The Philippine military said Tuesday it had killed 17 militants opposed to a peace deal between the government and the country's main Muslim rebel group, as fighting raged for a second day.

More than 1,500 troops are involved in the offensive against the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) in remote farming areas of the mainly Catholic country's Muslim south, regional military spokesman Colonel Dickson Hermoso said.

The Philippine government and the country's main Muslim rebel group said Sunday they hoped to sign within weeks a final peace deal to end decades of deadly insurgency after clearing the last hurdle in 18 years of negotiations.

A "comprehensive agreement" with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) should be signed in February or March, Manila's chief negotiator Miriam Coronel-Ferrer told AFP, following a breakthrough announced on Saturday.

The Philippine government said Saturday they had cleared a last hurdle in long-running peace negotiations with Muslim rebels aimed at ending a deadly decades-old insurgency in the country's south.

President Benigo Aquino hopes to secure a final peace settlement before leaving office in mid-2016 to end the rebellion by Muslim groups, which has left some 150,000 people dead.

Pope Francis may visit South Korea next summer as part of a possible trip to Asia, a Vatican spokesman said Wednesday.

"I can confirm that a trip to South Korea is being considered. The pope has been invited by the authorities there," spokesman Federico Lombardi said, adding that the trip "could take place towards mid-August, but not this year".

The death toll from the first storm to batter the disaster-prone Philippines this year has climbed to 40, officials said Sunday, as forecasters warned more heavy rain was on its way.

"Lingling" -- a tropical depression -- has wreaked havoc across the southern island of Mindanao, affecting more than 580,000 people, 161,000 of whom have been displaced and moved to evacuation centers.

The Philippines has rapidly become a key hub of the billion-dollar global child cybersex industry, with operators aided by widespread poverty and legal loopholes that allow them to remain anonymous, police said Friday.

Paying subscribers anywhere in the world can log in to sites operated from Manila and across the archipelago that stream the abuse of Filipino children on the Internet, Senior Superintendent Gilbert Sosa said.

Thousands of people are fleeing rising floodwaters in a fresh round of evacuations in the southern Philippines, officials said Friday as the death toll from a week of bad weather rose to 34.

At least 8,000 people fled villages along the flooded banks of the Agusan river on Mindanao island in the past 24 hours, said John Uayan, operations official of the civil defense office in the region.

Celebrations broke out in the Philippines Wednesday after a Filipina who has spent nearly half her life as a carer overseas won Israel's first "X Factor" competition.

Rose Fostanes, one of millions of Filipinos working abroad, won the television talent show late Tuesday with a rendition of Frank Sinatra's "My Way" that delighted fans in both countries.

Twenty-two people have been killed and nearly 200,000 others evacuated as floods and landslides hit a southern Philippine region still recovering from a deadly 2012 typhoon, the government said Tuesday.

Torrential rain struck the eastern section of Mindanao island at the weekend, unleashing a fresh round of misery for survivors of Typhoon Bopha, civil defense officials said.

A suspected improvised bomb attack at a university campus in the Philippines, has left 24 people wounded -- many critically -- including students and teachers, police said Monday.

It appeared a fire was set off deliberately in a school building housing security personnel at the state-run Cotabato Foundation College of Science and Technology, before the blast occurred Sunday night, police added.