Three IPB University students won gold medals at the Moscow International Salon of Invention and Innovative Technologies which was held in Russia through the Iqropolly innovation. Iqropolly is a media game for teaching Da'wah to children in a bid to teach the Qur'an, accompanied by educational efforts and character education. This game has been known since 2015. This idea was first pioneered by Agung Suharyana, an alumnus of IPB University who used to start Iqropolly along with his colleagues.

Iqropolly is a board game that has the appearance of a monopoly game. The gameplay is almost similar to the game of monopoly or snakes and ladders which uses dice and pawns. The players take turns rolling the dice and running the pawns to the 23 squares on the game board. The 23 boxes contain challenges in the form of instructions and questions regarding Islamic teachings.

These challenges include memorizing prayers, zikr, reading prayers, the names of prophets, messengers and angels, zakat infaq sadaqah, and many others.

Iqropolly is played by 5 children with 1 companion from an adult. Points are awarded to players for successfully completing existing challenges. To further give the impression of fun, props in the form of fairy tales are also provided. In the future, iqropolly will be excpected to also reach the digital world.

Foreign forces under the command of North Atlantic Treaty Organization -NATO will withdraw from Afghanistan in joint coordination with US troops on September 11, 2021. This was disclosed by US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken in Brussels, Belgium on Wednesday (14/4). Germany has also said it will match the United States' plan to leave Afghanistan after 20 years of war. On one hand, this recall will close the book on America's longest war history. On the other hand, critics argue that peace is meaningless after two-decade fighting in Afghanistan.

When President Joe Biden's plan to announce a US troop withdrawal was exposed, the US intelligence community reiterated their deep concern about the prospects for a US-backed government in Kabul. The arrival of NATO troops to Afghanistan in October 2001 was aimed at overthrowing the Taliban regime, driving Al-Qaeda out of the country, and laying the groundwork for a global "war on terrorism". Now, with the US and NATO leaving Afghanistan, does this mean that the problem of global terrorism has been resolved?

In fact, since the Donald Trump administration, the US has planned to withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan. It was once a question, whether President Joe Biden would follow Donald Trump's intentions in this matter. During Trump's presidency, the US government reached an agreement with the Taliban to reduce the number of the US troops gradually to zero, by May 2021. Now, President Biden advocates maintaining a small counterterrorism force in Afghanistan as a way to ensure that extremist groups like Al-Qaeda cannot launch attacks in the USA.

President Joe Biden's plan is to withdraw all US troops in Afghanistan on September 11, 2021. The choice of this date is very symbolic, as it marks the 20th anniversary of the Al-Qaeda attack on the United States.

The question is, after 20 years of war on terrorism, how many people have died and how much budget has been wasted? Both from the human side and the economic aspect, directly or indirectly, America and the world have to bear significant costs after the war. How do the related countries make up for the losses that have occurred? Moreover, inevitably there will always be an impact on other countries.

Voice of Indonesia presents Let’s Speak Indonesian, a program that introduces the Indonesian vocabulary and guides you to speak in the language. Mari Berbahasa Indonesia or Let’s Speak Indonesian is a joint initiative of Voice of Indonesia and the Language Development Agency of the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture.  Today’s topic is still about Sakit which means Sick. 

Here is the conversation entitled Obat apa?which means What Medicine?. This dialog is between Kevin and Mela, Kevin’s workmate. They talk on the phone. Kevin asks Mela if she has medicine or not and Mela wants to know what medicine that Kevin needs. Let’s read to the conversation.

Having listened to the conversation, now I am going to introduce some vocabulary and expressions related to the topic of the day.

In the dialog, you listen to a question Obat apa? (2x) which means What medicine? In the question, there is a word apa (2x) which means what, that is placed in the end of a question. In Indonesian, the word apa (2x) which means what, that is followed by an object can be used to find out a type of some object.

Examples:

Mela   : Obat apa? (2x) which means What medicine?

Kevin  : Parasetamol (2x) which means Paracetamol

Here is another example to find out a type of some object.

Mela  : Air apa? (2x) which means What water?

Kevin: Air putih (2x) which means Mineral water

In Indonesian, drinking water with no color is called air putih (2x) which means mineral water. So if you want to know if someone has mineral water or not, you may ask Ada air putih? (2x) which means Is there any mineral water?

That was “Let’s Speak Indonesian” for today. Hopefully, this edition can be useful for those of you who want to know more about Indonesian language.

Two of the world's great powers have shown  their might  in the South China Sea. That expression can be used in connection with the increase in the number of  US and Chinese fleets in the South China Sea. As reported by the international mass media, over the weekend, the military activities carried out by China and the United States in the South China Sea increased.

Beijing last weekend sent the aircraft carrier Liaoning to the waters of the South China Sea. Meanwhile, the United States and the Philippines have prepared joint military exercises in the disputed sea area. At the same time, Washington and Manila also discussed the possibility of increasing defense cooperation between the two countries.

The military movement and the diplomatic discourse that were brought up showed the intention, both by the United States and China, to fight for influence in the Indo Pacific Region. The escalation of the military movements of the two countries was shown not only in the South China Sea region, but also in the East China Sea. The issue of Taiwan is a reason for the two countries to mutually deploy troops at sea. The United States has deployed the USS Theodore Rooseevelt and Nimits aircraft carriers in the East China Sea, while China is also offsetting military training activities in the Taiwan Strait. It can be said that the relationship between the United States and China after Donald Trump's administration has not shown any significant changes. In this situation, the foreign policy of the United States during the Biden-Harris era also attracted attention.

According to Biden's vision, Washington's Foreign Policy is to turn the United States back into a global leader, both geo-politically and geo-economically, with one of the focuses being the Indo Pacific. This course of Biden-Harris foreign policy is certainly of concern to Beijing. Naturally, China must make an effort to keep up with the United States' movement in realizing its foreign policy vision.

Indeed, there are hints that these two great countries will relax the trade war that culminated in the final years of Donald Trump's administration. However, the relationship between the two at the beginning of the Biden administration was certainly not completely harmonious.

It is in this perspective that the occurrence of military movements in both the South China Sea and the East China Sea can be understood.