Word: arroyos
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...tell the story that U.S. General John "Blackjack" Pershing invented the Colt .45 revolver during his 1945 campaign against the Moros in Mindanao because it took at least six slugs to stop one of these fierce tribesmen before he hacked your head off. Today, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is having an even tougher time than Pershing in vanquishing the Moro's pirate descendants: the Islamic militant group known as Abu Sayyaf, which is holding 13 hostages, including three Americans, in the jungles of the country's deepest south...
...Sayyaf's stroll to safety revealed the military's ham-handedness?the commander who botched the siege was fired?and indefinitely prolonged the hostages' deadly peril. Moreover, it proved that Arroyo's frequently reiterated rhetorical resolve was not enough, and that Abu Sayyaf is likely to continue to be a plague on the country for a long time to come. It's a cruel group: after their escape last week, the kidnappers beheaded two Filipinos?a cook and security guard seized in the raid on the Dos Palmas tourist resort in the western province of Palawan. Speaking by sat phone...
...Faced with a group of career bandits, Arroyo had little choice but to come down with her promised "hail of bullets." She is desperate to prove to the financial markets that her government suffers from none of the impotence of the Estrada administration, which proved so damaging to foreign capital and share prices during the final year of his curtailed presidency. "We must address this decisively to show the world that we can protect our citizens, our visitors and our investors," she said. Hailing the importance of the $2.5 billion tourism industry, she reassured the business community this was just...
...Tourism is not Arroyo's sole concern. The off-and-on Muslim rebellion in the southern Philippines, which dates back to the 1970s, is threatening to graduate from domestic inconvenience to international threat. Many Philippine Muslim leaders, like Abu Sabaya, were schooled and trained in Islamist strongholds such as Libya and maintain links with insurgents across the Middle East and South Asia. Asiri Abubakar of the University of the Philippines' Asian studies department says the south could become the "regional base of operations" for Asian Muslim terror groups. "If the Philippines does not watch out," he warns, "the southern Philippines...
...Arroyo is in no forgiving mood either. "I will finish what you started," she declared on national TV. "Force against force, arms against arms. That is what you asked for when you challenged me. I will give it to you." Replied spokesman Abu Sabaya, who himself was wounded in Saturday's fighting: "The Philippine government does not seem to care about the hostages ... Why should we?" In the battle for the southern Philippines, the crossfire is getting thicker...