Cotabato City, Philippines - One soldier was killed Thursday in a clash with Muslim separatist rebels in the southern Philippines, a regional military spokesman said.

The fighting erupted at dawn when Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels attacked a group of soldiers who were on their way to an army outpost in Aleosan town in North Cotabato province, 960 kilometres south of Manila, Major Randolph Cabangbang said.

The fatality was an army sergeant who died while being treated for gunshot wounds in a nearby hospital, Cabangbang said.

Manila - Before flying back to California after a short vacation in Manila, Raymond Gornis visited the site of a condominium project in the bustling Araneta Center in Quezon City, where he plans to buy a unit.

Gornis, 36, has been shuffling between two jobs as a school teacher and storekeeper in a video store in California for the past four years to save money to invest in properties and to start a small business in his eastern home province of Sorsogon.

Manila - Philippine shares

Manila - The World Bank committed 10 billion dollars in a standby fund to help member countries of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) weather the global economic crisis, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said Wednesday.

Arroyo said the bank issued the commitment after the 10-country ASEAN and its partners Japan, China and South Korea agreed at the weekend to set up a mechanism that would help cash-strapped ASEAN members.

Manila - A Filipino overseas worker convicted of killing a Saudi Arabian national was executed Tuesday, a senior Philippine official said.

Foreign Undersecretary Esteban Conejos said Jenifer Bidoya was beheaded after his death sentence was affirmed by the Saudi Arabia Supreme Court.

Conejos said Bidoya was sentenced to death by the Jeddah Sharia Grand Court in April 2007 for killing a Saudi national guardsman.

Bidoya's execution was carried out despite the appeal for clemency of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to Saudi Arabia King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud.

Conejos said the family of the victim refused to forgive Bidoya and insisted on the imposition of the death penalty.

Manila- The Philippine Supreme Court on Tuesday declared as unconstitutional a territorial deal between the government and Muslim secessionist rebels.

The high tribunal in early August stopped the signing of the agreement that would have expanded the existing autonomous Muslim region in the strife-torn southern island of Mindanao because of questions over its constitutionality.

The deal reached between government peace negotiators and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) was eventually scrapped by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.