Philippines says envoy recalled over Canada trash row

This file photo taken on September 9, 2015, shows environmental activists rallying outside the Philippine Senate in Manila to demand that scores of containers filled with household rubbish be shipped back to Canada. -AFP

MANILA (AFP): The Philippines has recalled its ambassador to Canada, Manila's foreign minister said Thursday, in an escalation of a festering diplomatic row over tonnes of trash shipped to the Southeast Asian nation.

Ties have been deteriorating since a Canadian company sent around 100 shipping containers that included rotting rubbish wrongly labelled as recyclables to Philippine ports in 2013 and 2014.