{"id":9672,"date":"2011-07-18T05:07:25","date_gmt":"2011-07-18T05:07:25","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-07-18T05:07:25","modified_gmt":"2011-07-18T05:07:25","slug":"Malaysian-PM-Najib-meets-Pope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=9672","title":{"rendered":"Malaysian PM Najib meets Pope"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is in Rome for a two-day working visit which includes an audience with Pope Benedict XVI.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Mr Najib&#8217;s visit to the Vatican was planned before street protests rocked the Malaysian capital <\/strong>two weekends ago.<\/p>\n<p>The scheduled meeting with Pope Benedict XVI is essentially to <strong>establish diplomatic relations with the Vatican<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Malaysia is among 16 countries in the world that have no diplomatic ties with the Roman Catholic church.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Even Muslim countries like <strong>Indonesia, Iran, Iraq and Pakistan have existing diplomatic links with the Vatican. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>But this is not the first meeting between a Malaysia prime minister and the head of the Catholic church.<\/p>\n<p>In 2002, then <strong>Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad met Pope John Paul II<\/strong> in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks in the US, to talk about Muslim-Christian relations. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Malaysia is seen as a voice of moderate Islam and Mr Najib wants to build on the country&#8217;s standing<\/strong> in promoting interfaith relations which remains a challenge both back home and abroad. <\/p>\n<p><em>Source AP<\/em><br \/>\n<!--break--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is in Rome for a two-day working visit which includes an audience with Pope Benedict<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Admin","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is in Rome for a two-day working visit which includes an audience with Pope Benedict","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["News"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":146,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":1,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Admin","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"<a href=\"#\" class=\"category-link 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