For the second time, the City Council denied the applications submitted by three local cockpits for the holding of cockfight derbies next month.

Councilor Roel Natividad, chairman of the City Council''s Committee on Games and Amusement, presented the re-application letters of three cockpit operators yesterday during the Council''s regular session but the applications got no approval.

The mother of a 16-year-old gay who was stabbed and killed in during a school disco party in Sitio Lawingan, Labuan at dawn last Saturday, appealed to the police to arrest the killer or killers and bring them to justice.

Mrs. Josephina Andal, a social worker, mother Joemar Andal, a high school student of the Labuan National High School, was accompanied by Councilor Mila Velasquez to see City Police Director Sr. Supt. Francisco Cristobal and ask to solve the murder of his son.

Police arrested yesterday an alleged notorious woman swindler in Guiwan, this city.

The suspect was identified as Rowena Ituralde, 32, of Callejon Drive, Guiwan.

Not too long ago, the future seemed blurred for the more than 100 squatter families at the port area in Paniran after a big dawn fire destroyed their entire community.

Many have lost their homes with only few of their personal belongings saved in the fire. The depressed families had nowhere to turn to and had to squeeze into small makeshift tents in Petit Barracks as their temporary shelters. Most of them depended on the food and assistance given by the city government and other well-meaning groups and organizations. However the aid came few and only on the first few days.

The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration regional office-9 headed by Labor Attache Liddy Rasul-Tañedo, OIC-regional director in coordination with Smart Telecommunications Zamboanga

City branch under general manager Thelma R. Alvarez, launched a three-minute free overseas call yesterday in connection with the government''s effort to alleviate the fears and anxieties of Overseas Filipino Workers and their dependents dubbed as "Oplan Sagip OFW Lebanon 2006".

Inspite of only one and a half day stay in Zamboanga City, Chinese

Ambassador Li JinJun managed to wrap up his visit with a good impression about Mayor Celso Lobregat and the city itself.

Vice Mayor Beng Climaco yesterday called for the strict but intensified implementation of the accessibility law and other plans and programs that would ensure the protection and welfare of the differently abled sector.

The vice mayor said this, as she observed that a number of business establishments set up in the city are not designed to be disabled friendly.

By virtue Presidential Proclamation No. 12, the month of July and every year thereafter is declared Blood Donors Month. This year''s theme is "I am a Blood Donor and I Save Lives."

The local Red Cross Chapter spearheaded the orientation and blood letting activities at Zamcelco, Western Mindanao State University, Ateneo de Zamboanga University''s SACSI , 627th

Despite the progress the Philippines and her sister nations of Southeast Asia are making in their battles against terror, challenges remain. The threat of international terrorism still hangs over the region, despite a determined effort to consolidate resources and present a unified front against a common threat.

Of course, terrorism differs from country to country. Each nation has different conditions that color its own internal threat. But, in general, the pall of international terrorism creates a similar anxiety throughout the region.

PGMA''s SONA was more like a dream, too good to be true. We expected her to report to the people of the different accomplishments her Administration has had undertaken, whether it be successful or not, to enable us to see her as a real and sincere person and as to whether she did good or bad in her performances as the leader of our nation.

We hear people comment that she is trying her best, but her best has yet to be fulfilled. She doesn''t have to talk of her plans to create the Super Regions, laudable as it appears to be, but what we wanted to hear was the past and present accomplishments. The errors committed by her Administration are understandable, as it doesn''t take overnight to overhaul the image of our country. It''s also a fact that nobody is perfect, neither is any given situation.

WASHINGTON -- Preschoolers at Primrose Schools, a US-based franchisor of early childhood education centers, are reaching out to students in the Philippines by supplying them with learning kits for more than 300 classrooms. The program targets the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and the Zamboanga Peninsula.

About 20,000 preschoolers at 150 schools in 13 states participated in school-based fundraisers to raise money for more than 300 learning kits. Filled with teaching tools and educational toys such as globes, rhythm instruments, balls and special mathematical blocks, the kits will be delivered to 229 Mindanao schools by Creative Learning volunteers. Creative Learning is a not-for-profit sister organization of Creative Associates International, Inc.

After lying low for several months, con men locally known as "budol budol" struck anew victimizing a retired public school teacher at a fastfood joint yesterday afternoon.

A police report identified the victim as Cosolita Dela Torre, married, of Lamitan, Basilan.

The body of a 17-year-old boy was found with multiple stab wounds near the Renriquez Beach Resort in Sitio Lawingan, Labuan.

The fatality was identified as Joemar Andal, a third year high school of the Labuan National High School.

Congressman Erbie A. Fabian''s congressional office is deluge with phone calls and text messages asking him to put up more sport tournaments and continue the program so that more youths will benefit from it.

This was learned from Fabian''s staff who revealed that almost daily a caller is asking if Fabian has scheduled an athletic tournament in their barangay.

A man yesterday lodged a sexual abuse complaint against his nephew who allegedly impregnated the man''s 13-year-old daughter.

The complainant said his daughter is seven months pregnant and was forced to stop going to school.