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An earthquake of magnitude 7.6 struck Mindanao, Philippines on Saturday, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said. The quake was at a depth of 63 km (39.15 miles), EMSC added.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said on Saturday he was retiring from politics, a surprise move that fuelled speculation he was clearing the way for a presidential run by his daughter. Sara Duterte-Carpio is currently mayor of Davao, the Philippines' third-largest city, and filed on Saturday to contest the role again. She has previously said she would not run for national office next year. "Today, I announce my retirement from politics," Duterte said as he accompanied his ally Senator Christopher "Bong" Go of the ruling PDP-Laban party to register Go's candidacy for vice president in next year's election. But political analysts...

In his final state of the nation speech Monday, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte defended his refusal to confront China over Beijing's seizure and fortification of his country's islets in the South China Sea. "It will be a massacre if I go and fight a war now," said Duterte. "We are not yet a competent and able enemy of the other side." Duterte is a realist. He will not challenge China to retrieve his lost territories, as his country would be crushed. But Duterte has a hole card: a U.S. guarantee to fight China, should he stumble into war with China....

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte ordered police and military in the country on Wednesday to kill troublemakers who violate coronavirus lockdown measures. Duterte gave the warning during a televised address where he said it was critical everyone cooperates and follows home quarantine measures. He added the abuse of medical workers would be considered a serious crime. “My orders to the police and military ... if there is trouble and there’s an occasion that they fight back and your lives are in danger, shoot them dead," he said, according to Reuters.

The leader of the Philippines' Catholic Church, which routinely denounces abortion and contraception, called for the clergy on Saturday to listen more and condemn less, in the latest sign of a liberal shift in the powerful institution. Church leaders exert vast influence in the conservative Philippines, Asia's bastion of Catholicism and the only state apart from Vatican that still outlaws both divorce and terminations. But with many modern Filipino Catholics embracing attitudes that were once considered taboo or frowned upon, and the more conciliatory tone of the Vatican under Pope Francis, there are signs that the Philippine church is softening...

China conducted its first deep-sea electromagnetic probe at the South China Sea on Friday, according to the country's marine experts. The exploration came after the country began to actively look for new detection methods for combustible ice. The electromagnetic-wave set consists of two parts, according to experts, a radiator, which is used to send out electromagnetic waves to stratum, and the receiving equipment used to receive signals reflected back by the sea-bed stratum. "It is a radiator. It sends out electromagnetic waves along its route underwater, and the electromagnetic waves will be reflected back by the seabed stratum," said Wu...

MANILA (AFP) – A blood-curdling scream echoes through the Roman Catholic chapel in Manila as Father Jose Francisco Syquia says a prayer of exorcism over a Satanic cult member believed to be possessed by the devil. "It's very painful," the woman cries in an unearthly voice, her body contorting in an attempt to break free from the tight grasp of Syquia's assistants. After a few minutes she falls silent, her limp body exhausted. The case is among hundreds documented on video and kept by Syquia, who heads the Manila Archdiocese's Office of Exorcism -- the only one that exists in...

Concord's town flag will be lowered to half-staff today in honor of Henry John Wilayto, a survivor of the 1942 Bataan Death March during World War II, who died Feb. 28 at his Concord home of leukemia. He was 92.

MILITARY forces pursuing the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf bandits captured a bandit on Wednesday in the hinterland of Sulu province, an official said here Thursday. Western Mindanao Command (Wesmincom) chief Maj. Gen. Eugenio Cedo identified the captured Abu Sayyaf bandit as Nadzmir Abduraji Amad, 22, of Talipao town of the said province. Cedo said Amad was captured by patrolling troops from the Army's 2nd Scout Ranger Battalion, following information from residents about the latter's presence in Barangay Bandang, Talipao. Talipao is said to be the turf of slain Abu Sayyaf leader Ghalib Andang alias Commander Robot, who gained international notoriety for...

Beirut (AsiaNews) A year ago, on 30 September 2005, in Denmark, 12 satirical cartoons about Muhammad were published, sparking a controversy that inflamed the Muslim world. Recently, we have witnessed a remake, a sort of “Cartoons no.2”, with the reaction of the Muslim world to the speech of the pope in Regensburg. These facts, like the threats against an opera of Mozart in Berlin, or against a French teacher, reveal two very worrying phenomena: the easy use of violence in Islam, together with its inability to dialogue; the West, especially Europe, as a big coward that is losing its identity....

KUALA LUMPUR: Three crewmen on a Japanese tugboat seized by pirates were released unhurt in southern Thailand after being held captive for a week, officials said. Two Japanese seamen -- 56-year-old captain Nobuo Inoue and 50-year-old chief engineer Shunji Kuroda -- and Filipino crewman Sangdang Paliawan, 31, were freed late Sunday near the coastal town of Satun, just north of the Malaysian border. "They were found late Sunday near Satun. They are safe and in good health. They will be taken to Penang (in Malaysia)," Masaru Aniya, a spokesman for the Japanese embassy told AFP. [. . .] Kuroda said...

As anyone involved in the 12-Step recovery culture knows: "Denial is not a river in Egypt." It does, however, appear to be a river flowing through present-day Western Culture. A recent study from the Journal Sexually Transmitted Infections showed that one in 100 American deaths is related to sexual behavior. Sexual ideologues from Planned Parenthood to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) relentlessly pound away with frantic urgency on the need to dump condoms and contraceptives into American high schools and developing countries. Yet, as was recently noted in this publication, the Philippines seems to be doing just fine with an...

HONOLULU - A top Philippine official visiting Hawaii Tuesday appealed to Filipino Americans to donate money and goods to assist tens of thousands left homeless because of storms that ravaged the island nation. "Your ethnic brothers need a little help," said Philippine Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz, who also serves as the chairman of disaster management.

United States President George W. Bush was dared Friday to prove his friendship to President Arroyo by understanding the Philippine government's decision to pull out its troops in Iraq to save a Filipino hostage. Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya made the challenge amid criticism from Washington that the Philippines committed a grave mistake by vowing to the Iraqi militants demand to withdraw Manila's humanitarian contingent in the war-torn country. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters in Washington Wednesday that the withdrawal sends the wrong signal and that it is important for people to stand up to terrorists and "not...

Wed April 2, 2003 07:36 PM ET DAVAO, Philippines (Reuters) - Armed men lobbed grenades and sprayed bullets at three mosques in the southern Philippine city of Davao on Thursday, hours after a bomb hidden in a food stall killed 16 people in the same city, police said. No one was hurt and there was minimal damage from the early morning attacks, which took place in the space of an hour between 2 and 3 a.m. local time. Police said witnesses saw about five armed men in a vehicle throw the grenades and spray the mosques with automatic gunfire. Mostly...

ZAMBOANGA, Philippines, Oct 17 (Reuters) - A bomb exploded in the centre of the largely Christian city of Zamboanga in the southern Philippines on Thursday but there were no immediate reports of casualties, police said. The blast occurred more than two weeks after a home-made bomb exploded near a karaoke bar in the city, killing a U.S. soldier and two Filipino civilians. Police blamed that explosion on Muslim Abu Sayyaf guerrillas linked by the United States to the al Qaeda network.