KUALA LUMPUR - MALAYSIAN activists escorted by opposition MPs defied a police ban to cycle to parliament on Thursday and present a list of demands including the repeal of a tough security law.

The activists, who have spent 16 days pedalling across the country, were blocked by police who deployed scores of officers, threw up barricades at the entrance of parliament and warned organisers their action was illegal.

ILIGAN (Philippines) - BOMBS ripped through two department stores in this southern Philippines city on Thursday, killing two people and injuring at least 36, police and hospital officials said.

Police swarmed the bloodied, upturned baggage check-in counters of the Unity store and the neighbouring Gerry's Shoppers' Plaza in downtown Iligan to collect evidence shortly after the early afternoon blasts, an AFP photographer on the scene said.

JAKARTA - INDONESIA is planning to deploy 47,685 police officers across the nation as worshippers celebrate Christmas and the New year, police said on Thursday.

The deployment, dubbed the 'Operation Candle 2008', will last from December 24 to January 2. 'The targets are churches and the Christians who are going to the Christmas mass,' national police spokesman Abubakar Nataprawira told AFP.