PAKET UMROH BULAN FEBRUARI MARET APRIL MEI 2018

SEWA MOBIL SOLO MURAH!

"Pelayanan kami adalah selalu untuk memberikan kenyamanan dan penuh tanggung jawab"

Selamat datang di sewa mobil Solo RODA HS, jasa transportasi dengan pelayanan yang memuaskan serta di dukung dengan armada yang lengkap serta harga murah. Berbagai fasilitas kemudahan dan keamanan bersama kami tentunya akan memberikan sebuah keunggulan tersendiri bagi jasa sewa mobil Solo RODA HS. Melayani antar jemput bahkan perjalanan wisata yang Anda tuju dengan pilihan armada yang baru. Meliputi di berbagai daerah Jawa Tengah maupun kota-kota besar wisata tujuan Anda. RODA HS juga telah memberikan pelayanan mobil buat kebutuhan keluarga Anda antara lain mantenan, event keluarga, bisnis kantor, maupun berwisata.

Dengan memilih jasa persewaan mobil kami tentunya Anda juga memberikan sebuah kepercayaan yang utuh dalam usaha yang kami dirikan dalam bidang sewa mobil Solo ini. Kami yang sudah cukup banyak pelanggan juga memiliki sebuah kepercayaan kepada klien dan costumer baru. Kami yang bertujuan membangun sebuah jasa sewa mobil solo dengan dukungan pelayanan yang memuaskan tentunya agar bisa memudahkan konsumen untuk dalam semua urusan transportasi khusunya wisata di berbagai daerah di kota Solo. Banyak juga konsumen dan pelanggan kami yang telah memberikan sebuah kepercayaan tinggi kepada kami, karena dengan pelayanan yang ramah, tanggung jawab, serta kami jasa Sewa mobil di Solo yang begitu mengutamakan keamanan para tamu daripada mementingkan sebuah harga persewaan yang mahal.

Sewa Mobil Solo dan Rental Mobil Solo RODA HS yang selalu memberikan harga termurah sudah menjadi kebanggaan tersendiri dalam bisnis Rental Mobil Solo Murah ini. Selain itu berbagai fasilitas Armada yang berkualitas dan lengkap akan memudahkan Anda memakai jasa sewa mobil Solo kami, yang dimana para konsumen selalu bangga akan pelayanan terbaik dari persewaan mobil Solo kami. Rental Mobil Solo Murah Roda HS juga menyediakan Tranportasi untuk pernikahan keluarga, Wisata, Event, Bisnis Kantor, maupun untuk keperluan pribadi lainnya.

Armada Sewa Mobil Solo RODA HS

Armada transportasi yang kami berikan antara lain: Daihatsu Xenia, Avanza, Kijang Innova, Suzuki APV, Toyota Fortuner, All New Camry, serta Toyota Alphard yang selalu siap pakai dalam perjalanan Anda nantinya. Kami juga telah menyediakan Armada All New Camry dan Toyota Alphard buat acara Pernikahan keluarga anda, tentunya dengan harga yang termurah.

Rental Mobil Solo

Sewa Mobil Solo Murah Roda HS, itulah julukan yang biasanya para konsumen memanggil. Karena dengan harga Termurah itu juga yang bisa menjadikan antara kami dan konsumen selalu dekat. Dapatkan harga EXCLUSIVE dari kami untuk perjalanan Anda sebagai tanda ucapan Terima Kasih atas support dengan launching nya website kami.

MENJAGA KEMULIAAN MANUSIA (2)

Pada artikel pertama telah kita bahas tentang mempertahankan kemuliaan manusia secara sepintas. Pada kesempatan ini kita akan menelusuri tahap demi tahap berbagai hal tentang manusia. 1. Penyampaian Misi , menimbulkan kecurigaan dari para malaikat. Dan Ingatlah ketika Tuhanmu berfirman kepada para malaikat: "Sesungguhnya Aku hendak menjadikan seorang khalifah di muka bumi". Mereka berkata: "Mengapa Engkau hendak menjadikan (khalifah) di bumi itu orang yang akan membuat kerusakan padanya dan menumpahkan darah, padahal kami senantiasa bertasbih dengan memuji Engkau dan menyucikan Engkau?" Tuhan berfirman: "Sesungguhnya Aku mengetahui apa yang tidak kamu ketahui". (QS.2:30) Ketika Allah swt. memberitahukan kepada para malaikat-Nya bahwa Dia akan menjadikan Adam a.s sebagai khalifah di bumi, maka para malaikat itu bertanya, mengapa Adam a.s yang akan diangkat menjadi khalifah di bumi padahal Adam a.s itu dari keturunannya kelak akan berbuat kerusakan dan menumpahkan darah di bumi. Dan para malaikat itu menganggap bahwa diri mereka adalah lebih patut memangku jabatan itu, sebab mereka makhluk yang selalu bertasbih, memuji dan menyucikan Allah swt. Allah swt. tidak membenarkan anggapan mereka itu dan Dia menjawab bahwa Dia mengetahui yang tidak diketahui oleh para malaikat itu. Apa-apa yang akan dilakukan Allah swt. adalah berdasarkan pengetahuan dan hikmah-Nya yang Maha Tinggi walaupun tak dapat diketahui oleh mereka, termasuk pengangkatan Adam a.s menjadi khalifah di bumi. Yang dimaksud dengan kekhalifahan Adam a.s di bumi adalah kedudukannya sebagai khalifah atau wakil Allah swt. di bumi ini, untuk melaksanakan perintah-perintah-Nya dan memakmurkan bumi serta memanfaatkan segala apa yang ada padanya. Dari pengertian ini lahirlah ungkapan yang mengatakan bahwa manusia adalah "Khalifatullah di bumi Dan Ingatlah ketika Tuhanmu berfirman kepada para malaikat: "Sesungguhnya Aku hendak menjadikan seorang khalifah di muka bumi". Ini merupakan kehendak yang luhur yaitu menyerahkan pengendalian bumi ini kepada makhluk yang baru. Ini merupakan kedudukan yang tinggi bagi manusia dalam tatanan alam wujud diatas bumi yang luas ini . Dan ini adalah kemuliaan yang dikehendaki untuk manusia oleh Sang Pencipta yang Maha Mulia. Namun ada kesangsian atau kecurigaan dari para Malaikat kalau Manusia ini antinya tidak akan mampu menjadi khalifah. Kesangsian malaikat itu tercermin dalam pertanyaan mereka kepada Allah . Kalimat “ mengapa Engkau hendak……….., padahal kami senantiasa………….. menunjukkan kecurigaan atau kesangsian seperti makhluk sebelumnya. Perkataan malaikat ini member kesan bahwa mereka mempunyai bukti-bukti keadaan atau berdasarkan pengalaman masa lalunya di bumi atau dengan ilham pandangan bathinya yang menyingkap sedikit tentang tabiat makhluk baru ini atau tentang tuntutan hidupnya dimuka bumi dan yang menjadikan mereka mengetahui atau memprediksi bahwa manusia ini kelak akan membawa kerusakan di bumi dan menumpahkan darah. Selanjtnya mereka sebagai malaikat dengan fithrahnya yang suci yang tidak tergambar olehnya kecuali kebaikan yang mutlak dan kepatuhan yang menyeluruh mengumandangkan tasbih dengan memuji Allah dan menyucikan-NYA serta senantiasa beribadah kepada-NYA dengan tiada merasa letih. Jalalain menjelaskan dalam tafsirnya bahwa “Ingatlah hai Muhammad (ketika tuhanmu berfirman kepada para Malaikat , Sesungguhnya Aku hendak menjadikan seorang khalifah dimuka bumi yang akan mewakili aku dalam melaksanakan hokum-hukum atau peraturan-peraturan-Ku padanya , yaitu Adam. Kata mereka (malaikat) ,”Kenapa hendak engkau jadikan dibumi itu orang yang hendak berbuat kerusakan padanya yakni dengan perbuatan maksiat dan menumpahkan darah , artinya melakukan pembunbuhan-pembunuhan sebagai mana dilakukan oleh bangsa jin yang juga mendiami bumi. Penekanan bahwa khalifah itu : “ yang akan mewakili Aku (Allah) dalam melaksanakan hukum-hukum atau peraturan-peraturan-KU (Allah) padanya (dibumi) inilah yang sangat diragukan oleh para malaikat. Namun tidaklah semua keturunan Adam seperti yang diragukan oleh para Malaikat , diantaranya manusia itu ada yang siap bertanggung jawab . Maka Allah menjawabnya ,” Sesungguhnya Aku mengetahui apa yang tidak kamu ketahui”. 2. Pengujian : menimbulkan pengakuan dari para malaikat Dan Dia mengajarkan kepada Adam nama-nama (benda-benda) seluruhnya, kemudian mengemukakannya kepada para Malaikat lalu berfirman: "Sebutkanlah kepada-Ku nama benda-benda itu jika kamu memang orang-orang yang benar!" (QS.3:31) Dalam ayat ini Allah swt. menunjukkan suatu keistimewaan yang telah dikaruniakan-Nya kepada Adam a.s yang tidak pernah dikaruniakan-Nya kepada makhluk-makhluk-Nya yang lain, yaitu ilmu pengetahuan dan kekuatan akal atau daya pikir yang memungkinkannya untuk mempelajari sesuatu dengan sedalam-dalamnya. Keistimewaan ini diturunkan pula kepada turunannya, yaitu umat manusia. Oleh sebab itu, manusia (Adam a.s. dan keturunannya) lebih patut dari malaikat untuk dijadikan khalifah. Ayat ini menerangkan bahwa Allah swt. mengajarkan kepada Adam a.s. nama-nama dan sifat-sifat dari semua benda yang penting-penting di antara-Nya. Adapun cara mengajarkan nama benda-benda tersebut kepada Adam a.s. ialah dengan memberikan ilham kepadanya serta menanamkan daya pikir, yang memungkinkannya untuk mengembangkan pengetahuannya itu. Setelah nama benda-benda itu diajarkan-Nya kepada Adam a.s. maka Allah swt. memperlihatkan benda-benda itu kepada para malaikat dan diperintahkan-Nya agar mereka menyebutkan nama benda-benda tersebut yang telah diajarkan-Nya kepada Adam a.s. Dan ternyata mereka tak dapat menyebutkannya. Hal ini untuk memperlihatkan keterbatasan ilmu pengetahuan para malaikat itu dan agar mereka mengetahui keunggulan Adam a.s. terhadap mereka dan agar dapat pula mereka mengetahui ketinggian hikmah-Nya dalam memilih Adam a.s. sebagai khalifah. Juga untuk menunjukkan bahwa jabatan sebagai khalifah, yaitu untuk mengatur segala sesuatu dan untuk menegakkan kebenaran dan keadilan di bumi ini memerlukan ilmu pengetahuan yang banyak serta kemampuan dan daya pikir yang kuat. Perintah Allah swt. kepada mereka untuk menyebutkan nama makhluk-makhluk itu juga merupakan suatu peringatan kepada mereka yang tadinya merasa bahwa diri mereka adalah lebih patut untuk diangkat sebagai khalifah, maka Allah swt. menunjukkan kekurangan mereka sehingga seakan-akan Ia berfirman kepada mereka, "Hai para malaikat! Jika kamu menganggap Adam dan keturunannya tidak patut dijadikan khalifah di bumi dan kamu merasa lebih patut memangku jabatan itu, maka cobalah buktikan kebenaran alasan itu, cobalah kamu sebutkan nama benda-benda ini yang Aku perlihatkan kepadamu". Ternyata mereka tidak dapat menyebutkannya karena mereka memang tidak diberi ilmu seperti yang dikaruniakan Allah kepada manusia. Karena mereka tidak dapat mengetahui dan menyebutkan nama benda-benda yang dapat mereka lihat di hadapan mereka, tentulah mereka lebih tidak mengetahui hal-hal yang gaib yang belum mereka saksikan, antara lain ialah hikmah Allah swt. dalam menjadikan Adam a.s. sebagai khalifah. Mereka menjawab: "Maha Suci Engkau, tidak ada yang kami ketahui selain dari apa yang telah Engkau ajarkan kepada kami; sesungguhnya Engkaulah Yang Maha Mengetahui lagi Maha Bijaksana.(QS.2:32) Setelah para malaikat menyadari kurangnya ilmu pengetahuan mereka karena tidak dapat menyebutkan nama makhluk-makhluk yang ada di hadapan mereka, lalu mengakui terus terang kelemahan diri mereka dan berkata kepada Allah swt. bahwa Dia Maha Suci dari segala sifat-sifat kekurangan yang tidak layak bagi-Nya dan mereka menyatakan tobat kepada-Nya. Mereka pun yakin bahwa segala apa yang dilakukan Allah swt. tentulah berdasarkan ilmu dan hikmah-Nya yang Maha Tinggi dan Sempurna, termasuk masalah pengangkatan Adam a.s. menjadi khalifah. Mereka mengetahui bahwa ilmu pengetahuan mereka hanyalah terbatas kepada apa yang di ajarkan-Nya kepada mereka. Dengan demikian habislah keragu-raguan mereka tentang hikmah Allah swt. dalam pengangkatan Adam a.s. menjadi khalifah di bumi. Dari pengakuan para malaikat ini, dapatlah dipahami bahwa pertanyaan yang mereka ajukan semula mengapa Allah mengangkat Adam a.s. sebagai khalifah, bukanlah merupakan suatu sanggahan dari mereka terhadap kehendak Allah swt, melainkan hanyalah sekadar pertanyaan meminta penjelasan. Setelah penjelasan itu diberikan dan setelah mereka mengakui kelemahan mereka, maka dengan rendah hati dan penuh ketaatan mereka mematuhi kehendak Allah, terutama dalam pengangkatan Adam a.s. menjadi khalifah. Mereka memuji Allah swt karena Dia telah memberikan ilmu pengetahuan kepada mereka sesuai dengan kemampuan yang ada pada mereka. Selanjutnya, mereka mengakui pula dengan penuh keyakinan dan menyerah kepada ilmu Allah yang Maha luas dan hikmah-Nya yang Maha Tinggi. Lalu mereka menegaskan bahwa hanyalah Allah yang Maha Mengetahui dan Maha Bijaksana. Hal ini mengandung suatu pelajaran bahwa manusia yang telah dikaruniai ilmu pengetahuan yang lebih banyak dari yang diberikan kepada para malaikat dan makhluk-makhluk lainnya, hendaklah selalu mensyukuri nikmat tersebut, serta tidak menjadi sombong dan angkuh karena ilmu pengetahuan yang dimilikinya serta kekuatan dan daya pikirannya. Sebab, betapa pun tingginya ilmu pengetahuan dan teknologi manusia pada zaman kita sekarang ini, namun masih banyak rahasia-rahasia alam ciptaan Tuhan yang belum dapat dijangkau oleh ilmu pengetahuan manusia, misalnya ialah hakikat roh yang ada pada diri manusia sendiri. Allah swt. telah memperingatkan bahwa ilmu pengetahuan yang dikaruniakan-Nya kepada manusia hanyalah sedikit sekali dibandingkan kepada ilmu dan hakikat-Nya. Allah berfirman: "Hai Adam, beritahukanlah kepada mereka nama-nama benda ini". Maka setelah diberitahukannya kepada mereka nama-nama benda itu, Allah berfirman: "Bukankah sudah Ku katakan kepadamu, bahwa sesungguhnya Aku mengetahui rahasia langit dan bumi dan mengetahui apa yang kamu lahirkan dan apa yang kamu sembunyikan?"(QS.2:33). Setelah ternyata para malaikat itu tidak tahu dan tidak dapat menyebutkan nama benda-benda yang diperlihatkan Allah kepada mereka, maka Allah memerintahkan kepada Adam a.s. untuk memberitahukan nama-nama tersebut kepada mereka. Dan Adam melaksanakan perintah itu lalu diberitahukannya nama-nama tersebut kepada mereka. Kemudian, setelah Adam a.s. selesai memberitahukan nama-nama tersebut kepada malaikat dan diterangkannya pula sifat-sifat dan keistimewaan masing masing makhluk itu, maka Allah berfirman kepada para malaikat itu, bahwa Dia telah pernah mengatakan kepada mereka bahwa sesungguhnya Dia mengetahui pula apa-apa yang mereka lahirkan dengan ucapan-ucapan mereka dan pikiran-pikiran yang mereka sembunyikan dalam hati mereka. Selamanya Dia menciptakan sesuatu tidaklah dengan sia-sia belaka, melainkan berdasarkan ilmu dan hikmah-Nya. Dalam masalah pengangkatan Adam a.s. sebagai khalifah di bumi ini terkandung suatu makna yang tinggi dari hikmah Ilahi yang tak diketahui oleh para malaikat menjadi khalifah dan penghuni bumi ini, niscaya mereka tidak akan dapat mengetahui rahasia-rahasia alam ini, serta ciri khas yang ada pada masing-masing makhluk, sebab para malaikat itu sangat berbeda keadaannya dengan manusia. mereka tidak mempunyai kebutuhan apa-apa, seperti sanding pangan dan harta benda. Maka seandainya merekalah yang dijadikan penghuni dan penguasa di bumi ini, niscaya tak akan ada sawah dan ladang, tak akan ada pabrik dan tambang-tambang, tak akan ada gedung-gedung yang tinggi menjulang, tak akan ada musik dan seni. Juga tidak akan lahir bermacam-macam ilmu pengetahuan dan teknologi seperti yang telah dicapai umat manusia sampai sekarang ini yang hampir tak terhitung jumlahnya. Pengangkatan manusia menjadi khalifah, berarti pengangkatan Adam a.s. dan keturunannya menjadi khalifah terhadap makhluk-makhluk lainnya di bumi ini karena keistimewaan yang telah dikaruniakan Allah swt. kepada mereka yang tidak diberikan kepada makhluk-makhluk-Nya yang lain, seperti kekuatan akal yang memungkinkan untuk mengembangkan ilmu pengetahuannya guna menyelidiki dan memanfaatkan isi alam di bumi ini, seperti kesanggupan mengatur alam menurut ketentuan-ketentuan Allah. Dengan kekuatan akalnya itu, manusia dapat memiliki pengetahuan dan kemampuan yang hampir tak terbatas, serta dapat melakukan hal-hal yang hampir tak terhitung jumlahnya. Dengan kekuatan itu, manusia dapat menemukan hal-hal yang baru yang belum ada sebelumnya. Dia dapat mengolah tanah yang gersang menjadi tanah yang subur. Dan dengan bahan bahan yang telah tersedia di bumi ini manusia dapat membuat variasi-variasi baru yang belum pernah ada. Dikawinkannya kuda dengan keledai, maka lahirlah hewan jenis baru yang belum pernah ada sebelumnya, yaitu hewan yang disebut "bagal". Dengan mengawinkan atau menyilangkan tumbuh-tumbuhan yang berbunga putih dengan yang berbunga merah, maka lahirlah tumbuh-tumbuhan jenis baru, yang berbunga merah putih. Diolahnya logam menjadi barang-barang perhiasan yang beraneka ragam dan alat-alat keperluan hidupnya sehari-hari. Diolahnya bermacam -macam tumbuh-tumbuhan menjadi bahan pakaian dan makanan mereka. Dan pada zaman sekarang ini dapat disaksikan berjuta-juta macam benda hasil penemuan manusia, baik yang kecil maupun yang besar, sebagai hasil kekuatan akalnya. Adapun para malaikat, mereka tidak mempunyai hawa nafsu yang akan mendorong mereka untuk bekerja mengolah benda-benda alam ini dan memanfaatkannya untuk kepentingan hidup mereka. Oleh karena itu, apabila mereka yang telah dikaruniakan kekuatan akal serta bakat-bakat dan kemampuan yang demikian diangkat menjadi khalifah Allah di bumi, maka hal ini adalah wajar dan menunjukkan pula kesempurnaan ilmu dan ketinggian hikmah Allah swt. dalam mengatur makhluk-Nya. Dari ketiga ayat diatas kalau kita telaah lbih dalam, disini kita dengan mata hati kita dalam cahaya kemuliaan melihat apa yang dilihat para malaikat di kalangan makhluk yang tinggi. Kita menyaksikan sejemput kecil dari rahasia Ilahi yang besar yang dititipkan-NYA pada makhluk yang bernama manusia, ketika Dia menyerahkan kepadanya kunci-kunci kekhalifahan . Rahasia kekuasaan itu diisyaratkan pada nama-nama benda, serta pada penamaan orang-orang dan benda-benda yang berupa lafal-lafal yang terucapkan hingga menjadikannya isyarat-isyarat bagi orang-orang dan benda-benda yang dapat diindra. Kita mengetahui nilainya ketika kita menggambarkan kesulitan yang sangat besar , yang tidak dapat kita mengerti seandainya manusia tidak diberi kekuasaan (kemampuan) terhadap isyarat nama benda-benda itu. Kita juga akan kesulitan dalam memahami dan mempergaulinya ketika masing-masing orang memberikan pemahaman tentang sesuatu kepada yang lain membutuhkan kehadiran sesuatu dihadapanya untuk memahami keadaanya. Misalmya keadaan gunung yang tidak ada jalan untuk memahaminya kecuali pergi kegunung itu, keadaan seseorang yang tidak ada jalan untuk mengetahuinya kecuali menghadirtkan orang itu. Ini semua kesulitan yang amat besar yang tidak terbayangkan dalam kehidupan , dan kehidupan itu tidak akan dapat berjalan dijalanya seandainya Allah tidak memberikan kepada manusia kekuasaan terhadap isyarat-isyarat dengan nama benda-benda itu. Sedangkan malaikat tidak memerlukan kekhususuan ini, karena tidak ada urgensinya dengan tugas-tugas mereka . Oleh karena itu mereka tidak diberi yang demikian. Maka ketika Allah mengajarkan rahasia ini kepada Adam dan mengemukakannya kepada para malaikat apa yang telah dikemukakan-NYA kepada Adam mereka tidak mengetahui nama-nama itu. Mereka tidak mengetahui bagaimana menempatkan rumus-rumus (isyarat-isyarat) lafal bagi sesuatu dan seseorang. Menyatakan kelemahanya dengan menyucikan Tuhanya, mengakui kelemahanya itu dan mengakui keterbatasan pengetahuanya. Padahal semua itu sudah diketahui dan dikenal oleh Adam. Kemudian didoronglah mereka untuk mengetahui hikmah Tuhan yang maha Mengetahui lagi Maha Bijaksana. “Bukankah sudah Ku katakan kepadamu, bahwa sesungguhnya Aku mengetahui rahasia langit dan bumi dan mengetahui apa yang kamu lahirkan dan apa yang kamu sembunyikan?”’.> MENJAGA KEMULIAAN MANUSIA (2)

UANG RP 500 JUTA BANK BRI DIGASAK OLEH RAMPOK

saco-indonesia.com, Kawanan perampok di Kantor Bank BRI Cab. Pembantu Panongan, Kabupaten Tangerang Selasa (24/12) sore telah berhasil membawa kabur uang sebesar Rp500 juta.

Informasi yang telah dikumpulkan di lokasi kejadian tersebut, para perampok yang telah diketahui berjumlah 5 orang bersenjatakan pistol jenis FN dan senjata tajam datang ke lokasi kejadian dengan menggunakan tiga sepeda motor bebek.

Setibanya di Bank BRI Cab Pembantu yang beralamat di Jalan Korelet raya, Kelurahan Ranca Kelapa, Kec. Panongan, Kabupaten Tangerang, dua orang pelaku telah membawa senpi dan sajam langsung masuk ke dalam bank. Sedangkan sisanya menunggu halaman parkir.

“Dua pelaku tersebut masuk ke dalam bank. Sedangkan tiga lainnya tetap berjaga di luar,” ungkap Kapolres Kombes Irfing Jaya Sik.

Di dalam bank, jelas Kapolres, para pelaku kemudian mengikat dan menyekap 5 orang yang saat itu berada di dalam bank. Para korban telah diketahui sebagai Kepala Unit Bank BRI Cab. Panongan, teller, office boy dan dua orang nasabah yang saat itu berada di dalam.

“Pelaku juga sempat memukul kepala petugas teller (kasir) bank hingga terluka,” papar Irfing Jaya.

Usai mengacak-acak seluruh ruangan bank, dan mengambil uang sebesar Rp 500 juta. Pelaku kemudian telah melarikan diri dengan menggunakan sepeda motor.

“Uang yang dibawa kabur sebesar Rp 500 juta,” ungkap Kasat Reskrim Polresta Tangerang, Kompol Siswo Yuwono.

Editor : Dian Sukmawati

BUNGA CITRA LESTARI MENGAPA HARUS TERJADI

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Hampir semua perusahaan asing akali bayar pajak

Saco-Indonesia.com - Masalah transfer pricing atau transaksi barang dan jasa antara beberapa divisi pada suatu kelompok usaha dengan harga yang tidak wajar, baik menaikkan (mark up) atau menurunkan harga (mark down), masih menjadi persoalan utama dalam sistem perpajakan. Transfer pricing diidentikkan dengan upaya perusahaan mengakali pembayaran pajak.

Kondisi ini juga dirasakan kantor pajak di daerah, termasuk Kantor Wilayah Pajak Banten. Kepala Kanwil DJP Banten, Muhammad Haniv mengeluhkan praktik transfer pricing yang masih besar di wilayahnya. Kebanyakan dilakukan oleh perusahaan asing. Ini terjadi karena tidak ada regulasi tegas dan jelas untuk mengatasi transfer pricing.

"Hampir semua perusahaan PMA atau asing melakukan transfer pricing, kita ada masalah pabrik sepatu, rata-rata melakukan transfer pricing. Hanya untuk mengatasi transfer pricing itu kita belum cukup tool," ujar Muhammad Haniv di kantornya, Banten, Selasa (18/3).

Dia menyebutkan, rata-rata perusahaan asing memiliki kantor pusat di Cayman Island. Padahal, perusahaan tersebut fiktif dan hanya dijalankan melalui internet.

"Padahal tidak ada perusahaannya, hanya pula kosong. Nanti dicek, tidak ada. Kita harus bisa membuktikan dulu, jangan sembarang. Pertama alat, kedua orang, ketiga aturan. Kita belum punya peraturan yang baku," tegasnya.

Menurutnya, praktik transfer pricing bersifat komplikasi melibatkan pengetahuan tentang harga internasional. Sedangkan, di Indonesia tidak ada patokan untuk memastikan harga suatu barang yang dihasilkan pabrikan.

"Kita tidak punya agen luar negeri. Kedua, kerja sama pertukaran informasi dengan luar negeri belum intens. Kalau sudah, kita dapatkan perusahaan manapun yang Transfer pricing bisa kita atasi," katanya.

Dia mencontohkan ada beberapa investor asing yang masuk ke Banten dengan nilai investasi besar. Suami Cut Yanti ini menyebutkan, besaran investasi berkisar Rp 30 triliun hingga Rp 50 triliun. Hanya saja nilai investasi menjadi berkurang, sesuai dengan skema investment allowance.

Skema ini merupakan pengurangan penghasilan kena pajak berdasarkan persentase tertentu dari investasi baru atau bisa disebut penyusutan. Dia menyebutkan, di Banten yang paling besar nilai investasinya adalah PT. Krakatau Posko yang mencapai Rp 33 triliun.

"Investment allowance kan 10 persen dari nilai investasinya, misalnya Rp 30 triliun jadi investment allowance 1 tahun Rp 3 triliun yang mengurangi keuntungan dia," katanya.

Persoalan lain yang dihadapi Kanwil DJP Banten adalah pajak bahan baku impor. Haniv mengaku, mayoritas bahan baku di pabrikan baja selalu didatangkan dari impor. Namun, Kanwil DJP Banten belum memiliki alat untuk mengukur pajak bahan baku impor yang masuk melalui Banten.

"Jadinya besar akhirnya rugi terus. Belum lagi transfer pricing yang didapat dari harga bahan baku dipatok terlalu tinggi, harga jual barang jadi terlalu rendah. Jadi dua kita rugi di sini," jelasnya.

Sumber : merdeka.com

Editor : Maulana Lee

Hard but Hopeful Home to ‘Lot of Freddies’

Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Children playing last week in Sandtown-Winchester, the Baltimore neighborhood where Freddie Gray was raised. One young resident called it “a tough community.”

Hard but Hopeful Home to ‘Lot of Freddies’

The neighborhood where Freddie Gray came of age has survived harrowing rates of unemployment, poor health, violent crime and incarceration.

Dave Goldberg, Head of Web Survey Company and Half of a Silicon Valley Power Couple, Dies at 47

By VINDU GOEL and QUENTIN HARDY

Mr. Goldberg was a serial Silicon Valley entrepreneur and venture capitalist who was married to Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook.

Dave Goldberg Was Lifelong Women’s Advocate

Native American Actors Work to Overcome a Long-Documented Bias

Late in April, after Native American actors walked off in disgust from the set of Adam Sandler’s latest film, a western sendup that its distributor, Netflix, has defended as being equally offensive to all, a glow of pride spread through several Native American communities.

Tantoo Cardinal, a Canadian indigenous actress who played Black Shawl in “Dances With Wolves,” recalled thinking to herself, “It’s come.” Larry Sellers, who starred as Cloud Dancing in the 1990s television show “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” thought, “It’s about time.” Jesse Wente, who is Ojibwe and directs film programming at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto, found himself encouraged and surprised. There are so few film roles for indigenous actors, he said, that walking off the set of a major production showed real mettle.

But what didn’t surprise Mr. Wente was the content of the script. According to the actors who walked off the set, the film, titled “The Ridiculous Six,” included a Native American woman who passes out and is revived after white men douse her with alcohol, and another woman squatting to urinate while lighting a peace pipe. “There’s enough history at this point to have set some expectations around these sort of Hollywood depictions,” Mr. Wente said.

The walkout prompted a rhetorical “What do you expect from an Adam Sandler film?,” and a Netflix spokesman said that in the movie, blacks, Mexicans and whites were lampooned as well. But Native American actors and critics said a broader issue was at stake. While mainstream portrayals of native peoples have, Mr. Wente said, become “incrementally better” over the decades, he and others say, they remain far from accurate and reflect a lack of opportunities for Native American performers. What’s more, as Native Americans hunger for representation on screen, critics say the absence of three-dimensional portrayals has very real off-screen consequences.

“Our people are still healing from historical trauma,” said Loren Anthony, one of the actors who walked out. “Our youth are still trying to figure out who they are, where they fit in this society. Kids are killing themselves. They’re not proud of who they are.” They also don’t, he added, see themselves on prime time television or the big screen. Netflix noted while about five people walked off the “The Ridiculous Six” set, 100 or so Native American actors and extras stayed.

But in interviews, nearly a dozen Native American actors and film industry experts said that Mr. Sandler’s humor perpetuated decades-old negative stereotypes. Mr. Anthony said such depictions helped feed the despondency many Native Americans feel, with deadly results: Native Americans have the highest suicide rate out of all the country’s ethnicities.

The on-screen problem is twofold, Mr. Anthony and others said: There’s a paucity of roles for Native Americans — according to the Screen Actors Guild in 2008 they accounted for 0.3 percent of all on-screen parts (those figures have yet to be updated), compared to about 2 percent of the general population — and Native American actors are often perceived in a narrow way.

In his Peabody Award-winning documentary “Reel Injun,” the Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond explored Hollywood depictions of Native Americans over the years, and found they fell into a few stereotypical categories: the Noble Savage, the Drunk Indian, the Mystic, the Indian Princess, the backward tribal people futilely fighting John Wayne and manifest destiny. While the 1990 film “Dances With Wolves” won praise for depicting Native Americans as fully fleshed out human beings, not all indigenous people embraced it. It was still told, critics said, from the colonialists’ point of view. In an interview, John Trudell, a Santee Sioux writer, actor (“Thunderheart”) and the former chairman of the American Indian Movement, described the film as “a story of two white people.”

“God bless ‘Dances with Wolves,’ ” Michael Horse, who played Deputy Hawk in “Twin Peaks,” said sarcastically. “Even ‘Avatar.’ Someone’s got to come save the tribal people.”

Dan Spilo, a partner at Industry Entertainment who represents Adam Beach, one of today’s most prominent Native American actors, said while typecasting dogs many minorities, it is especially intractable when it comes to Native Americans. Casting directors, he said, rarely cast them as police officers, doctors or lawyers. “There’s the belief that the Native American character should be on reservations or riding a horse,” he said.

“We don’t see ourselves,” Mr. Horse said. “We’re still an antiquated culture to them, and to the rest of the world.”

Ms. Cardinal said she was once turned down for the role of the wife of a child-abusing cop because the filmmakers felt that casting her would somehow be “too political.”

Another sore point is the long run of white actors playing American Indians, among them Burt Lancaster, Rock Hudson, Audrey Hepburn and, more recently, Johnny Depp, whose depiction of Tonto in the 2013 film “Lone Ranger,” was viewed as racist by detractors. There are, of course, exceptions. The former A&E series “Longmire,” which, as it happens, will now be on Netflix, was roundly praised for its depiction of life on a Northern Cheyenne reservation, with Lou Diamond Phillips, who is of Cherokee descent, playing a Northern Cheyenne man.

Others also point to the success of Mr. Beach, who played a Mohawk detective in “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and landed a starring role in the forthcoming D C Comics picture “Suicide Squad.” Mr. Beach said he had come across insulting scripts backed by people who don’t see anything wrong with them.

“I’d rather starve than do something that is offensive to my ancestral roots,” Mr. Beach said. “But I think there will always be attempts to drawn on the weakness of native people’s struggles. The savage Indian will always be the savage Indian. The white man will always be smarter and more cunning. The cavalry will always win.”

The solution, Mr. Wente, Mr. Trudell and others said, lies in getting more stories written by and starring Native Americans. But Mr. Wente noted that while independent indigenous film has blossomed in the last two decades, mainstream depictions have yet to catch up. “You have to stop expecting for Hollywood to correct it, because there seems to be no ability or desire to correct it,” Mr. Wente said.

There have been calls to boycott Netflix but, writing for Indian Country Today Media Network, which first broke news of the walk off, the filmmaker Brian Young noted that the distributor also offered a number of films by or about Native Americans.

The furor around “The Ridiculous Six” may drive more people to see it. Then one of the questions that Mr. Trudell, echoing others, had about the film will be answered: “Who the hell laughs at this stuff?”

Mike Phillips, Half of Kentucky’s ‘Twin Towers’ of Basketball, Dies at 59

The 6-foot-10 Phillips played alongside the 6-11 Rick Robey on the Wildcats team that won the 1978 N.C.A.A. men’s basketball title.

Ruth Rendell, Novelist Who Thrilled and Educated, Dies at 85

Ms. Rendell was a prolific writer of intricately plotted mystery novels that combined psychological insight, social conscience and teeth-chattering terror.

Ex-C.I.A. Official Rebuts Republican Claims on Benghazi Attack in ‘The Great War of Our Time’

WASHINGTON — The former deputy director of the C.I.A. asserts in a forthcoming book that Republicans, in their eagerness to politicize the killing of the American ambassador to Libya, repeatedly distorted the agency’s analysis of events. But he also argues that the C.I.A. should get out of the business of providing “talking points” for administration officials in national security events that quickly become partisan, as happened after the Benghazi attack in 2012.

The official, Michael J. Morell, dismisses the allegation that the United States military and C.I.A. officers “were ordered to stand down and not come to the rescue of their comrades,” and he says there is “no evidence” to support the charge that “there was a conspiracy between C.I.A. and the White House to spin the Benghazi story in a way that would protect the political interests of the president and Secretary Clinton,” referring to the secretary of state at the time, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But he also concludes that the White House itself embellished some of the talking points provided by the Central Intelligence Agency and had blocked him from sending an internal study of agency conclusions to Congress.

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“I finally did so without asking,” just before leaving government, he writes, and after the White House released internal emails to a committee investigating the State Department’s handling of the issue.

A lengthy congressional investigation remains underway, one that many Republicans hope to use against Mrs. Clinton in the 2016 election cycle.

In parts of the book, “The Great War of Our Time” (Twelve), Mr. Morell praises his C.I.A. colleagues for many successes in stopping terrorist attacks, but he is surprisingly critical of other C.I.A. failings — and those of the National Security Agency.

Soon after Mr. Morell retired in 2013 after 33 years in the agency, President Obama appointed him to a commission reviewing the actions of the National Security Agency after the disclosures of Edward J. Snowden, a former intelligence contractor who released classified documents about the government’s eavesdropping abilities. Mr. Morell writes that he was surprised by what he found.

“You would have thought that of all the government entities on the planet, the one least vulnerable to such grand theft would have been the N.S.A.,” he writes. “But it turned out that the N.S.A. had left itself vulnerable.”

He concludes that most Wall Street firms had better cybersecurity than the N.S.A. had when Mr. Snowden swept information from its systems in 2013. While he said he found himself “chagrined by how well the N.S.A. was doing” compared with the C.I.A. in stepping up its collection of data on intelligence targets, he also sensed that the N.S.A., which specializes in electronic spying, was operating without considering the implications of its methods.

“The N.S.A. had largely been collecting information because it could, not necessarily in all cases because it should,” he says.

The book is to be released next week.

Mr. Morell was a career analyst who rose through the ranks of the agency, and he ended up in the No. 2 post. He served as President George W. Bush’s personal intelligence briefer in the first months of his presidency — in those days, he could often be spotted at the Starbucks in Waco, Tex., catching up on his reading — and was with him in the schoolhouse in Florida on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when the Bush presidency changed in an instant.

Mr. Morell twice took over as acting C.I.A. director, first when Leon E. Panetta was appointed secretary of defense and then when retired Gen. David H. Petraeus resigned over an extramarital affair with his biographer, a relationship that included his handing her classified notes of his time as America’s best-known military commander.

Mr. Morell says he first learned of the affair from Mr. Petraeus only the night before he resigned, and just as the Benghazi events were turning into a political firestorm. While praising Mr. Petraeus, who had told his deputy “I am very lucky” to run the C.I.A., Mr. Morell writes that “the organization did not feel the same way about him.” The former general “created the impression through the tone of his voice and his body language that he did not want people to disagree with him (which was not true in my own interaction with him),” he says.

But it is his account of the Benghazi attacks — and how the C.I.A. was drawn into the debate over whether the Obama White House deliberately distorted its account of the death of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens — that is bound to attract attention, at least partly because of its relevance to the coming presidential election. The initial assessments that the C.I.A. gave to the White House said demonstrations had preceded the attack. By the time analysts reversed their opinion, Susan E. Rice, now the national security adviser, had made a series of statements on Sunday talk shows describing the initial assessment. The controversy and other comments Ms. Rice made derailed Mr. Obama’s plan to appoint her as secretary of state.

The experience prompted Mr. Morell to write that the C.I.A. should stay out of the business of preparing talking points — especially on issues that are being seized upon for “political purposes.” He is critical of the State Department for not beefing up security in Libya for its diplomats, as the C.I.A., he said, did for its employees.

But he concludes that the assault in which the ambassador was killed took place “with little or no advance planning” and “was not well organized.” He says the attackers “did not appear to be looking for Americans to harm. They appeared intent on looting and conducting some vandalism,” setting fires that killed Mr. Stevens and a security official, Sean Smith.

Mr. Morell paints a picture of an agency that was struggling, largely unsuccessfully, to understand dynamics in the Middle East and North Africa when the Arab Spring broke out in late 2011 in Tunisia. The agency’s analysts failed to see the forces of revolution coming — and then failed again, he writes, when they told Mr. Obama that the uprisings would undercut Al Qaeda by showing there was a democratic pathway to change.

“There is no good explanation for our not being able to see the pressures growing to dangerous levels across the region,” he writes. The agency had again relied too heavily “on a handful of strong leaders in the countries of concern to help us understand what was going on in the Arab street,” he says, and those leaders themselves were clueless.

Moreover, an agency that has always overvalued secretly gathered intelligence and undervalued “open source” material “was not doing enough to mine the wealth of information available through social media,” he writes. “We thought and told policy makers that this outburst of popular revolt would damage Al Qaeda by undermining the group’s narrative,” he writes.

Instead, weak governments in Egypt, and the absence of governance from Libya to Yemen, were “a boon to Islamic extremists across both the Middle East and North Africa.”

Mr. Morell is gentle about most of the politicians he dealt with — he expresses admiration for both Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama, though he accuses former Vice President Dick Cheney of deliberately implying a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq that the C.I.A. had concluded probably did not exist. But when it comes to the events leading up to the Bush administration’s decision to go to war in Iraq, he is critical of his own agency.

Mr. Morell concludes that the Bush White House did not have to twist intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s alleged effort to rekindle the country’s work on weapons of mass destruction.

“The view that hard-liners in the Bush administration forced the intelligence community into its position on W.M.D. is just flat wrong,” he writes. “No one pushed. The analysts were already there and they had been there for years, long before Bush came to office.”

Nepal’s Young Men, Lost to Migration, Then a Quake

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KATHMANDU, Nepal — When the dense pillar of smoke from cremations by the Bagmati River was thinning late last week, the bodies were all coming from Gongabu, a common stopover for Nepali migrant workers headed overseas, and they were all of young men.

Hindu custom dictates that funeral pyres should be lighted by the oldest son of the deceased, but these men were too young to have sons, so they were burned by their brothers or fathers. Sukla Lal, a maize farmer, made a 14-hour journey by bus to retrieve the body of his 19-year-old son, who had been on his way to the Persian Gulf to work as a laborer.

“He wanted to live in the countryside, but he was compelled to leave by poverty,” Mr. Lal said, gazing ahead steadily as his son’s remains smoldered. “He told me, ‘You can live on your land, and I will come up with money, and we will have a happy family.’ ”

Weeks will pass before the authorities can give a complete accounting of who died in the April 25 earthquake, but it is already clear that Nepal cannot afford the losses. The countryside was largely stripped of its healthy young men even before the quake, as they migrated in great waves — 1,500 a day by some estimates — to work as laborers in India, Malaysia or one of the gulf nations, leaving many small communities populated only by elderly parents, women and children. Economists say that at some times of the year, one-quarter of Nepal’s population is working outside the country.

Advertisement Politics Obama Finds a Bolder Voice on Race Issues

As he reflected on the festering wounds deepened by race and grievance that have been on painful display in America’s cities lately, President Obama on Monday found himself thinking about a young man he had just met named Malachi.

A few minutes before, in a closed-door round-table discussion at Lehman College in the Bronx, Mr. Obama had asked a group of black and Hispanic students from disadvantaged backgrounds what could be done to help them reach their goals. Several talked about counseling and guidance programs.

“Malachi, he just talked about — we should talk about love,” Mr. Obama told a crowd afterward, drifting away from his prepared remarks. “Because Malachi and I shared the fact that our dad wasn’t around and that sometimes we wondered why he wasn’t around and what had happened. But really, that’s what this comes down to is: Do we love these kids?”

Many presidents have governed during times of racial tension, but Mr. Obama is the first to see in the mirror a face that looks like those on the other side of history’s ledger. While his first term was consumed with the economy, war and health care, his second keeps coming back to the societal divide that was not bridged by his election. A president who eschewed focusing on race now seems to have found his voice again as he thinks about how to use his remaining time in office and beyond.

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Obama Speaks of a ‘Sense of Unfairness’

In the aftermath of racially charged unrest in places like Baltimore, Ferguson, Mo., and New York, Mr. Obama came to the Bronx on Monday for the announcement of a new nonprofit organization that is being spun off from his White House initiative called My Brother’s Keeper. Staked by more than $80 million in commitments from corporations and other donors, the new group, My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, will in effect provide the nucleus for Mr. Obama’s post-presidency, which will begin in January 2017.

“This will remain a mission for me and for Michelle not just for the rest of my presidency but for the rest of my life,” Mr. Obama said. “And the reason is simple,” he added. Referring to some of the youths he had just met, he said: “We see ourselves in these young men. I grew up without a dad. I grew up lost sometimes and adrift, not having a sense of a clear path. The only difference between me and a lot of other young men in this neighborhood and all across the country is that I grew up in an environment that was a little more forgiving.”

Organizers said the new alliance already had financial pledges from companies like American Express, Deloitte, Discovery Communications and News Corporation. The money will be used to help companies address obstacles facing young black and Hispanic men, provide grants to programs for disadvantaged youths, and help communities aid their populations.

Joe Echevarria, a former chief executive of Deloitte, the accounting and consulting firm, will lead the alliance, and among those on its leadership team or advisory group are executives at PepsiCo, News Corporation, Sprint, BET and Prudential Group Insurance; former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell; Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey; former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.; the music star John Legend; the retired athletes Alonzo Mourning, Jerome Bettis and Shaquille O’Neal; and the mayors of Indianapolis, Sacramento and Philadelphia.

The alliance, while nominally independent of the White House, may face some of the same questions confronting former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as she begins another presidential campaign. Some of those donating to the alliance may have interests in government action, and skeptics may wonder whether they are trying to curry favor with the president by contributing.

“The Obama administration will have no role in deciding how donations are screened and what criteria they’ll set at the alliance for donor policies, because it’s an entirely separate entity,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Air Force One en route to New York. But he added, “I’m confident that the members of the board are well aware of the president’s commitment to transparency.”

The alliance was in the works before the disturbances last week after the death of Freddie Gray, the black man who suffered fatal injuries while in police custody in Baltimore, but it reflected the evolution of Mr. Obama’s presidency. For him, in a way, it is coming back to issues that animated him as a young community organizer and politician. It was his own struggle with race and identity, captured in his youthful memoir, “Dreams From My Father,” that stood him apart from other presidential aspirants.

But that was a side of him that he kept largely to himself through the first years of his presidency while he focused on other priorities like turning the economy around, expanding government-subsidized health care and avoiding electoral land mines en route to re-election.

After securing a second term, Mr. Obama appeared more emboldened. Just a month after his 2013 inauguration, he talked passionately about opportunity and race with a group of teenage boys in Chicago, a moment aides point to as perhaps the first time he had spoken about these issues in such a personal, powerful way as president. A few months later, he publicly lamented the death of Trayvon Martin, a black Florida teenager, saying that “could have been me 35 years ago.”

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That case, along with public ruptures of anger over police shootings in Ferguson and elsewhere, have pushed the issue of race and law enforcement onto the public agenda. Aides said they imagined that with his presidency in its final stages, Mr. Obama might be thinking more about what comes next and causes he can advance as a private citizen.

That is not to say that his public discussion of these issues has been universally welcomed. Some conservatives said he had made matters worse by seeming in their view to blame police officers in some of the disputed cases.

“President Obama, when he was elected, could have been a unifying leader,” Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican candidate for president, said at a forum last week. “He has made decisions that I think have inflamed racial tensions.”

On the other side of the ideological spectrum, some liberal African-American activists have complained that Mr. Obama has not done enough to help downtrodden communities. While he is speaking out more, these critics argue, he has hardly used the power of the presidency to make the sort of radical change they say is necessary.

The line Mr. Obama has tried to straddle has been a serrated one. He condemns police brutality as he defends most officers as honorable. He condemns “criminals and thugs” who looted in Baltimore while expressing empathy with those trapped in a cycle of poverty and hopelessness.

In the Bronx on Monday, Mr. Obama bemoaned the death of Brian Moore, a plainclothes New York police officer who had died earlier in the day after being shot in the head Saturday on a Queens street. Most police officers are “good and honest and fair and care deeply about their communities,” even as they put their lives on the line, Mr. Obama said.

“Which is why in addressing the issues in Baltimore or Ferguson or New York, the point I made was that if we’re just looking at policing, we’re looking at it too narrowly,” he added. “If we ask the police to simply contain and control problems that we ourselves have been unwilling to invest and solve, that’s not fair to the communities, it’s not fair to the police.”

Moreover, if society writes off some people, he said, “that’s not the kind of country I want to live in; that’s not what America is about.”

His message to young men like Malachi Hernandez, who attends Boston Latin Academy in Massachusetts, is not to give up.

“I want you to know you matter,” he said. “You matter to us.”

Suzanne Crough, Actress in ‘The Partridge Family,’ Dies at 52

Ms. Crough played the youngest daughter on the hit ’70s sitcom starring David Cassidy and Shirley Jones.

Police Rethink Long Tradition on Using Force

WASHINGTON — During a training course on defending against knife attacks, a young Salt Lake City police officer asked a question: “How close can somebody get to me before I’m justified in using deadly force?”

Dennis Tueller, the instructor in that class more than three decades ago, decided to find out. In the fall of 1982, he performed a rudimentary series of tests and concluded that an armed attacker who bolted toward an officer could clear 21 feet in the time it took most officers to draw, aim and fire their weapon.

The next spring, Mr. Tueller published his findings in SWAT magazine and transformed police training in the United States. The “21-foot rule” became dogma. It has been taught in police academies around the country, accepted by courts and cited by officers to justify countless shootings, including recent episodes involving a homeless woodcarver in Seattle and a schizophrenic woman in San Francisco.

With Iran Talks, a Tangled Path to Ending Syria’s War

UNITED NATIONS — Wearing pinstripes and a pince-nez, Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations envoy for Syria, arrived at the Security Council one Tuesday afternoon in February and announced that President Bashar al-Assad had agreed to halt airstrikes over Aleppo. Would the rebels, Mr. de Mistura suggested, agree to halt their shelling?

What he did not announce, but everyone knew by then, was that the Assad government had begun a military offensive to encircle opposition-held enclaves in Aleppo and that fierce fighting was underway. It would take only a few days for rebel leaders, having pushed back Syrian government forces, to outright reject Mr. de Mistura’s proposed freeze in the fighting, dooming the latest diplomatic overture on Syria.

Diplomacy is often about appearing to be doing something until the time is ripe for a deal to be done.

Now, with Mr. Assad’s forces having suffered a string of losses on the battlefield and the United States reaching at least a partial rapprochement with Mr. Assad’s main backer, Iran, Mr. de Mistura is changing course. Starting Monday, he is set to hold a series of closed talks in Geneva with the warring sides and their main supporters. Iran will be among them.

In an interview at United Nations headquarters last week, Mr. de Mistura hinted that the changing circumstances, both military and diplomatic, may have prompted various backers of the war to question how much longer the bloodshed could go on.

“Will that have an impact in accelerating the willingness for a political solution? We need to test it,” he said. “The Geneva consultations may be a good umbrella for testing that. It’s an occasion for asking everyone, including the government, if there is any new way that they are looking at a political solution, as they too claim they want.”

He said he would have a better assessment at the end of June, when he expects to wrap up his consultations. That coincides with the deadline for a final agreement in the Iran nuclear talks.

Whether a nuclear deal with Iran will pave the way for a new opening on peace talks in Syria remains to be seen. Increasingly, though, world leaders are explicitly linking the two, with the European Union’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, suggesting last week that a nuclear agreement could spur Tehran to play “a major but positive role in Syria.”

It could hardly come soon enough. Now in its fifth year, the Syrian war has claimed 220,000 lives, prompted an exodus of more than three million refugees and unleashed jihadist groups across the region. “This conflict is producing a question mark in many — where is it leading and whether this can be sustained,” Mr. de Mistura said.

Part Italian, part Swedish, Mr. de Mistura has worked with the United Nations for more than 40 years, but he is more widely known for his dapper style than for any diplomatic coups. Syria is by far the toughest assignment of his career — indeed, two of the organization’s most seasoned diplomats, Lakhdar Brahimi and Kofi Annan, tried to do the job and gave up — and critics have wondered aloud whether Mr. de Mistura is up to the task.

He served as a United Nations envoy in Afghanistan and Iraq, and before that in Lebanon, where a former minister recalled, with some scorn, that he spent many hours sunbathing at a private club in the hills above Beirut. Those who know him say he has a taste for fine suits and can sometimes speak too soon and too much, just as they point to his diplomatic missteps and hyperbole.

They cite, for instance, a news conference in October, when he raised the specter of Srebrenica, where thousands of Muslims were massacred in 1995 during the Balkans war, in warning that the Syrian border town of Kobani could fall to the Islamic State. In February, he was photographed at a party in Damascus, the Syrian capital, celebrating the anniversary of the Iranian revolution just as Syrian forces, aided by Iran, were pummeling rebel-held suburbs of Damascus; critics seized on that as evidence of his coziness with the government.

Mouin Rabbani, who served briefly as the head of Mr. de Mistura’s political affairs unit and has since emerged as one of his most outspoken critics, said Mr. de Mistura did not have the background necessary for the job. “This isn’t someone well known for his political vision or political imagination, and his closest confidants lack the requisite knowledge and experience,” Mr. Rabbani said.

As a deputy foreign minister in the Italian government, Mr. de Mistura was tasked in 2012 with freeing two Italian marines detained in India for shooting at Indian fishermen. He made 19 trips to India, to little effect. One marine was allowed to return to Italy for medical reasons; the other remains in India.

He said he initially turned down the Syria job when the United Nations secretary general approached him last August, only to change his mind the next day, after a sleepless, guilt-ridden night.

Mr. de Mistura compared his role in Syria to that of a doctor faced with a terminally ill patient. His goal in brokering a freeze in the fighting, he said, was to alleviate suffering. He settled on Aleppo as the location for its “fame,” he said, a decision that some questioned, considering that Aleppo was far trickier than the many other lesser-known towns where activists had negotiated temporary local cease-fires.

“Everybody, at least in Europe, are very familiar with the value of Aleppo,” Mr. de Mistura said. “So I was using that as an icebreaker.”

The cease-fire negotiations, to which he had devoted six months, fell apart quickly because of the government’s military offensive in Aleppo the very day of his announcement at the Security Council. Privately, United Nations diplomats said Mr. de Mistura had been manipulated. To this, Mr. de Mistura said only that he was “disappointed and concerned.”

Tarek Fares, a former rebel fighter, said after a recent visit to Aleppo that no Syrian would admit publicly to supporting Mr. de Mistura’s cease-fire proposal. “If anyone said they went to a de Mistura meeting in Gaziantep, they would be arrested,” is how he put it, referring to the Turkish city where negotiations between the two sides were held.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon remains staunchly behind Mr. de Mistura’s efforts. His defenders point out that he is at the center of one of the world’s toughest diplomatic problems, charged with mediating a conflict in which two of the world’s most powerful nations — Russia, which supports Mr. Assad, and the United States, which has called for his ouster — remain deadlocked.

R. Nicholas Burns, a former State Department official who now teaches at Harvard, credited Mr. de Mistura for trying to negotiate a cease-fire even when the chances of success were exceedingly small — and the chances of a political deal even smaller. For his efforts to work, Professor Burns argued, the world powers will first have to come to an agreement of their own.

“He needs the help of outside powers,” he said. “It starts with backers of Assad. That’s Russia and Iran. De Mistura is there, waiting.”

Negative View of U.S. Race Relations Grows, Poll Finds

Public perceptions of race relations in America have grown substantially more negative in the aftermath of the death of a young black man who was injured while in police custody in Baltimore and the subsequent unrest, far eclipsing the sentiment recorded in the wake of turmoil in Ferguson, Mo., last summer.

Americans are also increasingly likely to say that the police are more apt to use deadly force against a black person, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll finds.

The poll findings highlight the challenges for local leaders and police officials in trying to maintain order while sustaining faith in the criminal justice system in a racially polarized nation.

Sixty-one percent of Americans now say race relations in this country are generally bad. That figure is up sharply from 44 percent after the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown and the unrest that followed in Ferguson in August, and 43 percent in December. In a CBS News poll just two months ago, 38 percent said race relations were generally bad. Current views are by far the worst of Barack Obama’s presidency.

The negative sentiment is echoed by broad majorities of blacks and whites alike, a stark change from earlier this year, when 58 percent of blacks thought race relations were bad, but just 35 percent of whites agreed. In August, 48 percent of blacks and 41 percent of whites said they felt that way.

Looking ahead, 44 percent of Americans think race relations are worsening, up from 36 percent in December. Forty-one percent of blacks and 46 percent of whites think so. Pessimism among whites has increased 10 points since December.

Continue reading the main story

Do you think race relations in the United States are generally good or generally bad?

60

40

20

0

White

Black

May '14

May '15

Generally bad

 

 

Continue reading the main story

Do you think race relations in the United States are getting better, getting worse or staying about the same?

Getting worse

Staying the same

Getting better

Don't know/No answer

All adults

Whites

Blacks

44%

37

17

46

36

16

41

42

15

 

 

The poll finds that profound racial divisions in views of how the police use deadly force remain. Blacks are more than twice as likely to say police in most communities are more apt to use deadly force against a black person — 79 percent of blacks say so compared with 37 percent of whites. A slim majority of whites say race is not a factor in a police officer’s decision to use deadly force.

Overall, 44 percent of Americans say deadly force is more likely to be used against a black person, up from 37 percent in August and 40 percent in December.

Blacks also remain far more likely than whites to say they feel mostly anxious about the police in their community. Forty-two percent say so, while 51 percent feel mostly safe. Among whites, 8 in 10 feel mostly safe.

One proposal to address the matter — having on-duty police officers wear body cameras — receives overwhelming support. More than 9 in 10 whites and blacks alike favor it.

Continue reading the main story

How would you describe your feelings about the police in your community? Would you say they make you feel mostly safe or mostly anxious?

Mostly safe

Mostly anxious

Don't know/No answer

All adults

Whites

Blacks

75%

21

3

81

16

3

51

42

7

 

 

Continue reading the main story

In general, do you think the police in most communities are more likely to use deadly force against a black person, or more likely to use it against a white person, or don’t you think race affects police use of deadly force?

Police more likely to use deadly force against a black person

Police more likely to use deadly force against a white person

Race DOES NOT affect police use of deadly force

Don't know/No answer

All adults

Whites

Blacks

44%

37%

79%

2%

2%

1%

46%

53%

16%

9%

8%

4%

 

 

Continue reading the main story

Do you favor or oppose on-duty police officers wearing video cameras that would record events and actions as they occur?

Favor

Oppose

Don't know/No answer

All adults

Whites

Blacks

92%

93%

93%

6%

5%

5%

2%

2%

2%

 

 

Asked specifically about the situation in Baltimore, most Americans expressed at least some confidence that the investigation by local authorities would be conducted fairly. But while nearly two-thirds of whites think so, fewer than half of blacks agree. Still, more blacks are confident now than were in August regarding the investigation in Ferguson. On Friday, six members of the police force involved in the arrest of Mr. Gray were charged with serious offenses, including manslaughter. The poll was conducted Thursday through Sunday; results from before charges were announced are similar to those from after.

Reaction to the recent turmoil in Baltimore, however, is similar among blacks and whites. Most Americans, 61 percent, say the unrest after Mr. Gray’s death was not justified. That includes 64 percent of whites and 57 percent of blacks.

Continue reading the main story

As you may know, a Baltimore man, Freddie Gray, recently died after being in the custody of the Baltimore police. How much confidence do you have that the investigation by local authorities into this matter will be conducted fairly?

A lot

Some

Not much

None at all

Don't know/No answer

All adults

Whites

Blacks

29%

31

22

14

5

31

33

20

11

5

20

26

30

22

 

 

In general, do you think the unrest in Baltimore after the death of Freddie Gray was justified, or do you think the unrest was not justified?

Justified

Not justified

Don't know/No answer

All adults

Whites

Blacks

28%

61

11

26

64

11

37

57

6

 

 

William Price Fox, Admired Southern Novelist and Humorist, Dies at 89

Mr. Fox, known for his well-honed countrified voice, wrote about things dear to South Carolina and won over Yankee critics.

Cher and Marc Jacobs

Marcel Pronovost, 84, Dies; Hall of Famer Shared in Five N.H.L. Titles

Pronovost, who played for the Red Wings, was not a prolific scorer, but he was a consummate team player with bruising checks and fearless bursts up the ice that could puncture a defense.