Free Republic

To find out more about Obama’s time in Indonesia, TheBlaze tracked down Father Bart Janssen. He’s the elderly founder of Santo Fransiskus Assisis who we found in a monastery in Den Bosch, The Netherlands. We asked him, through a Dutch translator, what he remembers of the young Barack Obama. Janssen doesn’t remember who registered Obama, but he recalls that Obama’s mother didn’t speak Indonesian at the time, so he thinks that both the stepfather and the mother would have been there together to register their son. He also doesn’t think the details in Obama’s registration document should be considered official...

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Indonesia's anti-terror squad arrested 11 people suspected of planning a range of attacks on domestic and foreign targets including the U.S. Embassy and a site near the Australian Embassy, police said Saturday. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/10/27/indonesia-reports-suspects-planned-attack-on-us-embassy/#ixzz2AYUPPqIm

SNIPPET: "Indonesian anti-terror police, Densus 88 secure a terror suspect's house during a raid in Mojosongo, Solo in Central Java. Indonesian police have arrested 11 members of an Islamic group allegedly planning attacks on American diplomatic missions, a spokesman says." SNIPPET: "The group had planned to hit the US embassy and a US consulate, as well as a building near the Australian embassy in the capital Jakarta that houses the office of American mining giant Freeport-McMoran, police said. Police said they were from a new outfit called HASMI, the Sunni Movement for Indonesian Society, and explosives and a bomb-making manual...

Brisbane Times: A mob of Indonesian Islamists waving jihad flags attacked the US embassy yesterday, throwing rocks and bricks, but they were repelled by tear gas and riot police. About 500 people from a number of radical groups were protesting against the movie The Innocence of Muslims by calling for the arrest and death penalty for the movie’s director Sam Bacile and the Florida preacher Terry Jones who had planned to show the film.

I am President Obama’s classmate at Columbia University, Class of ’83. I am also one of the most accurate Las Vegas oddsmakers and prognosticators. Accurate enough that I was awarded my own star on the Las Vegas Walk of Stars. And I smell something rotten in Denmark. Obama has a big skeleton in his closet. It’s his college records. Call it “gut instinct” but my gut is almost always right. Obama has a secret hidden at Columbia- and it’s a bad one that threatens to bring down his Presidency. Gut instinct is how I’ve made my living for 29 years...

BALI bomber Umar Patek was seeking a meeting with Osama bin Laden when he was arrested a few kilometres from the al-Qa'ida chief's hideout. The arrest in Abbottabad of Patek, the last major figure who was still at large for the 2002 Bali attacks that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians, has raised a critical question: did Patek give vital information to the mission to kill bin Laden, or did his arrest by Pakistani intelligence risk upsetting the American operation? Patek was arrested on January 25, nine days after stopping in the mountain garrison town on his way to meet...

Aceh ‘Punks’ Arrested for ‘Re-education’ Banda Aceh. Dozens of young people were being held and punished by Aceh police on Tuesday for the supposed crime of being “punk,” despite not being charged with any crime nor being brought before a court. The 64 music lovers, some of whom had come from as far as Jakarta and West Java, were arrested by regular and Shariah police as they held a charity concert in Banda Aceh’s Taman Budaya park on Saturday night. Banda Aceh police took the arrestees on Tuesday afternoon to the Aceh State Police School for “reeducation.” Aceh police chief...

Evidence continues to mount that President Obama was adopted by his Indonesian stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, raising concerns over his presidential eligibility. Obama’s American mother, Ann Dunham, separated from her first husband, Barack Obama Sr., in 1963 when the president was 2 years old. Dunham and Obama Sr. are reported to have later divorced. In Hawaii, Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian, in 1965 and moved to Indonesia in October 1967. Divorce documents filed in Hawaii on Aug. 20, 1980, refer to Obama as the “child” of both Soetoro and Dunham, indicating a possible adoption in the U.S. The divorce records...

Jakarta Police will guard a mass prayer organized by the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) for Osama bin Laden, who was shot dead in a US military operation on Monday. The service will be held at the FPI headquarters in Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta, from 7 to 8 p.m. on Wednesday. According to Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Baharudin Djafar, the police will guard the event as usual. He added that the FPI did not need to request permission from police to hold the event. “Its an ordinary Koran recital. We can't stop people from praying,” he added, as reported by...

Complete title: NYT Mag features new book with Obama interview about his mother: 'She was a very strong person in her own way' FIRST LOOK – New York Times Magazine cover story, “WHY SHE WENT: When Barry Obama was 6 years old [in 1967], his mother moved him to Indonesia. It was a decision that would define his life and hers,” by Janny Scott, a reporter for The New York Times who went on leave in 2008 to write “A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother,” from which this article, "The Young Mother Abroad," is adapted: “The...

The Central Jakarta administration will move the controversial "Little Barry" statue from its current location at Taman Menteng in Central Jakarta to state elementary school SDN 01 Menteng next week, an official says. "We are currently discussing with officials from the school and its alumni association," city spokesman Cucu Ahmad Kurnia told reporters Friday. "We hope the move will happen next week." US President Barack Obama attended the elementary school for almost two years when he spent part of his childhood in Jakarta. Erected by the Jakarta-based Friends of Obama Foundation in December last year, the statue, which resembles Obama...

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine: Video Members of a bipartisan group of lawmakers called the Congressional Prayer Caucus want to make sure President Obama knows the country's national motto. Forty-one Republicans and one of the five Democrats from the caucus sent a letter to the president asking him to correct a mistake he made during a speech last month in Jakarta, Indonesia when he said -- quote -- "In the United States, our motto is E Pluribus Unum -- out of many, one." The lawmakers point out the official national motto -- approved by Congress in 1956...

Lawmakers are not particularly impressed with the United States offer of 24 secondhand F-16 fighters, which would more than double the current Air Force fleet of 10 F-16s. The Defense Ministry said last week that Washington had offered Indonesia the aircraft as a gift, and Armed Forces (TNI) chief Adm. Agus Suhartono indicated interest in the proposal. But on Friday, Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro said the government would review the offer before making a decision. Lawmakers agree, saying the jets should first be checked to make sure they are not junk. “They should not only look at the quantity of...

President Obama has once again taken it upon himself to address the Muslim world, this time in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. In the absence of reliable opinion polls it is anyone’s guess whether the Muslim world relishes, or even indeed much cares about, what is fast becoming a biannual fixture. What does seem increasingly obvious is that the president remains as baffled by that vast amorphous body as the rest of us. He had not even opened his mouth before his purpose was almost derailed by, of all people, his wife, or rather a handshake between Michelle Obama and...

Rhetoric:“…while my stepfather, like most Indonesians, was raised a Muslim, he firmly believed that all religions were worthy of respect…in this way he reflected the spirit of religious tolerance that is enshrined in Indonesia’s Constitution, and that remains one of this country’s defining and inspiring characteristics.” “…Across an archipelago that contains some of God’s most beautiful creations, islands rising above an ocean named for peace, people choose to worship God as they please. Islam flourishes, but so do other faiths.” - Barack Obama, Jakarta, Indonesia, Nov. 9, 2010 Reality:- There are currently an estimated twenty Jews living in Indonesia. -...

sns-ap-as-indonesia-michelles-handshake JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A conservative Muslim government minister admits he shook hands with first lady Michelle Obama in welcoming her to Indonesia but says it wasn't his choice. Footage on YouTube shows otherwise, sparking a debate that has lit up Facebook, Twitter and the rest of the blogosphere. "I tried to prevent (being touched) with my hands but Mrs. Michelle held her hands too far toward me (so) we touched," Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring told tens of thousands of followers on Twitter.

AS a schoolboy in Jakarta, Barack Obama attended Muslim prayer sessions with his classmates against the wishes of his mother. The US President's former grade three teacher said that Mr Obama - who was known as "Barry" when he attended the Menteng One school in Jakarta - studied the Koran and went to classes on Islam, despite the objections of Anne Dunham, a Roman Catholic. The teacher's recollections will add to speculation about Mr Obama's links to Islam during his much-anticipated visit to Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, as part of his ten-day tour of Asia.

AS a schoolboy in Jakarta, Barack Obama attended Muslim prayer sessions with his classmates against the wishes of his mother. The US President's former grade three teacher said that Mr Obama - who was known as "Barry" when he attended the Menteng One school in Jakarta - studied the Koran and went to classes on Islam, despite the objections of Anne Dunham, a Roman Catholic. The teacher's recollections will add to speculation about Mr Obama's links to Islam during his much-anticipated visit to Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, as part of his ten-day tour of Asia. His middle...

Singapore Airlines says it is canceling flights to and from Indonesia's capital following the eruption of the country's most volatile volcano. The carrier made the announcement on its website Saturday. Indonesia's most volatile mountain — around 280 miles (450 kilometers) west of Jakarta — unleashed its most powerful eruption in a century Friday. Towering plumes of ash continued to rise from the mountain Saturday, dusting windshields, rooftops and leaves on trees hundreds of miles (kilometers) away. It was not immediately clear when Singapore Airlines would resume flights.

President Obama to visit mosque in Indonesia By: Kendra Marr October 28, 2010 12:21 PM EDT President Barack Obama will visit one of the world’s largest mosques when he makes good on a long-delayed promise to visit Indonesia, the island nation where he lived briefly as a child. The president will visit Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta — the largest mosque in Southeast Asia and the third largest Muslim house of worship in the world — during his swing through the country Nov. 9-10. Islam is the dominant religion in populous Indonesia, making it the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation. White House...