President Rodrigo Duterte plans to confront mayors who are on his final list of suspected drug personalities, and warn them to resign and abandon their drug trade, or face death. He was giving a speech during the oath-taking ceremony of over 200 appointees. "Either you resign or make a clean break of everything, come up with clean nose and we'll talk," he added.

President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday once again took shots at Barack Obama, dismissing the United States President as an "intellectual" who had no business being in politics. Current top breaking Philippine headlines regarding the nation, world, metro manila, regions and exclusive special investigative reports.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte derided U.S. ambassadors as "spies" on Thursday, responding to a media report of an alleged American plot to destabilize his government, a job he said some envoys were appointed solely to do. The volatile former mayor said though had received no intelligence reports of any U.S. plan to undermine his presidency, he believed most ambassadors were in cahoots with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which had a track record of meddling in other countries' affairs.

The president of the Philippines made his second murder confession in a month Tuesday. President Rodrigo Duterte claimed he threw a kidnapper out of a helicopter mid-flight during his tenure as mayor of Davao. The president’s statements were intended as a warning to corrupt officials, reports the Philippine Star. “If you are corrupt, I will fetch you with a helicopter and I will throw you out on the way to Manila,” Duterte explained. “I have done it before, why should I not do it again?”

US military's Joint Typhoon Warning Center says Nock-Ten is super typhoon with winds of up to 240 kph (150 mph) late Christmas Eve local time (1200 GMT), though it was expected to weaken before landfall

The UN human rights chief has asked Philippine authorities to launch a murder investigation after the president, Rodrigo Duterte, claimed to have killed people in the past, and to examine the “appalling epidemic of extrajudicial killings” committed during his anti-drug crackdown. Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said the country’s judicial authorities “must demonstrate their commitment to upholding the rule of law and their independence from the executive” by investigating the president.

There have been 5,927 deaths linked to the "war on drugs" in the Philippines since July 1 according to statistics released by the national police on Monday. President Rodrigo Duterte was elected to office in May on a platform of cracking down on crime, particularly illegal drugs.

Inside President Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal antidrug campaign in the Philippines, our photojournalist documented 57 homicide victims over 35 days.

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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Wednesday he'll consider continuing to acquire weapons and defense equipment from treaty ally the United States if his military recommends so, despite offers from China and Russia. Duterte made the remark in a speech in which he again railed at the U.S. with expletives for criticizing his deadly anti-drug crackdown, calling American officials "monkeys" and breaking a promise that he would no longer resort to trash talk.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has arrived in Japan for three-day of talks, but the first day of his visit was overshadowed by his rants against the United States, calling Americans "foolish" while threatening to cut off a 2014 defence pact with Washington DC. "The Americans are really a bully," for chastising him over his deadly war on drugs, Duterte told a crowd of Filipinos in Tokyo. He called it "demeaning" for the US to hint at cutting aid and assistance to the Philippines on human rights grounds, saying, "You can have it. It's all yours. We will survive."

A leading member of the Philippines’ senate has called for an international criminal investigation into the country’s president in an effort to stop a vicious war on drugs that has killed more than 3,800 people since June. Senator Leila de Lima, a human rights advocate and former justice secretary, has told the Guardian that foreign intervention was the only hope of putting an end to “state-inspired” extrajudicial murders that have terrorised parts of the population since president Rodrigo Duterte came to power four months ago.

Russia’s ambassador to the Philippines has said Moscow is ready to discuss an all-encompassing partnership with president Rodrigo Duterte, after he announced his country was “separating” from the United States. Igor Khovaev confirmed the Russian government was willing to provide diplomatic assistance to the Philippines in “any area, any field of possible cooperation”, adding that the two countries “deserve to know each other much, much better”.

President Rodrigo Duterte has backtracked on his comments about the Philippines' "separation" from the United States, saying severing of ties was not in the best interest of his country.

China's President Xi Jinping has welcomed his Filipino counterpart Rodrigo Duterte on a visit to Beijing which he described as a "milestone". Mr Duterte arrived on Tuesday for a four-day trip expected to boost trade and mend ties between the nations.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte announced his "separation" from the United States on Thursday, declaring he had realigned with China as the two agreed to resolve their South China Sea dispute through talks. Duterte made his comments in Beijing, where he is visiting with at least 200 business people to pave the way for what he calls a new commercial alliance as relations with longtime ally Washington deteriorate.

Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines, says the motivation for his brutal clampdown on drugs comes in part from being sexually abused by a Catholic priest as a child. The 71-year-old has attracted attention for a tough crackdown on the Filipino drug trade that has seen almost 4,000 people killed by police and vigilante gangs since he took office on 30 June. Asked about how being abused had influenced him, Mr Duterte told Al Jazeera: “It’s what you get along the way that shapes your character. At that time [it influences] your politics and how you look at the world."

In what could be another approach to deal with the drug problem in the country, President Duterte has formed a super task force to look into the treatment and rehabilitation of more than three million drug dependents all over the country. Duterte has been criticized for the killings happening in the course of his war against drugs, as various sectors noted that cutting supply through police operations was not the only solution to the problem. The drug menace is said to be a health concern as well, and treating people with addiction will reduce demand.

Typhoon Sarika will blast Luzon Island of the Philippines with flooding rain and damaging winds this weekend before taking aim at southern China and northern Vietnam.

Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte called U.S. President Barack Obama, the European Union and United Nations "fools" on Thursday, and warned they would end up humiliated and outsmarted if they accepted an invitation to investigate his war on drugs.