Armed patrols prowled neighborhoods and tanks appeared in the streets for the first time Thursday after riot police with tear gas and clubs drove protesters from a main square where they had demanded sweeping political change in this tiny kingdom. Medical officials said four people were killed.
Police cars with flashing blue lights encircled Pearl Square, the site of anti-government rallies since Monday. Barbed wire was set up on streets leading to the square, where police cleaned up flattened protest tents and trampled banners. The Interior Ministry declared the protest camp "illegal" and warned Bahrainis to stay off the streets.
The island nation was effectively shut down since workers in the capital could not pass checkpoints or were too scared to venture out. Banks and other key institutions did not open.
The protesters' demands have two main objectives: force the ruling Sunni monarchy to give up its control over top government posts and all critical decisions, and address deep grievances held by the country's majority Shiites who claim they face systematic discrimination and are effectively blocked from key roles in public service and the military.
Read full news at Yahoo News
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Noynoy Stays Neutral On Marcos Burial In Libingan Ng Mga Bayani
The President instead said he would ask a government official "who has less personal attachment" to look into the matter recently proposed by the son of the late strongman, Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos.
“Whatever I will say will be bias so I’m thinking of inhibiting myself from deciding the matter,” the President told reporters after meeting senior military officials in Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City.
"Anything I say on the matter, people might say, was decided on a subjective basis rather than on an objective basis and we would want to spare our country from that,” said the President, son of the freedom heroes the late Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. and President Corazon Aquino.
Read the rest of the story at Manila Bulletin
Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos (September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was the tenth President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He was a lawyer, member of the Philippine House of Representatives (1949–1959) and a member of the Philippine Senate (1959–1965). He was Senate President from 1963-1965. He claimed to have led a guerrilla force called Ang Maharlika in northern Luzon during the Second World War, although this is doubted. As Philippine president and strongman, his greatest achievement was in the fields of infrastructure development and international diplomacy. However, his administration was marred by massive authoritarian corruption, despotism, nepotism, political repression, and human rights violations. He benefited from a large personality cult in the Philippines during his regime. In 1983, his government was implicated in the assassination of his primary political opponent, Benigno Aquino, Jr. The implication caused a chain of events, including a tainted presidential election that served as the catalyst for the People Power Revolution in February 1986 that led to his removal from power and eventual exile in Hawaii. It was later alleged that he and his wife Imelda Marcos had moved billions of dollars of embezzled public funds to the United States, Switzerland, and other countries, as well as into alleged corporations during his 20 years in power.
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