PAKET UMROH BULAN FEBRUARI MARET APRIL MEI 2018

HIKMAH SESUDAH MENUNAIKAN IBADAH UMROH DAN HAJI

 HIKMAH SESUDAH MELAKSANAKAN IBADAH HAJI DAN UMROH.
Ibadah haji dan umroh merupakan rukun iman yang ke lima. Banyak hikmah yang terkandung di dalamnya, karena ibadah umroh dan haji adalah wujud kesadaran barin dan kecerdasan rasio.
Setiap orang yang telah melaksanakan ibadah umroh maupun haji pasti punya pengalaman spiritual yang berbeda antar jama’ah satu dengan jama’ah yang lainnya. Dan bahkan ada juga yang tak masuk akal atau di luar perkiraan.

Patuh dan menyerahkan diri kepada Allah SWT merupakan wujud utama dari pelaksanaan ibadah umroh maupun haji. Ibadah umroh dan haji merupakan panggilan Allah dengan menempuh perjalanan panjang dan biaya banyak, sehingga juga diperlukan waktu yang lama. Tujuan dari pelaksanaan ibadah umroh maupun haji adalah menjalankan tugas mulia melalui ibadah dan ritual yang sesuai dengan syarat-syarat yang telah di tentukan.

HIKMAH YANG TERKANDUNG SESUDAH MELAKSANAKAN IBADAH HAJI DAN UMROH.
1.      Meningkatkan kualitas diri dalam hal beribadah.
Orang yang merasa dirinya banyak dosa sering merasa putus asa. Tetapi Allah telah menjanjikanakan mengampuni dan menghapus segala dosa yang dimiliki ketika dia mau melaksanakan ibadah secara ikhlas dan tulus. Dan hal itulah yang membuat mendorong kita untuk taat menjalankan jenis ibadah yang lainnya selain ibadah umroh dan haji.

2.      Bertingkatnya kedisiplinan.
Ketika jamaah haji berada di tanah suci Mekkah dan Madinah, seluruh umat muslim yang melaksanakan ibadah haji maupun umroh harus terbiasa dngan kedisiplinan ketika melaksanakan  ritual haji maupun sholat. Kedisiplinan ini lah yang diharapkan bisa berkelanjutan secara terus menerus meski pelaksanaan waktu ibadah sudah selesai.

3.      Melahirkan rasa kekeluargaan dan solidaritas.
Dengan banyak berkumpulnya jama’ah haji maupun umroh di seluruh dunia, akan timbul rasa persatuan yang tinggi, tanpa membeda-bedakan golongan dan lain-lain. Perbedaan yang ada tidak perlu menimpulkan perpecahan, tetapi justru akan membuat dan menguatkan tali persaudaraan sesama umat muslim di seluruh dunia.

4.      Meningkatkan dakwah.
Pada saat umat islam dari penjuru dunia bekumpul, maka akan menjadikan media yang tepat untuk meningkatkan kualitas dakwah yang efektif. Ketika melaksanakan ibadah umroh maupun haji kita bisa saling belajar dan bertukar pengalaman  terhadap pelaksanaan ibadah maupun penanaman nilai-nilai agama di dalam kehidupan sehari-hari dari masing-masing negara.
Selain Hikmah dari pelaksanaan ibadah umroh dan haji di atas, masih ada banyak lagi  hikmah yang lain. Setiap umat pasti mempunyai sudut pandang yang berbeda terhadap ibadah umroh dan haji  yang di lakukan di Makkah.
Dan yang terpebting setelah pulang dari umroh maupun haji, umat islam harus punya pencerahan jiwa yang baru dan diwujudkan dalam amal shaleh, baik untuk diri sendiri maupun bagi masyarakat lain.

5.      Munculnya sifat sabar.
Pada saat melaksanakan ibadah umroh maupun haji, pasti banyak cobaan dan godaan yang muncul. Banyak umat muslim yang datang dari berbagai penjuru dunia yang berkumpul di satu tempat. Maka hal inilah yang akan menimbulkan masalah dan dengan fasilitas yang harus digunakan bersama-sama. Dari sini lah sifat sabar yang harus dikedepankan, karena sifat egois dan mementingkan diri sendiri akan mengurangi nilai-nilai ibadah yang sedang di kerjakan.

ARTIKEL ARTIKEL BARU

Merawat jaket kulit tidak sama seperti merawat jaket biasanya tentu saja perlakuannya berbeda karena jaket tersebut berbahan kulit, ibaratnya sama saja seperti kulit tangan kita bila terkena deterjen terus menerus maka kulit tangan kita akan sedikit demi sedikit terkelupas, berikut ini ada beberapa hal yang perlu diperhatikan dalam merawat jeket kulit:

1. Jangan cuci dengan deterjen. Deterjen dapat membuat kulit jaket kering, rapuh dan mudah terkelupas kulitnya. Pilihlah jaket kulit bukan berdasarkan kecocokan bukan karena merk, sebab jaket kulit itu tidak semua orang sesuai memakainya.

2. Jauhkan dari air termasuk air hujan, kalau terkena air, sebaiknya langsung dijemur, tetapi jangan langsung kena sinar matahari. Jangan semprotkan parfum atu spray kepermukaan jaket kulit.

3. Jangan lupa merawat kelenturan jaket kulit dengan lotion pelembab selama sebulan sekali. Biarkan selama 1jam, setelah dioleskan. Lalu, bersihkan dengan lap yang kering dan bertekstur yang lembut, sehingga tidak merusak jaket. Jaket kulit jangan terkena air,termasuk air hujan, apabila terkena air langsung di angin-anginkan.

4. Bersihkan noda yang menempel di jaket dengan minyak goreng atau cairan pembersih khusus. Jangan lupa menggunakan kapas jika harus menggosok noda yang menempel di jaket.

5. Jangan pernah semprotkan parfum ke permukaan jaket kulit.

6. Gantungkan jaket dengan hanger jika tidak dipakai, agar kulitnya tidak mudah kusut dan lecek. Jangan juga dilipat karena lipatan akan mengubah warna kulit jaket.

Demikian tipsnya semoga bermanfaat untuk anda dalam merawat jaket kulit yang baik.

LOWONGAN KERJA JANUARI TERBARU DI PT. STAR COSMOS | BALI

Portal Lowongan Kerja Indonesia. Update Informasi Lowongan Kerja Terbaru Januari 2014 di PT. STAR COSMOS sebagai Salesman di Bali. Perusahaan tersebut sedang membutuhkan tenaga kerja profesional untuk menempati kursi kekosongan. Bagi anda yang berminat untuk menempati kekosongan tersebut, silahkan baca persyaratan pendaftaran dan simak artikel selengkapnya di bawah ini :

 

Lowongan Kerja Januari Terbaru di PT. STAR COSMOS

Profil Perusahaan : PT. STAR COSMOS adalah perusahaan produsen dan distribusi peralatan rumah tangga yang menggunakan merek COSMOS, mengundang Anda untuk tumbuh berkembang bersama.

 

Admin dan HRD , Akunting , Asuransi , Desain , Hospitality, Makanan dan Minuman , Ilmu Pengetahuan, Lab, R&D , Konstruksi dan Bangunan , Lainnya , Manajemen , Manufakturing , Media dan Periklanan , Pelayanan Kesehatan , Pelayanan Profesional , Pemasaran, Hubungan Masyarakat (Humas) , Pendidikan , Penjual, Pelayanan Pelanggan dan Pengembang Bisnis , Perawatan Kecantikan, Kesehatan , Perbankan / Keuangan , Perdagangan dan Pembelian , Properti , Teknik , Teknologi Informatika , Telekomunikasi , Transportasi dan Logistik , Umum, Sipil ,

Lowongan Kerja, Job Vacancy, Job Career, Info Karir, Loker, News Job Vacancy, America Serikat, USA, Los Angeles, California, Bangkok, China, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Israel, Palestine, Baghdad, Thailand, Myanmar, Filipina, Inggris, England, English, Paris, Australia, Mongolia, Turkey, Rusia, Ambasador, Programmer, Technology Information, Saudi Arabia, Madinah, Mesir, Kairo, Italia, Africa, U.s. World, South Africa, Latin America, January, Februari, March, Software, Accounting, Sales Promotion.

Alamat : Bali
 

Lokasi Kerja : Bali
Posisi Pekerjaan : Salesman

 

Persyaratan :

 

• Pria, Usia Maks : 28 tahun
• Pend. Min : SMA/ D3 Segala Jurusan
• Pengalaman di bidang retail home appliances min. 1 tahun
• Komunikatif & Bertanggung Jawab
• Penempatan di Bali

 

Kirimkan lamaran lengkap, disertai CV dan photo Anda ke :
Portal Lowongan Kerja Indonesia Terbaru

 

Tgl. Penutupan : -

 

Tag Lowongan Kerja Terbaru Januari 2014 : Bekasi, Bogor, Karawang, Malang, Banda Aceh, Bandar Lampung, Banyuasin, Batam, Baturaja, Bengkalis, Bengkulu, Blambangan Umpu, Bukittinggi, Gedong Tataan, Gunung Sitoli, Gunung Sugih, Gunung Tua, Indralaya, Jambi, Kalianda, Karang Baru, Karang Tinggi, Kayu Agung, Kisaran, Koba, Kota Agung, Kota Bumi, Kota Pinang, Kuala Tungkal, Kutacane, Lahat, Lhokseumawe, Limapuluh, Liwa, Manggar, Manna, Martapura, Medan, Menggala, Metro, Pagaralam, Pandan, Panguruan, Pariaman, Payakumbuh, Pekanbaru, Pematang Siantar, Prabumulih, Pringsewu, Sabang, Salak, Sawahlunto, Selat Panjang, Solok, Stabat, Subulussalam, Sukadana, Tebing Tinggi, Ambarawa, Anyer, Bandung, Bangil, Banjar, Banjarnegara, Bangkalan, Bantul, Banyumas, Banyuwangi, Batang, Batu, Bekasi, Blitar, Blora, Bogor, Bojonegoro, Bondowoso, Boyolali, Bumiayu, Brebes, Caruban, Cianjur, Ciamis, Cibinong, Cikampek, Cikarang, Cilacap, Cilegon, Cirebon, Demak, Depok, Garut, Gresik, Indramayu, Jakarta, Jember, Jepara, Jombang, Kajen, Karanganyar, Kebumen, Kediri, Kendal, Kepanjen, Klaten, Kraksaan, Kudus, Kuningan, Lamongan, Lumajang, Madiun, Magelang, Magetan, Majalengka, Malang, Mojokerto, Mojosari, Mungkid, Ngamprah, Nganjuk, Ngawi, Pacitan, Pamekasan, Pandeglang, Pare, Pati, Pasuruan, Pekalongan, Pelabuhan Ratu, Pemalang, Ponorogo, Probolinggo, Purbalingga, Purwakarta, Purwodadi, Purwokerto, Purworejo, Rangkasbitung, Rembang, Salatiga, Sampang, Semarang, Serang, Sidayu, Sidoarjo, Singaparna, Situbondo, Slawi, Sleman, Soreang, Sragen, Subang, Sukabumi, Sukoharjo, Sumber, Sumedang, Sumenep, Surabaya, Surakarta, Tasikmalaya, Tangerang, Tangerang Selatan, Tegal, Temanggung, Tigaraksa, Trenggalek, Tuban, Tulungagung, Ungaran, Wates, Wlingi, Wonogiri, Wonosari, Wonosobo, Yogyakarta.

 

 

Cerita Inspiratif: Kisah Kakek dan Pencuri Pepaya

saco-indonesia.com, Saya ingin mengawali renungan kita kali ini dengan mengingatkan pada salah satu kisah kehidupan yang mungkin banyak tercecer di depan mata kita. Cerita ini tentang seorang kakek yang sederhana, hidup sebagai orang kampung yang bersahaja. Suatu sore, ia mendapati pohon pepaya di depan rumahnya telah berbuah. Walaupun hanya dua buah namun telah menguning dan siap dipanen. Ia berencana memetik buah itu di keesokan hari. Namun, tatkala pagi tiba, ia mendapati satu buah pepayanya hilang dicuri orang.

Kakek itu begitu bersedih, hingga istrinya merasa heran. “masak hanya karena sebuah pepaya saja engkau demikian murung” ujar sang istri.

“bukan itu yang aku sedihkan” jawab sang kakek, “aku kepikiran, betapa sulitnya orang itu mengambil pepaya kita. Ia harus sembunyi-sembunyi di tengah malam agar tidak ketahuan orang. Belum lagi mesti memanjatnya dengan susah payah untuk bisa memetiknya..”

“dari itu Bune” lanjut sang kakek, “saya akan pinjam tangga dan saya taruh di bawah pohon pepaya kita, mudah-mudahan ia datang kembali malam ini dan tidak akan kesulitan lagi mengambil yang satunya”.
Namun saat pagi kembali hadir, ia mendapati pepaya yang tinggal sebuah itu tetap ada beserta tangganya tanpa bergeser sedikitpun. Ia mencoba bersabar, dan berharap pencuri itu akan muncul lagi di malam ini. Namun di pagi berikutnya, tetap saja buah pepaya itu masih di tempatnya.

Di sore harinya, sang kakek kedatangan seorang tamu yang menenteng duah buah pepaya besar di tangannya. Ia belum pernah mengenal si tamu tersebut. Singkat cerita, setelah berbincang lama, saat hendak pamitan tamu itu dengan amat menyesal mengaku bahwa ialah yang telah mencuri pepayanya.

“Sebenarnya” kata sang tamu, “di malam berikutnya saya ingin mencuri buah pepaya yang tersisa. Namun saat saya menemukan ada tangga di sana, saya tersadarkan dan sejak itu saya bertekad untuk tidak mencuri lagi. Untuk itu, saya kembalikan pepaya Anda dan untuk menebus kesalahan saya, saya hadiahkan pepaya yang baru saya beli di pasar untuk Anda”.

Hikmah yang bisa diambil dari kisah inspirasi diatas, adalah tentang keikhlasan, kesabaran, kebajikan dan cara pandang positif terhadap kehidupan.

Mampukah kita tetap bersikap positif saat kita kehilangan sesuatu yang kita cintai dengan ikhlas mencari sisi baiknya serta melupakan sakitnya suatu “musibah”?

Sumber:Pengjian LDII(Liwon Maulana "galipat")

Pengusaha Kena Imbas, Akibat Depresiasi Rupiah

Bekasi, Saco-Indonesia.com - Semakin melemahnya nilai tukar rupiah terhadap dollar AS pun berimbas langsung pada para pengusaha. Usaha mereka terhambat akibat dampak depresiasi tersebut.

Ketua Himpunan Pengusaha Muda Indonesia (HIPMI) Jaya periode 2011-2014 Andhika Anindyaguna mengatakan sebenarnya pengusaha merasakan dampak pelemahan rupiah. Akan tetapi, pengusaha pun terkena imbas-imbas lain, seperti inflasi.

"Inflasi kita kan tinggi. Kemarin pertengahan 2013 pemerintah menaikkan harga BBM. Otomatis harga-harga bahan pokok lainnya ikut meningkat," kata Andhika di Jakarta, Sabtu (11/1/2014).

Andhika menjelaskan inflasi yang menembus angka 8,38 persen itu tentu saja berdampak pada pengusaha. Sebab, harga-harga bahan baku pun ikut melonjak yang membuat pengusaha kewalahan memproduksi.

Selain itu, kenaikan harga elpiji ukuran 12 kilogram, meski direvisi, pun ikut memberi dampak. "Jadi memang kondisi ekonomi kita kurang baik. Harapannya bisa dijadikan PR yang harus diurus, mengingat 2014 merupakan tahun politik. Jangan sampai keadaan ekonomi makin jelek," ujarnya.

Andhika mengaku, yang menjadi kekhawatiran utama sebenarnya adalah terlalu besarnya volume impor yang membuat rupiah melemah.

"Rupiah kita terus melemah karena tingginya permintaan dolar karena impor yang terlalu banyak. Ini yang menjadi kekhawatiran kami," kata dia.

Sumber:Kompas.com

Editor : Maulana Lee

Betsy von Furstenberg, Baroness and Versatile Actress, Dies at 83

Ms. von Furstenberg made her debut in the movies and on the Broadway stage in the early 1950s as a teenager and later reinvented herself as a television actress, writer and philanthropist.

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.”

The Uphill Battle to Better Regulate Formaldehyde

WASHINGTON — A decade after emergency trailers meant to shelter Hurricane Katrina victims instead caused burning eyes, sore throats and other more serious ailments, the Environmental Protection Agency is on the verge of regulating the culprit: formaldehyde, a chemical that can be found in commonplace things like clothes and furniture.

But an unusual assortment of players, including furniture makers, the Chinese government, Republicans from states with a large base of furniture manufacturing and even some Democrats who championed early regulatory efforts, have questioned the E.P.A. proposal. The sustained opposition has held sway, as the agency is now preparing to ease key testing requirements before it releases the landmark federal health standard.

The E.P.A.’s five-year effort to adopt this rule offers another example of how industry opposition can delay and hamper attempts by the federal government to issue regulations, even to control substances known to be harmful to human health.

Continue reading the main story

 

Document: The Formaldehyde Fight

Formaldehyde is a known carcinogen that can also cause respiratory ailments like asthma, but the potential of long-term exposure to cause cancers like myeloid leukemia is less well understood.

The E.P.A.’s decision would be the first time that the federal government has regulated formaldehyde inside most American homes.

“The stakes are high for public health,” said Tom Neltner, senior adviser for regulatory affairs at the National Center for Healthy Housing, who has closely monitored the debate over the rules. “What we can’t have here is an outcome that fails to confront the health threat we all know exists.”

The proposal would not ban formaldehyde — commonly used as an ingredient in wood glue in furniture and flooring — but it would impose rules that prevent dangerous levels of the chemical’s vapors from those products, and would set testing standards to ensure that products sold in the United States comply with those limits. The debate has sharpened in the face of growing concern about the safety of formaldehyde-treated flooring imported from Asia, especially China.

What is certain is that a lot of money is at stake: American companies sell billions of dollars’ worth of wood products each year that contain formaldehyde, and some argue that the proposed regulation would impose unfair costs and restrictions.

Determined to block the agency’s rule as proposed, these industry players have turned to the White House, members of Congress and top E.P.A. officials, pressing them to roll back the testing requirements in particular, calling them redundant and too expensive.

“There are potentially over a million manufacturing jobs that will be impacted if the proposed rule is finalized without changes,” wrote Bill Perdue, the chief lobbyist at the American Home Furnishings Alliance, a leading critic of the testing requirements in the proposed regulation, in one letter to the E.P.A.

Industry opposition helped create an odd alignment of forces working to thwart the rule. The White House moved to strike out key aspects of the proposal. Subsequent appeals for more changes were voiced by players as varied as Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, and Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi, as well as furniture industry lobbyists.

Hurricane Katrina in 2005 helped ignite the public debate over formaldehyde, after the deadly storm destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of homes along the Gulf of Mexico, forcing families into temporary trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The displaced storm victims quickly began reporting respiratory problems, burning eyes and other issues, and tests then confirmed high levels of formaldehyde fumes leaking into the air inside the trailers, which in many cases had been hastily constructed.

Public health advocates petitioned the E.P.A. to issue limits on formaldehyde in building materials and furniture used in homes, given that limits already existed for exposure in workplaces. But three years after the storm, only California had issued such limits.

Industry groups like the American Chemistry Council have repeatedly challenged the science linking formaldehyde to cancer, a position championed by David Vitter, the Republican senator from Louisiana, who is a major recipient of chemical industry campaign contributions, and whom environmental groups have mockingly nicknamed “Senator Formaldehyde.”

Continue reading the main story

Typical

laminate

flooring

CLEAR FINISH LAYER

Often made of melamine resin

PATTERN LAYER

Paper printed to resemble wood,

or a thin wood veneer

GLUE

Layers may be bound using

formaldehyde-based glues

CORE LAYER

Fiberboard or other

composite, formed using

formaldehyde-based adhesives

BASE LAYER

Moisture-resistant vapor barrier

What is formaldehyde?

Formaldehyde is a common chemical used in many industrial and household products as an adhesive, bonding agent or preservative. It is classified as a volatile organic compound. The term volatile means that, at room temperature, formaldehyde will vaporize, or become a gas. Products made with formaldehyde tend to release this gas into the air. If breathed in large quantities, it may cause health problems.

WHERE IT IS COMMONLY FOUND

POTENTIAL HEALTH RISKS

Pressed-wood and composite wood products

Wallpaper and paints

Spray foam insulation used in construction

Commercial wood floor finishes

Crease-resistant fabrics

In cigarette smoke, or in the fumes from combustion of other materials, including wood, oil and gasoline.

Exposure to formaldehyde in sufficient amounts may cause eye, throat or skin irritation, allergic reactions, and respiratory problems like coughing, wheezing or asthma.

Long-term exposure to high levels has been associated with cancer in humans and laboratory animals.

Exposure to formaldehyde may affect some people more severely than others.

Sources: Consumer Product Safety Commission; Minnesota Department of Health

 

By The New York Times

By 2010, public health advocates and some industry groups secured bipartisan support in Congress for legislation that ordered the E.P.A. to issue federal rules that largely mirrored California’s restrictions. At the time, concerns were rising over the growing number of lower-priced furniture imports from Asia that might include contaminated products, while also hurting sales of American-made products.

Maneuvering began almost immediately after the E.P.A. prepared draft rules to formally enact the new standards.

White House records show at least five meetings in mid-2012 with industry executives — kitchen cabinet makers, chemical manufacturers, furniture trade associations and their lobbyists, like Brock R. Landry, of the Venable law firm. These parties, along with Senator Vitter’s office, appealed to top administration officials, asking them to intervene to roll back the E.P.A. proposal.

The White House Office of Management and Budget, which reviews major federal regulations before they are adopted, apparently agreed. After the White House review, the E.P.A. “redlined” many of the estimates of the monetary benefits that would be gained by reductions in related health ailments, like asthma and fertility issues, documents reviewed by The New York Times show.

As a result, the estimated benefit of the proposed rule dropped to $48 million a year, from as much as $278 million a year. The much-reduced amount deeply weakened the agency’s justification for the sometimes costly new testing that would be required under the new rules, a federal official involved in the effort said.

“It’s a redlining blood bath,” said Lisa Heinzerling, a Georgetown University Law School professor and a former E.P.A. official, using the Washington phrase to describe when language is stricken from a proposed rule. “Almost the entire discussion of these potential benefits was excised.”

Senator Vitter’s staff was pleased.

“That’s a huge difference,” said Luke Bolar, a spokesman for Mr. Vitter, of the reduced estimated financial benefits, saying the change was “clearly highlighting more mismanagement” at the E.P.A.

The review’s outcome galvanized opponents in the furniture industry. They then targeted a provision that mandated new testing of laminated wood, a cheaper alternative to hardwood. (The California standard on which the law was based did not require such testing.)

But E.P.A. scientists had concluded that these laminate products — millions of which are sold annually in the United States — posed a particular risk. They said that when thin layers of wood, also known as laminate or veneer, are added to furniture or flooring in the final stages of manufacturing, the resulting product can generate dangerous levels of fumes from often-used formaldehyde-based glues.

Industry executives, outraged by what they considered an unnecessary and financially burdensome level of testing, turned every lever within reach to get the requirement removed. It would be particularly onerous, they argued, for small manufacturers that would have to repeatedly interrupt their work to do expensive new testing. The E.P.A. estimated that the expanded requirements for laminate products would cost the furniture industry tens of millions of dollars annually, while the industry said that the proposed rule over all would cost its 7,000 American manufacturing facilities over $200 million each year.

“A lot of people don’t seem to appreciate what a lot of these requirements do to a small operation,” said Dick Titus, executive vice president of the Kitchen Cabinet Manufacturers Association, whose members are predominantly small businesses. “A 10-person shop, for example, just really isn’t equipped to handle that type of thing.”

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Big industry players also weighed in. Executives from companies including La-Z-Boy, Hooker Furniture and Ashley Furniture all flew to Washington for a series of meetings with the offices of lawmakers including House Speaker John Boehner, Republican of Ohio, and about a dozen other lawmakers, asking several of them to sign a letter prepared by the industry to press the E.P.A. to back down, according to an industry report describing the lobbying visit.

Within a matter of weeks, two letters — using nearly identical language — were sent by House and Senate lawmakers to the E.P.A. — with the industry group forwarding copies of the letters to the agency as well, and then posting them on its website.

The industry lobbyists also held their own meeting at E.P.A. headquarters, and they urged Jim Jones, who oversaw the rule-making process as the assistant administrator for the agency’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, to visit a North Carolina furniture manufacturing plant. According to the trade group, Mr. Jones told them that the visit had “helped the agency shift its thinking” about the rules and how laminated products should be treated.

The resistance was particularly intense from lawmakers like Mr. Wicker of Mississippi, whose state is home to major manufacturing plants owned by Ashley Furniture Industries, the world’s largest furniture maker, and who is one of the biggest recipients in Congress of donations from the industry’s trade association. Asked if the political support played a role, a spokesman for Mr. Wicker replied: “Thousands of Mississippians depend on the furniture manufacturing industry for their livelihoods. Senator Wicker is committed to defending all Mississippians from government overreach.”

Individual companies like Ikea also intervened, as did the Chinese government, which claimed that the new rule would create a “great barrier” to the import of Chinese products because of higher costs.

Perhaps the most surprising objection came from Senator Boxer, of California, a longtime environmental advocate, whose office questioned why the E.P.A.’s rule went further than her home state’s in seeking testing on laminated products. “We did not advocate an outcome, other than safety,” her office said in a statement about why the senator raised concerns. “We said ‘Take a look to see if you have it right.’ ”

Safety advocates say that tighter restrictions — like the ones Ms. Boxer and Mr. Wicker, along with Representative Doris Matsui, a California Democrat, have questioned — are necessary, particularly for products coming from China, where items as varied as toys and Christmas lights have been found to violate American safety standards.

While Mr. Neltner, the environmental advocate who has been most involved in the review process, has been open to compromise, he has pressed the E.P.A. not to back down entirely, and to maintain a requirement that laminators verify that their products are safe.

An episode of CBS’s “60 Minutes” in March brought attention to the issue when it accused Lumber Liquidators, the discount flooring retailer, of selling laminate products with dangerous levels of formaldehyde. The company has disputed the show’s findings and test methods, maintaining that its products are safe.

“People think that just because Congress passed the legislation five years ago, the problem has been fixed,” said Becky Gillette, who then lived in coastal Mississippi, in the area hit by Hurricane Katrina, and was among the first to notice a pattern of complaints from people living in the trailers. “Real people’s faces and names come up in front of me when I think of the thousands of people who could get sick if this rule is not done right.”

An aide to Ms. Matsui rejected any suggestion that she was bending to industry pressure.

“From the beginning the public health has been our No. 1 concern,” said Kyle J. Victor, an aide to Ms. Matsui.

But further changes to the rule are likely, agency officials concede, as they say they are searching for a way to reduce the cost of complying with any final rule while maintaining public health goals. The question is just how radically the agency will revamp the testing requirement for laminated products — if it keeps it at all.

“It’s not a secret to anybody that is the most challenging issue,” said Mr. Jones, the E.P.A. official overseeing the process, adding that the health consequences from formaldehyde are real. “We have to reduce those exposures so that people can live healthy lives and not have to worry about being in their homes.”

G.O.P. Hopefuls Now Aiming to Woo the Middle Class

WASHINGTON — The last three men to win the Republican nomination have been the prosperous son of a president (George W. Bush), a senator who could not recall how many homes his family owned (John McCain of Arizona; it was seven) and a private equity executive worth an estimated $200 million (Mitt Romney).

The candidates hoping to be the party’s nominee in 2016 are trying to create a very different set of associations. On Sunday, Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, joined the presidential field.

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida praises his parents, a bartender and a Kmart stock clerk, as he urges audiences not to forget “the workers in our hotel kitchens, the landscaping crews in our neighborhoods, the late-night janitorial staff that clean our offices.”

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a preacher’s son, posts on Twitter about his ham-and-cheese sandwiches and boasts of his coupon-clipping frugality. His $1 Kohl’s sweater has become a campaign celebrity in its own right.

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky laments the existence of “two Americas,” borrowing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s phrase to describe economically and racially troubled communities like Ferguson, Mo., and Detroit.

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“Some say, ‘But Democrats care more about the poor,’ ” Mr. Paul likes to say. “If that’s true, why is black unemployment still twice white unemployment? Why has household income declined by $3,500 over the past six years?”

We are in the midst of the Empathy Primary — the rhetorical battleground shaping the Republican presidential field of 2016.

Harmed by the perception that they favor the wealthy at the expense of middle-of-the-road Americans, the party’s contenders are each trying their hardest to get across what the elder George Bush once inelegantly told recession-battered voters in 1992: “Message: I care.”

Their ability to do so — less bluntly, more sincerely — could prove decisive in an election year when power, privilege and family connections will loom large for both parties.

Questions of understanding and compassion cost Republicans in the last election. Mr. Romney, who memorably dismissed the “47 percent” of Americans as freeloaders, lost to President Obama by 63 percentage points among voters who cast their ballots for the candidate who “cares about people like me,” according to exit polls.

And a Pew poll from February showed that people still believe Republicans are indifferent to working Americans: 54 percent said the Republican Party does not care about the middle class.

That taint of callousness explains why Senator Ted Cruz of Texas declared last week that Republicans “are and should be the party of the 47 percent” — and why another son of a president, Jeb Bush, has made economic opportunity the centerpiece of his message.

With his pedigree and considerable wealth — since he left the Florida governor’s office almost a decade ago he has earned millions of dollars sitting on corporate boards and advising banks — Mr. Bush probably has the most complicated task making the argument to voters that he understands their concerns.

On a visit last week to Puerto Rico, Mr. Bush sounded every bit the populist, railing against “elites” who have stifled economic growth and innovation. In the kind of economy he envisions leading, he said: “We wouldn’t have the middle being squeezed. People in poverty would have a chance to rise up. And the social strains that exist — because the haves and have-nots is the big debate in our country today — would subside.”

Continue reading the main story

 

Who Is Running for President (and Who’s Not)?

Republicans’ emphasis on poorer and working-class Americans now represents a shift from the party’s longstanding focus on business owners and “job creators” as the drivers of economic opportunity.

This is intentional, Republican operatives said.

In the last presidential election, Republicans rushed to defend business owners against what they saw as hostility by Democrats to successful, wealthy entrepreneurs.

“Part of what you had was a reaction to the Democrats’ dehumanization of business owners: ‘Oh, you think you started your plumbing company? No you didn’t,’ ” said Grover Norquist, the conservative activist and president of Americans for Tax Reform.

But now, Mr. Norquist said, Republicans should move past that. “Focus on the people in the room who know someone who couldn’t get a job, or a promotion, or a raise because taxes are too high or regulations eat up companies’ time,” he said. “The rich guy can take care of himself.”

Democrats argue that the public will ultimately see through such an approach because Republican positions like opposing a minimum-wage increase and giving private banks a larger role in student loans would hurt working Americans.

“If Republican candidates are just repeating the same tired policies, I’m not sure that smiling while saying it is going to be enough,” said Guy Cecil, a Democratic strategist who is joining a “super PAC” working on behalf of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Republicans have already attacked Mrs. Clinton over the wealth and power she and her husband have accumulated, caricaturing her as an out-of-touch multimillionaire who earns hundreds of thousands of dollars per speech and has not driven a car since 1996.

Mr. Walker hit this theme recently on Fox News, pointing to Mrs. Clinton’s lucrative book deals and her multiple residences. “This is not someone who is connected with everyday Americans,” he said. His own net worth, according to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, is less than a half-million dollars; Mr. Walker also owes tens of thousands of dollars on his credit cards.

But showing off a cheap sweater or boasting of a bootstraps family background not only helps draw a contrast with Mrs. Clinton’s latter-day affluence, it is also an implicit argument against Mr. Bush.

Mr. Walker, who featured a 1998 Saturn with more than 100,000 miles on the odometer in a 2010 campaign ad during his first run for governor, likes to talk about flipping burgers at McDonald’s as a young person. His mother, he has said, grew up on a farm with no indoor plumbing until she was in high school.

Mr. Rubio, among the least wealthy members of the Senate, with an estimated net worth of around a half-million dollars, uses his working-class upbringing as evidence of the “exceptionalism” of America, “where even the son of a bartender and a maid can have the same dreams and the same future as those who come from power and privilege.”

Mr. Cruz alludes to his family’s dysfunction — his parents, he says, were heavy drinkers — and recounts his father’s tale of fleeing Cuba with $100 sewn into his underwear.

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey notes that his father paid his way through college working nights at an ice cream plant.

But sometimes the attempts at projecting authenticity can seem forced. Mr. Christie recently found himself on the defensive after telling a New Hampshire audience, “I don’t consider myself a wealthy man.” Tax returns showed that he and his wife, a longtime Wall Street executive, earned nearly $700,000 in 2013.

The story of success against the odds is a political classic, even if it is one the Republican Party has not been able to tell for a long time. Ronald Reagan liked to say that while he had not been born on the wrong side of the tracks, he could always hear the whistle. Richard Nixon was fond of reminding voters how he was born in a house his father had built.

“Probably the idea that is most attractive to an average voter, and an idea that both Republicans and Democrats try to craft into their messages, is this idea that you can rise from nothing,” said Charles C. W. Cooke, a writer for National Review.

There is a certain delight Republicans take in turning that message to their advantage now.

“That’s what Obama did with Hillary,” Mr. Cooke said. “He acknowledged it openly: ‘This is ridiculous. Look at me, this one-term senator with dark skin and all of America’s unsolved racial problems, running against the wife of the last Democratic president.”

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y NEIL GENZLINGER

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Baltimore Residents Away From Turmoil Consider Their Role

BALTIMORE — In the afternoons, the streets of Locust Point are clean and nearly silent. In front of the rowhouses, potted plants rest next to steps of brick or concrete. There is a shopping center nearby with restaurants, and a grocery store filled with fresh foods.

And the National Guard and the police are largely absent. So, too, residents say, are worries about what happened a few miles away on April 27 when, in a space of hours, parts of this city became riot zones.

“They’re not our reality,” Ashley Fowler, 30, said on Monday at the restaurant where she works. “They’re not what we’re living right now. We live in, not to be racist, white America.”

As Baltimore considers its way forward after the violent unrest brought by the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died of injuries he suffered while in police custody, residents in its predominantly white neighborhoods acknowledge that they are sometimes struggling to understand what beyond Mr. Gray’s death spurred the turmoil here. For many, the poverty and troubled schools of gritty West Baltimore are distant troubles, glimpsed only when they pass through the area on their way somewhere else.

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And so neighborhoods of Baltimore are facing altogether different reckonings after Mr. Gray’s death. In mostly black communities like Sandtown-Winchester, where some of the most destructive rioting played out last week, residents are hoping businesses will reopen and that the police will change their strategies. But in mostly white areas like Canton and Locust Point, some residents wonder what role, if any, they should play in reimagining stretches of Baltimore where they do not live.

“Most of the people are kind of at a loss as to what they’re supposed to do,” said Dr. Richard Lamb, a dentist who has practiced in the same Locust Point office for nearly 39 years. “I listen to the news reports. I listen to the clergymen. I listen to the facts of the rampant unemployment and the lack of opportunities in the area. Listen, I pay my taxes. Exactly what can I do?”

And in Canton, where the restaurants have clever names like Nacho Mama’s and Holy Crepe Bakery and Café, Sara Bahr said solutions seemed out of reach for a proudly liberal city.

“I can only imagine how frustrated they must be,” said Ms. Bahr, 36, a nurse who was out with her 3-year-old daughter, Sally. “I just wish I knew how to solve poverty. I don’t know what to do to make it better.”

The day of unrest and the overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrations that followed led to hundreds of arrests, often for violations of the curfew imposed on the city for five consecutive nights while National Guard soldiers patrolled the streets. Although there were isolated instances of trouble in Canton, the neighborhood association said on its website, many parts of southeast Baltimore were physically untouched by the tumult.

Tensions in the city bubbled anew on Monday after reports that the police had wounded a black man in Northwest Baltimore. The authorities denied those reports and sent officers to talk with the crowds that gathered while other officers clutching shields blocked traffic at Pennsylvania and West North Avenues.

Lt. Col. Melvin Russell, a community police officer, said officers had stopped a man suspected of carrying a handgun and that “one of those rounds was spent.”

Colonel Russell said officers had not opened fire, “so we couldn’t have shot him.”

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The colonel said the man had not been injured but was taken to a hospital as a precaution. Nearby, many people stood in disbelief, despite the efforts by the authorities to quash reports they described as “unfounded.”

Monday’s episode was a brief moment in a larger drama that has yielded anger and confusion. Although many people said they were familiar with accounts of the police harassing or intimidating residents, many in Canton and Locust Point said they had never experienced it themselves. When they watched the unrest, which many protesters said was fueled by feelings that they lived only on Baltimore’s margins, even those like Ms. Bahr who were pained by what they saw said they could scarcely comprehend the emotions associated with it.

But others, like Lambi Vasilakopoulos, who runs a casual restaurant in Canton, said they were incensed by what unfolded last week.

“What happened wasn’t called for. Protests are one thing; looting is another thing,” he said, adding, “We’re very frustrated because we’re the ones who are going to pay for this.”

There were pockets of optimism, though, that Baltimore would enter a period of reconciliation.

“I’m just hoping for peace,” Natalie Boies, 53, said in front of the Locust Point home where she has lived for 50 years. “Learn to love each other; be patient with each other; find justice; and care.”

A skeptical Mr. Vasilakopoulos predicted tensions would worsen.

“It cannot be fixed,” he said. “It’s going to get worse. Why? Because people don’t obey the laws. They don’t want to obey them.”

But there were few fears that the violence that plagued West Baltimore last week would play out on these relaxed streets. The authorities, Ms. Fowler said, would make sure of that.

“They kept us safe here,” she said. “I didn’t feel uncomfortable when I was in my house three blocks away from here. I knew I was going to be O.K. because I knew they weren’t going to let anyone come and loot our properties or our businesses or burn our cars.”

In Baltimore, National Guard Pullout Begins as Citywide Curfew Is Lifted

David Goldman/Associated Press

National Guard soldiers boarding a truck in Baltimore on Sunday.

Baltimore residents prepared to resume the more familiar rhythms of their lives as days passed without new bouts of widespread rioting and as the National Guard began to pull its troops from the city.

In Baltimore, National Guard Pullout Begins as Citywide Curfew Is Lifted | PAKET UMROH BULAN JANUARI 2016

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