Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, who has been abandoned by his erstwhile Malay Muslim supporters since the dismissal and arrest of former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, suffered yet another blow on November 29.
At least 10 people in Aceh were wounded by gunfire, and many more injured in other incidents, on December 4, when Indonesian troops and police fired on people celebrating the territory’s ‘national day’.
Indonesian president Abdur Rahman Wahid raised eyebrows on December 4 when he told his new economic affairs commission that Israel had agreed to invest $200 million in Indonesia.
Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamed was returned to office in the general elections late last month, as widely predicted, but was severely bruised in the process and faces a difficult and uncertain future...
In their biggest-ever demonstration of contempt for the pagan Pancasila rule of the Javanese-Indonesian government, an estimated one million Acehnese Muslims rallied in their capital, Banda Aceh, on November 8...
Malaysian politics went into overdrive last month, after prime minister Mahathir Mohammed finally called the country’s long-awaited elections on November 10. The polls were scheduled for November 29 (after Crescent press time).
Hundreds of thousands of Bangsamoro Muslims from all walks of life came onto the streets of the major cities of Mindanao on October 23 and 24, in rallies and demonstrations to demand the separation of their homeland from the Republic of the Philippines.
Indonesian national police chief General Rusmanhadi announced the beginning of a new six-month offensive against Islamic rebels in Ache Sumatra on August 5.
Indonesian national police chief General Rusmanhadi announced the beginning of a new six-month offensive against Islamic rebels in Aceh Sumatra on August 5. He said that 11,000 security officers, including both police and regular troops, would be involved in the operation.
Indonesia and Malaysia have many similarities. Each has a predominantly Muslim population. Indonesia has been under a dominant political party Golkar for 32 years, while Malaysia’s UMNO has been ruling the country for the past 42 years.
The Malaysian government has bungled anew with the fresh sodomy charges it has brought against the jailed former deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim.
Politics in Malaysia is at a crossroads. The aftermath, or rather the aftershock of Anwar’s verdict, which virtually all Malaysians have now dismissed as a shameless show-trial, is still felt all over the country. The judgement, as Anwar himself described it, ‘stinks to high heaven’.
The people of Indonesia will go to the polls on June 7, with the world’s eyes on east Timor which has been promised autonomy or even total independence.
Although Anwar Ibrahim’s ‘conviction’ on corruption charges was a foregone conclusion, the April 14 verdict still sent shock waves through Malaysia. The sentence - six years in jail - was even heavier than expected, and Judge Augustine Paul’s decision to have the prison term begin from the day of the conviction...
The struggle of the Malay Bangsamoro people began almost 500 years ago, when Spain invaded the three independent Muslim principalities - the Sultanates of Sulu and Maguindanao, and the Confederated Sultanates of Ranao - which governed mainland Mindanao and the islands of Basilan, Sulu and Palawan. Mindanao and these islands today constitute what is known as the ‘southern Philippines.’ Islam had been here for some 200 years before the Spanish arrived.
Crescent International interviewed Ustadz Salamat Hashim, Chair of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Amirul Mujahideen and Imam of the Bangsamoro People, at his main base at Camp Abu Bakre As-Siddiq, Central Mindanao, last month.
Three days of preliminary talks (February 8-10) between the technical committees of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Philippine government, at the Da’wah Center at Crossing Simuay, Sultan Kudarat Municipality, Maguindanao Province...
The Anwar Ibrahim corruption trial ended abruptedly on March 23, when the presiding judge, Justice Augustine Paul, ended proceedings without the defence having completed presented their closing arguments.
Crescent International interviewed Ustadz Salamat Hashim, Chair of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Amirul Mujahideen and Imam of the Bangsamoro People, at his main base at Camp Abu Bakre As-Siddiq, Central Mindanao, last month.
At a time when the Philippine mililtary is under immense pressure from the mujahideen of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Mindanao, the Manila regime has tried to give the rival Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) a new lease of life.
