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Manila (AFP) - The biggest Muslim rebel group in the Philippines signed an historic pact Thursday to end one of Asia's longest and deadliest conflicts, promising to give up their arms for an autonomous homeland. Following four decades of fighting that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) signed the peace deal with President Benigno Aquino's government at a high-profile ceremony in Manila. "The comprehensive agreement on Bangsamoro is the crowning glory of our struggle," MILF chairman Murad Ebrahim said at the signing ceremony, using a local term that refers to a Muslim homeland....

A day after his stunning arrest on corruption charges, State Sen. Leland Yee withdrew from the Secretary of State's race. His attorney, Paul DeMeester, made the announcement about the withdrawal during a brief Thursday press conference in front of the federal building. Yee notified current Secretary of State Debra Bowen of the decision in a brief letter. "I hereby withdraw my candidacy for election of Secretary of State, effective immediately," said Yee in the letter, which ends "With best regards." State Sen. Leland Yee leaves Federal Court in San Francisco, Calif., after posting $500,000 bail Wednesday March 26, 2014, following...

Yee discussed helping the agent get weapons worth $500,000 to $2.5 million, including shoulder fired automatic weapons and missiles, and took him through the entire process of acquiring them from a Muslim separatist group in the Philippines to bringing them to the United States

The 137-page, FBI-sworn affidavit against California State Sen. Leland Yee, a Democrat who is also running for Secretary of State, and over two dozen other individuals reads like a crime thriller. Beyond the widely reported stories of alleged wire fraud, money laundering, corruption, and bribery, the affidavit contains tales of alleged murder-for-hire plots involving a political consultant close to Yee, as well as large international weapons trafficking operations.Indeed, while the media have fixated on the hypocrisy of a gun-control advocate--Yee sponsored legislation against detachable magazines, for example--alleged involvement in gun smuggling, few reports delve into the kind of weapons with which...

A California state senator has been arrested for promising shoulder-fired automatic weapons and missiles from a Muslim separatist group to an undercover FBI agent in exchange for campaign donations, according to court documents unsealed Wednesday. In San Francisco, FBI agents have charged California State Sen. Leland Yee with conspiracy to deal firearms and wire fraud. The allegations were outlined in an FBI affidavit against Yee and 25 others. The allegations against Yee include a number of favors he requested in exchange for campaign donations, as well as performing "official acts" in exchange for donations to get himself out of a...

Three more Ethiopians killed by Saudi police. The killing of Ethiopians continues in Saudi Arabia Three more Ethiopians killed in Saudi Arabia Three more Ethiopians have been killed in Saudi Arabia. Thousands of Ethiopians are leaving the middle east country after scores have been killed in the past few days. Hundreds more injured and women are being raped in front of their families. It is astounding and mind boggling the international community is so silent about this shameful actions of the Saudis. "The act of killing innocent civilians is uncalled for, we condemn that," Foreign Ministry spokesman Dina Mufti told...

John E. Love, a Bataan Death March survivor who led a campaign to change the caption on a historic march photo from The Associated Press, has died. He was 91. Love died Monday after a long battle with cancer, said Gerry Lightwine, pastor at La Vida Llena, an Albuquerque retirement home where Love lived. As a 19-year-old member of the New Mexico Guard, Love was one of 75,000 Filipino and American soldiers who were taken captive by the Japanese in World War II when the U.S. forces surrendered in the province of Bataan and Corregidor Island in April 1942. In...

For the next several months, Washington won’t be seeing as much of President Barack Obama as usual. In February, March and April, the president is traveling to nine countries: Mexico, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines. His trip to Mexico is next week. He is heading to Europe in March and Asia in April. On Friday, Mr. Obama is traveling to California to visit the drought-stricken Central Valley and meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah II at Sunnylands, the Annenberg estate in Rancho Mirage. The president’s domestic travels are expected to pick up as the midterm...

Some very disturbing thoughts are laid out in this blog post written by Dai Xu. He is a Chinese author, social commentator, and the president of Marine Institute For Security And Cooperation, he also a professor at the National Defense University. First posted in the US China Perception Monitor. The year 2013 was a year without fighting, but there was a strong potential for conflict. This year, the impact of local wars on the world situation is much more serious than in previous years. This year, the U.S. behaved very arrogantly, and Obama’s intentions were unclear; the Middle East retreated,...

More than 500 years after the Spanish Inquisition, the Spanish government has voted to facilitate the naturalization of Jewish families of Spanish descent, without demanding they give up their other citizenship. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain must be rolling in their graves: The government in Madrid on Friday approved legislation that would allow descendents of Jews who were exiled from Spain to be naturalized in the country without having to give up their former citizenship, which had been the law until now. Spanish Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon said that Spain "is indebted to Spanish Jews for spreading the...

Lucy Meg Quinit, pictured Friday at Trinity Health in Minot, is one of a group of 86 nurses from the Philippines recruited to work in Minot.MINOT, N.D. – Filipino nurse Lucy Meg Quinit thought she and her family would miss home more as they adjust to a new life in North Dakota. But Quinit is among more than 80 nurses from the Philippines that Trinity Health in Minot has recently hired, and the new recruits have formed their own support community. “That’s one of the reasons we’re not getting so homesick,” said Quinit, who has worked for Trinity Health for...

(snip) China does not have a grand ­imperial plan to invade its neighbours, in the way the Soviets did. But in any country with a ­rapidly growing military – one that is flexing its muscles and is involved in a score of unresolved territorial disputes – there is always the risk that its leaders might be tempted by some sort of military solution, the lure of a quick win that would reorder the regional balance. If China and its neighbours all believe that the US has a credible plan for a conflict, this both deters any eventual Chinese adventurism and...

Philippine President Benigno Aquino has approved a payment plan to acquire 12 Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) FA-50 light combat aircraft, a local media outlet said, Friday. The nation’s lone airplane manufacturer also confirmed the report. KAI has teamed up with the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) and Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) to sell the aircraft through a government-to-government program, estimated at $420 million (451 billion won). According to the report by the Star, the Philippines’ defense department is seeking to complete negotiations with KAI within the week. “We have sights on finalizing the contract by the end of March,”...

Philippine marines killed at least 6 Muslim extremists and captured one of their jungle lairs in fighting in the south, military officials said Monday. Backed by village militias, the marines launched an assault over the weekend after several Abu Sayyaf militants were monitored in their jungle lair near Talipao town on Jolo Island, marine brigade commander Col. Jose Cenabre said. …

"If these negotiations [with Iran] fail, there are two grim alternatives," said Sen. Richard Durbin, "a nuclear Iran, or war, or perhaps both." Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham returned from the Munich security conference saying that even John Kerry agrees that President Obama's Syrian policy has failed. They are urging another look at air strikes. North Korea is warning that should the annual U.S.-South Korean military exercises go forward in March, it could mean war, possibly nuclear war. Philippines President Benigno Aquino III this week compared his country's situation to Czechoslovakia in 1938, and the disputed islets off his...

Multitudes are coming into the voice of courage now for they shall be used to scurge(exhaust) the false lions and destroy the wolves of plight and now more than ever before your courage shall bring you breakthrough just as JOB for his was a test of courage to remove all fear and doubt for I AM in you and I surround you in an eternal manner to bring you to fruition and as The Vine I watch and My Father prunes so all our fruit bears forth . So realize that this season of harvest is not just for others...

Noon in the United Arab Emirates is four in the afternoon in the Philippines, which means that Teresa Cruz’s two older children are supposed to be home from school and back inside the apartment of their aunt, who is raising them. Teresa lives in Dubai, the U.A.E.’s most populous city, 4,300 miles from the Philippines. She’s a 39-year-old sales clerk at a clothing store in one wing of a shining multistory Dubai mall. Her job requires her to straighten clothes, ring up transactions, keep track of receipts, and smile whenever a customer walks in. She’s on her feet six days...

<p>Police in the Philippines abused suspected criminals with a 'wheel of torture' game, according to human rights groups.</p>

My augmentation is "purely" spirit led and guided every step of the way FOR MY WORD IS IN YOU , nothing lacking or missing FOR I AM THE WORD AND THE SPIRIT so do not be anxious that something is missing FOR I AM WITH YOU and will "never" forsake you and this is why I AM your Yes and Amen to all you do in and through Me! Acts 17:27-29 Amplified Bible (AMP) 27 So that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after Him and find Him, although He is not far from each...

On September 9, 2013, a radical Islamic extremist group known as the Moro National Liberation Front, whose territory is on the northern portion of the Southern most Island in the Philippines, Mindanao, stormed the municipal capital in the city of Zamoanga and raised their flag at city hall. They were proclaiming ownership of the city, which they’d decided, themselves, that they would now own back on August 12 of 2013. As you might imagine, the Philippine Government did not take kindly to the radicals proclaiming the city to be theirs and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the...