Mindanao in the Southern Philippines is one of the most dangerous place to work as a journalist in the world; second to Iraq.

According to the National Union of Journalists, 51 reporters have been killed since President Arroyo came to power in 2001.

Shariff Kabunsuan, Editor of a newspaper based in Mindanao, was the 50th journalist killed under Arroyo’s watch on February 19 this year.

Rebecca Henschke takes a look at why the media has become the enemy.

Clan wars, known locally as ‘rido’, are alarmingly widespread in the Southern Philippines. That’s according to a recent study carried out by the Institute of Bangsamoro Studies.

They found that there have been more than one thousand clan feuds in the South since the 1930s, killing nearly 5,000 people

and displacing tens of thousands. The clans can be either Muslim or Christian and hostility is usually related to political

and business rivalries rather than religion.

As Rebecca Henschke reports, these long-running clan wars are complicating the peace process.

Welcome to island Paradise’ is the sign that greets visitors to Baslian Island, in the Southern Philippines. However there are no longer international visitors on the palm-fringed beaches.

The Sulu Archipelago in is renowned for the wrong reasons.

It’s home to Abu Sayyaf, a home-grown, small, but vicious, militant group with the stated aim of creating an Islamic State.

Washington, Manila and Brussels have added it to their list of terrorist organizations.

Thousands of troops from Manila, backed by the United State, have been sent here to destroy the radical group. They claim they are close to wiping it out after killing senior leaders.

But most locals think poverty, rather than Islamic ideology bent on separatism, is to blame and that only a marked improvement in living standards will rid the area of the terrors of violence.

Rebecca Henschke investigates from Baslian.

The Philippines government says it has reached an agreement with the country’s main Islamic separatist group on boundaries for a Muslim homeland.

The government say “demarcation was agreed after two days of talks in Malaysia with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).  A final peace deal would end nearly three decades of conflict that has killed 120,000 people and displaced at least two million.

The MILF has demanded the creation of an autonomous Muslim region on the island, where Shariah Law would be enforced and they would have control over security and natural resources.

But Mindanao is largely a Christian Island with Muslims just 18 percent of the population. There are concern that if an agreement is not implemented carefully, inter-religious communal violence could erupt.

Rebecca Henschke takes a look at civil society efforts to address simmer tension between the faiths.