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The U.S. recommitted to a security pact with the Philippines on Monday as concerns grow about China’s influence in the Pacific. Both President Joe Biden and leader Ferdinand Marcos Jr alluded to pressure from Beijing in a White House visit. The trip marks a sharp turnaround after a decade of icier relations with Manila. "The United States also remains ironclad, remains ironclad in our commitment to the defense of the Philippines, including the South China Sea. And we are going to continue to support the Philippines' military modernization goals." A joint statement said new guidelines for stronger military ties meant...

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos said Wednesday (Jan 4) he hoped to strengthen ties with Beijing on his first state visit to China since taking office. China and the Philippines are at odds over the hotly disputed South China Sea, with Marcos expected to sign a deal in Beijing this week to establish direct communication on maritime issues. Manila considers it "of primary importance to... strengthen the relationship between China and the Philippines", Marcos said in a meeting on Wednesday with top Chinese legislator Li Zhanshu.

Former Philippine President Fidel Valdez Ramos, who died on Sunday, was a fighter during wars in Korea and Vietnam and a survivor in the political arena, emerging from a high-ranking security role during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos Sr to win the vote for the nation's highest office. He was 94. Ramos became a hero to many for defecting from Marcos' government, where he led the national police force, spurring the dictator's downfall during the 1986 popular uprising against his rule. Others, though, would not forgive or forget his role in enforcing martial law under the Marcos regime. Ramos, famous...

MANILA (Reuters) - Philippines president-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr on Wednesday said his country's ties with China will expand and "shift to a higher gear" when he takes power, signalling intent to advance outgoing leader Rodrigo Duterte's pro-Beijing agenda. Marcos, who won last week's election by a landslide, said he held "very substantial" talks by phone on Wednesday with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who assured him of support for his "independent foreign policy", and agreed to hold more comprehensive discussions. The 64-year-old son and namesake of the notorious former dictator said Xi also acknowledged his late father's role in opening diplomatic...

Pact between Marcos, Duterte families shaped the vote Bongbong' Marcos didn't just win the presidential election in the Philippines this week. He won it by a two-to-one landslide, despite the fact that he is the extremely entitled son of a former president who stole at least ten billion dollars and a mother who spent the loot partly on the world's most extensive collection of designer shoes (3,000 pairs). Moreover, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, to give him his real name, has virtually no accomplishments other than that name. Yet his name and his inherited wealth, originally stolen from the parents of the...

In a stunning landslide victory, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr won the Philippines’ presidential election, bringing him to the frontlines of US-China confrontations in the South China Sea amid early rumblings that he is Beijing’s puppet “Manchurian candidate.” Marcos Jr’s election advantage was that he is the son of his “idol,” the somewhat popular, late US-backed dictatorial president Ferdinand Marcos Sr and his flamboyant wife Imelda, who is now 92. ... Marcos Jr, convicted of tax evasion in 1997, faces multi-million dollar tax cases in the Philippines and the US over his father’s vast estate. China, meanwhile, denies it has any...

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The son and namesake of ousted Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos took a commanding lead in an unofficial vote count in Monday's presidential election in the deeply divided Asian democracy. With more than 77 percent of the votes tabulated, Marcos Jr. had 25 million, far ahead of his closest challenger, current Vice President Leni Robredo, a champion of human rights, who had 11.9 million. The election winner will take office on June 30 for a single, six-year term as leader of a Southeast Asian nation hit hard by two years of COVID-19 outbreaks and lockdowns. Still more...

Philippines on high alert as all systems go for election Preparations for Philippines presidential elections, in Manila Sun, May 8, 2022 MANILA (Reuters) -The Philippine police and military said on Sunday they were on high alert as last-minute preparations continued for the country's general election, even as the overall situation remained "relatively peaceful". Filipinos vote on Monday to choose President Rodrigo Duterte's successor, a vice president, 12 senators, hundreds of congressmen and thousands of governors, mayors and provincial and city councillors. The presidential race is a rematch between Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr., the son and namesake of the country's late...

MANILA (Reuters) - Chaos erupted at a huge party to celebrate the 90th birthday of former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos on Wednesday, with 261 friends and supporters rushed to Manila hospitals with suspected food poisoning. Emergency rooms in the city’s Pasig area were inundated with patients vomiting and suffering from diarrhea and dizziness, according to staff who spoke to Reuters.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) - A Philippine court found former first lady Imelda Marcos guilty of graft and ordered her arrest Friday in a rare conviction among many corruption cases that she plans to appeal to avoid jail and losing her seat in Congress. The special anti-graft Sandiganbayan court sentenced Marcos, 89, to serve 6 to 11 years in prison for each of the seven counts of violating an anti-corruption law when she illegally funneled about $200 million to Swiss foundations in the 1970s as Metropolitan Manila governor. Neither Marcos nor anyone representing her attended Friday’s court hearing. Marcos said in...

The Marcoses are making waves again in the Philippines. Congresswoman Imelda Marcos, 89, the shopaholic, shoe-obsessed wife of deposed President Ferdinand Marcos, is running for governor of the Ilocos Norte province, according to The Straits Times. Her running mate will be her grandson Matthew Marcos Manotoc, 28, a member of Ilocos Norte’s provincial government. And her eldest daughter, Imee Marcos, 62, on Tuesday launched her Senate run to solidify her family’s political resurgence after her parents were forced into exile after a popular revolt more than 30 years ago.

Vindolanda Roman Fort Yields Hundreds of Shoes Tuesday, October 11, 2016 NORTHUMBERLAND, ENGLAND—Chronicle Live reports that more than 400 shoes sized for men, women, and children, were recovered at the Roman fort of Vindolanda over the summer, bringing the total of shoes from the site to more than 7,000. The 1,800-year-old shoes included ones made solely for indoor wear, boots, sandals, and bath clogs. The footwear was found in a defensive ditch, along with pottery and the remains of cats and dogs. Andrew Birley, director of Vindolanda’s excavations, thinks the contents of the ditches may have been discarded when the...

Philippine President Benigno Aquino on Monday said he would do his best to prevent the family of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos from returning to power. Aquino, whose father and namesake Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino was detained and then killed by Marcos forces, made the remark as the dictator's son is vying for the vice presidency. While Aquino is stepping down after his single six-year term this year, Marcos's son, Ferdinand Marcos Jnr., is leading in the race for the vice presidency in the May 9 elections. Marcos's flamboyant widow, Imelda, has openly said she wants her son to become president and...

The Clintons and their foundation are just following the business model of many other famous political families like Ferdinand & Imelda Marcos who got rich by taking bribes from every business interest that wanted to do business in the Phillipines, such as GE building a nuclear power plant there. Same with the Shaw of Iran who required anyone who wanted to do business in Iran had to pay 15% to his Pavlavi Foundation. The Clintons are just following the business model used by many famous and corrupt dictators all around the world.

A Long Island man was arrested Friday after investigators say he attempted to travel to Yemen to join al Qaeda and conspired with the terror group from the United States, according to an indictment from the U.S. Department of Justice. Marcos Alonso Zea, 25, also known as “Ali Zea,” was arrested at his home in Brentwood, New York, on charges of conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country, attempting to provide material support to terrorists and obstruction and attempted obstruction of justice, the indictment says. …

President Mubarak’s supporters have decided to instigate violence against the anti-government protesters. This ugly turn of events underscores why Mubarak must leave sooner rather than later. The longer he hangs on to power, weakened but not gone from the scene, the worse everything in Egypt will be. That is why the Washington Post is right in its editorial criticizing the president’s response last night to Mubarak’s statements as “ambiguous.” “He said he had told the Egyptian president in a phone call that ‘an orderly transition must be meaningful, must be peaceful, and must begin now’ — but he did not...

Nearly a quarter-century after Imelda Marcos and her dictator husband fled the Philippines in disgrace — leaving a debt-ridden country but a lavish collection of shoes — the 80-year-old former first lady and two of their children are poised to revive the family's political fortunes. At first sight, the outcome is surprising in an election that also looks set to award the son of the Marcoses' nemesis, "people power" President Corazon Aquino, the country's top office. Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III campaigned heavily against corruption — endemic in the Philippines and allegedly practiced by the Marcos dictatorship on a massive scale....

"THE BRIEF LIFE AND EXQUISITE MARTYRDOM OF A HAMAS MORTAR CREW" Snippet: "Via Hamas' al-Aqsa TV station, said to be filmed in Jabaliya on 06 January 2008. At about 1'15" the crew is hit by an apparent Israeli counter-strike."

Mexico's Zapatista rebel leader "Subcomandante" Marcos slammed US president-elect Barack Obama for failing to speak out on Israel's bombing of Gaza, in a speech on Friday marking the 15th anniversary of his rebellion. The masked leader of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation -- which rose up in arms in Chiapas, southeast Mexico, on January 1, 1994 -- also critized a government clampdown on spiraling drug violence, in his first public appearance in more than a year. Obama "supports the use of force" against Palestinian people, Marcos said in a speech to some 2,500 leftist politicians and activists from 25...

"Former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos views the crypt of her late husband dictator Ferdinand Marcos inside a mausoleum during the 89th birthday celebration of the former president at his hometown in Batac town, Ilocos Norte province, north of Manila September 11, 2006. Marcos died in 1989 was in exiled in Hawaii three-years after he was removed in a military backed-popular revolt ending a 20-year iron rule in the Philippines."