Ampatuan (Philippines), Dec 10 - When President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo placed the restive southern Philippine province of Maguindanao under martial law, Freddie Solinap was at a loss on how to report on the impact of the controversial decree.

Solinap, publisher of a five-year-old weekly newspaper, lost five of his seven staff two weeks earlier when a total of 57 people were brutally massacred in Ampatuan town in Maguindanao, 930 km south of Manila.

Manila - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo Monday lifted a three-week freeze on oil prices that was decreed to ease the hardship of more than 8 million victims of two devastating typhoons.

She cited the proposal of oil companies to provide more focused calamity assistance programmes to those affected by the storms as the main reason for lifting the price freeze.

Business groups had warned that the freeze could result in petroleum shortages as companies could not be forced to sell at a loss.

Manila  - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on Friday signed a law that aims to boost the country's response to climate change, which had been blamed for back-to-back storms that killed nearly 1,000 people in the country.

Senator Loren Legarda, a principal author of the Climate Change Act, said the law was a "landmark initiative" that could help raise funds needed for rehabilitating areas devastated by storm Ketsana and typhoon Parma.

Manila  - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is scheduled to visit Britain and Saudi Arabia next week, despite mounting criticisms over her numerous trips overseas, the Department of Foreign Affairs said Saturday.

Arroyo's foreign trips became controversial when it was reported that she and her entourage spent 20,000 dollars for one dinner during her trip to the United States last month.

Since then, critics have blasted Arroyo for going abroad too often and spending millions of dollars for such trips.

Manila - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and visiting Czech Republic Prime Minister Jan Fischer agreed on Monday to boost trade ties between the two countries.

Arroyo and Fischer met at the Malacanang presidential palace to discuss bilateral issues including the revival of an economic partnership agreement terminated in 2002 when the Czech Republic joined the European Commission.

Manila  - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on Sunday scrapped a plan to buy a new presidential jet amid criticisms over alleged extravagance in her administration, her spokesman said.

Cerge Remonde said Arroyo opted to cancel the purchase of the new plane worth at least 1.2 billion pesos (25 million dollars) even if it would have benefited her successor.

He added that Arroyo had previously cancelled similar plans despite recommendations by the Presidential Airlift Wing to purchase a new jet.

Manila  - What was supposed to be a quiet dinner for Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and a group of political allies during a recent trip to the United States has turned into a nightmare with a very bitter political aftertaste.

The controversial dinner at the fancy Le Cirque restaurant in New York on August 2 drew flak in the impoverished Philippines after it was reported that the bill amounted to about 1 million pesos (20,000 dollars).

Manila - Formal peace talks between the Philippine government and communist rebels are set to resume in October in Norway, an official said Sunday.

Philippine presidential peace adviser Avelino Razon said the negotiations would resume in the last week of October in Oslo.

"There has been an agreement and a specific date on when the formal talks will resume," he said. "It is now clear that the process is moving forward."

Washington - Barack Obama met with an African-American Harvard professor and the white policeman who arrested him for a round of tension-cooling beers on the White House lawn, hoping to repent for his first racial controversy as US president.

In what has been dubbed the "beer summit," Obama held a private meeting on the muggy Thursday evening near the White House Rose Garden with Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr and Sergeant James Crowley of the Cambridge, Massachusetts, Police Department.

Manila  - A few months after President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was catapulted into office in January 2001, she vowed to wipe out the Muslim Abu Sayyaf rebel group, which has links with al-Qaeda, during her term as president.

Every year since then, Arroyo claimed significant gains against the country's smallest Muslim rebel group but the guerrillas continue in their deadly ways, launching bomb attacks and kidnappings.

Manila  - Thousands of protestors took to the streets in the Philippines on Monday hours before President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was to address Congress.

Despite opposition by many Filipinos, Arroyo was expected to push for constitutional changes during her 19th and supposedly last state of the nation address (SONA).

Demonstrators gathered along a main highway leading to the Congress compound in the Manila suburban city of Quezon as thousand of security forces set up barricades.

Manila  - When Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo delivers her annual state-of-the-nation address in Congress next week, only one question will be on everybody's minds: Will it be her last?

Monday's speech is to be Arroyo's ninth state of the nation since she was catapulted into the presidency in January 2001 by a mass uprising, and it should be her final congressional address as her term is set to expire in June.

Manila - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered police and local government officials Wednesday to investigate the alleged existence of a death squad said to have killed more than 800 people in the past decade in a southern city.

Arroyo directed the Department of Interior and Local Government and the Philippine National Police "to undertake all measures to get to the bottom of this issue," Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said.

Manila - Human Rights Watch on Thursday urged Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to immediately condemn the existence of a death squad that it said has killed more than 800 people in the past decade in a southern city.

The New York-based watchdog lamented that since it released a report on April 6 on the activities of the death squad in Davao City, 990 kilometres south of Manila, that Arroyo had not spoken about the murders.

Manila  - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on Thursday led a tearful farewell to four close aides who died in a helicopter crash in a northern mountain range.

Four other people were killed in the crash on Tuesday in the mountains of Tinoc town in Ifugao province, 270 kilometres south of Manila.

"We mourn the death of our dear friends and colleagues, who died while serving their country," a teary-eyed Arroyo said televised statement. "I will miss them so much in my official family."

Manila  - The Philippines on Wednesday mounted search and rescue operations for a missing air force helicopter carrying senior staff of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo amid reports that the chopper could have crashed and exploded.

The Bell 412 helicopter, carrying five passengers and two pilots, was on its way to Banaue town in Ifugao province, 270 kilometres north of Manila, from the nearby mountain resort city of Baguio when it went missing Tuesday.

Manila  - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has signed into law a bill defining the country's territorial boundaries and laying claim to disputed areas in the South China Sea, a top aide said Wednesday.

Presidential Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said Arroyo signed the Baselines Law on Tuesday despite a strong protest by China over the measure.

"We are sending the message to the whole world that we are affirming our national sovereignty," Ermita said. "We are affirming our national interest."

Manila  - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered an investigation into the killing of the daughter of a senior communist rebel leader, an official said Saturday.

Arroyo wanted the killers of Rebelyn Pitao, 20, to be immediately brought to justice, Press Secretary Cerge Remonde said.

Pitao was a daughter of Leoncio Pitao, also known as Commander Parago, of the New People's Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

Manila - President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo left Saturday for a three-day official visit to Qatar in a bid to attract investments to boost the Philippine economy.

Arroyo was also expected to meet with executives of Middle East companies employing hundreds of thousands of Filipino workers, to seek assurances of their employment amid the global economic crisis.

She will also meet with the different Philippine ambassadors to the Middle East countries in order to assess the impact of the crisis on the Filipino migrant workers in the area.

Manila  - President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo cancelled a scheduled trip to the strife-torn southern Philippines Friday due to a series of bombings and clashes in the area.

Presidential spokesman Jesus Dureza said military commanders prevailed upon Arroyo not to push through with her visit to Shariff Kabunsuan province, 960 kilometres south of Manila, due to bomb attacks.