Indonesia executes six drug convicts, five of them foreigners

Indonesia executes six drug convicts, five of them foreigners
Widodo has pledged to bring reform to Indonesia

Ban appeals to Indonesia to stop death row executions

Ban appeals to Indonesia to stop death row executions
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has pleaded to Indonesia to stop the execution of prisoners on death row for drug crimes. AFP PHOTO

Pope: 'Death penalty represents failure' – no 'humane' way to kill a person

Pope: 'Death penalty represents failure' – no 'humane' way to kill a person
The pope wrote that the principle of legitimate personal defense isn’t adequate justification to execute someone. Photograph: Zuma/Rex

Obama becomes first president to visit US prison (US Justice Systems / Human Rights)

Obama becomes first president to visit US prison   (US Justice Systems / Human Rights)
US President Barack Obama speaks as he tours the El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in El Reno, Oklahoma, July 16, 2015 (AFP Photo/Saul Loeb)

US Death Penalty (Justice Systems / Human Rights)

US Death Penalty (Justice Systems / Human Rights)
Woman who spent 23 years on US death row cleared (Photo: dpa)



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"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it), Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse), Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

… The Shift in Human Nature

You're starting to see integrity change. Awareness recalibrates integrity, and the Human Being who would sit there and take advantage of another Human Being in an old energy would never do it in a new energy. The reason? It will become intuitive, so this is a shift in Human Nature as well, for in the past you have assumed that people take advantage of people first and integrity comes later. That's just ordinary Human nature.

In the past, Human nature expressed within governments worked like this: If you were stronger than the other one, you simply conquered them. If you were strong, it was an invitation to conquer. If you were weak, it was an invitation to be conquered. No one even thought about it. It was the way of things. The bigger you could have your armies, the better they would do when you sent them out to conquer. That's not how you think today. Did you notice?

Any country that thinks this way today will not survive, for humanity has discovered that the world goes far better by putting things together instead of tearing them apart. The new energy puts the weak and strong together in ways that make sense and that have integrity. Take a look at what happened to some of the businesses in this great land (USA). Up to 30 years ago, when you started realizing some of them didn't have integrity, you eliminated them. What happened to the tobacco companies when you realized they were knowingly addicting your children? Today, they still sell their products to less-aware countries, but that will also change.

What did you do a few years ago when you realized that your bankers were actually selling you homes that they knew you couldn't pay for later? They were walking away, smiling greedily, not thinking about the heartbreak that was to follow when a life's dream would be lost. Dear American, you are in a recession. However, this is like when you prune a tree and cut back the branches. When the tree grows back, you've got control and the branches will grow bigger and stronger than they were before, without the greed factor. Then, if you don't like the way it grows back, you'll prune it again! I tell you this because awareness is now in control of big money. It's right before your eyes, what you're doing. But fear often rules. …

Sunday, August 4, 2013

How All Religions Can Play a Part in Ramadan

Jakarta Globe, Dyah Ayu Pitaloka, August 4, 2013

Buddhist members of the Vihara Sanggar Suci temple in Malang, East Java,
have been opening their doors to serve up meals for Muslims to break their fast
during the month of Ramadan for the past 15 years. (JG Photo/Dyah Ayu Pitaloka)

Tineke paced back and forth as she looked at her watch. “It’s now 5 p.m., and the food has yet to come,” the middle-aged woman said, her restlessness shown by her frown and shortness of breath.

She was not the only one waiting anxiously for the food to arrive. Eight other women were also standing by and keeping themselves busy by arranging tables into rows, laying down tablecloths and stacking empty plates.

Tineke and the other women were preparing a mass iftar event for some 200 hungry Muslims who were eager to break their fast.

But while the women had volunteered and financed the event for Muslims who were not fortunate enough to buy a decent meal or who did not have time to prepare anything, they won’t be fasting this Ramadan.

(JG Photo/Dyah Ayu Pitaloka)
The women are Buddhists and members of the Vihara Sanggar Suci temple located in the subdistrict of Lawang in Malang, East Java. For the past 15 years, the temple has opened its doors and converted its garage into a gathering place where food is served for Muslims looking to break their fast during the holy month.

Winantea Listiahadi, the temple’s head clergyman and the drive’s initiator, is a humble, elderly man with grey hair who likes to wear simple clothes — a plain white T-shirt and a pair of old, worn, faded black trousers.

He recounted how he started the drive. It was 1998 and the Asian financial crisis was at its height. Businesses were forced to close, jobs were lost and people were going to bed hungry.

The crisis was so severe it paved the way for the resignation of former president Suharto, a powerful, iron-fisted leader who reigned for 32 years. But it also gave way to friction, ethnic violence and tensions. That year, 850 kilometers away in Jakarta, people of Chinese descent like Winantea were targeted, murdered and raped, their homes, stores and factories burned.

But Winantea couldn’t care less.

What he saw at the time were victims of the financial crisis, people who had little money to break their fast. And he felt compelled to do something about it.

Winantea said he first contacted members of Metta, a women’s group from the temple, to enlist their help.

“The following day we staged our first fast-breaking event,” he explained.

When the drive kicked off, Winantea and the group served 80 people. But word spread and the number grew to 300, with people coming from the city of Malang to the neighboring district of Jombang. As the number of visitors soared so did the Buddhist community’s drive to lend a hand or provide financial support.

“We started handing out packed meals, visiting them directly. But we realized that people were asking for two to three packs to keep for later so we opened our doors and invited them [to the temple]. That way more people could be served. If they want more they can have another go but after everyone else has had their share,” Winantea said.

The sun was slowly fading and the time to break the fast was just around the corner. A minivan pulled up by the side of the temple, to everyone’s relief. Inside were pots of mutton curry, the meal for the day, ordered from a distant restaurant.

The women wasted no time carrying the heavy pots filled with the stew inside. Tineke swiftly readied the serving bowls, filling them up with the curry as people began queuing up in one long line, snaking out to the nearby streets.

Winantea and the women from Metta ensure that the meals vary each day to keep visitors from getting bored.

They also make sure that the meals are halal, choosing to buy food from restaurants serving halal food rather than preparing their own meals to hand out to visitors.

The volunteers are even willing to help and reach out even if it’s not in line with their own beliefs.

“I am a vegetarian,” the Buddhist monk said.

“If I served them with pecel [vegetables with peanut sauce], they can buy it themselves. It wouldn’t be special for those with low income. This is my way of helping them. So I gladly sacrifice my vegetarianism.”

Winantea said previous items on the menu included rawon (beef stew with soy sauce), soto (soup) or satay .

“If you want more you can head to that table over there. There are also biscuits after you finish your meal,” Tineke shouted to the visitors who had lined up with empty plates in their hands.

Tineke swooped up a ladle full of mutton, pouring it into people’s plates as they moved their way up the long queue.

The call to prayer filled the air, a signal that the day’s fasting was over, preceded by a loud series of drumming from a nearby mosque. One by one the hundreds of people who were there began to down the hot tea served and to eat their first meal for the day.

In a matter of minutes the meals were finished, leaving stacks of dirty plates placed at one corner of the garage waiting to be cleaned. At another corner there sits a plastic bag filled with used plastic spoons and cups and colorful food wrappers.

“The food is great here,” said Karyadi, a man from a neighboring subdistrict who came with his wife and grandson.

“I have been coming here since the first day of fasting and will do so until the fasting month ends.”

(JG Photo/Dyah Ayu Pitaloka)
Indonesia is home to the world’s biggest Muslim population and was once a model of religious tolerance and democracy. But over the years, religious extremism and radicalism have grown in prominence.

Last year, the Setara Institute, an advocacy group, recorded 579 cases of religious violence.

Less than 100 kilometers north of Malang, on the island of Madura, an entire Shia community was attacked and driven away from their homes by radical Sunnis, the predominant Muslim group in Indonesia. In Jakarta, a terrorist cell plotted an attack against a Buddhist temple in retaliation for the killings of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

While the temple’s food drive remains an example of how religious tolerance still has a place in Indonesia and can bridge a widening divide between religions, Winantea said the volunteers’ only intention was to do good without any other agenda or goals in mind.

“We never bothered to check whether they are indeed fasting or not, whether they can afford to buy meals for themselves or not. Everyone is welcome,” he explained.

“I don’t even know for how long we will keep doing this. It’s all about showing compassion. We just let it flow.”

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