Two articles on joint U.S.-Philippine exercises..

The first article is from a Chinese news agency. The article mentions the demonstrations against the exercises and the headline calls them wargames.
The second article is from a French News Agency (AFP) The article fails to mention any demonstration and headlines the exercises as welfare not warfare.
This is typical of different spins and inclusion or exclusion of information.


U.S.-Philippine war game begins, with civilians protesting
www.chinaview.cn 2008-02-18 22:56:26

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MANILA, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of Filipinos chanted anti-U.S. slogans and burned imitated American flags on Monday as the two-week joint military drill held by Filipino and American troops began.
The two armies held joint military drills almost every year in the past decade in the Philippines.
On Monday, Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo, with presence of U.S. Ambassador Kristie Kenny and Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, formally opened the RP-US Balikatan 2008 at the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Commissioned Officers' Country Club in Camp Aguinaldo in Metro Manila.
This year's drill, with participation of 6,000 American soldiers and 2,000 Filipino soldiers, will focus on humanitarian missions which will boost the cooperation between two armies in delivering relief and assistance during natural disasters and other crisis that endanger public safety, according to the army authority.
The training ground is set at the northern Luzon region and the insurgency-infested southern region of Mindanao.
However, hundreds of civilian Filipinos marched to Camp Aguinaldo to protest against the war game in the Muslim-dominated Mindanao, where the U.S. government has been funding Filipino troops to fight militants belonging to the deemed regional terrorist organization Abu Sayyaf.
Local media reported that there were thousands of protesters in several big cities in Mindanao on Monday.
Protesters said the presence of American troops in Mindanao will only worsen the peace and order situation in the region.
House Representative Satur Ocampo said the war games were launched under the "auspices of the onerous and one-sided Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) and the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between two countries."
He reiterated calls for the pull-out of U.S. troops from Philippine soil and the scrapping of the military treaty.
Public rage towards the joint war game has been stoking since 2005 when an American soldier in the Balikatan exercise was sentenced to life jail after he was found guilty of raping a 23-year-old woman in the former U.S. military base in northern Philippines.

Next the AFP article:

US troops start welfare, not warfare, exercises in Philippines
22 hours ago
MANILA, Feb 18, 2008 (AFP) — Several thousand US troops began arriving in the southern Philippines on Monday to take part in joint military exercises aimed at community building rather than warfare.
The annual Balikatan (shoulder-to-shoulder) exercises will involve some 6,000 US and 2,000 Filipino troops taking part in medical missions, building roads, artesian wells and day care centres.
Some of the exercises will be held in the southern region of Mindanao, where the US government is providing economic aid as well as military training to Filipino troops fighting Islamic militants whose support has been fuelled by poverty and underdevelopment.
Although armed, the US troops will be restricted from joining combat patrols in the southern islands of Basilan and Jolo where Philippine troops have been fighting members of the Muslim militant Abu Sayyaf group.
"It's a wonderful opportunity to reaffirm a great partnership that's been going on so many years between our militaries and our people," US ambassador Kristie Kenney told reporters at the launching ceremony at the armed forces headquarters in Manila.
She said the two armies would train on "how to respond to humanitarian disasters."
Philippine armed forces chief of staff General Hermogenes Esperon said the annual exercises were "always timely if only to maintain our inter-operability and proficiency."
He said that since the annual manoeveres began in 1991, "the emphasis has shifted also to humanitarian assistance."