Manila  - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Tuesday it raised close to 1.2 billion dollars as it returned to the US dollar bond market with a 3-year global bond issue.

The Manila-based ADB said about 47 per cent of the bonds were placed in Europe, Middle East and Africa, 36 per cent in Asia and 17 per cent in the Americas.

ADB said 58 per cent of the bonds were bought by central banks, 24 per cent by funds, asset managers and insurance, and 18 per cent by banks.

Manila  - A town police chief and two police officers were killed Monday in an attack by communist rebels in the southern Philippines, a police report said.

Two more police officers were wounded in the attack shortly past noon Monday in Bansalan town in Davao del Sur province, 945 kilometres south of Manila.

The victims were aboard a vehicle on the way to the hinterlands of Bansalan when an undetermined number of guerrillas fired at them in the village of Balagunon.

Zamboanga C

Manila  - The Philippine defence secretary on Sunday told the military to strengthen its efforts against kidnapping following a series of abductions in the south, whose victims included three staff of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

"We must react against kidnapping very, very strongly and we really have to give the kidnappers no quarter," Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said.

Teodoro said the military must also step up the campaign against illegal firearms in areas affected by kidnappings.

Singapore - A Filipino woman was sentenced to four years in prison for trying to defraud a bank of 100 million Singapore dollars (66.21 million US dollars) with a fake certificate of deposit that was originally in the name of former Philippines president Ferdinand Marcos' son.

Zamboanga City, Philippines - An Italian staffer of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) abducted by Muslim militants in the southern Philippine was able to get his medicine to treat his high blood pressure, a government statement said Saturday.

Eugenio Vagni received his medicine from a government emissary who visited the kidnappers' lair on Jolo island, 1,000 kilometres south of Manila, it said.

Vagni along with fellow Red Cross personnel Andreas Notter of Switzerland and Mary Jean Lacaba of the Philippines was kidnapped January 15 by separatist rebels shortly after visiting the Sulu provincial jail.