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Hajj 2024
Hajj 2024

Joy and gratitude as Indonesian pilgrims embark on this year’s Hajj

Joy and gratitude as Indonesian pilgrims embark on this year’s Hajj
Indonesian Hajj pilgrims attend an information session in Makkah, Saudi Arabia on June 9, 2024. (ANTARA)
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Updated 11 June 2024
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Joy and gratitude as Indonesian pilgrims embark on this year’s Hajj

Joy and gratitude as Indonesian pilgrims embark on this year’s Hajj
  • Indonesia is sending 241,000 pilgrims in this pilgrimage season
  • Pilgrims praise Saudi hospitality extended throughout their journey
Updated 11 June 2024
Sheany Yasuko Lai
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JAKARTA: Fulfilling a lifelong dream to perform the Hajj, M. Andra Rachmanda was overcome with emotion the moment he arrived in Madinah at the beginning of June.

Rachmanda is one of 241,000 Indonesians this year performing the pilgrimage that is one of the five pillars of Islam.

“The first time I arrived in Saudi Arabia, I felt a mix of happiness, wonder and humility. The air here feels different, the atmosphere carries a deep spiritual aura,” Rachmanda told Arab News.

“When I finally visited holy sites like Masjid Al-Haram in Makkah and Al-Masjid Al-Nabawi in Madinah, I was so emotional and grateful. When I saw the Kaaba in person for the first time, I was moved, it felt like a dream come true.”

Although the Hajj is expected to start on June 14, pilgrims from Indonesia started to arrive in Saudi Arabia in mid-May, departing earlier to make the most of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fulfill their religious duty.

“I feel very grateful and honored to get this chance to perform Hajj pilgrimage this year. This is a lifelong dream I have been waiting for, and to be able to go on this trip is a tremendous blessing,” Rachmanda said.

He was also grateful for the services and hospitality he has received in the Kingdom.

“The officers in Saudi Arabia are friendly and ready to help. All the facilities are also very good, ensuring our comfort as Hajj pilgrims. This allows me to focus on a peaceful and solemn worship,” he added.

Through his journey, Rachmanda is hoping to deepen his understanding of Islam and strengthen his relations with fellow Muslims from around the world.

“I hope that this spiritual journey will bring a positive change in my life. I want to strengthen my faith and piety in God, and to become a better person when I return home,” he said. “I am praying that this journey will also bring many blessings for my family and closest ones.”

The spiritual journey has so far been deep and reflective for Paramita Mentari Kesuma, who arrived in Makkah on June 3.

She felt very welcome and met many other foreign pilgrims when visiting the mosques, where they exchanged knowledge, food and stories.

“I can meet with like-minded people when I go for i’tikaf or prayers at the mosque, which allows me to truly enjoy a solemn worshiping experience,” Kesuma told Arab News, referring to the practice of spiritual retreat in a mosque.

“One of the many blessings I experienced during this Hajj season is to receive many snacks from the Saudis, such as dates, bread, juices, for the people doing i’tikaf in Masjid Al-Haram … I hope God will return their kindness.”

Like many pilgrims, Kesuma has been documenting her reflections and experiences on social media to share with friends and loved ones, and also for her own keepsake.

She is filled with gratitude, especially after a long wait that was further delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’m full of happy emotions for sure … May Allah grant us smoothness and ease in our intention to worship to fulfill His call,” Kesuma said.

“I feel truly grateful and happy to have gotten this opportunity, which we believe is a calling and invitation from God. Everything is thanks to God’s will.

Topics: Hajj 2024 Indonesia

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Indian Kashmir votes in final round of regional polls

Indian Kashmir votes in final round of regional polls
Updated 20 sec ago
AFP
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Indian Kashmir votes in final round of regional polls

Indian Kashmir votes in final round of regional polls
  • More than 55 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the first two rounds of the poll
  • Unemployment and anger at 2019 changes to status of Kashmir have animated campaigning
Updated 20 sec ago
AFP

Srinagar, India: Indian-administered Kashmir was voting Tuesday in the third and final round of polls to elect its first government since the insurgency-wracked territory was brought under New Delhi’s direct control.
Hindu-nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government canceled Kashmir’s partial autonomy in 2019, a sudden decision accompanied by mass arrests and a months-long communication blackout.
Since then the territory — which is divided between India and Pakistan and claimed by both in full — has not had an elected government, and has been ruled instead by a federally appointed governor.
More than half a million Indian troops are stationed around Kashmir and Tuesday’s vote saw a heavy security presence, with rifle-toting soldiers seen guarding polling stations in Baramulla district.
A high unemployment rate and anger at the 2019 changes have animated campaigning, and local parties have promised to fight for the restoration of Kashmir’s autonomy.
More than 55 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the first two rounds of the poll.
Prior elections saw lower turnouts after boycotts called by separatist groups, who have waged a decades-long insurgency demanding Kashmir’s independence or its merger with neighboring Pakistan.
Tens of thousands of civilians, soldiers and rebels have been killed since the conflict began in 1989, including dozens this year.
Islamabad controls a smaller portion of the mountainous territory, divided since the end of British colonial rule in 1947.
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) says the 2019 changes to the territory’s governance have delivered a new era of peace to Kashmir and rapid economic growth.
That is disputed by homegrown political parties in Kashmir, who say the accompanying security clampdown brought a drastic curtailment of civil liberties.
The territory, officially titled Jammu and Kashmir, is split.
One part is the overwhelmingly Muslim Kashmir Valley. Another is Hindu-majority Jammu district in the south, geographically divided from the rest of Kashmir by mountains.
While the BJP has fielded candidates in all the constituencies of Jammu, it is contesting only about a third of the seats elsewhere.
Regardless of the outcome, key decisions about Kashmir’s governance will remain in the hands of Delhi, where Modi’s government can use its parliamentary majority to override any legislation passed by the 90-seat assembly.
Results will be announced on October 8.

Topics: India Elections in Kashmir Kashmir Narendra Modi

Ukraine downs 29 Russian drones in overnight attack

Ukraine downs 29 Russian drones in overnight attack
Updated 2 min 16 sec ago
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Ukraine downs 29 Russian drones in overnight attack

Ukraine downs 29 Russian drones in overnight attack
Updated 2 min 16 sec ago
Reuters

KYIV: Ukraine's military shot down 29 out of 32 drones launched by Russia during an overnight attack, Kyiv's air force said on Tuesday.
It added that the Iranian-made drones were downed over parts of central, southern and northeastern Ukraine.

Topics: Ukraine Russia war

India police detain top activist after month-long climate march

India police detain top activist after month-long climate march
Updated 11 min 16 sec ago
AFP
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India police detain top activist after month-long climate march

India police detain top activist after month-long climate march
Updated 11 min 16 sec ago
AFP

NEW DELHI: An Indian environmental activist was detained by police outside New Delhi at the end of a month-long climate protest march on foot from the Himalayas, his colleague said Tuesday.
Sonam Wangchuk, 58, and around 100 of his supporters were taken into custody on Monday night when they were intercepted by police on a major highway leading into the city.
The group had walked nearly 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) to demand more attention to climate change issues in their mountainous home region of Ladakh, on India’s frontier with China, and more political autonomy for the territory.
They had planned to hold a peaceful rally on Wednesday coinciding with the birthday of independence hero Mahatma Gandhi until they were prevented from entering the capital.
“We have been detained at the police station and we are not being allowed to meet our lawyers,” group spokesman P. Namgial told AFP.
Ladakh sits on a highly militarised frontier between India, Pakistan and China, which all claim parts of the remote and inhospitable territory.
The region is at the forefront of climate change that has seen melting glaciers and an increased incidence of flooding and landslides.
It is currently governed directly by Hindu-nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in Delhi.
Wangchuk has spearheaded a campaign demanding Ladakh be given statehood, a move he says would help the territory preserve its fragile ecosystem by giving locals more control over environmental policies.
“Our very land is under threat,” Wangchuk said as the march began last month.
“We are walking because we must, because silence is no longer an option.”
Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi condemned the detentions as an “unacceptable” breach of the protesters’ rights.
“Why are elderly citizens being detained at Delhi’s border for standing up for Ladakh’s future?” he said in a social media post.
Activists, news organizations and non-profit groups say they have faced increased harassment and legal threats since Modi took office in 2014.

Topics: India climate

Japan’s Prime Minister Kishida steps down to make way for likely successor Shigeru Ishiba

Japan’s Prime Minister Kishida steps down to make way for likely successor Shigeru Ishiba
Updated 01 October 2024
AP
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Japan’s Prime Minister Kishida steps down to make way for likely successor Shigeru Ishiba

Japan’s Prime Minister Kishida steps down to make way for likely successor Shigeru Ishiba
  • Kishida took office in 2021 but is leaving so his party can have a fresh leader after his government was dogged by scandals
  • Ishiba plans to call a parliamentary election for Oct. 27 after he is formally chosen as prime minister later in the day
Updated 01 October 2024
AP

TOKYO: Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida resigned with his Cabinet on Tuesday, paving the way for his likely successor Shigeru Ishiba to take office.
Kishida took office in 2021 but is leaving so his party can have a fresh leader after his government was dogged by scandals. Ishiba plans to call a parliamentary election for Oct. 27 after he is formally chosen as prime minister later in the day.
“I believe it is important to have the new administration get the public’s judgment as soon as possible,” Ishiba said Monday in announcing his plan to call a snap election. Opposition parties criticized Ishiba for allowing only a short period of time for his policies to be examined and discussed in parliament before the vote.
Ishiba was chosen as the governing Liberal Democratic Party’s leader on Friday to replace Kishida, who announced in August he would resign at the end of his three-year term.
Ishiba is assured of becoming prime minister later Tuesday in a vote by parliament because it is dominated by his party’s ruling coalition.
Kishida and his ministers stepped down at a Cabinet meeting in the morning, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said.
Hayashi, who is Kishida’s top confidante, said the world has high expectations for Japan’s diplomatic role, noting a deepening global divide over Russia’s war in Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East. “We hope the next administration will pursue an active and powerful diplomacy while placing importance on (Japan’s) main pillars such as achieving a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Hayashi said.
Ishiba earlier announced his party’s leaders ahead of naming his Cabinet, once he becomes prime minister. Former Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, who came in third in the party leadership race, will head the party’s election task force. He is expected to name defense experts Takeshi Iwaya as foreign minister and Gen Nakatani as defense chief.
The majority of his Cabinet ministers, like Ishiba, are expected to be unaffiliated with factions led and controlled by party heavyweights, and none are from former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s powerful group linked to damaging scandals.
Ishiba’s lack of stable power base could also mean a fragility of his government, and “could quickly collapse” even though Ishiba hopes to build up party unity as it prepares for the upcoming election, the liberal-leaning Asahi newspaper said.
The move is also seen as a revenge by Ishiba, who was largely pushed to the side during most of Abe’s reign.
Ishiba has proposed an Asian version of the NATO military alliance and more discussion among regional partners about the use of the US nuclear deterrence. He also suggested a more equal Japan-US security alliance, including joint management of US bases in Japan and having Japanese Self Defense Force bases in the United States.
Ishiba outlined his views in an article to the Hudson Institute last week. “The absence of a collective self-defense system like NATO in Asia means that wars are likely to break out because there is no obligation for mutual defense. Under these circumstances, the creation of an Asian version of NATO is essential to deter China by its Western allies,” he wrote.
Ishiba proposes combining of existing security and diplomatic groupings, such as the Quad and other bilateral and multilateral frameworks involving the United States, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and the Philippines.
He also noted that the Asian version of NATO can also consider sharing of the control of US nuclear weapons in the region as a deterrence against growing threats from China, North Korea and Russia.
Ishiba on Friday stressed Japan needs to reinforce its security, noting recent violations of Japanese airspace by Russian and Chinese warplanes and repeated missile launches by North Korea.
He pledged to continue Kishida’s economic policy aimed at pulling Japan out of deflation and achieving real salary increases, while tackling challenges such as Japan’s declining birthrate and population and resilience to natural disasters.
The LDP has had a nearly unbroken tenure governing Japan since World War II. The party members may have seen Ishiba’s more centrist views as crucial in pushing back challenges by the liberal-leaning opposition and winning voter support as the party reels from corruption scandals that drove down Kishida’s popularity.
Ishiba, first elected to parliament in 1986, has served as defense minister, agriculture minister and in other key Cabinet posts, and was LDP secretary general under Abe.

Topics: Japan Fumio Kishida

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Leaders depart UN facing prospect of a wider Mideast war — but with a blueprint for a better future

Leaders depart UN facing prospect of a wider Mideast war — but with a blueprint for a better future
Updated 01 October 2024
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Leaders depart UN facing prospect of a wider Mideast war — but with a blueprint for a better future

Leaders depart UN facing prospect of a wider Mideast war — but with a blueprint for a better future
  • In the last few days, Yang said, the world has seen “an extremely dramatic escalation” between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon that risks war in the entire Middle East
Updated 01 October 2024
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UNITED NATIONS: They gathered at the United Nations surrounded by unsettling warnings of an escalating conflict that could engulf the Middle East and further shatter international relations that are based on “multilateralism” — nations working together and sharing power. A week later, world leaders headed home with the prospect of a broader war intensifying and global divisions front and center, not only in the Mideast but elsewhere.
There was no expectation of major breakthroughs in the public and private meetings at the annual UN General Assembly meeting of presidents, premiers and other leaders. There rarely is. But this year was especially grim, with no end in sight to the three major conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan, and Israeli military action in Lebanon escalating.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ warning that multilateralism needs to be brought back “from the brink” added to the gloom, along with speech after speech decrying failures to tackle climate change and address growing inequalities between rich and poor nations, and warning of artificial intelligence with no guardrails and the potential of killer weapons with no human control.
General Assembly President Philémon Yang concluded the weeklong, high-level meeting Monday afternoon, calling it “particularly tumultuous” and pointing to the “violent conflicts” that are raging.
“This is, unfortunately, not an exhaustive list of the crises and conflicts affecting member states of the United Nations,” he lamented.
Parts of the world are broken
There was no disagreement that multilateralism is broken, that this founding principle of the United Nations – established in 1945 on the ashes of World War II — needs urgent resuscitation to deal with the challenges the world faces today.
One example: During the very hour on Friday when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the General Assembly that his country genuinely wants peace — a goal stressed by virtually every leader — Israeli warplanes were bombing areas around Beirut in a lethal barrage.
In the last few days, Yang said, the world has seen “an extremely dramatic escalation” between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon that risks war in the entire Middle East. “As we speak, peace in the Middle East is hanging delicately on a shoestring,” he warned..
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said this year’s meeting of leaders – with its marquee speeches known in UN-speak as the “general debate” – took place at “a very serious and a very intense time.”
“The world doesn’t stop for the general debate,” he told reporters Monday. “So we were focused very much on what member states said, but we continue to be very much focused on what is going on in the world outside of this building.”
There was one positive development welcomed by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and many leaders: The adoption of a “Pact for the Future” at a summit just before world leaders began their addresses to the General Assembly. The 42-page blueprint aims to bring the 193 UN member nations together to meet today’s challenges, from climate change and artificial intelligence to escalating conflicts and increasing inequality and poverty.
It challenges leaders of countries large and small, rich and poor, to turn promises into actions. Whether that happens remains to be seen. Yang, the assembly president, said his office has already instituted “an awareness-raising campaign” to spur implementation.
Screeds against selfishness abounded
In an illustration of the blend of woe and weary hope that percolated through the gathering, Burundi’s foreign minister, Albert Shingiro, on Monday decried an international community where “most of us act like we were alone in the world, like others didn’t exist or didn’t count.”
Still, he said, the consensus on the Pact for the Future “shows that multilateralism is not dead and buried.”
From the vantage points where leaders of smaller or less powerful nations sit, the UN can’t change the world without changing itself. Founded with 51 member countries, it now has 193, and many feel included only to a point.
“We must ensure that global institutions give developing countries, especially small, vulnerable ones like my own, seats at the tables of decision-making,” said Barbados’ prime minister, Mia Mottley. “The anger and mistrust of our citizens in institutions, in leaders and in multilateralism and its processes which exclude, while yielding much talk and little action, is very real.”
Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus, head of Bangladesh’s interim government, said “time demands new attitudes, new values, new compacts, across communities and countries.”
“I believe, the world needs to engage on a shared vision of ‘three zeroes’ that we can materialize together, targeting zero poverty, zero unemployment, and, zero net carbon emissions — where a young person anywhere in the world will have opportunities to grow, not as a job seeker but as entrepreneur,” he told the assembly.
During the global gathering, the assembly heard from 190 countries – all but Brunei, Myanmar and Afghanistan. The speakers included 71 heads of state, 42 heads of government, six vice presidents and crown princes, eight deputy prime ministers, 53 ministers, three vice-ministers and seven heads of delegations. Usually, the UN Security Council holds one meeting during the high-level week, but this year the council met about a half-dozen times because of the global conflicts and crises.
For all the alarm, leaders here are politicians, and many made a point of appealing at least somewhat to optimism. Perhaps none stressed it as much as US President Joe Biden, making his last speech at the annual meeting after more than a half-century in public life.
He noted that humanity has brought to a close some of the seemingly intractable threats, conflicts and injustices that beset the world when he was elected as a senator in 1972, from the Cold War to apartheid in South Africa.
“Things can get better,” Biden said. “We should never forget that.”

 

Topics: UNGA79 UN General Assembly (UNGA) Palestine Gaza Lebanon Syria

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