All posts tagged "Philippines"

Washington (AFP) - US President Joe Biden pledged Thursday to defend the Philippines from any attack in the South China Sea, as he hosted the first joint summit with Tokyo and Manila amid growing tensions with Beijing. Biden's three-way meeting with Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida follows repeated confrontations between Chinese and Philippine vessels in the disputed waterway. "The United States defense commitments to Japan and to the Philippines are ironclad," Biden said as he opened the meeting in the East Room of the White House. "Any attack o......

More than 2.6 million devotees on Tuesday joined the largest religious procession in the predominantly Catholic Philippines, jostling with each other during the hours-long march in honour of a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ. The devotees, mostly wearing maroon and yellow shirts, walked barefoot in the procession called Traslacion – the highlight of the feast of the Black Nazarene, a life-size wooden statue of Jesus Christ crowned with thorns and bearing a cross. They believe the statue grants prayers and wishes to the faithful, and joining the procession and other activities of the festi......

By Karen Lema and Neil Jerome Morales MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines lifted a tsunami alert early on Sunday as waves receded from a magnitude 7.4 earthquake that struck the south of the country, triggering coastal evacuations and some waves in there and in Japan. There were no initial reports of casualties or serious damage from the quake in the Mindanao region, although some residents reported damage to buildings in the area, which is less populated than some parts of the archipelago. More than 500 aftershocks were recorded, and the Philippines' Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Ph......

MANILA (Reuters) - Tropical storm Saola has intensified into a super typhoon, the Philippine weather bureau said on Sunday, raising the possibility of heavy rain and powerful winds hitting important rice and corn growing areas in northern provinces. Saola, with maximum winds of up to 185 kph near its centre and gusts of up to 230 kph, was over coastal waters of Isabela province early on Sunday, the bureau said in a bulletin. Heavy rainfall was expected later on Sunday and on Monday in the provinces of Isabela, Cagayan, Ilocos and the mountainous Cordillera region, raising the risk of flooding ......

Manila (AFP) - The United States and the Philippines announced a deal Thursday to give US troops access to another four bases in the Southeast Asian nation, as the longtime allies seek to counter China's military rise. The agreement to expand cooperation in "strategic areas of the country" was made during a visit by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. It comes as the countries seek to repair ties that were fractured in recent years. Previous Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte favoured China over his country's former colonial master, but the new administration of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has been ......