Obama says Indonesia, U.S. 'on right path' - USA Today

JAKARTA, Indonesia — President Obama on Tuesday said his efforts to find ways to cooperate with Indonesia were "direct results of my call ... for a new beginning between the United States and Muslim communities."Yet he said progress on that front has not been entirely successful.

"Our efforts have been earnest, sustained," Obama said. "We don't expect that we are going to completely eliminate some of the misunderstandings and mistrust that have developed ... but we do think that we're on the right path."

After visiting the largest mosque in Southeast Asia, Obama will deliver a speech today at the University of Indonesia on just whom the United States is fighting and why.

The speech was also to focus on what Obama said were shared values of religious tolerance and unity in diversity.

"I have made it clear that America is not, and never will be, at war with Islam," he said in remarks prepared prior to the speech and distributed to the news media.

"Instead, all of us must defeat al-Qaeda and its affiliates, who have no claim to be leaders of any religion — certainly not a great, world religion like Islam."

Most of Indonesia's 240 million people follow a moderate form of Islam.

But some Indonesians oppose U.S. policies in the Middle East, Iraq, Afghanistan and Indonesia.

The radical group Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia protested Obama's visit earlier in the week, and on Tuesday members of the Muslim movement GPI held a demonstration to criticize what they say is American hunger for Indonesian resources.

Obama's Kenyan father was a Muslim, but Obama is a Christian.

His former elementary teacher Effendi, 65, said that Obama was registered as a Muslim student because of his Indonesian stepfather.

Effendi, like many Indonesians, goes by only one name.

"He went to the (Muslim) prayer room on Fridays like the other pupils," said Effendi, but his parents insisted he study Islam and Catholicism, he said. "Sometimes he didn't know which classroom he should go to," Effendi said of the 10-year-old Obama.

Effendi said Obama's youthful experience here leaves him confident that "Obama can improve relations between the USA, Indonesia and Islam."

At a joint news conference Tuesday with Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Obama said "what we're trying to do is make sure that we are building bridges and expanding our interactions with Muslim countries."

The rise of militant Islam and terrorist strikes in Indonesia have spurred deeper cooperation with the United States on counterterrorism. But some local analysts doubted the speech's impact.

"He will express his strong commitment to embrace the Islamic world. But it will remain rhetoric," Azyumardi Azra, an Islamic scholar, told the Jakarta Post newspaper.

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Braude Beat: Spader, Obamas in Indonesia, Happy Meals - NECN

(NECN) - On the Braude Beat, Steven Spader was sentenced to life in prison for the brutal murder of Kimberly Cates in New Hampshire.

Also, all of Indonesia is welcoming President Obama, but one minister wasn't exactly happy about his meeting with First Lady Michelle Obama. He told his Twitter followers he tried to avoid shaking her hand.

That's because as a conservative Muslim, he usually avoids contact with women outside his family. However, he says she forced their contact by holding her hands too far toward him.

Also, San Francisco is poised to become the first major American city to prohibit fast food restaurants from including toys with children's meals that don't meet nutritional guidelines.

The measure passed on a preliminary vote by the city's Board of Supervisors last week. It's likely to win final passage Tuesday with enough votes to survive an expected veto by Mayor Gavin Newsom.

The ordinance, which would go into effect in December of next year, prohibits toy giveaways in fast food children's meals that have 640 milligrams of sodium, 600 calories or 35 percent of their calories from fat. The law also would limit saturated fats and trans fats and require fruits or vegetables to be served with each meal with a toy.

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Indonesia disaster toll hits 377 as volcano erupts again - Reuters

Mount Merapi is seen emitting smoke from Sidorejo village, in Klaten, Central Java October 28, 2010, two days after its eruption.

Credit: Reuters/Andry Prasetyo

By Renjani Puspo Sari

JAKARTA | Thu Oct 28, 2010 9:28pm EDT

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's Mount Merapi erupted on Thursday for the second time in a week, blasting vast plumes of ash into the sky, as the death toll from the initial eruption and a tsunami that hit remote western islands reached 377.

There were no immediate reports of new casualties after Merapi's second eruption. More than 40,000 people had fled or been evacuated from Merapi's slopes earlier in the week, but many started to return after the volcano appeared to become calmer.

Officials said the death toll from a tsunami that hit the remote western Mentawai islands on Monday had reached at least 343. The tsunami was triggered on Monday by a 7.5 magnitude quake. A day later, Mount Merapi on the outskirts of Yogyakarta city on Java island erupted, killing at least 34.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who had been due to take part in a summit of Asian leaders in Hanoi from Thursday to Saturday, flew back to Indonesia after the twin disasters.

"The president was very moved when he met the victims of the tsunami and earthquake," Yudhoyono's spokesman, Julian Pasha, told Reuters, adding that the president planned to return to Hanoi before Saturday.

"He has issued instructions for all aid to continue to flow in without disruption."

Parts of an early warning system installed after a huge 2004 tsunami killed more than 226,000 people had been stolen but overall the system still worked, said the head of the meteorological agency, Sri Woro Harijono.

"Yes, some of our sensors disappear because they are stolen, such as seismographs and solar cells," she said. "But it is just one or three sensors out of 100. The system works fine."

Local media reported that parts of the tsunami early warning system had not worked properly because they had been vandalized or removed, while Metro TV broadcast footage of villagers questioning the effectiveness of the warning system.

"This has also been reported to the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology but we also need to make sure this information is verified properly," said Pasha.

"We know that when the quake happened, within 10 minutes this enormous tsunami came. So maybe the speed with which it came meant that the early warning system didn't work."

Indonesia sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire" and is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Mount Merapi killed 1,300 people in 1930.

In December 2004, a tsunami caused by an earthquake of more than 9 magnitude off Sumatra killed more than 226,000 people. It was the deadliest tsunami on record.

(Writing by Sunanda Creagh, editing by Andrew Marshall)

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