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, July 20, 2014

Chinese Tourists Abandon Vietnam After Oil Rig Row

Jakarta Globe, Cat Barton, Jul 20, 2014

Tourists touring downtown Hanoi. (AFP Photo/Hoang Dinh Nam)

For years Nguyen Huu Son has guided Chinese tourists around Vietnam’s popular coastal city Danang, but a bitter maritime dispute between Hanoi and Beijing means he is now out of work.

Relations between the communist neighbors plunged to their lowest point in decades when Beijing moved a deep-sea oil rig into disputed waters in the South China Sea in early May, triggering deadly riots in Vietnam.

The rig has since been withdrawn. But the Chinese tourists have not returned.

“It’s never been this bad before … My company has almost no customers, no work,” Son told AFP.

Son’s salary has been cut by two-thirds, but he feels “embarrassed” to take even this reduced pay package as he knows his company is not making any money at all.

“We focus on individual travelers, not tour groups, and 100 percent of them cancelled … I have nothing to do with my time,” he said, adding that he was mulling a change of career.

After the mid-May riots, in which China says four of its nationals were killed, Beijing evacuated thousands of citizens and issued a “yellow” travel warning for Vietnam.

While this was reasonable in the immediate aftermath of the riots — which mostly affected Taiwanese and South Korean businesses — maintaining the travel warning when any danger to tourists has passed smacks of politics, said Professor Jonathan London at City University of Hong Kong.

“It reminds one of Beijing’s campaign to reduce mainland tourism to the Philippines,” London said, referring the economic fallout from the 2012 standoff over the Scarborough Shoal.

After a dispute over the uninhabited shoal, Beijing warned its citizens about travel safety in the Philippines, prompting mass cancellations.

Economic impact

Chinese tourist arrivals to Vietnam were down 29.5 percent in June from the previous month, according to official figures.

In June, 136,726 Chinese visited Vietnam, down from 194,018 in May and 216,659 in April this year, the figures show.

Vietnam will continue tourism promotion efforts in China, aiming to show “Vietnam is a safe destination,” said Nguyen Manh Cuong, an official at the tourism department.

Tourism is an important source of revenue for communist Vietnam, contributing nearly six percent of the country’s gross domestic product in 2013, official statistics show.

Chinese visitors make up the largest single group of arrivals — more than 1.1 million in 2014 overall, despite the sharp fall off after May.

The next largest group, South Korea, saw 405,634 arrivals.

The average Chinese visitor stays five days and spends $300 if they travel by land, or $700 if they have arrived by airplane, Cuong said.

This compares to an average stay of about 10 days by European or American tourists, who spend up to $3,000 during that period, official figures show.

Tourism politics

The fall in Chinese arrivals after the maritime dispute erupted is understandable as Beijing uses outbound tourism as a “negative sanction,” according to Tony Tse, a professor at the school of hotel and tourism management at Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

“Outbound tourism can be used by the Chinese government to show its aggression,” he said in a 2013 paper, citing the examples of the Philippines and Japan — where tourism was hard hit after a 2012 dispute with the latter over the Senkaku islands, known as the Diaoyu in China.

“The hostility in withholding tourism acts like a punishment and China is powerful enough to exercise this kind of sanction,” Tse wrote in the paper on how China uses outbound tourism as a form of diplomacy.

Vietnamese tourists have also been cancelling trips to China in droves, although the government has not issued any travel warning, said one travel agent who declined to be named.

“It’s a way to express patriotism. Vietnamese like travelling in China… but now they cancel to show their patriotism,” he said.

Tran Thi Lan, 54, a primary school teacher from central Nghe An province, had booked a trip to China for this summer which she was “very excited” about.

“We decided to cancel, not the tour operator. The Chinese government’s behaviour was unacceptable,” she told AFP.

“We decided not to go to show our attitude… We don’t want to go on holiday to a country that is invading our waters,” she said.

Agence France-Presse
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