Two French warships docked in the commercial hub of Shanghai on Saturday, which diplomats said marked the first visit to China by French naval vessels since 2013.

The "Dixmude", which serves as a helicopter carrier, and the frigate "Aconit" pulled into port at a naval base in northern Shanghai on Saturday morning, greeted by Chinese military officers waiting on the dock with flowers and a band.

Ferry services were shut down and some seaside communities were warned they could be swamped by large waves as Typhoon Noul drew closer to the Philippines on Saturday, officials said.

The typhoon is set to smash into a small cluster of coastal towns in the mountainous north of Luzon island early Sunday bringing with it maximum sustained winds of 160 kilometres (100 miles) an hour, the state weather service said.

Hundreds of people fled their homes on the slopes of a rumbling Philippine volcano on Friday as authorities warned of rain-driven mudflows from an approaching typhoon that could bury them alive.

Around 500 residents of farming villages around Bulusan volcano, many of them children and elderly women, boarded army trucks clutching sleeping mats and bags of clothes as Typhoon Noul bore down on the area.

Vietnam has carried out significant land reclamation at two sites in disputed South China Sea waters, recent satellite pictures show, but analysts say the scale of the work is dwarfed by that of China.

The images, taken late last month by DigitalGlobe and shown on the website of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), show land expansions at Sand Cay and West London Reef, both part of the Spratly Islands chain and occupied by Vietnam.

A Pakistani military helicopter crashed Friday, killing seven people including the Norwegian and Philippine envoys and setting a school building ablaze in a remote northern valley.

The Pakistani Taliban later claimed the group had struck the aircraft with a ground-to-air missile hoping to assassinate Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who was flying to the region at the same time -- but the claim was rebutted by officials and multiple eye-witnesses.

Five Al Qaida-linked militants were killed in a failed kidnapping in the Philippines as the family of the victim fought back, the military said Thursday.

The Abu Sayyaf gunmen were shot in a sea battle with the victim's family Wednesday after they grabbed the local businesswoman and dragged her to their boat, provincial military chief Colonel Alan Arrojado told AFP.

Pope Francis will visit Chile in 2016, the South American country confirmed Wednesday, after a meeting in Rome between its foreign minister and his Vatican counterpart.

The confirmation follows comments by the pope during a January visit to the Philippines, where he said he planned to travel to Chile, Argentina and Uruguay in 2016.

A Filipino on the United States' list of most wanted "terrorists" has been killed in a firefight in the southern Philippines, Muslim rebel leaders and the military said Monday.

Abdul Basit Usman was killed in a remote mountainous area while being escorted by members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the nation's biggest rebel group, its vice chairman Ghazali Jaafar said.

Philippine President Benigno Aquino on Thursday thanked Indonesia for granting a reprieve to a Filipina on death row, crediting his Indonesian counterpart Joko Widodo for his quick action.

Aquino told reporters that he had sent a letter just after midnight that had resulted in the last-minute decision by the Indonesian President not to execute single mother Mary Jane Veloso.

Australia urged Indonesia Monday to ensure the trials of two men sentenced to death on drugs charges were corruption free before their executions go ahead, as family members readied to say their last goodbyes.

"Bali Nine" drug traffickers Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan could face the firing squad within days, along with others from Brazil, Nigeria, the Philippines and an Indonesian prisoner.