President Gloria Arroyo said yesterday the Philippine government would agree to lift arrest warrants against Muslim separatist rebels to jump-start stalled peace talks.
Arroyo said her government was working to "build confidence in the peace process and we are preparing for the opening of talks" with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the country's main Muslim separatist group.
"We are open to the suspension of warrants by the court if this is necessary [to] move the peace talks forward," the president said.
MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu welcomed Arroyo's statement and said rebel negotiators were now prepared to resume talks in Malaysia.
"That's a positive development. We welcome that development," Kabalu said, stressing that both sides were now "on the stage of compliance for resumption of peace talks."
"If this will continue I think we will have a good start for the resumption of the talks," he said.
The MILF had earlier warned that the Muslim rebels would not return to the negotiating table unless the arrest warrants against its chief, Salamat Has-him, and other rebel negotiators are lifted.
The warrants were slapped against them in connection with deadly bombings in the southern Philippines this year.
"The MILF must not tarry on the procedural issues involved, especially so that it has several lawyers and legal advisers among its ranks," Arroyo said. "We must avoid being bogged down by these matters."
Malaysia, which has hosted preliminary peace talks, has said it would be difficult to go ahead with formal negotiations with the arrest warrants still in effect. Under the Philippines legal system only the courts can lift the warrants.
The 12,500-strong MILF has been waging a 25-year rebellion for the establishment of an independent Islamic state in the southern third of this mostly Roman Catholic country.
Peace talks were suspended early this year when Arroyo accused the MILF of harboring Muslim terrorists responsible for a spate of attacks in the south, including the bombings of an airport and a wharf in the southern city of Davao that left 38 dead.
An MILF commander earlier Monday accused Manila of insincerity and warned of more hostilities in the south if the negotiations fell through.
A statement posted on the MILF Web site quoted senior rebel leader Gordon Saifullah as saying the rebels were prepared to return to war immediately if efforts to resume talks collapsed.
The MILF earlier denounced links to the Southeast Asian Muslim terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah and said Salamat was willing to personally sit at the negotiating table, fulfilling two conditions set by Arroyo for the talks to be revived.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS