Cotabato City, Philippines - A senior Red Cross official urged on Saturday government troops and Muslim guerrillas to spare civilians in the escalating hostilities in the southern Philippines.

Dominik Stillhart, International Committee of the Red Cross deputy director for operations, met Saturday with some of the more than 500,000 civilians displaced in the fighting between soldiers and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in the southern region of Mindanao.

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 - The Philippines' year-on-year inflation rate rose to 12.5 per cent in August, near a 17-year-high, despite the easing of world fuel prices, the government said Friday.

The National Statistics Office (NSO) said the August index was the highest since December 1991, when the inflation rate hit 13.2 per cent.

The figure was higher than July's 12.3 per cent and the 2.4 per cent in August 2007.

Manila - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on Thursday cancelled a trip to the United States later in the month amid fighting between government troops and Muslim rebels in the country's strife-torn southern region of Mindanao.

Press Secretary Jesus Dureza said Arroyo cancelled her trip to New York in time for the 63rd United Nations General Assembly to focus on local concerns.

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.