Gili Trawangan

Gili Trawangan, the most popular island of the Gili's. Just kick back and enjoy the sun, nightly beach parties and sea. The main stripe is full of accommodations, restaurants, and dive shops. If you are seeking a quieter place to stay, there are bungalows in the north. This Island is also known as "Party Island", where mostly young European found them "Lost In Paradise". With spectacular sunrises over Lombok's Mount Rinjani volcano and breathtaking sunsets that illuminate Bali's towering Mount Agung volcano, together with warm hospitality of Gili Trawangan residents, it's not surprising that most visitors end up staying longer than originally plan.

Snorkeling off the shore, sunbathing, swimming, or join any dive trips with any dive operators, which colored the lines. There are quality dive schools available to cater the needs of tourists, offering complete range of PADI courses, as well as Fun Dives for those already certified. By night, the waterfront comes to life as various foreign and locally restaurants and bars start to fire up, with fresh snapper, grouper and tuna, cooked over charcoal flames, readily available. (www.rainbowdiplomacy.com/indonesia-tourism.com/Photo:Dana Anwari)
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Saudi Clock Tower to establish Makkah time

Muslims around the world could be setting their watches to a new time soon when the world’s largest clock begins ticking atop a soaring skyscraper in Islam’s holiest city of Makkah.

Saudi Arabia hopes the four faces of the new clock, which will loom over Makkah’s Grand Mosque from what is expected to be the world’s second tallest building, will establish Makkah as an alternate time standard to the Greenwich median.

The clock is targeted to enter service with a three-month trial period in the first week of the holy month of Ramadan on or about August 12, according to the Saudi state news agency SPA.

It boasts four glimmering 46 metre-across (151 feet) faces of high-tech composite tiles, some laced with gold, sitting more than 400 metres (1,320 feet) over the Holy Haram compound.

The tower’s height will reach 601 metres (1,983 feet), SPA said. On its website, Premiere Composite, which is responsible for cladding the top section, including a shimmering spire topped by a golden crescent moon, puts the planned height at 590 metres (1,947 feet).

That would make it the world’s second tallest building — ahead of Taiwan’s 509 metre (1,670 feet) Taipei 101, but well behind the Burj Khalifa, the 828 metre (2,717 feet) skyscraper inaugurated in Dubai in January.

Some 250 “highly qualified Muslim workers” were completing welding work on the clock’s frame, SPA said.

More than six times larger in diameter than London’s famed Big Ben, the clock faces, with the Arabic words “In the Name of Allah” in huge lettering underneath and will be lit with two million LED lights.

Some 21,000 white and green coloured lights, fitted at the top of the clock, will flash to as far as 30 kilometres (18.7 miles) to signal Islam’s mandatory five-times daily prayers.

On special Muslim occasions, 16 bands of vertical lights will shoot some 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) up into the sky.

“Everyone is interested to see the clock, despite the lack of sufficient information about it, and its mechanism,” said Makkah resident Hani al-Wajeeh.

“We in Makkah hope to be the world’s central time zone, and not just have a clock to look at, to show off,” he said.

The developer of the massive seven-tower Abraj al-Bait complex had kept the details of the clock a secret, but it is visibly in place now, adorned with the green crossed sword and palm symbol of the Saudi state.

Mohammed al-Arkubi, the manager of the Royal Makkah Clock Tower Hotel in the building below, said the installation of the clock, its faces made by the German-owned Dubai company, Premiere Composite Technologies, has been “a huge operation.”

The clock reflects a goal by some Muslims to replace the 126-year-old Universal Time standard — originally called Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) — with Makkah mean time.

At a conference in Doha in 2008, Muslim clerics and scholars presented “scientific” arguments that Makkah time is the true global meridian. They said that Makkah is the centre of the world and that the Greenwich standard was imposed by the west in 1884.

Big does not begin to describe the Abraj al-Bait complex just across the street from the south gate of the Grand Mosque, the Muslim world’s most sacred site.

Built by a government-controlled fund, the complex sits seven huge towers atop a massive podium. Six are between 42 and 48 stories, and in the middle is the clock tower, appearing nearly twice as tall as the others.

Moreover, the entire complex, with 3,000 hotel rooms and apartments, a five-story shopping centre and gigantic prayer and conference halls, will give it 1.5 million square metres (16.1 million square feet) of floor space, according to architects and construction industry reports.

At that it will tie Dubai International Airport’s newest terminal three for the world’s largest building by floor space.

The complex will sport three top-class hotels, the Fairmont, Raffles and Swiss Hotel. It will also have hundreds of luxury apartments, most of them designed to have a direct view of the Grand Mosque.

The project is part of the Saudi government’s plan to develop Makkah to be able to receive as many as 10 million hajj Pilgrims every year, up from the current three million capacity.

That is necessary to accommodate a rapidly growing global population of Muslims, who have a duty to make a pilgrimage to Makkah at least once in their lifetimes, if possible.

At the peak of the hajj, according to architect Dar al-Handasah, the complex should accommodate 65,000 people.

The clock will be the focus. Elevators will take visitors up to a huge viewing balcony just underneath the faces, and also a four-story astronomical observatory and Islamic museum.

“The construction of the biggest clock in the world in the purest spot on the earth is a dream-come-true for Muslims,” said Atif Felmban, who lives in the city.

“Before, we heard and saw famous clocks in the West. But today we can as Muslims be proud of this giant project,” said Ahmed Haleem, an Egyptian living in the Muslim holy city.

“I might leave Makkah before the opening ceremony for the clock. But I will be keen to follow it and set my watch to it as soon as it is working,” Haleem said.

“It means an honour for a place, and time for me,” he said. (AFP/www.khaleejtimes.com)
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Civet coffee = Halal

By: Yoedi Karyono

Drink of the most exclusive and that only in Indonesia, even the price of one drink a small cup that could reach USD 100 or USD 200 in the United States (U.S.) and is similar to Rp 2,000,000. Incredibly, this drink is known as the mongoose and coffee with a fantastic price, when the price of U.S. pride drinks, Coca Cola for a single bottle of less than USD 2.

In Indonesia the price of coffee per one kilogram of this type is only Rp 350.000 course or not up to EUR 5. After the beans are processed and prepared into a powder ready brewed coffee prices reached USD 900 000 or about USD 10.

Commodity exports from Indonesia and is very exclusive, rather than the Village of East Java, Jember Regency Jampit could make doubts, whether this type of beverage or halaal. That's why the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) needs to deliver a fatwa, after the producers and consumers of this coffee have doubts about lawful or illicit copies of this, and on July 20, 2010, after going through research and trials, then the MUI Fatwa Commission chairman Ma'ruf KH Amin said that coffee is kosher mongoose.

The statement will be strengthened again on July 25, 2010 in, more extensive trials, and is the final statement in the trial of the MUI. Why about halal and haram coffee mongoose is a problem? This is because the process to make the most expensive and exclusive coffee was remarkable.

Ripe coffee beans which are naturally eaten by a mongoose or a palm civet, which is sweet nut shell it becomes food mongoose, but can not digest the coffee beans in the stomach mongoose and finally out of the rectum with feces mongoose.

Seed that has been fermented for 12 hours in the stomach mongoose and out with dirt is then collected by the farmers in the coffee plantation, PTPN XII Jampit Jember, East Java, further processed into high-quality coffee powder with very expensive price, and indeed become the mainstay of export commodities district it.

Natural way is to gather dirt mongoose farmers who had mixed with coffee beans every morning on the sidelines of the coffee tree, and this is a very high quality coffee with recognized experts and enthusiasts worldwide coffee drinks coffee.

The second method, coffee farmers deliberately maintain a mongoose and the mongoose was deliberately fed ripe coffee beans, then the mongoose that choose and eat the beans, after 12 hours later, the mongoose will defecate coffee beans that have been fermented. How this is done in the area of West Java.

The second way is still producing high-quality coffee, but coffee experts prefer a more natural way first, because the quality of coffee produced is very high quality.

U.S. as a country with a population of the world's biggest coffee drinkers in this country and always provides the majority of the population drinks coffee at breakfast or a particular order, but to drink the coffee mongoose is a very expensive thing was done for a special warning only.

Indeed in this country are available various kinds of coffee, including coffee from Colombia, a country with geographical location closer to the U.S. and Colombia is also the world's coffee producing countries. But for the type of coffee mongoose only owned by Indonesia, especially Java. Why, animals mongoose or palm civet is endemic animals that only live on the island of Java.

This coffee is indeed''muta 'unclean (najis), unclean out with dirt, but if cleaned syar'i clean unclean according to religious rules, then no problem to be consumed or traded,''said KH Ma'ruf Amin.

According to KH Ma'ruf Amin, earlier doubts about the lawful and the illicit copies of this type, because that process is what some people considered to be very disgusting, but after research conducted by the MUI, then cleaned out the Islamic religion if this commodity is no problem. Why, because the raw material itself is not the type of illicit goods, its own process of coffee beans to be eaten by a mongoose's natural processes, these animals do feed on seeds of coffee.

Furthermore, digestion mongoose could not digest the beans and then out again, and in the circumstances provided the seed coat is peeling off the skin rather than in the nodes are not peeling, then the coffee beans is not a problem, wash it in an Islamic religious syar'i how to eliminate the odious . How to remove unclean in Islam is to wash seven times rinsed with clean water and one was washed with sand or soil.

''No problem, after cleaning can be consumed by the people of Islam Islam and traded. If somebody or some people become disgusted because the process of fermentation in the stomach during the 12-hour mongoose. Yes if you want to drink coffee he is still a lot of other coffee choices or do not drink coffee at all, it is still great selection of halal and toyibah drinks,''said KH Amin.

How the coffee is very exclusive Hollywood even made a film that connects with a very famous coffee. Movie called Bucket List starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman tells of two elderly people affected by the disease and can not be cured, they were given a list of last request before dying menjempunya, one of the options list include mongoose drink coffee, and both chose to drink coffee that is considered as one of the pleasures that exist in this world that will be enjoyed before his death. (rainbowdiplomacy.com)

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Romania

Romania is the largest of the Balkan states with a population of about 22 million people, sitting at the crossroads of Europe bordering Bulgaria in the South, Ukraine to the North, Hungary and Serbia to the West, and Moldova and the Black Sea to the East. The country has seen several empires come and go - Roman, Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian, all leaving their legacy in terms of language, culture, food, architecture and the arts. The capital, Bucharest, earned the nickname ‘Little Paris of the East’, though it was the stunning medieval city of Sibiu in Transylvania that was crowned European Capital of Culture in 2007.

Romania has a rich cultural and natural diversity. Its dramatic mountain scenery includes the densely forested Carpathian Mountains, the Danube Delta (the largest and best preserved wetland in Europe) and 70km of fine white sandy beaches on the Black Sea Coast.

In picturesque valleys and on mountain slopes are many health and winter resorts. Romania’s cultural heritage can be experienced in the Saxon towns of Transylvania, also home to Bran Castle, of Dracula fame, the painted monasteries of Bucovina and the rural village idyll of Maramures, just a few of the many UNESCO preserved sites.

Traditional occupations such as shepherding, weaving and carpentry are still very much alive in quaint villages, where painting icons on glass and coloring eggs provide a stark contrast to the other 21st century activities. Food in rural Transylvania is frequently organic and, surprisingly to the Western visitor, full of flavor, while a glass of ‘palinca’- twice distilled local plum brandy- is always a treat. Romanian folklore is among some of the most varied and traditional in Europe with famous poets such as Mihai Eminescu, and Ion Creanga who wrote Romanian traditional stories. Extremely captivating and beautiful regional costumes can be seen in villages near Sibiu, in the Apuseni Mountains or Maramures, Bucovina. Transylvanian folk music and dancing are also well known abroad, particularly the national traditional folk ethnic costumes and accessories.

Some of the most famous Romanian personalities worldwide include sculptor Constantin Brancusi, famous for his amazing and original wood carving talent, George Enescu, arguably one of the greatest violin players of all time, former tennis player, Ilie “Nasty” Nastase, gymnast Nadia Comaneci who won three gold medals at the 1976 Olympics, including scoring the first perfect “10” in Olympics gymnastics history. Many other writers, painters, statesmen, and academics have also enhanced Romania’s image around the world and left lasting legacies.

Unfortunately, Romania's long history has not been as idyllically peaceful as its geography. From about 200 B.C., when it was settled by the Dacians, a Thracian tribe, Romania has been in the path of a series of migrations and conquests. Under the emperor Trajan early in the second century A.D., Dacia was incorporated into the Roman Empire, but was abandoned by a declining Rome less than two centuries later. Until 14th century A.D., Dacia was in turn invaded by several nomadic peoples and in order to defend themselves against such invasions, the Romanian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia were founded around 1310 and 1352, in the Southern and Eastern parts of today's Romania, respectively. Romanians lived in three distinct principalities: besides Wallachia and Moldavia, there was also Transylvania, in the Western part of today's Romania.

Heavily taxed and badly administered under the Ottoman Empire, Wallachia and Moldavia were unified under a single native prince in 1859, and had their full independence ratified in the 1878 Treaty of Berlin. A German prince, Carol of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, was crowned first King of Romania in 1881. The new state, squeezed between the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires, looked to the West, for its cultural, educational, and administrative models and influence.

In World War I, Romania joined the Allies in their fight against the Axis powers, and at the end of the war it achieved its greatest territorial extent, uniting all the historical Romanian territories, Moldavia and Wallachia with Transylvania, Banat, Bessarabia (present-day Moldova), and Bucovina. Most of Romania's pre-World War II governments maintained the forms, but not always the substance, of a liberal constitutional monarchy. The quasi-mystical fascist Iron Guard movement was a key destabilizing factor, which led to the creation of a royal dictatorship in 1938 under King Carol II. In 1940, the authoritarian General Antonescu took control. Romania entered World War II on the side of the Axis Powers in June 1941, invading the Soviet Union to recover Bessarabia and Bukovina, which had been annexed in 1940.

In 1947, Romania became a people's republic, under a Communist rule. Subsequently, it became a socialist republic during Nicolae Ceausescu's regime, which started in the late 1960's. The Communist regime was overthrown as a result of the Romanian Revolution of December 1989. After the revolution, Romania adopted a new constitution, started intense economic and political reforms and set December 1st as the National Day, also referred to as the Great Union Day, the most significant event that originally marked the unification of the country in 1918.

Almost two decades have past since Romania became a young democracy. Romania joined NATO in 2004, and in 2005 the European Union (EU) approved entry with final acceptance contingent upon a number of reforms, including increased law enforcement and environmental measures, and the protection of the rights of the Roma minority, since Romania has the world's largest population of Roma. On January 1, 2007, Romania officially joined the EU, which now comprises 27 member states, and is the seventh largest nation among the EU member states. The country is expected to join the Eurozone by 2014.(www.rainbowdiplomacy.com)


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