Distressing news from South East Asia keep coming as the Philippines tries to recover from the disaster that the recent typhoon "Frank" brought about on the islands.

The death count for the capsized ferry, the MV Princess of the Stars, has risen to 70 as divers rescued three more bodies from the wreckage. Only 48 survivors have yet been rescued.

Oasis fans rejoice. The tentative release date for the band's freshest tracks is the 7th of October. The album, entitled "Dig Out Your Soul" is produced by Dave Sardy. It also contains a selection of songs from all of the four members.

Stevie Wonder has already been busy on the road with A Wonder's Summer Night 2008 tour. However, this doesn't stop the celebrated and award-winning musician from working on new projects. Words coming out that he may be in the middle of two or three recording projects. He's been writing while on the move.

It happens every now and then that one team appears out of the dark and ends up winning a strong international cup or, if not, achieving an amazing performance. It used to happen more with clubs than with national teams. Forget about it. The Euro 2008, amazing and electrifying as very few international competition in the last years has kicked away almost every law of football, with the strong apparition of two very small but strong teams -Turkey and Russia- in its semifinals and with a big one -Spain- that finally broke its own curse of the quarterfinals. Germany, the other survivor of the past hear-taking days of football in Europe, is the only team that is playing its cards with the weight of the name: the Germans are, as said in previous notes, a team that can stand strong criticism with no further problem and, even better, get to the decisive stages of a cup without playing more than one proper game. With the semifinal set and about to start, it's a good time to look back to the previous round to have a clear preview of what might happen in the next days.

With a big part of the Euro almost gone, and the most exciting one still to come, the strengths and weaknesses of the different teams have led to amazing matches with extremely exciting resolutions. Sudden definitions have taught the writer it’s not good to go but a Coke when a match seems defined, as you might come back home to find the result is suddenly upside down. The candidates have been defined but many matches are still to be played and with the end of the first round, there’s still plenty to discover. Still, the obvious is the obvious and some teams have shown and amazing strength and are already thinking about how it would be to win the Euro this time.

The beginning of the always promising EURO has shown matches of very different kinds, but mainly, some very good matches and some others that were not up to the expectations. With only Greece against Sweden left to play, each team has shown its profile, and some have proved they can be really considered candidates for this edition.

Rock band Motley Crue returns to the music scene with their new album this season. Though the boys are delighted with their upcoming release and a festival tour, they are quite disdained at the lack of progress with a movie that is supposed to depict their lives. They should however, be proud of making the news by being the first band to debut a single on a video game.

Jamie Lynn Spears, the little sis of pop star Britney Spears, is now a mother at 17 years old. She gave birth to her baby girl on Thursday morning. The birth has not yet been officially announced, though a friend had reported that she gave birth at the Mississippi hospital.

Even after the cold winter, the ice in the Arctic Sea is melting at a faster rate than the previous year. In the beginning of 2008, ice covered a larger area in comparison to the same time last year. However, this summer has broken records for sea ice loss.

What some scientists have been reasoning is that large components of the ice are very thin, making them melt easily. A future possibility that is worrisome is that the Arctic, in five to ten years, may very well become ice-free in the summers.

According to BBC news online, Chinese South Africans are to be reclassified as black people, as ruled by the High Court in South Africa.

The order was made to allow ethnic Chinese the benefit from government policies that are aimed at the end of white domination in the private sector of South Africa. An estimate reports that there are 200,000 ethnic Chinese presently living in South Africa.