Reuters) - The Philippines vowed on Tuesday not to back down in the face of a Chinese effort to block its fishermen from a fiercely contested shoal in the South China Sea, while Beijing warned the Southeast Asian nation not to "provoke and cause trouble".

The comments came a day after Manila cut a floating 300-m (980-ft) barrier installed by Beijing at the shoal, one of Asia's most contested maritime features, making use of coastguard personnel posing as fishermen in a small boat.

MANILA, Sept 25 (Reuters) - The Philippines said on Monday it executed a "special operation" to remove a floating barrier installed by China at a prime fishing patch in the South China Sea, a move that could stoke tension after a years-long detente in Asia's most disputed waters.

The Philippines expressed outrage on Sunday and shared images of Chinese coastguard policing a long, ball-buoy barrier near the Scarborough Shoal, a rocky outcrop 200 km (124 miles) from the Philippines and the site of years of intermittent flare-ups over sovereignty and fishing rights.

MANILA, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Monday said it has approved a loan of 500 million U.S. dollars to support Indonesia's development agenda and business reform priorities.

The Manila-based bank said Indonesia has undertaken various actions to improve the investment climate, including enabling environment for investments, easing trade barriers, and upscaling enterprises.