A Thalidomide victim who was jailed for drug offences in the Philippines nearly 20 years ago has been pardoned from his life sentence.

Those thank-you letters won’t write themselves... Make the chore bearable with charming paper and cards

Campaigners today welcomed the news that a Thalidomide victim who was jailed for drug offences in the Philippines nearly 20 years ago has been pardoned from his life sentence.

More than 1,000 people are missing in towns and villages devastated by a typhoon and flash floods last week, the national disaster agency said.

The Philippines government shipped more than 400 coffins today to two flood-stricken cities in the south where the death toll neared 1,000 as President Benigno Aquino III declared a state of national calamity and relief agencies rushed to help.

With funeral parlours overwhelmed, authorities in a flood-stricken southern Philippine city yesterday organised the first mass burial of people who were swept to their deaths in one of worst calamities to strike the region in decades.

With funeral companies overwhelmed, a flood-hit Philippine city has organised the first mass burial of some of nearly 700 people killed in one of worst calamities to strike the region in decades.

Officials warn death toll will rise as 11ft-deep waters brought by tropical storm start to recede

Pounding rain from a tropical storm swelled rivers and sent walls of water crushing into two southern Philippine cities in the thick of night, killing at least 436 people, many caught in their beds, officials said today.

A 14-year-old American boy held hostage in the southern Philippine jungle by the feared Abu Sayyaf rebel group has made an audacious escape, fleeing barefoot and surviving on coconuts for two days while following a river to the nearest village.

A kidnapped American teenage boy escaped from suspected al-Qa'ida-linked militants and wandered without shoes for two days in a southern Philippine jungle before villagers found him, ending his five-month captivity, officials said today.

Simon Read looks at an alternative Christmas gift that could help a small business abroad

Manny Pacquiao won a majority verdict against Juan Manuel Marquez to retain his WBO welterweight title.

New ban on work where labourers are beaten – but families still rely on the money sent home