Manila

The United States and China piled new pressure on North Korea on Aug. 6 to abandon its nuclear missile program after the U.N. Security Council approved tough new sanctions which could cost Pyongyang $1 billion a year.

The Philippines said Aug. 4 it would tell visiting U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson his concerns over its drug war that has claimed thousands of lives were due to "exaggerated media reports."

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has stressed the importance of security ties with Beijing during a visit to China.

"We see China's security as our security," the minister told a joint news conference on Aug. 3 with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson believes there is a danger that Russian-American relations will get worse. Tillerson will meet with Russia's first diplomat Sergei Lavrov at a regional forum in Manila this weekend. Reports BNT.

President Rodrigo Duterte received a draft law by the Moro rebel group on July 17, in an important step to broker peace in the southeast Asian country.        

An armed man who killed 37 people when he set fire to a casino in the Philippine capital was a father-of-three from Manila motivated by heavy gambling debts and not terrorism, police said yesterday.

A masked gunman set fire to a gaming room at a casino in the Philippine capital on June 2, igniting a toxic blaze that killed 36 people, authorities said, but they insisted it was not a terrorist attack.

Russia and the Philippines have signed almost a dozen deals, including a defense and military cooperation agreement, days after Rodrigo Duterte cut short his Moscow visit to urgently tackle the ongoing terrorist crisis in the country's south.

Overall, Moscow and Manila signed 11 documents which had been prepared for the Philippines president's visit to Russia.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte warned on May 24 that he would deal harshly with militants, after declaring martial law on Mindanao island following a failed raid on a hideout of Islamic State-linked rebels.

The United States is bringing its Southeast Asian allies on board to tackle what senior officials described as the number one national security priority for the U.S. — North Korea's nuclear proliferation and missile threats — when foreign ministers from Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) gather Thursday in Washington, Voice of America reported.