Manila  - The United States is ready to provide assistance to the Philippines in its efforts to free Italian and Swiss Red Cross personnel seized by Muslim militants on a southern island, a US embassy diplomat said Thursday.

"We stand ready to help our Philippine counterparts with whatever they might request, of course," Thomas Gibbons, US deputy ambassador and political affairs counsellor, told reporters at the opening ceremony for annual US-Philippine military training exercises.

Manila  - The Philippines and the United States on Thursday began two weeks of joint military exercises involving at least 6,000 US troops, who were reminded to behave amid continuing controversy over an American Marine convicted of rape in 2006.

The American soldiers are to join about 2,000 Filipino troops in humanitarian missions, field training on counterterrorism and exercises on disaster response and rehabilitation during the exercises, called Balikatan, which means shoulder-to-shoulder.

Manila  - A 60-year-old Belgian man killed his 37-year-old Filipino wife and then shot himself in a fit of jealous rage in a northern Philippine town, a police officer said Thursday.

Constant Van Girt allegedly shot dead his wife Rosaly during a heated argument inside their house in Iguig town in the northern province of Cagayan on Wednesday.

Senior Inspector Wilfredo Dupaya said that after killing his wife, Van Girt shot himself.

The couple was rushed to hospital, but Van Girt was declared dead on arrival. Rosaly died two hours later.

Manila  - Philippine share prices rose 2.08 per cent on Thursday on the back of Wall Street's overnight gains despite lower growth forecasts for the domestic economy.

The 30-share composite index of the Philippine Stock Exchange gained 42.17 points to close at 2,064.66 from Wednesday's finish of 2,022.49.

Gainers swamped losers 85 to 24, while 29 issues were unchanged. A total of 2.08 billion shares worth 2.64 billion pesos (55 million dollars) were traded.

Manila - The Philippine government is closely monitoring the condition of 120 Filipino seamen being held by pirates in hijacked ships off Somalia, a senior official said Wednesday.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said the Philippines is also planning to prohibit the deployment of Filipino seamen on ships that would pass through the African country's dangerous waters.

Manila - The Philippines on Wednesday launched a programme to immunize about half a million children below 5 years of age this year, to help prevent child deaths from illnesses which kill some 82,000 children every year. Health Secretary Francisco Duque said the government allocated 36.4 million pesos (75,800 dollars) to the immunization programme, as part of the "save a child" strategy of the Department of Health.