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)



.

.
"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. …

Thursday, January 28, 2016

China's Ai Weiwei shuts show to protest Danish migrant law

Yahoo – AFP, January 27, 2016

Chinese activist Ai Weiwei plans to create a memorial to the plight of refugees
on the Greek island of Lesbos (AFP Photo/Angelos Tzortzinis)

Copenhagen (AFP) - Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei on Wednesday closed down his exhibition in the Danish capital after lawmakers passed a controversial bill allowing authorities to seize valuables from asylum seekers.

"Ai Weiwei has decided to close his exhibition 'Ruptures' at Faurschou Foundation Copenhagen, Denmark. This decision follows the Danish parliament's approval of the law proposal that allows seizing valuables and delaying family reunions for asylum seekers," a post on his official Instagram and Facebook accounts read.

The exhibition opened in March 2015 and had been due to close in mid-April 2016.

"I support Ai Weiwei's decision, which is all about freedom and human rights. I think it's so very sad," Jens Faurschou, owner of the Faurschou Foundation in Copenhagen, told AFP.

Denmark's parliament on Tuesday adopted reforms aimed at dissuading migrants from seeking asylum by delaying family reunifications and allowing authorities to confiscate migrants' valuables.

The law has provoked international outrage, with many rights activists blasting the delay for family reunifications as a breach of international conventions.

"Denmark has decided that it wants to be in the forefront of the symbolic and inhuman politics of today's biggest humanitarian crisis in Europe and the Middle East. We both wish that Denmark had decided instead to be in the forefront of a respectful European solution to solve the acute humanitarian crisis," Faurschou said.

China's most prominent contemporary artist, Ai helped design the Bird's Nest stadium for the Beijing Olympics and has been exhibited around the globe, but his works have often run afoul of China's authorities.

He was detained in 2011 for 81 days over his advocacy of democracy and human rights as well as other criticisms of the government in Beijing. Following the detention, he was placed under house arrest and his passport was taken away. The document was only returned last July, enabling him to travel overseas.

Ai's show in Copenhagen included some of his most important work including Sunflower Seeds, made from 100 million handmade porcelain sunflower seeds.

The show also featured several of the artist's sculptures made of wood from Buddhist temples torn down during China's Cultural Revolution.

Earlier this month, the 58-year-old announced plans to create a memorial to the plight of refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos, after meeting some of the many migrants there who risked their lives to reach Europe.


Related Article:

Holocaust survivor lauds Merkel's 'heroic' refugee policy

Holocaust survivor Ruth Klueger delivers a speech on Holocaust Remembrance Day,
January 27, 2016 at the German parliament in Berlin (AFP Photo/John MacDougall)

Court says Dutch state must compensate woman for rape 67 years ago Crime

DutchNews, January 27, 2016

Photo: Depositphotos.com
The Dutch state has been ordered to pay compensation to an Indonesian woman who was raped by several Dutch soldiers in 1949, when Indonesia was still under Dutch rule.

The woman, who was 18 at the time, will receive €7,500 in what is thought to be the first successful compensation claim for a war crime other than execution.

The court in The Hague said there was sufficient proof that the woman had been raped by several soldiers at gunpoint in the run up to independence. 

In addition, the court said the state cannot appeal against the ruling on the basis that it is too old, even though the rapes took place almost 70 years ago. 

Other rulings

Last year, judges in The Hague said the Netherlands must pay compensation to the children and widows of men executed in South Sulawesi without trial by Dutch soldiers in 1946 and 1947. The claims are still being looked into. 

The Dutch military interventions in Indonesia, or Dutch Indies as it was known then, followed the proclamation of the independent Republic of Indonesia in 1945 and lasted until the country formally gained independence in 1949 after a bloody struggle. 

Thousands of Indonesian independence fighters were executed by the Dutch. At the end of 2011, the Netherlands finally formally apologised for the massacre of hundreds of men and boys in the Javanese village of Rawagede in 1947. Those widows, too, have been given compensation.

Saturday, January 23, 2016

Saudi fatwa banning chess stirs online outcry

Yahoo – AFP, January 22, 2016

"Chess is prohibited. It is gambling," says a top Saudi cleric, insisting that it is a
 "waste of time and money and a cause for animosity between players" (AFP
Photo/Kirill Kudryavtsev)

Dubai (AFP) - A fatwa issued by Saudi Arabia's top cleric prohibiting chess in Islam and equating it with gambling has caused a stir on social media.

In a video of a television programme posted online, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Sheikh appears categorical when asked about the board game in Islam.

"Chess is prohibited. It is gambling," said Sheikh, insisting that it was a "waste of time and money and a cause for animosity between players".

Grand mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz 
al-Shaikh (C) sat among Saudi royals
in 2013 (AFP Photo/HO)
The video was originally recorded about a month ago but has resurfaced online, generating strong reactions on social media in recent days.

Among those who have condemned the fatwa is Russian former world chess champion Garry Kasparov.

"Saudi Arabia trying to ban chess is stupid, but we should be more concerned about their bans on human rights and democracy," Kasparov wrote on his Twitter account.

Lebanese television producer Nasser Fakih tweeted: "Saudi mufti has declared chess haram. Apparently this game makes you use your brain, and this is haram!"

And Twitter user @RaKaN4you said: "Ok, how about PlayStation and Xbox, halal or haram?"

But many tweets were also supportive of the cleric's decision to issue the fatwa.

Saudi Arabia applies a strict interpretation of Sunni Islam, which imposes many restrictions, including the segregation between men and women in public, and reinforces a ban on women driving.

Related Article:


“… The Humanization of God

I'm going to title this channelling so that my partner will not. I don't always title them, for labeling items is something done for 3D reasons. In your reality, you want a label for the message you're about to hear. So I'll give it to you, just as a dichotomous exercise. Its title will be, "The Humanization of God."

My partner sits in a chair. It has taken him 22 years to bring my conceptual thoughts to you. Even though these conceptual thoughts from the other side of the veil are also within each Human, within your Higher-Self, they are not easy to access. This is because they exist in a multidimensional state and not one that a Human relates to. Therefore, it has taken 22 years for my partner to learn to linearize the concepts into a string of words, presented in a language that you will understand.

Not all of you here and reading this will understand what I'm teaching today. I am aware of that, for Spirit does not speak to Human Beings with words in this fashion. Instead, the language of Spirit speaks in that what you call intuitive flashes, outside of linear time, and all at once. That is how you get your best information. Yet many of you feel you have God all figured out.

Examples of the Linear

As I sit here, perhaps an individual who may be here for the very first time asks the question, "Who are you, Kryon, and where are you from?" Now those two questions may absolutely be logical and normal to every single Human Being who hears and reads this message, but I will tell you that the questions themselves betray biased linear thinking. For Kryon is not a who and is from nowhere. How can that be? The only way I can explain this is to give you metaphors. I know that metaphors don't hold up under full examination, since no analogy is perfect. So consider it only a close example to get you to begin the understanding process.

Let's say you feel incredible love in your life for another Human, or for an animal, for instance, or for your child. Let us say that it is overwhelming and perhaps even has you weep with joy, so strong it is! Now, when you feel this way, do you look around and say, "Who are you, really? Who is there?" Would you address that love emotion as though it had a body and ask, "Where are you from?" You would not! Instead, you'd simply accept it and say, "I know it's coming from me, but it really doesn't feel part of me."

There's something about love. It comes from everywhere. It permeates the soul of the Human Being. You feel it so strongly. You are not aware of it being sent to you, or pulled to you; it just is. But it's unusual and profound, almost like it's part of something else, something bigger. Perhaps it's the God part of you, expanding? You'd be right about that. Love is not singular. You don't segment it into parts, or put a body on it and give it a name either. It's a concept that affects every cell of your body and all your body functions. It sometimes even takes over! This is the beauty of love.

I'm not a who. You hear me within this voice, coming from a singular body of a Human Being. So you understandably want to know who's talking. But the only thing singular here is the Human who I come through. I am best identified as that which is the collection of the confluence of the creative energy source in the Universe. I am uncountable and am not isolated and singular. You can't notate me (define me with attributes in 3D). Twenty-two years ago, I identified myself and said, "I am, that I am." And then I said, "And so are you!" I told you that at the center of the atom is where I am. I told you that the space between the electron haze and the nucleus is filled with love. I told you that the benevolent, creative source energy that is part of you is part of me. It is all things together. You'll find it in a tree, in the dirt and in the grass. You'll find it in the air and you can't ask who because we are not singular. You can't count the flavor in the soup, or identify "where is the salt?" It just "is" the soup.

God does not have the mind of a Human Being with the consciousness of a Human Being. God is not a collection of many separate consciousness parts either, and this is difficult for you to understand. God can talk to every single Human - all 6, 7 billion of them - at the same time. God can carry on a loving, healing conversation, being personal all at once with every single one of you. Think of that! That's not a who. That's the creator of the Universe. That's a divine, intelligent, loving energy. Don't humanize this source! It's not like you.

The Linear Thinker

Humans want to make everything separate and individual. You want to separate, identify, and quantify. This is Human nature, for every living thing you come into contact with is separate and singular - a Human, an animal, a bug, a tree. They all have this in common. Each one is a closed life system and is ONE thing. So placing God in this box makes you feel better. Because only then can you grasp how you're supposed to act and react to Spirit. Linearizing God helps you to feel what you're supposed to do and when you're supposed to do it. All of the survival attributes that you've learned all your life go into this, and we call it the Human linear bias. God is better understood if it's a man with a beard and a low voice - the authority figure. But Spirit is not like that.

God is not an authority figure, either! Yet many of you will not accept that. "You mean the creator of the Universe is not in charge?" I didn't say that. I said that God is not an authority figure. God is family. If there is any authority energy, then you share it with God, for God is in you. Therefore, YOU are the authority figure.

There is no protocol, either! Did you hear me? There is no generic protocol! Thousands of years of religion have created thousands of "rules" of how to "get God's favor." What if none of that is so? Let me ask you something: If you wanted to talk to your own body's cellular structure, what's the protocol? If it's you with you, how do you start? Should you dress up a bit, kneel, prepare yourself? Do you invent something, some framework of motions, so it will work better? Or do you simply go inside with your mind, talk to that which you own, and work the puzzle out? Do you see what I mean? Humans never consider God in them. Instead, they wish to separate God. They wish to elevate God and put Spirit on the altar where they can face it and perhaps even create a statue so they can visualize who to talk to. That is humanizing God.  …”

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

New York deal to limit horse-drawn carriage rides

Yahoo – AFP, January 18, 2016

New York's horse carriage industry, which mainly takes tourists through Central Park,
has come under criticism from animal welfare agencies (AFP Photo/Spencer Platt)

New York (AFP) - New York reached a deal that will almost halve the number of horses licensed to perform carriage rides in Central Park after the mayor called them inhumane to animals.

The agreement, which will keep the industry alive, comes after Mayor Bill de Blasio promised two years ago to abolish the rides popular with tourists, loved-up couples and immortalized in movies.

The deal, which will start to come into effect from June 1 and take three years to be fully implemented, will reduce from 180 to 110 the number of licensed horses by December 1, the city council said.

The ultimate goal is to reduce the number to 95 and to give 75 horses a long-term home in Central Park stables, therefore banning public horse rides on the streets of Manhattan.

"We are pleased to have reached an agreement in concept on the future of New York's horse carriage industry," said the mayor's office said.

"We look forward to working together on the final details of this legislation and getting this passed," it added in a statement.

The agreement demands that by October 1 2018 stables will be established in Central Park to house 68 carriages and 75 horses, the city council said.

New York reached a deal late that will almost halve the number of horses licensed
 to perform carriage rides in Central Park after the mayor called them inhumane to
animals (AFP Photo/Jewel Samad)

Horses not at work must be on furlough outside the city, and no carriage can operate for longer than nine hours a day by December 1.

NYClass, one of the groups demanding a ban on carriage rides, has collected more than 35,800 signatures in an online petition.

The petition calls the carriage horse industry "cruel, inhumane and unsafe" and demands the horses to be retired to sanctuaries.

"Horses do not belong in a congested, urban setting where they constantly breathe exhaust while dodging dangerous traffic," it says.

The group was not immediately reachable for comment to the deal.


Mumbai's ornate horse-drawn carriages are nearing the end of the road after a
 court in the Indian city ruled them illegal, saying owners must wind up operations
within a year (AFP Photo/Punit Paranjpe)

Related Articles:



Monday, January 18, 2016

Pope hails ties with Jews on landmark synagogue visit

Yahoo – AFP, Jean-Louis de la Vaissiere, January 17, 2016

Pope Francis arrives with chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni (C) to Rome's
main Synagogue on January 17, 2016 (AFP Photo/Vincenzo Pinto)

Rome (AFP) - Pope Francis on Sunday made his first visit to a synagogue as pontiff, citing an "unbreakable" bond between Jews and Christians as hundreds of armed security personnel were deployed for the Rome visit.

Francis is the third pope to visit the Great Synagogue in Italy's capital after John-Paul II in 1986 and Benedict XVI in 2010.

Located just across the River Tiber from the Vatican, it stands in an area still known as the Ghetto where under the orders of some of Francis's predecessors, Jews were confined for more than three centuries until their emancipation at the end of the 19th Century.

Evoking "the unbreakable bond between Jews and Christians", the pope delivered a message of peace.

"Violence against men is in contradiction with any religion worthy of the name, and in particular the big monotheist religions," he said, in his first visit to a synagogue since being elected pope in 2013.

He urged rejection of "all forms of anti-Semitism", saying: "we must condemn any abuse, any discrimination and persecution stemming from it."

The pope was greeted with applause as he arrived and was met on the synagogue steps by Rome's chief rabbi Riccardo Di Segni.

Pope Francis listens to chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni (R) in Rome's main 
Synagogue on January 17, 2016 (AFP Photo/Vincenzo Pinto)

Francis in turn greeted some 1,500 invited guests who filled the religious site to witness the pontiff's visit.

After the deadly attacks in Paris in November, claimed by the Islamic State group, security for the visit was particularly tight, with basements in the area around the synagogue searched, dustbins sealed and parking banned.

Fears of a Paris-style assault in Rome have seen visitor numbers fall, while soldiers with automatic rifles have become a common sight around the city's historic centre.

On Sunday Francis also welcomed 5,000 migrant worshippers at a special mass at St Peter's to mark the world day of migrants and refugees, urging them to treasure their "culture and precious values".

Centuries of anti-Semitism

Ties between the Christianity and Judaism, which improved under both John-Paul II and Benedict XVI, have become warmer still under Francis, who has a long-standing friendship with Argentinian rabbi Abraham Skorka, with whom he jointly published a book of conversations about issues of ethics, morality and faith.

As part of his visit, the pope was to view two commemorative plaques in the synagogue's gardens, one marking an incident in 1943 when more than 1,000 Jews were rounded up and deported to the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz and the other a 1983 attack on the building that left 37 injured and one dead.

Pope Francis shows a gift at the end of his visit at Rome's main
synagogue on January 17, 2016 (AFP Photo/Vincenzo Pinto)

"Six million people, simply because they belonged to the Hebrew people, were victims of the most inhuman barbarity, perpetrated in the name of an ideology that wanted to put man in God's place," Francis said.

On the final days of his Middle East tour in May 2015, the pontiff said prayers at the Western Wall in Jerusalem -- the holiest site at which Jews are allowed to pray.

A key question that has long blighted relations between the two faiths was addressed in December when senior Catholic theologians said Jews can secure eternal salvation without converting to Christianity.

"Although Jews cannot believe in Jesus Christ as the universal redeemer, they have a part in salvation, because the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable," the report concludes, according to a summary released to the media.

The belief that the only way to salvation is through belief in Christ is a fundamental tenet of every strand of Christianity.

But it has also been blamed for creating an evangelical tendency responsible for some of the darkest periods in the history of religion, notably the anti-Muslim crusades of the Middle Ages and centuries of Christian anti-Semitism.


Pope Francis and other religious leaders at the Vatican. Photograph: AP

Related Articles:

Pope and Welby joined by imams and rabbis for anti-slavery declaration


"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration LecturesGod / CreatorReligions/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)

“.   New Tolerance

Look for a softening of finger pointing and an awakening of new tolerance. There will remain many systems for different cultures, as traditions and history are important to sustaining the integrity of culture. So there are many in the Middle East who would follow the prophet and they will continue, but with an increase of awareness. It will be the increase of awareness of what the prophet really wanted all along - unity and tolerance. The angel in the cave instructed him to "unify the tribes and give them the God of Israel." You're going to start seeing a softening of intolerance and the beginning of a new way of being.

Eventually, this will create an acknowledgement that says, "You may not believe the way we believe, but we honor you and your God. We honor our prophet and we will love you according to his teachings. We don't have to agree in order to love." How would you like that? The earth is not going to turn into one belief system. It never will, for Humans don't do that. There must be variety, and there must be the beauty of cultural differences. But the systems will slowly update themselves with increased awareness of the truth of a new kind of balance. So that's the first thing. Watch for these changes, dear ones. ...."


"The Humanization of God"–  Jul 16, 2011 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) (Text version)

“… The Humanization of God

I'm going to title this channelling so that my partner will not. I don't always title them, for labeling items is something done for 3D reasons. In your reality, you want a label for the message you're about to hear. So I'll give it to you, just as a dichotomous exercise. Its title will be, "The Humanization of God."

My partner sits in a chair. It has taken him 22 years to bring my conceptual thoughts to you. Even though these conceptual thoughts from the other side of the veil are also within each Human, within your Higher-Self, they are not easy to access. This is because they exist in a multidimensional state and not one that a Human relates to. Therefore, it has taken 22 years for my partner to learn to linearize the concepts into a string of words, presented in a language that you will understand.

Not all of you here and reading this will understand what I'm teaching today. I am aware of that, for Spirit does not speak to Human Beings with words in this fashion. Instead, the language of Spirit speaks in that what you call intuitive flashes, outside of linear time, and all at once. That is how you get your best information. Yet many of you feel you have God all figured out.

Examples of the Linear

As I sit here, perhaps an individual who may be here for the very first time asks the question, "Who are you, Kryon, and where are you from?" Now those two questions may absolutely be logical and normal to every single Human Being who hears and reads this message, but I will tell you that the questions themselves betray biased linear thinking. For Kryon is not a who and is from nowhere. How can that be? The only way I can explain this is to give you metaphors. I know that metaphors don't hold up under full examination, since no analogy is perfect. So consider it only a close example to get you to begin the understanding process.

Let's say you feel incredible love in your life for another Human, or for an animal, for instance, or for your child. Let us say that it is overwhelming and perhaps even has you weep with joy, so strong it is! Now, when you feel this way, do you look around and say, "Who are you, really? Who is there?" Would you address that love emotion as though it had a body and ask, "Where are you from?" You would not! Instead, you'd simply accept it and say, "I know it's coming from me, but it really doesn't feel part of me."

There's something about love. It comes from everywhere. It permeates the soul of the Human Being. You feel it so strongly. You are not aware of it being sent to you, or pulled to you; it just is. But it's unusual and profound, almost like it's part of something else, something bigger. Perhaps it's the God part of you, expanding? You'd be right about that. Love is not singular. You don't segment it into parts, or put a body on it and give it a name either. It's a concept that affects every cell of your body and all your body functions. It sometimes even takes over! This is the beauty of love.

I'm not a who. You hear me within this voice, coming from a singular body of a Human Being. So you understandably want to know who's talking. But the only thing singular here is the Human who I come through. I am best identified as that which is the collection of the confluence of the creative energy source in the Universe. I am uncountable and am not isolated and singular. You can't notate me (define me with attributes in 3D). Twenty-two years ago, I identified myself and said, "I am, that I am." And then I said, "And so are you!" I told you that at the center of the atom is where I am. I told you that the space between the electron haze and the nucleus is filled with love. I told you that the benevolent, creative source energy that is part of you is part of me. It is all things together. You'll find it in a tree, in the dirt and in the grass. You'll find it in the air and you can't ask who because we are not singular. You can't count the flavor in the soup, or identify "where is the salt?" It just "is" the soup.

God does not have the mind of a Human Being with the consciousness of a Human Being. God is not a collection of many separate consciousness parts either, and this is difficult for you to understand. God can talk to every single Human - all 6, 7 billion of them - at the same time. God can carry on a loving, healing conversation, being personal all at once with every single one of you. Think of that! That's not a who. That's the creator of the Universe. That's a divine, intelligent, loving energy. Don't humanize this source! It's not like you.

The Linear Thinker

Humans want to make everything separate and individual. You want to separate, identify, and quantify. This is Human nature, for every living thing you come into contact with is separate and singular - a Human, an animal, a bug, a tree. They all have this in common. Each one is a closed life system and is ONE thing. So placing God in this box makes you feel better. Because only then can you grasp how you're supposed to act and react to Spirit. Linearizing God helps you to feel what you're supposed to do and when you're supposed to do it. All of the survival attributes that you've learned all your life go into this, and we call it the Human linear bias. God is better understood if it's a man with a beard and a low voice - the authority figure. But Spirit is not like that.

God is not an authority figure, either! Yet many of you will not accept that. "You mean the creator of the Universe is not in charge?" I didn't say that. I said that God is not an authority figure. God is family. If there is any authority energy, then you share it with God, for God is in you. Therefore, YOU are the authority figure.

There is no protocol, either! Did you hear me? There is no generic protocol! Thousands of years of religion have created thousands of "rules" of how to "get God's favor." What if none of that is so? Let me ask you something: If you wanted to talk to your own body's cellular structure, what's the protocol? If it's you with you, how do you start? Should you dress up a bit, kneel, prepare yourself? Do you invent something, some framework of motions, so it will work better? Or do you simply go inside with your mind, talk to that which you own, and work the puzzle out? Do you see what I mean? Humans never consider God in them. Instead, they wish to separate God. They wish to elevate God and put Spirit on the altar where they can face it and perhaps even create a statue so they can visualize who to talk to. That is humanizing God.  …”

Sunday, January 17, 2016

'Implementation Day' for Iran nuclear deal as prisoners freed

Yahoo – AFP, Simon Sturdee with Arthur MacMillan in Tehran, January 16, 2016

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (L) and EU foreign policy chief
 Federica Mogherini hold a joint press conference during the E3/EU+3 and Iran talks
 at the International Atomic Energy Agency headquarters in Vienna on January 16,
2016 (AFP Photo/Joe Klamar)

Vienna (AFP) - The historic nuclear accord between Iran and major powers entered into force Saturday as the UN confirmed that Tehran has shrunk its atomic programme and as painful sanctions were lifted on the Islamic republic.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said its "inspectors on the ground verified that Iran has carried out all measures" agreed under the July 14 agreement.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, representing the six powers, said that as a result "multilateral and national economic and financial sanctions related to Iran's nuclear programme are lifted".

US Secretary of State John Kerry 
holds a press conference in Vienna 
on January 16, 2016 (AFP Photo/
Joe Klamar)
"All sides remain firmly convinced that this historic deal is both strong and fair, and that it meets the requirements of all," Mogherini said in Vienna in a joint statement with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

"This achievement clearly demonstrates that with political will, perseverance, and through multilateral diplomacy, we can solve the most difficult issues and find practical solutions that are effectively implemented," they said.

The so-called "Implementation Day" for the accord also followed news of a prisoner swap between Iran and the United States in another sign of thawing relations between the two foes since the July 14 agreement.

The steps taken by Iran, combined with ultra-close IAEA inspections, extend to at least a year -- from a few months previously -- how long Iran would need to make one nuclear bomb's worth of fissile material.

They include slashing by two-thirds its uranium centrifuges, reducing its stockpile of uranium -- enough before the deal for several bombs -- and removing the core of the Arak reactor which could have given Iran weapons-grade plutonium.

Iran has always denied wanting nuclear weapons, saying its activities are exclusively for peaceful purposes such as power generation.

In what was hailed as a momentous diplomatic breakthrough, the Vienna agreement was nailed down after two years of rollercoaster negotiations following the June 2013 election of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

The highly complex deal drew a line under a standoff dating back to 2002 marked by failed diplomatic initiatives, ever-tighter sanctions, defiant nuclear expansion by Iran and threats of military action.

In addition it put Iran and the United States on the road to better relations some 35 years after the Islamic revolution that toppled the US-backed shah, and at a particularly explosive time in the Middle East.

The four Iranian-American detainees to be freed by Iran included Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian and Saeed Abedini, a pastor from Idaho, a senior US official said Saturday.


The others were Amir Hekmati and Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari, Washington said. A fifth American, identified as Matthew Trevitick, was also to be released as part of a different process.

In exchange Washington said it had granted clemency to seven Iranians, six of whom were dual US-Iranian citizens, and dropped charges against 14 more.

Daggers drawn

The agreement, heralded as US President Barack Obama's biggest major foreign policy triumph, has by no means been universally cheered, however.

Obama's Republican opponents charge that it fails to do enough to ensure Iran will never get the bomb, a complaint shared by Israel, Iran's arch foe widely assumed to have nuclear weapons itself.

Sunni Saudi Arabia, Iran's other great regional rival, is also alarmed at the prospect of warmer US-Iran ties and of predominantly Shiite Iran, newly flush with oil revenues, increasing its influence.

Already Saudi Arabia and Iran, fighting a proxy war in Yemen and key players in the Syrian conflict, are at daggers drawn following Saudi Arabia's execution of a Shiite cleric in early January and the subsequent ransacking of the Saudi embassy in Tehran.

Iran's imminent return to the oil market has also contributed to the sharp slide in the price of crude to 12-year lows of under $30 per barrel this week, putting Saudi Arabia's public finances under strain.

The lifting of sanctions on Iran is "going to put 500,000 barrels per day more on the market", said James Williams of WTRG Economics. Some analysts believe $20 oil is on the horizon.

Bumpy road

The deal has more than a decade to run, which is likely to be a bumpy road, experts say, not least if more hardline governments take power in Tehran or Washington.




Related Articles:

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Iran's Rouhani says nuclear deal to bring peace
US to pay Iran $1.7 bn in debt and interest: Kerry

US Secretary of State John Kerry speaks to journalists about his negotiations
 with Iran upon his arrival from Vienna at Joint Base Andrews on January 17,
2016 (AFP Photo/Kevin Lamarque)

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Jakarta blasts: timeline of Islamist attacks in Indonesia

Yahoo – AFP, January 14, 2016

Indonesian police take position and aim their weapons as they pursue suspects
 outside a cafe after a series of blasts hit the Indonesia capital Jakarta on
January 14, 2016 (AFP Photo/Bay Ismoyo)

The blasts and gunfire that rocked Jakarta on Thursday came after six years of relative calm, following a government crackdown that weakened the country's most dangerous homegrown Islamic networks.

Chief among them was Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), a radical Islamist movement that carried out the bloody 2002 Bali bombings and whose key figures are now mostly dead or jailed.

In recent years however, authorities have also arrested militants linked to the Islamic State group, leading to fears that Indonesians returning from Middle East battlefields could stage attacks on home soil.

Here is a timeline of recent events around Islamic militancy in the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation:

- December, 2000: Improvised bombs disguised as Christmas gifts delivered to churches and clergymen kill 19 people and injure scores more across Indonesia.

- October, 2002: Bombs at crowded nightspots in the resort island of Bali kill 202 people, mostly foreign tourists, in Indonesia's worst ever terror attack.

- September, 2004: A suicide car bomb kills 10 outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta.

- May, 2005: Twin bomb blasts kill 22 in a market in the Central Sulawesi town of Tentena in an attack bearing the hallmarks of JI.

- October, 2005: Three suicide bombers detonate explosives at tourist spots on Bali, killing 20.

- November, 2008: Imam Samudra, Amrozi bin Nurhasyim and Ali Ghufron are executed for helping plan the 2002 Bali bombings and channelling funds for the attack.

- July, 2009: Seven people are killed, six of them foreigners, and more than 40 injured when suicide bombers target the luxury Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott hotels in Jakarta.

- August and September, 2009: Police kill Noordin Mohammed Top, a Malaysian suspected of orchestrating the Bali bombings, during a Java raid. Three of his associates are also killed as police uncover an alleged plot to use a truck bomb to assassinate President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

- June, 2011: Abu Bakar Bashir, a spiritual leader of militant Islam in Indonesia and a key figure in Jemaah Islamiyah, is jailed for 15 years for funding a terrorist group.

- June, 2013: Badri Hartono, leader of a group called Al-Qaeda Indonesia, is jailed for 10 years for recruiting people to militant training camps.

- December, 2014: Police arrest six people they say were attempting to fly to Syria to join the Islamic State group. In total, an estimated 514 Indonesians were estimated to have gone to Syria and Iraq to fight alongside Islamic State militants.

- November and December, 2015: Indonesia increases security at airports following a threat directed at one of the airports serving Jakarta. Police foil terror plots being planned by several groups, including a plan to launch a suicide attack on New Year. Experts say two of the groups were linked to IS.


Friday, January 15, 2016

Stone-age tools found, but who wielded them?

Yahoo – AFP, Marlowe Hood, January 13, 2016

This picture received on January 13, 2016 from the journal "Nature" shows stone
 artefacts that were found lying scattered on a gravelly surface near Talepu on the
 Indonesian Island of Sulawesi during the first deep excavations at the site in 2009
(AFP Photo/Erick Setiabudi)

Paris (AFP) - Scientists have discovered stone-age tools at least 118,000-years-old on an Indonesian island but no trace of the early humans that made them, according to a study released Wednesday.

The research, published in the journal Nature, also points to a possible link with the first peoples to arrive in Australia.

Unearthed at four separate sites on Sulawesi, the trove of several hundred implements is likely to fuel a long-simmering debate about the identity of now-extinct human species that first came to the island chain.

In 2003, fossil remains from a diminutive species of hominin -- a terms that groups extinct lineages of early man and modern humans -- was discovered in the neighbouring island of Flores.

Dubbed the "Hobbit", Homo floresiensis had arrived there at least a million years earlier, dating tests revealed.

The new find shows "that Flores was not the only island once inhabited by archaic humans before Homo sapiens" -- a.k.a. modern man -- "got there around 50,000 years ago," lead author Gerrit van den Bergh, a researcher at the University of Wollongong in Australia, told AFP.

The Hobbit, many scientists say, is a descendant of the extinct species Homo erectus that became smaller across hundreds of generations, a process called "insular dwarfing" whereby animals -- after migrating across land bridges during periods of low sea level -- wind up marooned on islands as oceans rise.

"The fossil fauna associated with the Hobbit and the stone artefacts clearly indicate isolated island conditions," van den Bergh explained.

Other scientists had argued that Flores man, as it is sometimes called, might have had distinct origins, and a few had even suggested it was a tribe of modern humans suffering a genetic disorder resulting in an abnormally small skull. But both of these notions have been largely dismissed.

Genetic commingling

Whether the makers of the Sulawesi tools are also derived from H. erectus -- which lived in nearby Java at least 1.5 million years ago -- is impossible to know without fossil evidence.

But the new discovery, van den Bergh said, raises the intriguing possibility of a link with the earliest humans to populate what is today Australia.

"We know from genetic evidence that the first people coming to Australia, and their descendants, have a tiny proportion of their DNA inherited from an enigmatic group of humans called the Denisovans," he said.

Related to both human and Neanderthal lineages, Denisovans are thought to have split off from the former about 600,000 years ago, and the latter some 400,000 years later. They survived until at least 40,000 years ago.

Fossil records are so meagre -- a few teeth and a pinkie bone excavated from a cave in Siberia -- that scientists don't even know what they might have looked like.

But the DNA link with Australia's original inhabitants strongly suggests that some made their way deep into Asia.

"The genetic exchange between the ancestors of the modern Australians and Denisovans probably took place somewhere in Southeast Asia," van den Bergh said.

"It could well be that the makers of the recently dated stone tools from Sulawesi could have been these Denisovans."

Unfortunately, DNA does not survive nearly as well in tropical climes as in frigid Siberia, so the chances of finding genetic clues are diminished.

One thing that is certain, the study said, is that the tools were not made by Homo sapiens. "They are just too old for that," van den Bergh said.

The sharp-edged tools -- single- or double-faced -- were made by chipping flakes away from a piece of limestone.

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Shock and condolences as the Netherlands reacts to David Bowie’s death

DutchNews, January 11, 2016

A book of condolence for David Bowie has opened at Groningen’s museum following the shock news of the singer’s death from cancer. 

The Groninger Museum is hosting a special David Bowie exhibition until March 13 as the last leg of the show’s European tour. Its website was temporarily unavailable on Monday morning because of the surge of interest in news about the artist. 

A spokesman said later the Bowie exhibition would open specially from 12 noon until 6pm on Monday, but the rest of the museum is closed as usual. Visitors without tickets will be able to sign the book of condolence. 

Train operator NS said a special Bowie carriage, redecorated for the exhibition, would continue to run on the line between Zwolle and Groningen in tribute. ‘We think this will allow us to offer something more to fans who want to remember Bowie in a good and respectful way.’ 

Theatre

Distraught fans around the world flocked to social media following the announcement that Bowie had died at the age of 69, 18 months after being diagnosed with cancer. His illness had not previously been made public. 

Belgian theatre director Ivo van Hove worked with the British musician on his last stage musical, Lazarus, in New York. ‘Bowie was still writing on his deathbed, you could say,’ Van Hove told NPO Radio 4. ‘I saw a man fighting. He fought like a lion and kept working like a lion through it all. I had incredible respect for that.’ 

Van Hove, who says Bowie was suffering from liver cancer, was one of the few people who knew about the singer’s illness, after Bowie explained to him why he would not always be able to attend rehearsals. He was with Bowie at the premiere of Lazarus last month, one of the singer’s last public appearances. 


Bowie’s death was announced by his son, Duncan Jones, on Sunday, two days after the singer marked his 69th birthday with the release of his latest album, Blackstar. ‘David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family after a courageous 18-month battle with cancer,’ Jones wrote on Twitter.








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"THE THREE WINDS" – Feb 23-24, 2013 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Humanity, Home - other side of the veil, Wind of Birth - Birth, Wind of Existence - Life, Wind of Transition - Death) (Text version)

“… The Human Spiritual System

The puzzle during your life is about how much of this truth of being part of the creator you can accept. How far can you open the quantum door to see this truth when you are alive? This single attribute determines how enlightened you become during life. Listen: It's not how much knowledge and experience in is your Akash, but how much you allow yourself to believe it. There are many old souls on this planet who have an amazing amount of spiritual learning, yet they don't want to touch that "spiritual jar" within them at this point in their lives. This is the free choice of the Human Being we speak about.

There is immense planning that puts you at the Wind of Birth. What did you accomplish during the last lives, if anything? Who were you and what did you do? What energies did you start that were not complete that you wish to continue? What soul group were you in? Who were your parents? Are you in certain soul agreements to become their grandchildren? That is more common than you think! There are so many things that go into the planning of the "entry energy" of your life, and each life potential is different and unique. The planning is done by you when you have "the mind of God" on my side of the veil.

Humans don't like the fact that there is no generic spiritual instruction manual that states, "Here is what happens and here is what to do." Listen, dear ones, humanity is honored way above that! Are all your children the same? Do books on how to raise children always work for your child? The answer is no, because each soul is totally unique. But Humans still wish to have a list of things to do and not to do, as though each soul somehow came out of a spiritual machine that made them all the same. No. Instead, Spirit honors each soul with unique choice and a tremendous variety of energy selections.

The Great Artists

There are certain attributes that Humans receive on the planet, and we'll call them creative attributes. These are almost quantum attributes that may take several lifetimes to complete. What often happens to these creatives is that they go through a series of lifetimes as though it were one in order to have completion of their creative cycle. Famous artists will come back, and the first thing they want to do is pick up a brush and continue what they did before. Famous composers, famous poets and sculptors will come back and simply keep going! It's so obvious, yet you deny this in your scientific way.

So the creatives are different from the others, and their puzzle is to bring the planet the greatest treasures of art through a unified series of lives, yet personally they try to sort out the puzzle of "what they carry inside is valuable, but nobody knows it". If you've noticed, most of the great artists who have even lived and are here today carry a burden that is easily identified as "lack of self-worth". Do you see the set-up? It's ripe for personal discovery, isn't it? So can you see the Human standing in the Wind of Birth, ready to continue what they only began last time? With the "mind of God", there is a smile on their face as they hear the music that they will compose, for it's with them when they arrive.

As you stand at the Wind of Birth, you are completely and totally a unique creature with incomplete energies. It takes more than one short earthly life to create Human attributes that grow into maturity. Even non-creatives (most of you) have a lineage of starting something that never got fully completed. Sometimes it's within relationships. Sometimes it's learning or teachings. Old souls are good at this coming and going and often pick up where they leave off as they slowly change the planet by their very presence upon it. The old soul is, "Sewing the seeds of light on the carpet of linear time, not even knowing that he will also be harvesting those exact mature plants of wisdom as he returns in a subsequent life."

Therefore, dear one, you don't arrive with a blank slate, but you have to know that, don't you? The old soul feels it. The only ones who arrive with a completely blank slate are the newbies [first timers] and we'll talk about that in the next wind. But this is a room of old souls who are hearing and reading right now. Each of you is here with a spiritual jar that is filled with the experience of living on Earth, and sometimes even the attribute of "awakening to your own mastery".  ….”