Somehow, Aquino Kept Her Halo

Former president restored democracy in the Philippines

(NEWSER) - Corazon Aquino, former president of the Philippines, has died at 76, the Los Angeles Times reports. Aquino became Asia’s first female president, leading a “people power” movement that eventually toppled dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986—and arguably set off a wave of democratic revolutions that ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet Union. Aquino was diagnosed with colon cancer last year. 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»

(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»

Allawi had been appointed by US after Saddam's fall

(NEWSER) - The Iraqi prime minister installed by Washington after the fall of Saddam Hussein has blasted President Bush’s policies as an “utter failure,” Reuters reports. In an interview with an Arab newspaper, Iyad Allawi said Bush’s “insistence on names like ‘democracy’ and ‘open elections,’ without giving attention to political stability, was a big mistake” that prompted ruinous sectarian violence. More»

Neither of top two candidates secured requisite 50%; next vote is Dec. 28

(NEWSER) - Voters in Ghana will have to go to the polls again to decide their next president, as neither major candidate received the 50% in Sunday’s election. Governing-party candidate Nana Akufo-Addo scored 49.13%, with key opposition leader John Atta Mills pulling in a close 47.92%. The next vote was scheduled for Dec. 28; observers praised the first round as peaceful, the BBC reports. More»