Philippines | featured news

Philippine President Benigno Aquino is squaring off against his country's powerful Catholic church in a bid to give people free access to the means to limit the size of their families. The predominately Catholic country has one of Asia's fastest-growing populations together with significant levels of chronic poverty. While neighbors have accelerated towards prosperity, the Philippines has lagged.

Tens of thousands of people on a central Philippine island returned home on Saturday after a tsunami alert was lifted following a 7.6 magnitude undersea quake, as local authorities began work to repair damages to public infrastructure.

A 7.6-magnitude quake struck off the eastern coast of the Philippines late Friday, killing at least one person in a house collapse and triggering tsunami warnings in the region that sent coastal residents fleeing to high ground.

China recently established a larger army garrison and expanded the size of an ostensible legislature to govern a speck of land, known as Yongxing Island, more than 200 miles southeast of Hainan. The goal of that move, Mr. Wu said, is to allow Beijing to “exercise sovereignty over all land features inside the South China Sea,” including more than 40 islands “now occupied illegally” by Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia.

China blasted the United States on Saturday for its recent public criticism and urging of diplomacy to address territorial disputes in the South China Sea, saying the U.S. statement shows "total disregard for the facts" and sends "a seriously wrong message."

The death toll from Typhoon Saola rose on Friday to 44 in the Philippines and Taiwan as storms and Typhoon Damrey made landfall in China, where two died and about 770,000 were evacuated. The Philippines recorded 39 deaths in floods and accidents caused by Saola’s torrential rains and strong winds, the Office of Civil Defence said. At least two people were missing and feared dead.

Continuing questions about Journatic’s ethics and business practices came into sharp focus earlier this month with the discovery that it had supplied a story to the Chicago Tribune’s TribLocal edition that contained allegedly plagiarized and fabricated elements. The concerns first emerged when National Public Radio’s “This American Life” broadcast a story showing how Journatic used cut-rate staff in the Philippines to write stories using fake, American-sounding names.

After years of shipping data-processing, accounting and other back-office work abroad, some healthcare companies are starting to shift clinical services and decision-making on medical care overseas, primarily to India and the Philippines. Some of the jobs being sent abroad include so-called pre-service nursing, where nurses at insurance firms, for example, help assess patient needs and determine treatment methods.

The Philippines says a Chinese warship entered an area it claims in the South China Sea and ran aground on a shoal, as tensions continue between the two countries over a separate territorial dispute.

A cruise ship with 1,000 people on board that was disabled by a fire and was drifting in southern Philippine waters has been repaired and is headed toward Malaysia, the Philippine coast guard said Saturday....