Obama calls 'entrepreneurship summit' with Muslims
The White House on Friday announced a "summit on entrepreneurship" to build economic ties with the Islamic world, part of President Barack Obama's outreach to Muslims.
The White House said it has invited participants from more than 40 countries over five continents for the April 26-27 conference in Washington.
"The summit will highlight the role entrepreneurship can play in addressing common challenges while building partnerships that will lead to greater opportunity abroad and at home," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
Obama first spoke of the entrepreneurship conference in his signature June 4 speech in Cairo to the Islamic world.
In the closely watched address, Obama said the United States was seeking a "new beginning" with the Islamic world to rebuild relations that had sharply deteriorated over the past decade.
Obama promised at the time that he would convene a "presidential summit on entrepreneurship" by the end of 2009.
He said that the meeting would "identify how we can deepen ties between business leaders, foundations and social entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world."
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Indonesian students protest Barack Obama's visit
AP – An Indonesian Muslim student defaces a mask of U.S. president Barack Obama during a protest against his …JAKARTA, Indonesia – Scores of Islamic students staged protests outside Jakarta's parliament and in at least three other major Indonesian cities on Friday against President Barack Obama's upcoming visit to this predominantly Muslim country.
The students carried banners branding Obama as an enemy of Islam and an imperialist in downtown Jakartaas well as in the provincial capitals Padang, Yogyakarta and Surabaya.They also threw shoes at large pictures of Obama's head. An Iraqi journalist was sentenced to a year in prison for throwing his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush during a news conference in Baghdad in 2008.
Protest organizer Ahmad Irhamul Fikri, spokesman for the Coordinating Board for Campus Proselytizing Institute, said bigger rallies will be staged next Friday in more Indonesian cities ahead of Obama's March 20-22 visit.
Such demonstrations of hostility toward Obama are rare in Indonesia, where he enjoys widespread popularity because he spend part of his childhood in Jakarta while his mother was married to his Indonesian stepfather.
Local government officials allowed business people to erect a statue of a 10-year-old Obama in a Jakarta park in December. But it was shifted last month to a nearby elementary school that he attended after more than 50,000 people supported a Facebook campaign against it and court action was threatened.
Obama is expected to sign the statue's pedestal while in Jakarta.
AP – An Indonesian Muslim student defaces a mask of U.S. president Barack Obama during a protest against his …
JAKARTA, Indonesia – Scores of Islamic students staged protests outside Jakarta's parliament and in at least three other major Indonesian cities on Friday against President Barack Obama's upcoming visit to this predominantly Muslim country.
The students carried banners branding Obama as an enemy of Islam and an imperialist in downtown Jakartaas well as in the provincial capitals Padang, Yogyakarta and Surabaya.
They also threw shoes at large pictures of Obama's head. An Iraqi journalist was sentenced to a year in prison for throwing his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush during a news conference in Baghdad in 2008.
Protest organizer Ahmad Irhamul Fikri, spokesman for the Coordinating Board for Campus Proselytizing Institute, said bigger rallies will be staged next Friday in more Indonesian cities ahead of Obama's March 20-22 visit.
Such demonstrations of hostility toward Obama are rare in Indonesia, where he enjoys widespread popularity because he spend part of his childhood in Jakarta while his mother was married to his Indonesian stepfather.
Local government officials allowed business people to erect a statue of a 10-year-old Obama in a Jakarta park in December. But it was shifted last month to a nearby elementary school that he attended after more than 50,000 people supported a Facebook campaign against it and court action was threatened.
Obama is expected to sign the statue's pedestal while in Jakarta.
