Politics

Activists denounce ‘secrecy’ in Philippines-Australia defense pact

MANILA, Philippines — The umbrella group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan today assailed the allegedly secrecy employed by the Arroyo government in entering into a Status Forces Agreement with Australia.

?The Philippine government has entered into an agreement with a foreign government with no one else knowing the details. The contents of the SOFA have been deliberately hidden from the public so as to avoid scrutiny and protest. The signing is treasonous because it allows foreign intervention in our country,? said Bayan secretary general Renato M. Reyes Jr.

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China: Media freedom under assault ahead of 2008 Olympics

(Hong Kong, May 31, 2007) ? The Chinese government is backtracking
on new rules that allow much greater freedom to foreign journalists, and is
continuing to deny comparable freedoms to Chinese journalists, Human
Rights Watch said today.
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Sabotaging an election machinery: Manipulation, psywar and military

Analysis | The effect of the electoral sabotage is to cast doubt on the electoral process and the integrity of the Comelec itself. The effect of the sabotage strategy against the PPLs was not to undermine the bloc?s political base but to add another cause for making the current presidency illegitimate.

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Miseducation of Muslim-Moro electoralism

Analysis | By Datu Michael O. Mastura | Media reporters -- more accurately, opinion editors -- are wrong to say that casting of votes or counting of ballots runs afoul in the ARMM (Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao) simply because Muslim-Moro individuals have low literacy rate. What makes such comments most absurd is anti-Moro profiling of their leaders (if not out of discriminatory slant by sheer slur) who are perceived to keep them illiterate or uneducated enough to organize them into so-called ?command votes? constituency.

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