Corazon Aquino Dead at 76

(NEWSER) - Before his murder, Benigno Aquino predicted that anyone who succeeded Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos would smell like manure in six months. But his own wife would prove him wrong, writes Howard Chua-Eoan of Time. Corazon “Cory” Aquino, who died yesterday of heart failure, was a political saint who never quite lost her halo, “a good woman whose goodness alone, at the very end, was what proved enough, if only by an iota, to save her country." More»

Captors had demanded more money after getting first ransom

(NEWSER) - Philippine police rescued a kidnapped 4-year-old American boy this week after his captors demanded a second ransom. Gunmen pulled the boy out of a car he was riding in with his Filipino mother on Dec. 6, according to the AP . His family paid his ransom three days later, but the kidnappers refused to release him, instead demanding more money. More»

Diplomatic efforts to 'engage' generals won't lead to democracy

(NEWSER) - The extension of Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest today serves as the latest reminder of the injustice at the core of the Burmese government. Past US policy revolves around sanctions, which further isolate the country and drive it into China’s economic embrace. Some congressional figures have called on President Obama to find a way to “engage” the ruling generals to enact change in Myanmar, the Christian Science Monitor reports. More»

(AP) - Former Philippines President Corazon Aquino was laid to rest today next to her assassinated husband, after a funeral procession joined by hundreds of thousands. About 600 priests and nuns linked arms around the Aquino mausoleum at the Manila Memorial Park to keep back the crowd following the flatbed truck with her flag-draped coffin on its nine-hour journey through the rain-soaked streets of the capital. More»

(NEWSER) - The billionaire chief of Formula One racing admires Adolf Hitler, disses democracy, and applauds Margaret Thatcher—but slams the West for lacking cultural sensitivity. Hitler "could command a lot of people" and was "able to get things done," Bernie Ecclestone tells the Times of London. But Germany's tyrant allowed others to persuade him "to do things that I have no idea whether he wanted to do or not ... In the end he got lost." More»