Philippine ex-leader Cory Aquino dies

Former Philippine leader Corazon Aquino, Asia's first female president, has died at the age of 76.

orazon Aquino had been suffering from colon cancer for more than a year

She had been suffering from colon cancer for more than a year and recently refused further treatment.
Her family had said she was leaving her fate to God, prompting church services offering prayers for her health.
National mourning has been declared for Mrs Aquino who became president when the 1986 "people power" uprising deposed dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Hundreds of people have been visiting her home and the EDSA shrine where her 1986 revolution culminated, leaving flowers and lighting candles. Many tied symbolic yellow ribbons to their cars, and on trees near her home.
Mrs Aquino's body will lie in state at the De La Salle Catholic school in Manila from Saturday evening to Monday morning.

She will be buried beside her husband at the Manila Memorial Park in a private ceremony on Wednesday, her son said.

Coup attempts
"Our mother peacefully passed away at 0318 [1918 GMT Friday] of cardio-respiratory arrest," the son, Senator Benigno Aquino Jr, told the media.

"She would have wanted us to thank each and every one of you for all the prayers and the continuous love and support," he said.
"It was her wish for all of us to pray for one another and for the country."
Mrs Aquino, who was known as Tita (Aunty) Cory, had been admitted to hospital about a month ago suffering from a loss of appetite related to her condition.
A series of daily masses were held to pray for Mrs Aquino's health, at least one of which was attended by her former political rivals, President Joseph "Erap" Estrada and former first lady Imelda Marcos.

Catapulted to the top

Mrs Aquino was catapulted into politics following the murder of her husband, the prominent Senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, who had been preparing to run for president.
He had already spent seven years in prison following President Marcos's declaration of martial law, with his wife as his only contact with the outside world.
Mrs Aquino said of her husband's death: "What is more important is that he did not die in vain and that his sacrifice, certainly, awakened the Filipino people from their apathy and indifference."
After winning the presidential elections in 1986, she went on to run a country deeply divided after years of martial law and communist insurgency.
She battled several coup attempts against her rule, protected the country's fledgling democracy and freed political prisoners.
In recent years, she campaigned against former President Estrada, but then reconciled with him to join protests against incumbent President Gloria Arroyo over allegations of vote-rigging and corruption.
She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 and later received several awards and citations for her work to promote democracy and human rights.

The Black Funeral of Michael Jackson

The Nation -- Funerals tell us more about the living than the dead. It's why anthropologists often begin with rituals of death as an entry point for understanding societies and cultures.
I remember watching the funeral of Princess Diana. It was a perfectly British event: the poignant, silent march of her children, the bells tolling at Westminster Abbey, the red coat pallbearers. But I remember being taken aback as the car carrying Diana's casket drove through the streets of London. I was surprised because at that moment the mourners began to applaud.
They'd stood for hours lining the streets and as the casket passed they needed to grieve collectively and publicly. Stiff-upper lip British culture does not have a mechanism for such public grieving. There is no piercing death wail, no garment rending, no ceremonial dance, so instead the British applauded. Those applause revealed the missing place in English life for public mourning.
The death and remembrance of Michael Jackson has been an interesting window into American culture, its relentless cable news cycle, and the overwhelming but false sense of intimacy our celebrity culture engenders. But for me it was the peek into African American culture that was most intriguing.
Within a week of Jackson's death I watched the avatars on my twitter feed turn from Iran-solidarity green to iconic photographs of Michael Jackson. But the photos were exclusively of "black" Michael Jackson: some from his childhood, some from the Off The Wall era, and many from the Thriller era. Few of my African American tweeps were visually remembering the Michael Jackson of the past decade with diminished features and whitened skin.
Memorializing Jackson included selective collective memory that allowed African Americans to see him as belonging especially, if not exclusively, to black folks.
Some African Americans were incensed by the misogynist, racially stereotypical B.E.T. Awards that gave the first public tribute to Jackson. Many have been critical of B.E.T as a network for more than a decade, and the tribute to Jackson renewed that those criticisms. The contrast of Michael Jackson with Soulja Boy felt particularly stark, regressive, and embarrassing.
Memorializing Michael Jackson renewed critical conversation about the direction of black music.
Jackson's passing inspired memorials that reflected local cultures, my favorite was the Second Line in New Orleans, but it was the massive funeral in Los Angeles on Tuesday that was most revealing. Michael Jackson was an international music icon and his memorial was covered on mainstream media, but it was black tradition most fully on display Tuesday.
African American death rituals have long been celebratory as well as mournful. As a marginal people whose collective identity is rooted in struggle, death is celebrated as a release from pain, inequality, and torment. As a deeply religious people, death is celebrated as an opportunity for reunion with God. As a people who were often denied dignity in life, the dignity of a proper homegoing is a critically important sign of respect. Along with these celebratory aspects of funerals, death rituals among African Americans are marked by loud, deep, displays of emotion and public grieving that mark the sense of loss experienced by the whole community.
All of these aspects of black life were on display Tuesday. And it tells us more about us than about Jackson himself. Jackson's radical surgical choices largely eliminated his black phenotype. Jackson's romantic choices did not include black women. His wealth and eccentricities set him apart from most black people. In the final years of his life his music was much more popular in European and Asian countries than among black American listeners. But in death black folks embraced Jackson.
Memorializing Jackson reminds me that death is still a segregated business in America. Funeral homes still anchor black neighborhoods and are a central path of black entrepreneurship. Though he may have transcended or "escaped" blackness in life, Jackson was rendered fully black in death. And that says much more about us than about him.