The strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year flattened houses and triggered landslides in remote towns Monday, killing at least one person and leaving 23 others missing, authorities said.

With wind gusts of 200 kilometers (124 miles) an hour, authorities said they feared many people may have died as Typhoon Utor swept across coastal and mountainous regions of the northern Philippines.

Two roadside bombs exploded in the southern Philippines on Wednesday, one of which wounded seven soldiers, police said, in the latest attack to hit the restive region.

The bombs came just two days after a powerful blast killed eight people in the mixed Muslim-Christian city of Cotabato on Monday.

Ten people dressed in ninja-style garb have been detained after they arrived at Malaysia's royal palace in a bizarre attempt to claim the throne, police said Tuesday.

The unarmed group, reported by local media to be suspected followers of a Malaysian Muslim figure claiming royal descent, were stopped by police guards in the confrontations early Monday morning at the palace in Kuala Lumpur.

A powerful bomb exploded at the center of the southern Philippines city of Cotabato on Monday, killing six people and wounding more than two dozen others, police said.

The explosive device was placed in a vehicle -- either a motorcycle or a van -- parked near a hospital and a school during the afternoon rush hour, city police chief Senior Superintendent Rolen Balquin said.

The Philippines said Saturday it is purchasing a surplus French Navy vessel to boost its forces in the South China Sea where it has an ongoing territorial dispute with China.

The 26-year-old "La Tapageuse" vessel is likely to be the first of several French ships that will be acquired by the Philippine coastguard as it contends with increasingly assertive Chinese forces.

Three journalists have been gunned down in the Philippines in its worst spate of media killings in nearly four years, police and rights watchdogs said Friday.

The latest victim, freelance news photographer Mario Sy, was killed in front of his wife and child late Thursday by two suspects who broke into his home in the southern city of General Santos, police said.

An entire province in the Philippines has been plunged into darkness after the national power grid operator cut off supply because of accumulated debt of $93 million.

The blackout that started Tuesday surprised residents of Albay province in the central Philippines, which is home to 1.2 million people.

The Philippines said Wednesday it would likely keep its 340 soldiers in the Golan Heights as part of a United Nations peacekeeping force, amid improved security for the troops.

Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario told reporters the U.N. was close to fulfilling three conditions on upgrading safety set by the Philippines that would allow the Filipino soldiers to stay beyond August 11.

Six communist rebels led by a woman were killed in clashes with Philippine troops in the latest flare-up in one of Asia's longest-running insurgencies, the military said Wednesday.

Residents tipped off the military late Tuesday about nine New People's Army (NPA) rebels who were trying to set up a support network in a village in the northern province of Tarlac, military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Ramon Zagala said.

Three Muslim guerrillas were killed in the southern Philippines Tuesday in clashes between soldiers and a breakaway group opposed to talks aimed at ending a decades-long rebellion, the military said.

Rebels from the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) fired on an oil tanker and planted two explosive devices on a highway, forcing the military to shut down the road, army spokesman Colonel Dickson Hermoso said.