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. …

Friday, September 26, 2014

Indonesia’s scrapping of direct elections raises fears for democracy

Controversial legislation criticised as attempt by old political elites to consolidate their loosening grip on power

The Guardian, Kate Lamb in Jakarta, Friday 26 September 2014

President-elect Widodo. Indonesia, the world’s third-largest democracy, was held up
as an example in the region after the July poll. Photograph: Darren Whiteside/Reuters

Fears have been raised for Indonesia’s democracy after its parliament voted to abolish the direct election of local leaders, a key post-dicatatorship reform credited with assisting president-elect Joko Widodo’s rise to popularity as a mayor and governor before he won July’s national election.

The legislation – passed in the early hours of Friday after intensive lobbying – will mean provincial governors, district chiefs and mayors will now be elected by legislative bodies rather than directly by the people.

It could also lead to Widodo’s opponents in the incoming parliament – in which his coalition will hold just over a third of the seats – using its appointees to block his reforms at the local level.

Direct elections, part of the decentralisation measures implemented after the fall of dictator Suharto in 1998, have been credited with producing a handful of promising new leaders unconnected to the old elite, including Widodo, who beat a former general in the election in July.

After the tightest elections in the nation’s history ran peacefully, the world’s third-largest democracy was lauded for it political maturity and held up as an example in the region.

Raised in a riverside slum in Central Java, Widodo, known in Indonesia as Jokowi, is the first elected president with no direct ties to the old political and military establishment.

“The bill is a setback. A step back to a process of electing political leaders that is now in the hands of political parties,” said Djayadi Hanan, a political analyst from Paramadina University in Jakarta. “It is like a comeback for the political oligarchy.”

Doing away with direct elections, say analysts, will stymie the emergence of a new breed of accountable, responsible leaders and entrench the old elite.

Citing a recent poll by the Indonesian Survey Circle that showed more than 80% of Indonesians opposed the bill, Hanan argued that Indonesia’s political elites were trying to tighten their loosening grip on power and in doing so acted “against the will of the people”.

The bill has also been seen as attempt to even political scores, rushed through by an outgoing parliament and passed by a coalition of parties led by Prabowo Subianto, the former general who lost the July election to Jokowi.

“[The Prabowo coalition] want to humiliate Jokowi in the parliament, and this is the first battle,” said Eva K Sundari, a legislator from Jokowi’s Democratic party of Struggle

The ruling coalition in the incoming parliament will account for just over 36% of the seats and unless Jokowi manages to secure the support of another political party, he looks set to face a belligerent parliament after his inauguration on 20 October.

Analysts say that while he might hold power at the top, the opposition could further derail his programmes at a local level following the elimination of direct elections. More than 200 new local leaders, including 11 new provincial governors, are scheduled to be appointed next year and the new bill could help consolidate power in the hands of Jokowi’s opponents.

Aleksius Jemadu, the dean of political sciences at Pelita Harapan University in Jakarta, said the bill reflected an unsavoury new development in Indonesian democracy, one where the parliament “can do anything they want now because they control the majority and no one can stop them”.

In the lead-up to the boisterous 12 hours of debate and lobbying that preceded the vote, it appeared the bill was likely to be quashed. But the party that held the crucial swing vote, outgoing president Yudhoyono’s Democratic party, reversed its position at the 11th hour, walking out of the plenary session and abstaining from the subsequent vote.

That decision cost Jokowi’s coalition more than 100 votes and sealed an easy victory for the Prabowo-led coalition by 226 votes to 135.

Civil society groups and NGOs have vowed to challenge the new law at the constitutional court, but it is unclear whether they could win. Depending on the interpretation of the law, both direct and indirect elections are arguably constitutional.

As Prabowo’s Gerindra party hailed victory, critics on social networks described the bill as the death of democracy and directed their anger towards Yudhoyono under the Twitter hashtag #ShameOnYouSBY.

At a press conference on Thursday evening in Washington, where he was on an official visit, Yudhoyono expressed his regret at the vote. He said his party was preparing a lawsuit to challenge the bill and would seek recourse at the constitutional or supreme court.

Not all political observers are convinced he is sincere, given Yudhoyono could have thrown out the draft law to begin with.

“This reflects the real face of President Yudhoyono’s commitment to develop a genuine democracy,” argued political observer Aleksius Jemadu, “The president was in a position to stop all this in the first place, but he didn’t.”

Widodo has vowed to fight against the law and on Friday said the Indonesian public should remember which “political parties have robbed them of their political rights”.


The Democrats may file for review at the Constitutional Court, but experts
say others have better standing. (Antara Photo/Puspa Perwitasari)




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