Manila - Six people were killed and seven others missing when a landslide struck a mining village in the southern Philippines, local officials said Sunday.

At least 13 homes were buried in the landslide in Masara village in Maco town, Compostella Valley province, 930 kilometres south of Manila, on Saturday.

Provincial social worker Josephine Frasco said three days of continuous heavy rains triggered the landslide.

Manila - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Friday it has approved an 810-million-dollar multi-tranche financing facility to help improve Pakistan's power sector.

The Manila-based ADB said the funding, to be released in several tranches over 10 years, will support Pakistan's power sector reform programme that is estimated to cost
5.2 billion dollars.

The programme "is designed to provide a safe, reliable supply of power and to meet an estimated annual 8-per-cent rise in gross domestic product growth from
2005-2015."

It also aims to expand power coverage to rural areas, the bank added.

Manila - The United Nations on Friday vowed to send more aid to more than 500,000 people displaced by fighting between Muslim separatist rebels and government troops in the southern Philippines.

Amid reports that some aid deliveries were being blocked, the UN office in Manila assured humanitarian assistance in conflict areas in the southern region of Mindanao were unhampered.

The UN said it has so far not encountered any difficulties or challenges in delivering food to distribution centres.

Manila - At the opening of Congress just over a month ago, a beaming President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declared a breakthrough in peace talks with Muslim separatist rebels aimed at ending decades of strife and violence in the southern Philippines.

Arroyo told legislators that peace panels made up of the government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) have finally resolved the thorny issue of ancestral domain, which would define a Muslim homeland on the southern island of Mindanao.

Manila - The Philippine government Wednesday dissolved its peace negotiating panel with the country's largest Muslim separatist rebel group after weeks of deadly hostilities in the strife-torn southern region of Mindanao.

The move would pave the way for a fresh start to the peace process in Mindanao, Press Secretary Jesus Dureza said.

Dureza said Presidential Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita was scheduled to announce the dissolution of the government peace panel with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) later in the day.