Peace monitors return to southern Philippines, Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

Peace monitors return to southern Philippines

COTABATO, Philippines — Malaysian-led peace monitors have returned to the troubled southern Philippines for the first time since Muslim rebels launched a wave of deadly attacks in 2008, officials said Monday.

The team's work is primarily to ensure a truce holds on the island of Mindanao between the government and the 12,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) while the two sides negotiate a peace settlement.

"With the redeployment of the International Monitoring Team, the peace talks are back on track," Foreign Undersecretary Rafael Seguis, who is also the government's chief peace negotiator with the rebels, said in a statement.

"It will also strengthen the security monitoring in the area."

Malaysia has been brokering the peace talks, which are aimed at ending the MILF's struggle for an autonomous Muslim homeland on Mindanao that has claimed more than 150,000 lives since 1978.

The two sides will meet again in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday, a member of the government negotiating team, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

"Both sides will continue to seek ways to break the impasse in the next meeting," said the negotiator.

However, the MILF said after the last talks broke down in January that it was unlikely a deal would be reached with the government of President Gloria Arroyo, who is constitutionally mandated to step down on June 30.

The 60-person monitoring team is made up of unarmed military and police personnel, as well as diplomats and representatives of non-government organisations.

http://newageislam.com/peace-monitors-return-to-southern-philippines/islamic-world-news/d/2521

Fighting for the Soul of Islam, Muslims and Islamophobia, NewAgeIslam.com

Muslims and Islamophobia

Fighting for the Soul of Islam

By A. Akbar Muhammad

Dec 3, 2009

(FinalCall.com) - In recent days, there have been a number of articles cantered on the tragic killing of 13 military personnel at Fort Hood in Texas allegedly by an Army major and psychiatrist. This tragedy brought pain, hurt, and shame to the American people and in particular the military establishment. My heart goes out for those families who suffered through this tragedy and buried their loved ones. Everyone, including the president, is searching for a reason behind Major Nidal Malik Hasan's alleged actions. Critics have blamed Major Hasan's religion for the crime he is accused of committing.

But in order to understand what is, we must draw from the lessons of history and look back at how we arrived to where we are today. We are in a time when Muslims are Fighting for The Soul of Their Faith as they are being demoralized from every corner of the world. This has put many Muslims in the fight mode to intellectually defend their faith.

According to scholars, there are 1.4 to 1.6 billion Muslims in the world with nearly 10 million Muslims in America.

On President Barack Obama's recent trip to the Far East, it is interesting that he didn't visit Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population; nor did he travel to the Philippines where there are 7 to 10 million Muslims who have struggled for nearly 40 years, to receive due recognition that includes political and economic attention to Mindanao, located in the southern Philippines.

http://newageislam.com/fighting-for-the-soul-of-islam/muslims-and-islamophobia/d/2195

PHILIPPINES: A man falsely charged with terrorism, Islam and Human Rights, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Human Rights

PHILIPPINES: A man falsely charged with terrorism

Edgar was teary-eyed as he recounts his ordeal while in police custody when he was interviewed in the days following his arrest. After his arrest, Edgar was first taken to Municipal Police of Botolan before he was transferred to the Camp Conrado S. Yap in Iba, Zambales where he was held for three days.

While Edgar was in the police camp, the persons taking him in custody, who did not introduce their names and identity, had him subjected to questioning without the presence of his legal counsel. He was placed in a room where he was punched twice on the chest. They electrocuted his abdomen and forced him to admit that he owns a caliber .45 pistol, a magazine assembly for a caliber .45 and several live ammunitions they had seized from the house from where he was taken.

Those questioning him also threatened to kill Edgar should he deny his membership with the New People's Amy (NPA), despite also claiming that Edgar and his group had already been under surveillance for a long period of time, over their supposed terrorist activities in the area.

http://newageislam.com/philippines--a-man-falsely-charged-with-terrorism/islam-and-human-rights/d/839

Philippines Supreme Court halts Manila’s deal with Muslims, Current affairs, NewAgeIslam.com

Current affairs

Philippines Supreme Court halts Manila’s deal with Muslims

Govt welcomes court’s move as Catholics protest territorial deal

Under the territorial agreement, an existing autonomous region for Muslims in the south of the largely Catholic country would be widened and they would get broad political and economic powers. But the agreement’s hasty conclusion on the eve of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s annual state speech last month and its generous provisions to the MILF on mineral wealth prompted some analysts to dismiss it as political window dressing. “I think it was all teed up as a bone on the eve of Arroyo’s state of the nation address. I think it was strictly done for that purpose,” said Scott Harrison, managing director of risk consultancy Pacific Strategies and Assessments. MILF officials, already in Malaysia for the signing ceremony, were dismayed at the Supreme Court move. “I don’t know what will happen next,” Mohaqher Iqbal, the MILF’s chief peace negotiator, told reporters.

http://newageislam.com/philippines-supreme-court-halts-manila%E2%80%99s-deal-with-muslims/current-affairs/d/439

Indian' Bible making waves in Kerala, Islamic Culture, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic Culture

Indian' Bible making waves in Kerala

5 Aug 2008, PTI

The Mumbai-based publishing house, St Pauls, which brings out religious books, has come out with the new Indian Bible, which also has references to Meerabai, Mahatma Gandhi, and Rabindranath Tagore in the interpretations of biblical passages, Father Thelekat said.

As far as Catholics are concerned, they have to live and interpret their Christian faith and scriptures within the given culture. So they have to understand and interpret the culture, he said.

The New Community Bible is a revised edition of the popular Christian Bible translated by Late Bernardo Hurault, published from the Philippines. About 30 scholars have worked on it from 1980 and made the interpretations which are published at the bottom part of the Bible, Fr Thekekat said.

The text of the Bible is the accepted Catholic version, whose interpretations are made with an Indian cultural perspective.

http://newageislam.com/indian--bible-making-waves-in-kerala/islamic-culture/d/441