MANILA - TENS of thousands more people are leaving the Philippines to work abroad despite the global economic downturn which was expected to hit overseas employment, the labour department said on Tuesday.

Departures by job-seekers rose 25 per cent from a year earlier to 165,000 in January, Philippine Overseas Employment Administration administrator Jennifer Manalili told reporters.

KUALA LUMPUR (Malaysia) - MALAYSIAN budget carrier AirAsia wants a new terminal that is low-cost and efficient as the existing facility will soon run out of capacity with growing business and passenger traffic, an airline official said Tuesday.

The government on Sunday rejected AirAsia's plan to build and operate a 1.6 billion ringgit (S$669 million) low-cost carrier terminal in Labu in southern Negeri Sembilan state by 2011 in collaboration with conglomerate Sime Darby.

JAKARTA - AN INDONESIAN airliner was forced to land without its front gear but all 156 passengers survived, officials said on Tuesday, in the latest blot on the country's poor air safety record.

The incident occurred late on Monday when the Lion Air McDonnell Douglas MD-90 jet on a domestic flight from Medan was unable to release its nose gear as it approached Batam island's Hang Nadim airport, near Singapore.