Cotabato City, Philippines  - A broadcast journalist was killed by unidentified gunmen in a southern Philippine city, a police official said Thursday.

Badrodin Abas, 38, was shot in the head by two motorcycle-riding gunmen late Wednesday in Cotabato City, 930 kilometres south of Manila, according to the city's police chief, Senior Superintendent Willie Dangane.

Dangane said the victim, a broadcaster for a radio station in Cotabato, was riding in his van when the suspects blocked it and shot him in the head.

Zamboanga City, Philippines - An influential Muslim leader on Wednesday joined efforts to secure the release of three International Committee of the Red Cross staff members who were seized by Islamist militants in the southern Philippines.

The Philippine National Red Cross chairman Senator Richard Gordon had approached Muslim leader Nur Misuari to help in securing the release of the hostages abducted last week by Abu Sayyaf rebels on Jolo island, 1,000 kilometres south of Manila.

Manila - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo appointed a new peace adviser Wednesday to boost her government's efforts to revive stalled peace talks with communist and Muslim rebel groups.

Executive secretary Eduardo Ermita said Arroyo named former police chief Avelino Razon as the new presidential peace adviser, replacing former armed forces chief Hermogenes Esperon.

Peace talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the largest Muslim rebel group, was stalled in August 2008 after the Supreme Court stopped the signing of a key territory agreement.

Manila - The Philippine armed forces on Tuesday ignored a demand by Islamic militants holding three International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) staff on a southern island to stop military operations to rescue the hostages.

Armed forces chief of staff General Alexander Yano said there was no halt in military operations to rescue Swiss Andreas Notter, Italian Eugenio Vagni and Filipino Mary Jean Lacaba, who were seized last week on Jolo island, 1,000 kilometres south of Manila.

The three hostages, who were abducted after visiting the provincial jail on Jolo, are being held by al-Qaeda-linked Muslim Abu Sayyaf rebels in the jungles of Indanan town.

Manila - A peace agreement between the Philippine government and Muslim secessionist rebels is unlikely to be attained under the tenure of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, a security analyst and a rebel negotiator said Monday.

Peace talks between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the government have been suspended since August last year when hostilities between the rebels and the military escalated in the strife-torn southern region of Mindanao.

The violence erupted after the Supreme Court stopped the signing of a key agreement that would have expanded an existing Muslim autonomous region in Mindanao.