Around 100 tonnes of emergency supplies from Ireland is arriving today in the Philippines as part of an international relief effort in the devastated country.

Rescuers are facing blocked roads and damaged airports as they struggle to deliver desperately needed aid to the typhoon-devastated Philippines.

As many as 10,000 people are believed to have died in one Philippine city alone when one of the worst storms on record sent giant sea waves, washing away homes, schools and airport buildings.

Several United Nations peacekeepers from the Philippines who were abducted by Syrian rebels said in videos posted online today that they are safe and sound.

Muslim rebels and the Philippine government overcame decades of bitter hostilities and took their first tentative step towards ending one of Asia’s longest-running insurgencies today.

The Philippine government and the country’s largest Muslim rebel group have reached a preliminary peace deal that is a major breakthrough toward ending a decades-long insurgency that killed tens of thousands and held back development in the south.

Philippine government and Muslim guerrilla negotiators are drafting a preliminary peace agreement that can be signed this year, but the insurgents say they will not disarm until a final pact is concluded in a few years.

The Philippines foreign secretary says he and the Chinese ambassador have agreed to resolve diplomatically a stand-off involving a Philippine warship and two Chinese surveillance vessels in a disputed area of the South China Sea.

AN estimated 80,000 Hong Kongers marched yesterday in honour of eight locals killed in a bus hijacking in Manila, denouncing the Philippine government for botching the rescue operation and demanding justice for the dead.

China demanded answers from the Philippines today after a 12-hour hostage drama in the heart of the capital Manila ended with eight Hong Kong tourists dead along with their Filipino hostage-taker after a day of botched negotiations.

IRISH priest Fr Michael Sinnott, who was being held hostage by rebels in the Philippines, was released last night.

The Philippine military says a video released by the kidnappers of Irish missionary priest Fr Michael Sinnott could give them vital clues to his location.

The Philippine government rejected a US$2m (€1.3m) ransom demanded by the kidnappers of an Irish priest Michael Sinnott in the country's volatile south and said today that efforts would continue to safely secure his freedom.

The elderly Irish priest snatched by a kidnap gang in the Philippines is believed to be alive and has received vital medicine for a heart problem, it emerged today.

THE Department of Foreign Affairs has discounted speculation that kidnapped Irish priest Fr Michael Sinnott has died in captivity.

The Department of Foreign Affairs says it has been assured by the Philippine Government that rumours surrounding the fate of kidnapped priest Fr Michael Sinnott have not been verified.

FEARS are growing for the safety of kidnapped Irish priest Fr Michael Sinnott after military authorities in the Philippines yesterday admitted that they do not know for certain where he is.

The Philippine government today asked a large Muslim rebel group to help secure the freedom of an ailing Irish priest kidnapped by outlaws, as troops surrounded a jungle logging area where he was being held.

Fears were growing today for the health of an elderly Irish missionary who was dramatically kidnapped in the Philippines by armed raiders who burst into his home.

RESCUERS pulled more bodies from swollen rivers yesterday as residents started to dig out their homes from under carpets of mud after flooding left 140 people dead in the Philippine capital and surrounding towns.

Actor Alec Baldwin has apologised for a quip over Filipina mail-order brides following strong protest from the south east Asian nation.

A brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden, wanted in the Philippines for alleged terror financing, has been killed in Madagascar in what appeared to be a burglary, the victim’s brother said today.

Security forces tried to disrupt plots by al Qaida-linked militants to stage attacks but failed to track them, setting off an alarm that influenced a decision to postpone a pair of Asian summits, officials said today.

Rescue workers held little hope today of finding more survivors from a devastating Philippines landslide, saying a farming village was swallowed whole by a wall of mud and boulders that killed up to 1,800 people.

THE United States yesterday refused a Philippine request to hand over four marines charged with rape, provoking anti-American protests in the capital and the Muslim south, where US troops began annual counter-terrorism training of Filipino soldiers.

Four US Marines were charged with rape in the Philippines today.

The midnight deadline (7.30pm Irish time) set by Afghan militants threatening to kill three UN hostages, including Northern Ireland's Annetta Flanigan, has passed.

Afghan militants threatening to kill three UN hostages, including Northern Ireland's Annetta Flanigan, pushed back the deadline for their deaths until midnight today – 7.30pm Irish time.

Militants threatening to kill three United Nations hostages including a woman from Northern Ireland said today that a noon deadline could be postponed for negotiations on demands that include the world body’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.

A suicide attacker detonated a massive car bomb today at a checkpoint near the British Embassy and the interim Iraqi government’s headquarters in Baghdad, killing 11 people and wounding 40, including a US soldier, authorities said.

A MILITANT group holding two Bulgarian truck drivers hostage in Iraq said last night it had executed one of them and planned to kill the other in 24 hours.

The Philippine government was waiting for information today after making a direct appeal to the insurgents holding a Filipino hostage to spare his life.

The Philippine government made a direct appeal early today to insurgents holding a Filipino hostage, pleading with them to show mercy for the man they pledged to kill if the country did not agree to pull its troops from Iraq early.

THE kidnappers of a Philippine hostage in Iraq have extended by nine days their deadline for Manila to withdraw its troops or see him executed, a senior diplomat said yesterday.

A Filipino worker being held hostage by insurgents in Iraq appealed to his country to give in to their demands and withdraw its small contingent of troops, according to a video shown on the Al-Jazeera television station today.

Senior Philippine Government officials were locked in negotiations with rebel army officers today as a second deadline for them to end a mutiny in downtown Manila passed.

The arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed could help unravel details of past and present terror plots in Southeast Asia, police who once hunted him in Manila said today.

The Philippine Government has declared a state of emergency in the southern city of General Santos, where a series of bombings yesterday killed at least 14 people and injured 69 others.

The US military has begun training the Philippine army as part of George W Bush’s so-called "war on terrorism".

Muslim rebels in the southern Philippines have threatened to kill 50 hostages unless they are given safe passage to escape an all-out offensive by the Philippine army.

US and Philippine law enforcement officials have carried out a raid on a hotel in Manila.

A Muslim extremist leader responsible for the abduction of dozens of hostages threatened today to kill more of them if the Philippine government does not accept his choice of negotiators.

Minutes before a deadline by Muslim extremists to behead an American captive, the Philippine Government today dropped its objection to bringing in a Malaysian negotiator in an effort to end a two-week-old hostage crisis.

Authorities were today anxiously awaiting contact with Muslim extremists as the rebels’ threatened to behead three American captives.