Thousands March in Japan Gay Pride Parade

Jakarta Globe, April 29, 2012

Parade participants pose prior to the Tokyo Rainbow Pride parade in Tokyo
 on Sunday. Thousands of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders and their
 supporters participated in the parade on Sunday to dispel prejudice and
discrimination against sexual minorities. (Reuters Photo)

               

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Some 2,500 people marched in a gay pride parade in Tokyo on Sunday, vowing to transform a low-profile campaign for the rights of sexual minorities into a major movement in Japan.

The crowd, mainly from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, as well as their supporters and sex workers, paraded through the capital’s entertainment and shopping district of Shibuya.

Waving rainbow-colored flags and banners, foreign and Japanese campaigners marched in colorful carnival and samurai warrior outfits.

It was the first parade organized by Tokyo Rainbow Pride, a private organization formed last year which aims to support the rights of sexual minorities.

“Compared with that of New York or London, Japan’s awareness of sexual minorities is quite low,” said Sayaka Kato, a spokeswoman for the organization.

“I’m afraid Japan has yet to have a culture of accepting diversity.”

The group hopes to stage a gay pride parade with 50,000 participants within the next five years by expanding its networks among not only Japanese but foreign residents.

Wataru Ishizaka, 35, who as an openly gay politician in Japan is a rarity, noted that a number of sexual minorities in the country still hesitate to take part in events in support of LGBT rights for fear of discrimination.

“Japanese sexual minorities are still concerned about their exposure to the public,” said Ishizaka, a local Tokyo politician, after participating in the parade.

Agence France-Presse

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"The Akashic System" – Jul 17, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Religion, God, Benevolent Design, DNA, Akashic Circle, (Old) Souls, Gaia, Indigenous People, Talents, Reincarnation, Genders, Gender Switches, In “between” Gender Change, Gender Confusion, Shift of Human Consciousness, Global Unity,..... etc.)

About the Challenges of Being a Gay Man – Oct 23, 2010 (Saint Germain channelled by Alexandra Mahlimay and Dan Bennack) - “ ... You see, your Soul and Creator are not concerned with any perspective you have that contradicts the reality of your Divinity – whether this be your gender, your sexual preference, your nationality – or your race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, or anything else.The only identity that has any fundamental or lasting relevance to your Soul is your Divinity. Any other way you may label or identify yourself is transitory. It changes from one incarnation to the next. ..."

Myanmar hosts high-level guests

Deutsche Welle, 29 April 2012

Myanmar hosted its second major foreign diplomat of the weekend as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon came to the country on the heels of a visit by EU foreign policy representative Catherine Ashton.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Myanmar on Sunday for talks with the reformist regime and opposition leaders, making him the second high-profile guest of the nation this weekend. The European Union's high representative for foreign policy, Catherine Ashton, arrived in Myanmar on Saturday.

Ban's visit will be considerably different from his last in 2009. Back then, Ban said it was a "very difficult mission" to convince the former strongman of Myanmar's military junta, Senior General Than Shwe, to release political prisoners.

Among the prisoners at the time was opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has since been released under President Thein Sein and elected to a seat in parliament, although her party has refused to take its seats in parliament over a dispute over the oath they are meant to take.

On this trip, Ban is scheduled to meet with Suu Kyi as well as Sein. Ashton met with Suu Kyi on Saturday and will also hold talks with Sein. On Saturday, she opened the EU's first diplomatic office in Myanmar.

mz/tj (Reuters, AFP)

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US Woman Becomes Hero For Battered Wives in China

Jakarta Globe, Gillian Wong, April 28, 2012

Kim Lee, wife of ‘Crazy English’ founder Li Yang, has opened the door
 to a torrent of anguish about domestic violence in her adopted country,
and she has became a folk hero for battered Chinese women. In China,
where tradition holds that women are subservient to their husbands, the
 American woman’s case has spawned heated debate.
(AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan) 

            

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Beijing. Her head was ringing from the blows. Once, twice, three times, her husband slammed her face into the floor.

Kim Lee tried to twist her tall but skinny frame out from under his 91-kilogram body. He kept on pounding. Eight, nine, 10 times — she thought she might black out.

Then, close to the floor, she glimpsed the neon pink-painted toenails of her 3-year-old daughter, Lydia. “Stop!” the child cried. “What are you doing? Stop, Daddy, stop!” She jumped on her father and scratched his arm.

“Damn it!” he yelled. He loosened his grip on his wife, and she crawled away. It wasn’t the first time that Li Yang, a Chinese celebrity entrepreneur, had struck her. But for his American wife, it was going to be the last.

She scooped up her wailing child, grabbed their passports and a wad of cash and walked out of their Beijing apartment. In doing so, she opened the door to a torrent of anguish about domestic violence in her adopted country, inadvertently becoming a folk hero for China’s battered women.

Domestic violence everywhere lives in the shadows, and in China it thrives in a secrecy instilled by tradition that holds family conflicts to be private. It is also hard to go public in a country where many still consider women subservient to their husbands, and there is no specific national law against domestic violence.

At least one in four women in China is estimated to have been a victim of domestic violence, surveys show, with the rate in rural areas as high as two out of every three. The violence takes many forms, from physical and sexual assault to emotional abuse or economic deprivation.

Lee’s case has spawned tens of thousands of posts on Chinese Twitter-like sites, along with protests and talk show debates. It is especially explosive because she is a foreigner at a time when China is sensitive about how it is understood and treated by the world.

“A lot of people said, ‘Oh, is it because Kim is an American and so she’s too strong-willed, or her personality is too strong?’... Some others have asked whether she is making a big fuss over a small issue,” says Feng Yuan, founder and chair of the Anti-Domestic Violence Network in Beijing. “This shows that in terms of the public perception of domestic violence, we still have a long way to go.”

The story of Li Yang and Kim Lee is told in photographs, letters, text messages, police documents and hospital records, as well as interviews with her in Beijing. Li refused requests for interviews, but in past interviews on TV and on his microblog, he has confessed to beating his wife.

They met on the first day of her first trip to China in 1999. Then a teacher in Miami, she was visiting a Chinese school to learn about bilingual education.

He was there to speak about his popular program, “Crazy English,” a radical approach to learning the language that involved hand gestures and slogans such as “Conquer English to Make China Stronger!” They married in a Las Vegas chapel in 2005, a few years after their first daughter Lily was born. But with Li away at workshops much of the time, the relationship grew strained.

One day, during an argument over money, he slapped her hard, she says. Another time, arguing about work, he pushed her in front of their colleagues.

In February 2006, while Lee was seven months pregnant with their second child, her husband promised to accompany her to the hospital but did not show up.

Lee went home and deleted four chapters of a textbook she had written for him. When he called, she told him, “I want you to understand what it feels like when you count on someone to do something and they don’t.”

He hung up. The next day, while she was baking cupcakes with their daughter, he flew into the kitchen and knocked a hot pan out of her hand. He grabbed her by the hair, threw her on the floor and choked her.

He managed to land a few kicks on her stomach, but she turned on her side to protect the unborn child. Despite bruises on her legs and body, a sonogram showed the baby was all right. Li said later he “could not tolerate” threats to his work.

Lee did not tell her family or friends about the beating. She did tell her sister-in-law, who dismissed her concerns, saying: “It’s nothing. All men are like that.”

The expectation that all men are violent — or at least have the right to be violent — is common in parts of China.

As with many countries, men historically ruled the family, with authority over women and girls. Women were supposed to obey their fathers when young, their husbands when married and their sons when widowed, according to advice attributed to the ancient sage Confucius. Those who broke family laws could be beaten, with no questions asked.

There is no official data on domestic violence in China, and underreporting is common. However, a recent nationwide survey by the All-China Women’s Federation found that 25 percent of women reported domestic violence from their spouses, almost the same as in the United States. Smaller studies report a rate in Chinese rural areas of up to 65 percent.

“What it shows is the tip of the iceberg,” Feng says. “How big the iceberg really is, we don’t know.”

Wei Tingting is one of about 10 activists who staged a protest over Lee’s plight on Valentine’s Day on a busy street in Beijing. She and two other women wore bridal gowns splashed with fake blood and makeup that looked like bruises on their faces.

Wei, who grew up in the Chinese countryside in Guangxi province, often saw her father beating her mother. Her grandfather hit her grandmother, too.

“The neighbors around us were doing the same. Everyone took it to be a very normal thing. You beat a woman because the woman is at fault,” the 23-year-old says. “Some women even think that it is their fault; that’s why they are beaten.”

By 2009, Lee was plotting her escape. But how? She worked for her husband’s company, with no independent income and no bank account. She lived in an apartment under her sister-in-law’s name and relied on cash Li brought home every month.

Then came the beating that finally drove her out. When he let go, she grabbed Lydia and walked to the police station. She hesitated at the door, then thought of her daughter and walked in.

The police told her they could do nothing unless her husband came also. They brought her to a hospital, where male staffers examined her, placed stickers on her body and photographed the bruises on her head, knees, elbows and back.

That night, Li sent her a message that he had hit her only 10 times, and that a carpet under her had softened the blows. “I was not that cruel,” he wrote.

He refused to go to the police station. So she got his attention the best way she knew how — via the Internet. First, she posted a shot of the bump on her forehead on her Chinese microblog. The next night, it was a photo of the bruises on her knees. And then, a frontal shot of the forehead and another of a bleeding ear.

It worked. “Crazy English” is a household name, and Li had a lot to lose from negative publicity among the students who fork out thousands of yuan to hear him.

“Kim, could you cancel that weibo,” Li said in a text message, referring to the microblog. “It will damage many things. I love you!”

Instead, the photos went viral. Lee went from having about two dozen followers on her microblog to more than 20,000 in a few days, and three times as many now.

Her husband sought to portray the dispute, and the marriage, as a clash between East and West. He said on TV that he had married Lee to research American child-raising techniques, turning the relationship into an experiment.

He painted her as an American woman who thinks family should come before career and country, who fails to see that family business in China is private and that a Chinese man hitting his wife should be forgiven.

“I still think that things that happen at home, well, a family’s shame should not be aired publicly,” Li said on a talk show. “I thought it could cause huge damage to me and my career. So I asked her to remove these photos. She refused.”

Culture has become part of a heated dialogue about the incident. Men have said that while violence is wrong, it comes from the pressure Chinese husbands face to excel in their careers and provide for their families. Others have lamented that it took a foreigner’s indignance to cast light on what is an open secret in China.

In October, she filed divorce papers. He replied with a text message: “You think you Americans are smarter??? Let’s see!!! Americans want to win a war in China???”

The case is before the courts, and she can only wait. Li has claimed in divorce proceedings that he is not guilty of domestic violence because he did not beat her frequently over many years.

Last week, he sent her an angry text message: “In America you should be killed by your husband with gun. This is real American way. You’re so lucky to be in China!” Later, he wrote, more succinctly, “Kill you!”

Yet when asked if she still loves him, she says she is not sure.

“I hate what he has done to me and our family ... but I cannot say that I hate him,” she says. “Maybe the better question is not do you love him, but does love mean accepting and forgiving someone’s violence?

“For me, it does not.”

Associated Press

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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 (Based in Greece, Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to built Africa to develop), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - New !

Thousands march for election reforms in Malaysia

Tens of thousands of protesters marched through the centre of Kuala Lumpur calling for fair elections and greater accountability

guardian.co.uk, Reuters in Kuala Lumpur, Saturday 28 April 2012

Protesters of the Bersih (Clean) group shout slogans near Dataran
 Merdeka, also known as Independence Square, in Kuala Lumpur
Photograph: Bazuki Muhammad/REUTERS

Up to 20,000 protesters calling for fair elections and greater accountability marched on Kuala Lumpur's centre on Saturday in a show of force that will test the Malaysian government's reformist pledges and may affect the timing of national polls.

Police shut down much of the city centre and closed off the historic Merdeka (Independence) Square with barriers and barbed wire, enforcing a court order that the protesters should not enter the symbolically important site.

The Bersih (Clean) group that is leading the protest says it will obey the ban but will march as close as possible to the square, raising the possibility of a repeat of violent clashes that marred Bersih's last major protest in July 2011.

"Now it looks like we will have to fight for our right to gather at Merdeka Square as well as fight for free and fair elections," said Muhammed Hafiz, a 28-year-old store clerk who was preparing to join the protest.

Organisers hope the protest will draw 100,000 people, including thousands demonstrating against a controversial rare earths plant being built by Australian firm Lynas on the country's east coast. That would make it the biggest protest since the "Reformasi" (Reform) demonstrations in 1998 against then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

A police official estimated the protesters numbered 15,000 to 20,000 by midday with just one arrest reported.

The protest is a delicate challenge for the government of Prime Minister Najib Razak, possibly affecting the timing of elections that he is preparing to call as early as June.

A violent response by police would risk alienating middle-class voters and handing the advantage to the opposition in what is shaping up as the closest election in Malaysia's history, possibly forcing Najib to delay the poll date.

But Najib must be mindful of conservatives in his party who are wary that his moves to relax tough security laws and push limited election reforms could threaten their 55-year hold on power.

Last July's rally, more than 10,000-strong, ended in violence when police fired tear gas and water cannons at the yellow-shirted protesters, drawing criticism of a heavy-handed response and sending Najib's popularity sliding. His approval rating has since rebounded to 69%, according to one poll.

Police helicopters buzzed overhead on Saturday morning as protesters gathered. Reuters correspondents saw about 200 riot police stationed in the square and five water cannons heading to the site where Malaysia declared independence from Britain.

Bersih, an independent movement whose goals are backed by the opposition, has a history of staging influential rallies as Malaysians have demanded more freedoms and democratic rights in the former British colony that has an authoritarian streak.

Younger Malaysians have become more politically active in recent years, chafing at restrictions on student activism.

"The younger generation, especially my generation, want to be involved. Look at Lynas and Bersih. We cannot be quiet," said 19-year-old university student Chan Mei Fong.

The July protest was a watershed moment for Najib, prompting him to promise reform of an electoral system that the opposition says favours the long-ruling National Front coalition.

The National Front is trying to recover from its worst ever election result in 2008 when it lost its two-thirds majority in parliament, giving the diverse, three-party opposition led by former finance minister Anwar Ibrahim real hope of taking power.

Najib has replaced tough security laws - ending indefinite detention without trial - relaxed some media controls, and pushed reforms to the electoral system that critics have long complained is rigged in the government's favour.

A bipartisan parliamentary committee set up by Najib this month issued 22 proposals for electoral reform, including steps to clean up electoral rolls and equal access to media.

But the government gave no guarantee that any of the steps will be in place for the next election.

Bersih says the proposals do not meet most of its key demands, including lengthening the campaign period to at least 21 days from the current seven days. It also wants an independent audit of the electoral roll and international observers at polling stations. Bersih and opposition parties say they have unearthed multiple instances of irregularities in voter rolls, including over 50 voters registered at one address.

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After the Arab spring, the sexual revolution?

Mona Eltahawy's 'Arab men hate women' article sparks demands for a sea change in engagement between the sexes

guardian.co.uk, Martin Chulov in Beirut, Eileen Byrne in Tunis and Abdel-Rahman Hussein in Cairo , Friday 27 April 2012

Egyptian women protest against the army's use of violence against them
 in Cairo in 2011 after images of women who had been brutally beaten
were circulated. Photograph: Mohamed Omar/EPA

An explosive call for a sexual revolution across the Arab world in which the author argues that Arab men "hate" Arab women has provoked a fierce debate about the subjugation of women in countries such as Egypt, Morocco and Saudi Arabia.

Women are deeply divided over the article, entitled "Why do they hate us?", by the prominent American-Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy, which fulminates against "the pulsating heart of misogyny in the Middle East" and builds to an early crescendo by stating: "We have no freedoms because they hate us … Yes: They hate us. It must be said."

Eltahawy is not alone in stressing that a revolution has come and gone, but done little for Arab women. There are only eight women in Egypt's new 500-seat parliament – and not one female presidential candidate. Domestic violence, forced marriage and female genital mutilation are still part of the status quo across a region covering more than 20 countries and 350 million people.

"Even after these 'revolutions,' all is more or less considered well with the world as long as women are covered up, anchored to the home, denied the simple mobility of getting into their own cars, forced to get permission from men to travel, and unable to marry without a male guardian's blessing – or divorce either," Eltahawy argues in Foreign Policy. "An entire political and economic system – one that treats half of humanity like animals – must be destroyed along with the other more obvious tyrannies choking off the region from its future. Until the rage shifts from the oppressors in our presidential palaces to the oppressors on our streets and in our homes, our revolution has not even begun."

Eltahawy draws on anecdotal and empirical evidence for her tirade: 90% of women who have ever been married in Egypt "have had their genitals cut in the name of modesty"; not one Arab country is in the top 100 nations as ranked by gender equality; Saudi women have been prosecuted for daring to drive a car. Eltahawy nails the paradox that it is women who must cover up – because of the sexual impulses of Arab men.

But plenty of women across the Arab world have taken objection to Eltahawy's blanket condemnation of men.

"I agree with most of what she said but I think that the one thing that she might be reluctant to admit is that it's not about men hating women, it's about monotheistic religions hating women," says Joumana Haddad, a Lebanese author and journalist. "They continually reinforce patriarchal standards and patterns that have existed long before. There is no harmony possible between monotheism and women's rights. The teachings deny women their dignity and rights."

Dalia Abd El-Hameed, a researcher on health issues at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, added: "It is oversimplistic to say Arab men hate Arab women; it presents us as needing to be saved. I don't want to be saved, because I am not a victim. We can't put all Egyptian women in one category, let alone Arab women. My problems are not the same as a rural woman from Upper Egypt."

Sarah Naguib, a political activist in Egypt, said: "I honestly think it's almost offensive to be asked if Arab men hate Arab women. That's like saying all Muslims are terrorists and all Jews are evil and the American dream still lives on."

Lina Ben Mhenni, a Tunisian lecturer nominated last year for the Nobel peace prize, said: "It seems to me that this article inaccurately lumps all men together; from a purely personal perspective, if today I'm seen as a blogger who defends the rights of women as well as of other groups, it's because I have a father who is more feminist than I am myself."

Mhenni notes that in Tunisia men and women are working together to defend the freedoms and rights of women. "The examples cited by Mona are real enough, but to speak of hatred as the reason behind discrimination between men and women is exaggerated, uncalled-for even. You have to look at all the historical, social and political factors which are behind all this. Arab regimes have always limited our horizons, undermined our educational systems, and restricted access to culture. It has been a strategy to manipulate the crowd and send it in a certain direction."

In Beirut, Haddad points out that just as not all men are culpable, some women are. "Many women support such negative notions of femininity: endorsing the alpha male, reinforcing the patriarchal system, obedience, submission, financial dependence. There are many women who do not believe in women playing a role in business or demanding their political rights. According to much of the religious teachings it's impossible."

Although that may be true, there is no doubt that even Lebanese law militates against women in places. "There is no law that protects women from domestic violence," notes Lebanese MP Sethrida Geagea. "A husband can violate his wife and even rape her and there is nothing to protect her. Two months ago we passed a draft law that banned so-called honour killings. Before then, if a father or brother thought a woman from his family was seeing another man he could kill her and would spend no more than two months in jail.

"That has now changed but real change in attitudes will take a lot longer."

Others say that women are only one of many oppressed groups. In an article on Comment is Free this week, Nesrine Malik argued: "Yes, in Saudi Arabia women cannot drive, but men cannot elect their government; instead they are ruled over by a religiously opportunistic dynasty. In Egypt, it's true that women were subjected to virginity tests, but men were sodomised. In Sudan women are lashed for wearing trousers, but ethnic minorities are also marginalised and under assault. We must not belittle the issues women face, or relegate them to second place, but we must place them in a wider context where wholesale reform is needed. One cannot reduce a much more universal and complicated problem merely to gender."

Laila Marrakchi, a Moroccan film-maker, takes issue with the word "hate", arguing that many Arab men are repressed too. "It's not hatred, it's fear of women – which in turn brings the hatred. There is so much frustration among men in the Arab world, it begins with sexual frustration, and the frustration of not being able to speak out, and not having political freedom."

Tunisia may historically have enjoyed the most liberal attitudes towards women's rights, but some fear that may be changing, despite last year's revolution. Saloua Karoui Ounalli, a lecturer in American and English literature at Tunis University, said: "Things have changed in just a few months. I can't wear miniskirts at work now, on the campus, for fear that someone will attack me. I only wear trousers now. This change in environment began a couple of years back, when the number of women wearing the veil started to increase."

She says a sexual revolution is desperately needed. "But right now is not the best timing. First you need a cultural revolution to train people to think with a critical frame of mind, to take into account the plurality of cultures in the world, so that they can see Arab culture as just one among thousands of cultures; it isn't necessarily the best one and doesn't necessarily possess the truth. A sexual revolution would be a waste of time until you have first taught people to evaluate their own culture with some detachment from the sacred."

Moroccan journalist Nadia Lamlili says the Arab world does not need a sexual revolution so much as a cultural revolution in the way people are brought up and the way the sexes are segregated.

"It seems to me that the problems facing Arab women derive more from a lack of understanding between the sexes, which is above all due to the two sexes not being allowed to mix, and of the morbid desire on the part of the Arab regimes to keep society divided: men to one side, women to the other," she says. "By separating the sexes, the Arab regimes want to manage sexual temptation. But it doesn't take away the temptation. In fact it exasperates and amplifies the temptation, and ends up with violence in dealings between men and women.

"The problem with our societies is that the women are in love with their sons instead of their husbands, and the men are in love with their mothers instead of with their wives," she adds. "Men and women don't understand one another due to the fact that their dealings are not at all clear, as they don't spend enough time together or don't engage with each other enough."

Related Articles:

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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 (Based in Greece, Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to built Africa to develop), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - New !

Catholic nuns group "stunned" by Vatican slap

Reuters, by Andrew Stern, CHICAGO, Fri Apr 20, 2012

(Reuters) - A prominent U.S. Catholic nuns' group said on Thursday it was "stunned" that the Vatican reprimanded it for spending too much time on poverty and social justice concerns and not enough on abortion and gay marriage.

In a stinging report on Wednesday, the Vatican said the Leadership Conference of Women Religious had been "silent on the right to life" and had failed to make the "Biblical view of family life and human sexuality" a central plank in its agenda.

It also reprimanded American nuns for expressing positions on political issues that differed, at times, from views held by American bishops. Public disagreement with the bishops - "who are the church's authentic teachers of faith and morals" - is unacceptable, the report said.

The Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a "doctrinal assessment" saying the Holy See was compelled to intervene with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious to correct "serious doctrinal problems."

The nuns' group said in a statement on its website, "The presidency of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious was stunned by the conclusions of the doctrinal assessment."

It added the group may give a lengthier response at a later date.

The conference said it represented 80 percent of America's 57,000 Catholic nuns. It is influential both in the United States and globally.

Academics who study the church said the Vatican's move was predictable given Pope Benedict's conservative views and efforts by Rome to quell internal dissent and curtail autonomy within its ranks.

"This is more an expression of the Church feeling under siege by trends it cannot control within the Church, much less within the broader society," University of Notre Dame historian Scott Appleby said.

That includes a steady drumbeat of calls to ordain women as priests, which the pope has reasserted was an impossibility.

The Vatican named Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain and two other U.S. bishops to undertake the reforms of the conference's statutes, programs and its application of liturgical texts, a process it said could take up to five years. 

(Additional reporting by Stephanie Simon; Editing by Peter Cooney)

The Pope said the Church had no authority from God
to admit women priests.

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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 (Based in Greece, Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to built Africa to develop), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - New !


"Perceptions of God" – June 6, 2010 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Quantum Teaching, The Fear of God, Near-death Experience, God Becomes Mythology, Worship, Mastery, Intelligent Design, Benevolent Creator, Global Unity.... etc.) (Text version)

“.. For centuries you haven't been able to think past that box of what God must be like. So you create a Human-like God with wars in heaven, angel strife, things that would explain the devil, fallen angels, pearly gates, lists of dos and don'ts, and many rules still based on cultures that are centuries old. You create golden streets and even sexual pleasures as rewards for men (of course) - all Human perspective, pasted upon God. I want to tell you that it's a lot different than that. I want to remind you that there are those who have seen it! Why don't you ask somebody who has had what you would call a near-death experience?

(Religions – Zionism - March 1, 2012 - Matthew Channelled by Suzanne Ward)

9. It can be no other way—simply, this is the physics that governs life in this universe. As Earth continues apace into successively higher planes, nothing with low vibrations in any form—physical bodies, subversive plans, theft, dishonesty, unjust laws and imprisonment, bigotry, cruel customs and deeds—can survive.

10. Moving on, no, it will not be quite like religions being “totally discarded and replaced by universal laws in the Golden Age.” When the truths come forth that science and spirit are one and the same and that religious dogmas were originated by early leaders of church and state to control the masses, people whose consciousness has risen beyond the constraints of third density will adhere to the spiritual aspects of their respective religions and the devised, controlling aspects will fall by the wayside.

11. One of the truths to come forth is that Zionism, which by dark intent has been made synonymous with Judaism, actually is a bellicose political movement within the Illuminati, and its aim for more than six decades has been to create conflict and instability in the entire Middle East. Zionists, who have wielded powerful influence within and behind major governments and their military forces, do NOT represent the Jewish peoples in Israel or anywhere else. And, like all other Illuminati factions, they have been committed to that cabal’s goal of global domination.

12. Although Semites are of diverse national origins and religions, the Zionists have been successful in convincing many that “anti-Semitic” is exclusively prejudice against the Jewish peoples and opposition to Israel’s right to defend itself from its “enemies.” By means of that blatant distortion, they obtained not only world sympathy, but also massive defense funding from Israel’s allies, most especially the United States, all of which served to increase the Illuminati’s vast profits from their industrial-military machine.

13. In addition to controlling the masses through dogmatic teachings, religions have served the dark purpose of divisiveness to such an extent that it resulted in centuries of trauma and bloodshed. Witness the Crusades, wars between Catholics and Protestants, pogroms against Jews, executions of “blasphemous” individuals who refused to “recant.”  (Read More …)

"Matthew preparing us for the Golden Age." -  Jan 19, 2012 (Channelled by Suzy Ward)

(SaLuSa channelled by Mike Quinsey, March 16, 2012)

“…. Each project is underway and that will result in a sudden wealth of information reaching you. Events are such that the facts can no longer be kept hidden, and with that there will be an explosion of people coming forward to tell what they know. It may take longer where the Vatican is concerned, as it is akin to a secret society that has kept its dark secrets hidden well away. However, nothing will remain concealed for too long, as you are entitled to know the truth and the extent to which you have been deceived….”  

Christ Consciousness Is The Energy of The New World – Mar 7, 2012  (Kryon channelled by David Brown)

US to move marines out of Japan

9,000 of the military contingent that is upsetting residents on the island of Okinawa will move to other parts of Asia Pacific region

guardian.co.uk, Justin McCurry in Tokyo, Friday 27 April 2012

The US marines Futenma base on Okinawa, Japan. Photograph:
Issei Kato/Reuters

Japan and the US have agreed to relocate thousands of US marines from Okinawa in a move aimed at reducing the island's military burden amid lingering anger among residents over pollution, accidents and crime.

Under a deal reached in Washington late on Thursday, about 9,000 marines will move from the southern Japanese island to the US Pacific territory of Guam and other locations in the region, including Hawaii and Australia.

By shifting a large portion of the 19,000 marines on Okinawa, leaders in Tokyo and Washington said they hoped to reduce the US military footprint on the island while retaining a strong enough presence to deal with security emergencies in the region.

In a joint statement, the US defence secretary, Leon Panetta, and the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said the agreement would honour Washington's commitment to defending Japan and maintaining stability in an "increasingly uncertain security environment".

"Japan is not just a close ally, but also a close friend," Panetta said separately. "And I look forward to deepening that friendship and strengthening our partnership as, together, we address security challenges in the region."

No date has been given for the $8.6bn (£5.3bn) move – of which Japan will pay $3.1 billion – and questions remain over the fate of Futenma, a sprawling marine base located in Ginowan, an Okinawan city of 95,000 people.

Earlier this year, President Obama signalled a shift in US military priorities towards the Asia-Pacific region, after a decade of prioritising expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The potential for volatility in east Asia was underlined by North Korea's recent rocket launch and the prospect of a third nuclear test by the regime.

There is concern, too, over Beijing's military spending and long-standing disputes between China and Japan over territory and energy resources.

"I think we have made some progress and this plan offers specific and forward-looking action," Japan's foreign minister, Koichiro Gemba, said, adding that Japan wanted to "reduce the burden on Okinawa".

But the agreement, made days before the Japanese prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, meets Obama in Washington, is unlikely to satisfy residents living near Futenma, a cause of friction between successive US and Japanese administrations.

Local opposition to the US military presence on Okinawa reached a high point in 1995 after three servicemen abducted and raped a 12-year-old girl.

The crime prompted the US and Japan to look for ways of reducing the military presence on Okinawa, which comprises less than 1% of Japan's total area, yet hosts three-quarters of all US bases and just under half its 47,000 troops.

The talks led to a 2006 agreement under which Futenma was to be relocated to Henoko in a less populated part of Okinawa, and 8,000 troops moved off the island by 2014.

The Futenma question remains unresolved, however, after the government in Tokyo failed to persuade people in Henoko – an ecologically important stretch of coastline – to agree to host the new offshore base. Most residents of Okinawa want the base moved off their island altogether, but the government has failed to find a new host community.

Up to 5,000 troops – about 3,000 fewer than envisaged in the original 2006 agreement – will be sent to Guam, according to a US defence official quoted by Associated Press in Washington. The remainder will move to Hawaii or rotate between Australia and other parts of the region.

Kurt Campbell, the US assistant secretary of state for east Asian and Pacific affairs, said the deal should satisfy congressional critics who had denounced the original plan as confused and expensive.

"We think it breaks a very long stalemate that has plagued our politics, that has clogged both of our systems," he said.

Related Article:

Okinawa deal between US and Japan to move marines