Indonesia's controversial Obama statue to be moved, Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

Indonesia's controversial Obama statue to be moved

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- A statue of a young President Barack Obama that drew a public backlash after it was given a prominent position in a Jakarta park will be moved to the elementary school he attended while living in the Indonesian capital, officials said Friday.

The decision by Jakarta's government to move the 43-inch (110-centimeter) statue of a 10-year-old Obama holding a butterfly comes as the president prepares for his March visit to Indonesia, where he lived for several years as a child.

Despite his widespread popularity among Indonesians, the statue drew criticism after it was placed in a park in December, with protesters arguing Obama is not a national hero. More than 56,000 Facebook members joined the Indonesian-language Facebook group "Take Down the Barack Obama Statue in Taman Menteng Park."

On Friday, Jakarta Gov. Fauzi Bowo was quoted by the Detik.com news Web site as saying he "agreed with the suggestions" of those who wanted the statue moved from such a public area.

Nur Rochman, a city government spokesman, confirmed officials had ordered the relocation of the statue, and hoped to have it installed at the school before Obama's arrival.

"I think that is the most appropriate place for his statue," he said.

Heru Nugroho, founder of the Facebook campaign to remove the statue from the park, praised the decision.

"It's good - a little too late," he said. "But I appreciate it."

Nugroho said he doesn't hate Obama or the United States, but believes statues in Indonesia should be reserved for those who have made significant contributions to the country.

http://newageislam.com/indonesia-s-controversial-obama-statue-to-be-moved/islamic-world-news/d/2450

Aligarh Muslim University: Medical College on the verge collapse, Letter to the Editor, NewAgeIslam.com

Letter to the Editor

Aligarh Muslim University: Medical College on the verge collapse

Rise and Fall of JN Medical College, AMU: MCI threatens de-recognition

It is virtually unknown to the present generation and a fading memory for those old enough to know that JN Medical College came into existence not through huge grants but through the perseverance and enthusiasm of a few dedicated persons (Momineen). It was the brain child of Dr. Sir Ziauddin Saheb who visualized the need of a medical college for our poor community at Aligarh even before India’s independence. As a result he summoned some of his distinguished colleagues and students to work for the establishment of prestigious medical college at the Aligarh Muslim University. They traversed the length and breadth of the country to raise the funds for this medical college under the dynamic leadership of Prof. Hadi Hasan Saheb who was really a leading force in this fund raising campaign and nearly eight million rupees were collected from all corners of the nation for this noble cause. Finally the medical college was declared open on 2nd Oct, 1962 by the mercy of God .Colonel S. Bashir Hasan Zaidi (VC), Major SMH Naqvi (Principal) and Mr. M M Siddiqui (Registrar) must be given due credit/ regards/respects for overcoming all difficulties and hurdles in the process of starting this esteemed medical college.

http://newageislam.com/aligarh-muslim-university--medical-college-on-the-verge-collapse/letter-to-the-editor/d/2479

A decade of global crimes, crucial advances, Current affairs, NewAgeIslam.com

Current affairs

A decade of global crimes, crucial advances

By Seumas Milne

Dec 31, 2009

U.S. strategic defeat in Iraq, a discredited market model, China’s rise and Latin American freedom offer hope for the world.

Eight years on, we’re still caught in the shadow of the twin towers. As a rule, terrorism in its proper sense isn’t just morally indefensible — it also doesn’t work. In contrast to mass national resistance campaigns or guerrilla movements, the record of socially disconnected terror groups, from the Russian anarchists onwards, has been one of unmitigated failure. But the wildly miscalculated response of the United States government succeeded in turning the 9/11 atrocities into what may rank as the most successful terror attack in history.

It also triggered the first of four decisive changes which have ensured that the 21st century’s first decade has transformed the world — in some significant ways for the better. Osama Bin Laden’s initial demand was the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Saudi Arabia, which was carried out in short order. But it was George Bush’s war on terror that paradoxically delivered the greatest blow to U.S. authority and the world’s first truly global empire, in ways Al Qaeda could scarcely have dreamed of.

Not only did the lawless savagery of the U.S. campaign of killings, torture, kidnappings and incarceration without trial spawn terrorists across the Muslim world and beyond, while comprehensively disposing of western pretensions to be the global guardians of human rights. But the U.S.-British invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, in the latter case on a flagrantly false pretext, starkly exposed the limits of U.S. military power to impose its will on recalcitrant peoples prepared to fight back.

http://newageislam.com/a-decade-of-global-crimes,-crucial-advances/current-affairs/d/2320

End of the Kashmir Jihad: Kashmir results cut across communal fault lines, Islam,Terrorism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

End of the Kashmir Jihad: Kashmir results cut across communal fault lines

End of the Kashmir Jihad

Aakar Patel

December 30, 2008

Elections are the solution. Secular democracy is the only goal: It is what Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah wanted. Kashmiris already have that.

When elections were announced on October 19, Kashmir’s leaders thought they would fail, given the heat generated over the failed transfer of land to the Amarnath Shrine, and the Hurriyat Conference’s boycott.

Few believed the elections would be this successful: The highest polling at 69 per cent, the lowest at 55 per cent.

The communist Yusuf Tarigami said “elections were no solution to the Kashmir problem”.

The secular Yasin Malik said his group, the JKLF, would campaign actively “to boycott the elections (which) was every Kashmiri’s right".

Sheikh Abdullah’s grandson Omar said his party, the National Conference, would contest, but he worried that “turnout would be low”.

Hurriyat spokesman Abdul Ghani Bhat said elections were a non-issue and, “whether or not they were held, would cause the Hurriyat no consternation.” The Jamaat-e-Islami’s Syed Ali Shah Geelani said that “so-called elections were no solution.” JKDFP’s Shabbir Shah promised a “total boycott”.

http://newageislam.com/end-of-the-kashmir-jihad--kashmir-results-cut-across-communal-fault-lines--/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/d/1081

KARADZIC: JUSTICE DELAYED, BUT STILL WELCOME, Islam and Human Rights, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Human Rights

KARADZIC: JUSTICE DELAYED, BUT STILL WELCOME

By Eric Margolis

July 28, 2008

Milosevic sought to create Greater Serbia and make it ethnically pure by exterminating or terrorizing into flight Croats, Bosnian Slav Muslims, and Albanians. In the process, the hate-preaching Milosevic destroyed the federal state of Yugoslavia, and ignited a series of wars that killed over 250,000, drove 2 million from their homes, and left Serbia ruined, bankrupt, and despised around the world.

From 1992-1995, Milosevic’s ally, the president of the self-styled Bosnian Serb Republic, Dr. Radovan Karadzic, and his military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, unleashed a storm of ethnic terrorism and butchery against the unarmed Muslims of Bosnia. From Belgrade, the Serb capital, Milosevic and his generals planned and supported the campaign. According to the UN, 200,000 Bosnian Muslims were murdered, and 20,000 Muslim women and girls raped by Serb fascist paramilitary gangs and regular soldiers. Serb forces set up concentration and special rape camps in which Bosnian Muslims were starved, sadistically abused, and violated.

http://newageislam.com/karadzic--justice-delayed,-but-still-welcome/islam-and-human-rights/d/358

Ahmadiyya struggle to survive: Islamic Tolerance test for Muslim Indonesia, Islam and Tolerance, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Tolerance

Ahmadiyya struggle to survive: Islamic Tolerance test for Muslim Indonesia

By Tom McCawley

July 2, 2008

The Ahmadis, who have worshipped in their own mosques and communities here since 1924, believe that their founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, is the messiah and last true prophet of Islam. The claim has energized and enraged Indonesia's disparate Muslim hardliners, who in recent years have united in a campaign to ban Ahmadiyya, labeling its followers "heretics" and "deviants".

Indonesia's mild-mannered and religiously moderate President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his government are caught in the middle. In a campaign season, where conservative religious groups have electoral clout, his administration has so far managed to please neither side.

Tensions flared into the open on June 1, when the hard-line vigilante group the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) attacked a peaceful rally in support of both Ahmadiyya and religious tolerance at a symbolic national monument in central Jakarta. Stick-wielding FPI members, attacked women, the elderly and even clerics, leaving some 70 people injured. Police later arrested the FPI's firebrand leader, Habib Rizieq.

On June 9, Yudhoyono signed a controversial decree which failed to fully support the sect's right to exist, though it stopped short of disbanding it altogether, as religious conservatives have demanded. The decree explicitly forbade Ahmadiyya from proselytizing and threatened its members with up to five years in jail for possible charges of "tarnishing religion".

http://newageislam.com/ahmadiyya-struggle-to-survive--islamic-tolerance-test-for-muslim-indonesia/islam-and-tolerance/d/164

Canada's House Backs War Resisters, Islam,Terrorism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

Canada's House Backs War Resisters

Maggie Farley, The Los Angeles Times

But instead of being welcomed, he became the first deserter to receive orders to leave the country - and ended up a symbol of Canada's conflicted sentiments about the war.On Tuesday, Canada's House of Commons passed a motion urging the government to allow deserters to stay. The measure, though nonbinding, could lead to a last-minute reprieve for Glass and nearly 40 others who have asked for refugee status. Perhaps 200 more war dodgers are living in the country unannounced, waiting to see how Canada will ultimately declare itself, the War Resisters Support Campaign says.

Glass, 25, has lived for two years as though ready to bolt, his belongings stuffed in backpacks and boxes in a small Toronto apartment he shares with other resisters. He has fielded death threats and hate-filled e-mails from Americans who consider him a traitor and a coward.Though pleased by the day's victory, he wonders whether anything can happen before his June 12 deportation deadline that would keep him from being sent back to the U.S., and perhaps to prison.

http://newageislam.com/canada-s-house-backs-war-resisters/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/d/51

Malaysian women warned over lipstick, heels: Women's dress can lead to vice, city council says, Islamic Society,NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic Society

Malaysian women warned over lipstick, heels: Women's dress can lead to vice, city council says

The guidelines were sent to local businesses and shops last month, he said, but denied reports that anyone flouting the code faced a fine.

"If they want to follow what we advocate in the campaign, it is entirely their choice but we hope they do because this is the best for them."

"We do not punish anyone for wearing thick make-up or high-heel shoes, there are no fines either," he said, but added that Muslim women did face a fine if they failed to cover their heads with a scarf.

Kelantan has been run by the Islamic party PAS since 1990 and is the most conservative state in Malaysia. Like the rest of the country, it is dominated by Muslim Malays, but also home to ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities.

http://newageislam.com/malaysian-women-warned-over-lipstick,-heels--women-s-dress-can-lead-to-vice,-city-council-says/islamic-society/d/140