TACLOBAN, Philippines (AP) — The Philippine government on Friday defended its efforts to deliver assistance to victims of Typhoon Haiyan, many of whom have received little or no assistance since the monster storm struck one week ago.

"In a situation like this, nothing is fast enough," Interior Secretary Mar Roxas said in Tacloban, most of which was destroyed by the storm one week ago. "The need is massive, the need is immediate, and you can't reach everyone."

The number of confirmed dead jumped more than 1,200 to 3,621, Eduardo del Rosario, executive director of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council told reporters Friday.

Some officials estimate that the final toll, when the missing are declared dead and remote regions reached, will be more than 10,000. At least 600,000 people have been displaced.

Authorities are struggling to meet their immediate needs, an expected occurrence after major disasters, especially in already poor countries where local and national governments lack capacity.

The pace of the aid effort has picked up over the last 24 hours, according to reporters who have been in the region for several days. Foreign governments are dispatching food, water, medical supplies and trained staff to the region. Trucks and generators are also arriving.

But many people complain that the aid effort is inadequate.

"The government's distribution system is not enough. They are handing out small food packets to each household. But when you have three families inside one home, one little packet is not enough," said Renee Patron, 33, an American citizen of Filipino descent who was in Guiuan city on eastern Samar province when the typhoon struck.

Her friend, Susan Tan, whose grocery store and warehouse were completely looted after the typhoon, is despondent but determined to carry on with her life and help others.

She's now using her empty warehouse as a center from where people can make calls on a satellite phone she got from a friend who works for local telecoms company Smart. There has been no cell phone service in the town since last Friday.

"This was my store. Now's it's a relief center and a call center," said Tan, 43. "It was ransacked by panicked ... people desperate for food. There was no way to control them. We had stocked up on food for the Christmas holidays. They took everything, and not just the food. They ransacked my office too, anything they could find. They took away our furniture."

Now, the barren blue shelves are empty. Still it is serving a purpose, with about 100 people queued up outside waiting to make calls. The free calls are limited to one minute each.

Johnny Ogriman, one of the men waiting in the line, said he has not spoken to any family members since the typhoon hit last week. "I'm trying to call my brother in Saudi Arabia. I want to let him know that we're alive, that we're safe," he said.

"Although I've been looted and bankrupt by this, I cannot refuse my friends and my town. We need to help each other," she said. "I can't just go to Cebu and sit in the mall while this place is in ruins."

Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin told The Associated Press that armed forces have set up communications lines and C-130 transport planes are conducting regular flights to Tacloban, the capital of Leyte.

"The biggest challenge is to be able to reach out to all the areas and overwhelm them with food and water. There are just a few more areas in Leyte and Samar that have not been reached and our hope is that we will reach all these areas today, 100 percent," he said.

In Tacloban city, the big challenge is the restoration of power, where many electric posts are down. But it may take some time because of the debris, he said.

Troops are removing bodies near the sea with the help of the Departments of Health, Public Works and Highways, he said.

Water filtration systems are also operating in Tacloban and two other towns in Leyte province, the hardest-hit area. Helicopters are dropping relief supplies, he said.

Gazmin said that looting has been brought under control and no incidents have been reported over the past two days. "Our augmentation of the police and Philippine army was able to stop the problem of lawlessness," he said.

A U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS George Washington, is moored off the coast, preparing for a major relief mission. The fleet of helicopters on board is expected to drop food and water to the worst affected areas. The aircraft carrier will set up a position off the coast of Samar Island to assess the damage and provide medical and water supplies, the 7th Fleet said in a statement.

The carrier and its strike group together bring 21 helicopters to the area, which can help reach the most inaccessible parts of the disaster zone.

The United Kingdom also is sending an aircraft carrier, the HMS Illustrious, with seven helicopters and facilities to produce fresh water, Britain's Ministry of Defense said. It said the ship is expected to reach the area about Nov. 25.

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AP writers Todd Pitman in Guiuan and Jim Gomez in Manila contributed to this report.

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The Central Intelligence Agency is building a vast database of international money transfers that includes millions of Americans' financial and personal data, officials familiar with the program say.

The program, which collects information from U.S. money-transfer companies including Western Union, is carried out under the same provision of the Patriot Act that enables the National Security Agency to collect nearly all American phone records, the officials said. Like the NSA program, the mass collection of financial transactions is authorized by a secret national-security court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

The CIA, as a foreign-intelligence agency, is barred from targeting Americans in its intelligence collection. But it can conduct domestic operations for foreign intelligence purposes. The CIA program is meant to fill what U.S. officials see as an important gap in their ability to track terrorist financing world-wide, current and former U.S. officials said.

The program serves as the latest example of blurred lines between foreign and domestic intelligence as technology globalizes many activities carried out by citizens and terrorists alike. The CIA program also demonstrates how other U.S. spy agencies, aside from the NSA, are using the same legal authority to collect data such as details of financial transactions.

In this case, the secret surveillance court has authorized the Federal Bureau of Investigation to work with the CIA to collect large amounts of data on international transactions, including those of Americans, as part of the agency's terrorism investigations.

The data collected by the CIA doesn't include any transactions that are solely domestic, and the majority of records collected are solely foreign, but they include those to and from the U.S., as well. In some cases, it does include data beyond basic financial records, such as U.S. Social Security numbers, which can be used to tie the financial activity to a specific person. That has raised concerns among some lawmakers who learned about the program this summer, according to officials briefed on the matter.

Former U.S. government officials familiar with the program said it has been useful in discovering terrorist relationships and financial patterns. If a CIA analyst searches the data and discovers possible suspicious terrorist activity in the U.S., the analyst provides that information to the FBI, a former official said.

The CIA declined to comment on specific programs but said its operations comply with the law and face oversight from Congress, the FISA Court and internal watchdogs. "The CIA protects the nation and upholds the privacy rights of Americans by ensuring that its intelligence-collection activities are focused on acquiring foreign intelligence and counterintelligence in accordance with U.S. laws," said agency spokesman Dean Boyd.

The FBI declined to comment.

A U.S. intelligence official said that any spy-agency operation under FISA Court orders require "strict compliance with the law and with those court orders." Orders would include procedures to safeguard the privacy of people in the U.S.; require training of those with access to information; prohibit searches not specifically authorized; and limit how long data may be retained, the official said.

In a typical money transfer, a person goes to a company such as Western Union and uses cash or a credit card to send funds to someone else. The recipient can pick up funds at a local money-transfer office. This process differs from, say, a bank transfer, in which funds might be moved from one account to another.

Details about money transfers are kept by the companies providing the service; that information is turned over to the CIA under court orders. Former officials named wire-transfer giant Western Union as a participant.

The full roster of participants couldn't be learned. Other large, global money-transfer companies include MoneyGram; there are numerous smaller firms.

"We collect consumer information to comply with the Bank Secrecy Act and other laws," said Western Union spokeswoman Luella D'Angelo, naming a law that requires banks to report suspicious transactions. "In doing so, we also protect our consumers' privacy and work to prevent consumer fraud."

A MoneyGram spokeswoman said, "We have reporting obligations related to suspicious transactions, money laundering and other financial crimes around the world. The laws to which we are subject generally prohibit us from discussing details." She also said, "We value our customers' privacy and work hard to protect it."

The data is obtained from companies in bulk, then placed in a dedicated database. Then, court-ordered rules are applied to "minimize," or mask, the information about people in the U.S. unless that information is deemed to be of foreign-intelligence interest, a former U.S. official said.

A limited number of analysts are allowed to search the database with queries that meet court-approved standards. This is similar to the way NSA handles its phone-data program.

Money-transfer companies are "highly, highly aware of their obligations under the Patriot Act," said Robert Pargac, a director in global investigations and compliance at Navigant Consulting Inc. who has worked at several such companies. Western Union said last month it would be spending about 4% of its revenue in 2014 on compliance with rules under the Patriot Act, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control and other anti-money-laundering and terrorist-financing requirements.

The likely existence of bulk collection programs other than phone-records data has been mentioned in a recently declassified opinion from a judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which approves such programs.

This past September, the Director of National Intelligence declassified FISA Court opinions that sharply criticized NSA for operating the phone program in violation of court-ordered privacy standards. The court also criticized NSA for repeatedly misrepresenting surveillance programs to it. Former officials said that CIA has run into some compliance issues, but they weren't on par with the problems NSA encountered.

Some officials who have overseen surveillance programs, like Timothy Edgar, a former top privacy lawyer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Council in the Bush and Obama administrations, say it is time for the government to make known what categories of data are being obtained under broad Patriot Act authorities.

"The public has a right to know about the broad outlines of how the government is collecting information on them," he said, noting that the FISA Court has noted the existence of other collection programs. "As a matter of basic good governance, the government should be more transparent about these kinds of collection programs."

The CIA and the Treasury Department have a different program that collects transactions between financial institutions from the Belgian cooperative known as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Communication, or Swift. That program doesn't collect data from person-to-person transfers.

The money-transfer program appears to have been inspired by details of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist plot, in which the al Qaeda hijackers were able to move about $300,000 to U.S.-based bank accounts without arousing suspicion. In part, it was because the transactions were comparably small and fit the pattern of the remittances used by immigrants or foreign visitors to send money home.

Some of the transfers were between bank accounts, but some moved through person-to-person transfers. In 2000, Sept. 11 plot facilitator Ramzi Binalshibh made a series of transfers, totaling more than $10,000, from Germany to the U.S., where they were collected by hijacker Marwan al-Shehhi. Two transfers were through MoneyGram and two through Western Union.

After the 2001 attacks, the CIA worked with Western Union, which voluntarily helped set up a program to collect data on money transfers between the U.S. and overseas, as well as purely foreign ones with voluntary compliance from companies, as has been previously reported.

That program was institutionalized by 2006 and continues under a controversial authority tucked into a part of the Patriot Act known as Section 215. That law permits the government to obtain "tangible things," including records, as long as the government shows it is reasonable to believe they are "relevant" to a terrorism investigation.

Under that provision, the U.S. government secretly interpreted the term "relevant" to permit collection of records on millions of people not necessarily under suspicion. That secret interpretation, used to justify the legality of the phone-records program, was brought to light in the wake of the revelations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The interpretation also was used by CIA as the legal underpinning of its bulk financial-records effort under the money-transfer program, officials said.

Money transfer forms differ depending on location and type. But they ask for the names, addresses and telephone numbers of senders and receivers. Depending on the transfer, senders and receivers also may be asked to provide the date and place of their birth. In most locations in the U.S., people sending $1,000 or more must provide an ID such as a driver's license. People sending $3,000 or more must provide additional ID, such as a Social Security number or passport.

Lawmakers have asked repeatedly whether intelligence agencies are using the Patriot Act to collect financial or other information in bulk outside the phone-records program. In public forums, officials have either mentioned that the information is classified or focused on whether the NSA collects such data, with no mention of the CIA or other agencies. Several lawmakers from both parties are seeking to curb the ability to use the Patriot Act for bulk collection of records.

Write to Siobhan Gorman at siobhan.gorman@wsj.com, Devlin Barrett at devlin.barrett@wsj.com and Jennifer Valentino-DeVries at Jennifer.Valentino-DeVries@wsj.com

Superheated ash and gas flowing down the slopes of Indonesia's Sinabung volcano signals the intensity of eruptions may be increasing at the fiery mountain, according to local officials.

More than 5,000 people have been evacuated from towns and villages in North Sumatra's Karo Regency since Mount Sinabungawoke in October after a three-year dormancy. Karo is an agricultural region that supplies vegetables for surrounding islands. The evacuation and devastating ash fall have affected crop harvests, leading to higher prices on vegetables and chilies elsewhere in Indonesia, according to the Jakarta Post.

The Indonesian Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation warned people not to approach within 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) of Mount Sinabung.

On Monday (Nov. 11), a pyroclastic flow, a fast-moving avalanche of ash, lava fragments and air, was seen racing down the peak. Since then, the volcano has blasted out one to two ash explosions every day. Lava has flowed more than 1,000 meters (3,200 feet) from the top of the volcano. [Watch Mount Sinabung erupt]

Indonesia lies in the Pacific "Ring of Fire," an area of crustal collision zones that is the cause of a great number of earthquakes and volcanoes. The island nation has more than 130 active volcanoes. The world's most deadly volcanic eruption in recent years was at its Mount Merapi in 2010, which killed more than 350 people.

Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us @OAPlanet, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

Dangerous volcano erupting in Indonesia

More than 5,000 people have been evacuated as lava and ash fly from the mouth of the Sinabung Volcano.
Impact on crops

TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Albania, a small, impoverished Balkan nation that is one of the United States' staunchest supporters, on Friday firmly rejected a U.S. request for it to host the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile.

The surprise refusal was a major blow to international efforts to destroy Syria's chemical arsenal by mid-2014. It left the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons without a country to host the destruction of Syria's estimated 1,000-metric ton arsenal, which includes mustard gas and the deadly nerve agent sarin.

Syria says it wants the weapons destroyed outside the country, which has been devastated by an ongoing civil war, and the OPCW has described that as the "most viable" option.

In a televised address from the capital of Tirana, Prime Minister Edi Rama said it was "impossible for Albania to take part in this operation."

The announcement was greeted by a loud cheer from some 2,000 protesters camped outside Rama's office to show their strong opposition to the plan, fearing it would be an environmental and health hazard.

Albania had been considered the OPCW's strongest hope, as few diplomats expected the Mediterranean nation of 2.8 million people to reject what Rama said had been a direct request from the United States. A Friday morning meeting of the OPCW's Executive Council in The Hague had been adjourned to work on the wording of the plan.

NATO-member Albania is one of only three nations worldwide that have declared a chemical weapons stockpile to the OPCW and destroyed it. Nations including the U.S. and Russia also have declared stockpiles, but have not yet completed their destruction.

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People wearing gas masks and posters reading "Stop to the chemical weapons" during a protest in fron …

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jan Psaki told reporters the decision would not hurt U.S.-Albanian relations.

"We appreciate Albania looking seriously at hosting the destruction of chemical weapons," she said. "The international community continues to discuss the most effective and expeditious means for eliminating Syria's chemical weapons program in the safest manner possible."

Tirana has been an avid supporter of Washington since the U.S. and NATO intervened with airstrikes in 1999 to stop a crackdown by Serb forces on rebel ethnic Albanians in neighboring Kosovo.

"Without the United States, Albanians would never have been free and independent in two countries that they are today," Rama said in an apologetic speech. "Without the United States, today there would surely be no demonstrations about chemical weapons."

But the plan was unpopular at home.

"We don't have the infrastructure here to deal with the chemical weapons. We can't deal with our own stuff, let alone Syrian weapons," said 19-year-old architecture student Maria Pesha, among the protesters camped out overnight outside Rama's office. "We have no duty to obey anyone on this, NATO or the U.S."

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An Albanian student wears a gas mask and holds a sign during a protest against chemical weapons duri …

Albania has had problems with ammunition storage in the past.

In March 2008, an explosion at an ammunition dump at Gerdec near Tirana killed 26 people, wounded 300 others and destroyed or damaged 5,500 houses. Investigators said it was caused by a burning cigarette in a factory where some 1,400 tons of explosives, mostly obsolete artillery shells, were stored for disposal.

Rama said he decided to reject the request because other countries, which he did not name, were not prepared to be a part of the operation.

"If some other countries would have moved in time to be part of this operation I would have been ready to tell you: This is our plan, here is the agreement with our partners, here is how little we will risk and how much we will gain morally as a nation and physically as a country," Rama said.

"Unfortunately this element, (as) important for me as it is for you, is today absent," he said.

Wherever and whenever it happens, the destruction of Syria's weapons will be overseen by experts from the Hague-based OPCW, which won the Nobel Peace Prize this year for its efforts to eradicate poison gas and nerve agents around the world.

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Demonstrators protest against the dismantling of Syrian chemical weapons in Albania in front of the …

The risky disarmament operation in the midst of a raging civil war started more than a month ago with inspections. Machinery used to mix chemicals and fill empty munitions was smashed, ending the Syrian government's capability to make new weapons.

The Syrian chemical disarmament mission stems from a deadly Aug. 21 attack on rebel-held suburbs of Damascus in which the United Nations determined that sarin was used. Hundreds of people were killed. The U.S. and Western allies accuse Syria's government of being responsible, while Damascus blames the rebels.

The Obama administration threatened to launch punitive missile strikes against Syria, prompting frantic diplomatic efforts to forestall an attack. Those efforts concluded with September's unanimous U.N. Security Council resolution endorsing the elimination of Syria's chemical weapons.

Since then, international inspectors have visited 22 of the 23 chemical weapons sites declared by Syria and have confirmed Damascus met a Nov. 1 deadline to destroy or "render inoperable" all chemical weapon production facilities.

In a clear indication the plan will involve transferring the chemical weapons out of Syria, Norway's foreign minister said Thursday his country would send a civilian cargo ship and a Navy frigate to pick up the stockpiles and carry them elsewhere for destruction.

Just getting the chemical weapons to a Syrian port during the civil war will be a high-risk operation.

Sigrid Kaag, the Dutch diplomat running the joint United Nations-OPCW mission in Syria, told the meeting in The Hague her team is "conducting its business in an active war zone, in an extreme security situation with serious implications for the safety" of all personnel.

Syria's conflict — now in its third year — has killed more than 120,000 people, according to activists, and displaced millions. It started as an uprising against Assad's rule but later turned into a civil war. The fighting has pitted Assad's government forces against a disunited array of rebel factions, including al-Qaida-linked extremists.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on activists on the ground, said Friday that a government airstrike the previous night in northern Syria killed a senior rebel figure and wounded two commanders and the spokesman of the Tawhid Brigade, the main rebel outfit in Aleppo province.

Also Friday, Syria's state-run news agency SANA said troops now have full control of the central towns Hawarin and Mahin, where last week rebels captured part of a sprawling army complex.

SANA said dozens of rebels have been killed in days of fighting and troops "destroyed a number of hideouts and big quantities of weapons."

The Observatory reported heavy fighting in Mahin and Hawarin.

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Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands. Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.