Manila - Australia on Tuesday pledged to provide 100 million Australian dollars (71.3 million US dollars) for road improvement projects in the central and southern Philippines.

Australian Ambassador Rod Smith said the money will be used to repair and maintain more than 1,000 kilometres of provincial roads in 10 provinces in the regions of Visayas and Mindanao.

The funds will be given over a five-year period starting this year, he added.

Manila  - The Philippines' inflation rate fell to 6.4 per cent in March as prices of food and other basic commodities eased, the government said Tuesday.

The March index was down from 7.3 per cent in February and was the same level as in March 2008, the National Statistics Office said.

The office said inflation decelerated "as slower annual inflation rates were registered in the indices of all commodity groups," such as food, electricity and fuel.

Manila  - Philippine authorities Sunday rejected fresh demands by Muslim militants for government forces to withdraw from a wide area of a southern island where the rebels were holding captive two European Red Cross workers.

The al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf rebel group also renewed their threat to kill the two hostages - Swiss Andreas Notter and Italian Eugenio Vagni - unless troops pulled back from their jungle hideout on Jolo island, 1,000 kilometres south of Manila.

Manila  - The European Union said Friday that it has approved a 10-million-euro (13.4-million-dollar) grant to support agriculture and improve food security in the Philippines.

The grant was part of a 1-billion-euro fund set up by the EU in December to help 23 countries worst hit by last year's crisis caused by the rising costs of food.

A total of 30 million euros has been earmarked for projects in the Philippines, the EU delegation in the country said in a statement.

Manila  - Six soldiers were wounded Friday in a landmine explosion on a southern Philippine island where Muslim militants are still holding captive two foreign Red Cross staff, a navy spokesman said.

The explosion occurred after a military truck loaded with marines hit a landmine in Patikul town on Jolo island, 1,000 kilometres south of Manila, according to Lieutenant Colonel Edgard Arevalo.

Arevalo said all the injured soldiers suffered shrapnel wounds and were being treated at a military hospital in Jolo.

Manila  - The Asian Development Bank said Friday that it was extending a 151-million-dollar loan to help Vietnam expand and improve electricity services in poor and remote communities.

The Manila-based bank said the loan would fund a project to develop up to 10 mini-hydropower plants to serve communities in mountainous areas in north and central Vietnam.

It would also provide financial support to the government's ongoing rural electrification programme.