A car bomb exploded in a public market in a southern Philippine town early today as a convoy carrying a provincial governor was passing, killing five people and wounding 10 others.

Nine people were killed in a New Year’s Eve grenade attack in the southern Philippines, including a 14-year-old.

The death toll from a Christmas Eve bomb attack outside the home of the Mayor of a town in the southern Philippines rose to 16 today, as authorities searched for clues in the blast.

Soldiers have killed at least nine members of a kidnapping gang that seized an Italian missionary and two Chinese engineers in the southern Philippines last year.