“We are maintaining the decision made not to participate in the fifth round of talks,” chief government negotiator Jesus Dureza told journalists after almost 10 hours of closed-door consultations.

“There are no compelling reasons for us to change the decision… which we announced yesterday,” he said, adding that Manila was “formally” withdrawing from the round.

It was the fifth scheduled round of talks since the resumption of formal negotiations between Manila and the communists in August.

They were meant to address such issues as a joint interim ceasefire, social and economic reforms and human rights issues.

The 2,300-kilometre (1,400-mile) World Heritage-listed reef suffered its most severe bleaching on record last year due to warming sea temperatures during March and April.

Initial aerial and in-water surveys showed 22 percent of shallow water corals were destroyed in 2016, but it has now been bumped up to 29 percent and with the reef currently experiencing an unprecedented second straight year of bleaching, the outlook is grim.

“We’re very concerned about what this means for the Great Barrier Reef itself and what it means for the communities and industries that depend on it,” Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) chairman Russell Reichelt said.

“The amount of coral that died from bleaching in 2016 is up from our original estimates and, at this stage, although reports are still being finalised, it’s expected we’ll also see an overall further coral cover decline by the end of 2017.”

Bleaching, which occurs when abnormal conditions such as warmer sea temperatures cause corals to expel tiny photosynthetic algae, draining them of their colour, also extended to deeper corals beyond depths divers can typically survey.

But mortality of those reefs could not be systematically assessed.

The most severely impacted region was an area north of the popular tourist town Port Douglas, where an estimated 70 percent of shallow water corals have died.

Cairns and Townsville, also hugely popular tourist destinations, are among the regions hardest-hit from the 2017 bleaching event, although southern parts of the natural wonder escaped the worst.

Corals can recover if the water temperature drops and the algae are able to recolonise them, but it can take a decade.

The reef is already under pressure from farming run-off, development and the crown-of-thorns starfish, with the problems compounded this year by powerful cyclone pummelling the area.

Reichelt said the storm impacted a quarter of the reef but a complete picture for 2017 would not be available until next year.

The GBRMPA hosted a summit last week of more than 70 of the world’s leading marine experts to work on a blueprint on how best to respond to the threats.

Among options explored was developing coral nurseries, strategies to boost culling of crown-of-thorns starfish, expanding monitoring systems and identifying priority sites for coral restoration.

Key to the talks was the need to slash greenhouse gas emissions to prevent warming sea temperatures.

“The Great Barrier Reef is a large and resilient system that’s previously shown its capacity to bounce back, however the current changes are undermining the resilience of the reef,” said Reichelt.

“Summit participants voiced their strong concern about the need for global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the driver of climate change.”

The world’s nations agreed in Paris in 2015 to limit average warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels, by curbing fossil fuel burning.

China currently has a shortage of civilian helicopters for emergency medical purposes and other uses due to the military’s tight control over the nation’s airspace.

Airbus Helicopters plans to complete its plant in the eastern port city of Qingdao at the end of next year.

The first helicopter is scheduled to be delivered in mid-2019, its president Guillaume Faury told reporters during the laying of the foundation stone on Saturday.

The plant will be the first by a foreign helicopter manufacturer on Chinese soil, he said. It will be jointly operated by Airbus Helicopters and Qingdao United General Aviation Company.

Airbus also has an aircraft assembly plant in the northeastern city of Tianjin, which it opened in 2008.

A letter of intent for a 750-million euro ($800 million) deal, involving the sale of 100 H135 helicopters to China and the construction of the assembly plant, was signed during a visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2015.

Airbus Helicopters saw its revenues fall by two per cent last year but is counting on China to boost sales.

The country became its top market last year, with 48 of the 100 helicopters which China bought last year coming from Airbus.

China has a fleet of only 800 helicopters, compared with 8,000 in Europe and 12,000 in the United States, so the potential for growth is vast, said Vincent Dufour, Airbus Helicopters’ sales director in the country.

The Chinese market is still hampered by military controls over airspace. Airbus hopes this will gradually be relaxed as was partially done in the late 1990s for commercial airplane flights.

The versatile twin-engine H135 machines are often deployed for emergency medical services and Airbus says this is its initial market.

But the aircraft maker also plans later to sell units to Chinese police for surveillance purposes.

Such a sale would not contravene the embargo on arms sales to China, said Faury.

“It’s not our policy to sell military products in China,” he said.

The official Disaster Management Centre said 112 people were still missing, with 50 injured in hospital, since torrential rain and landslides swept away entire villages.

Floodwaters were receding in some areas after a break in the rain, giving authorities a chance to deliver much-needed supplies to victims who lost everything in the deluge.

Heavy rains on Friday triggered the worst flooding and landslides in 14 years in the southern and western parts of the island.

Many villages were still underwater Sunday, officials said.

Nearly 2,000 houses were damaged or completely destroyed. Almost half a million Sri Lankans had been forced from their homes, with most moving into temporary shelters.

The charity Save the Children said about a tenth of those displaced were children below the age of five years.

It said raised fears of stagnant flood waters becoming breeding grounds for dengue spreading mosquitos and noted that young children were more vulnerable.

Medical teams were dispatched to the worst-affected areas to help prevent an outbreak of waterborne diseases.

“We have the expertise to deal with this situation,” Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne said, adding cholera and diarrhoea had been successfully prevented in past floods.

The government withdrew an evacuation order for thousands of residents in the southern district of Matara as water levels subsided.

“The threat of floods around the (river) Nilvala has subsided,” irrigation department director M. Thuraisingham said.

“The flood levels near Colombo have also gone down because we did not have rain in the past 24 hours.”

Water levels in Ratnapura, Sri Lanka’s gem district east of Colombo, subsided but many villages in Kalutara, south of the capital, were still under water, officials said.

The violence prompted President Rodrigo Duterte to declare martial law on Tuesday across the southern third of the Philippines to quell what he said was a fast-growing threat of militants linked to the Islamic State (IS) group.

Authorities said the militants had killed 19 civilians in Marawi, a mostly Muslim-populated city of 200,000 people. These included three women and a child who were found dead near a university.

“These are civilians, women. These terrorists are anti-people. We found their bodies while conducting rescue operations (on Saturday),” regional military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jo-ar Herrera told AFP.

An AFP photographer saw another eight bodies by a road in the outskirts of Marawi on Sunday, with local residents identifying them as employees of a rice mill and a medical college.

Herrera said the military had yet to investigate the reported deaths.

The violence began when dozens of gunmen went on a rampage throughout Marawi after security forces attempted to arrest Isnilon Hapilon, a veteran Filipino militant regarded as the local leader of IS.

The gunmen planted black IS flags, took a priest and up to 14 other people hostage from a church, and set fire to buildings.

Thirteen soldiers, two policemen and 51 militants have died in the fighting, according to authorities. This brings the combined official death toll to at least 85.

Most of the city’s residents have fled because of the fighting, which has seen the military heavily bomb residential areas where the militants were believed to be hiding.

The military announced on Saturday, the start of the Holy month of Ramadan, that it would intensify the bombing campaign.

“In as much as we would like to avoid collateral damage, these rebels are forcing the hand of government by hiding and holding out inside private homes, government buildings and other facilities,” military spokesman Brigadier-General Restituto Padilla said.

“Their refusal to surrender is holding the city captive. Hence, it is now increasingly becoming necessary to use more surgical airstrikes to clear the city and to bring this rebellion to a quicker end.”

Duterte and military chiefs have said most of the militants belong to the local Maute group, which they estimate has about 260 armed followers and has declared allegiance to IS.

But Duterte has said local criminals are backing the Maute in Marawi.

The move to scale back the threat level from critical to severe was announced by Prime Minister Theresa May who said there were now 11 suspects in custody over Monday night’s bombing targeting young fans at a pop concert.

Investigators gave details of Abedi’s last hours as they released photographs from security cameras showing the bespectacled suicide bomber in trainers, jeans, black sleeves, a black cap and a black puffer waistcoat, over which the straps of his backpack can be seen.

The 22-year-old, of Libyan origin, was born in the northwestern English city.

The police statement said one of the last places he went to was a “city centre flat and from there he left to make his way to the Manchester Arena,” where the attack took place.

“The flat is highly relevant as a location which we believe may be the final assembly place for the device.”

Two unarmed police officers remained on guard outside the entrance to Granby House, believed to contain the flat in question, according to an AFP correspondent at the scene.

“It is surprising, because these people are just under your nose and you don’t know it,” said Harpreet Lota, a Manchester resident walking past the building.

In their latest arrests over the attack, police detained two men, aged 20 and 22, in an early morning raid in north Manchester on Saturday.

Along with the 11 suspects in UK custody, police in Libya have detained Abedi’s father and brother.

A third of those killed in Monday’s bombing were children, and another 116 people were injured.

The attack, which has been claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group, targeted concertgoers at the end of a show by US teen pop idol Ariana Grande.

British counter-terror chief Mark Rowley said Friday that police had captured “a large part of the network” linked to the bombing.