Manila  - Thousands of people marched on Saturday in the Philippine capital to denounce illegal drugs which afflict millions in the country.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and senior government officials led the march along the length of Roxas Boulevard in downtown Manila, which was attended by schoolchildren and government employees.

Organizers of the march hoped to make it to the Guinness World Records bookas the world's first and largest march against illegal drugs.

Manila  - Three international Red Cross staff being held captive by Muslim militants in the southern Philippines were frightened and outraged when government troops clashed with their captors this week in an apparent bid to rescue them.

The hostages - Swiss Andreas Notter, Italian Eugenio Vagni and Filipino Mary Jean Lacaba - were hysterical when they talked by phone with Senator Richard Gordon, chairman of the Philippine National Red Cross, the Philippine Daily Inquirer said Friday.

Manila  - Philippine shares rose 3.

Zamboanga City, Philippines  - One soldier was killed and five were injured in a botched attempt to rescue a kidnapping victim in the southern Philippines, a regional military spokeswoman said Friday.

The fighting erupted Thursday when troops conducting an operation to rescue a kidnapped employee of a lending firm encountered Muslim separatist rebels in Sumisip town in Basilan province, 900 kilometres south of Manila, Lieutenant Esteffani Cacho said.

Beijing  - China might convert more naval vessels to patrol disputed areas of the South China Sea to counter illegal fishing and "other countries' unfounded territorial claims," state media said Thursday.

China faces new "challenges and complications" in the South China Sea, the official China Daily quoted a senior fisheries official as saying, pointing to recent claims by the Philippines and Malaysia to disputed islands and a standoff with a US naval surveillance ship.