Nama Tempatan: Gaharu/depu
Nama Saintifik: Aquilaria malaccensis
Nama Lain: Karas, Engkaras, agar wood, aquilaria, krasna, agaloca,aloeswood, eaglewood, jinkoh. Famili: Thymelaeaceae
Lokasi dijumpai: Hutan hujan tropika

Fakta keterangan:

Kayu Gaharu terkenal di seluruh dunia dengan pelbagai panggilan, Chen Xiang bagi masyarakat Cina, Jin-Ko (Jepun) dan Oud atau Oode di kalangan bangsa Arab.

Ia juga digunakan oleh masyarakat secara meluas sejak turun-temurun, malah ada yang mengatakan kayu gaharu dari pokok gaharu telah digunakan sejak zaman Firaun sama ada untuk upacara keagamaan atau bahan untuk membuat minyak wangi.

Pokok gaharu atau dikenali juga di Malaysia dengan nama lain seperti depu, karas atau engkaras merupakan pokok besar yang boleh mencapai ketinggian sehingga 40 meter tingginya. Diameter batangnya pula boleh mencapai sekitar 60 cm. Gaharu merupakan sejenis tumbuhan yang tumbuh di kawasan hutan hujan tropika, terutamanya di tanah rendah sehingga ke kawasan yang ketinggiannya sehingga 270 meter daripada paras laut. Taburan pertumbuhan pokok gaharu /depu secara geografinya meliputi kawasan Asia tenggara, India dan China. Gaharu boleh hidup di semua jenis tanah kecuali kawasan paya dan berair.


Secara keseluruhan terdapat lapan jenis pokok gaharu di dunia tetapi di Malaysia hanya ada empat jenis iaitu, Karas, Candan Gajah, Candan Gunung dan Cendana. Bagi masyarakat Malaysia, pokok gaharu atau nama saintifiknya Aquilaria Malaccensis hanya boleh didapati di dalam hutan belantara dan jumlahnya pula dilaporkan semakin sedikit atau hampir pupus. Kegiatan mencari kayu gaharu secara haram menjadikan tumbuhan itu kini semakin pupus kerana harganya, sama ada kayu (heartwood) atau minyak (damar) yang dihasilkan pokok itu adalah amat bernilai tinggi, lebih mahal dari harga emas.

Tarikan kayu gaharu Malaysia dan nilainya yang amat tinggi merupakan magnet kepada pencari-pencari haram kayu gaharu terutamanya dari Thailand untuk menceroboh hutan-hutan negara ini sehingga ke Sarawak untuk mendapatkan tumbuhan berharga itu.

Sekilogram kayu gaharu jenis karas dianggarkan bernilai di antara RM5 ribu hingga RM60 ribu, Candan Gajah (RM180 ribu hingga RM200 ribu) dan Candan Gunung (RM1 juta) manakala harga seliter minyaknya pula bernilai 10 kali ganda dari kayunya.

Pokok gaharu boleh tumbuh di dalam hampir semua keadaan dengan penjagaan yang minimum, dan boleh mencecah ketinggian sehingga 40 meter manakala jejari batang pokoknya boleh membesar sehingga 60 cm.

Bagaimanapun bagi pokok gaharu jenis Candan Gunung, ia hanya boleh tumbuh di kawasan yang mempunyai ketinggian 1,500 kaki dari aras laut, menjadikan ia lebih sukar ditemui dan dibiak.



kegunaan:

Resin yang terhasil di bahagian teras batang pokok gaharu merupakan bahan yang mempunyai nilai komersial yang amat di tinggi di pasaran seluruh dunia.Resin

ini telah digunakan sejak zaman berzaman sebagai setanggi atau kemenyan, digunakan dalam perubatan, kosmetik mahupun bahan untuk upacara keagamaan. Cara

tradisonal untuk mendapatkan resin ini ialah dengan menebang pokok ini untuk mendapatkan resinnya. Malangnya tidak semua pokok yang telah matang akan

menghasilkan resin, menyebabkan ada pokok yang ditebang secara sia-sia sahaja. Ini menyebabkan pokok gaharu mula diancam kepupusan di habitat asalnya. Tetapi

kini ada kaedah yang lebih efektif digunakan tanpa perlu menebang dan memusnahkan pokok yang telah matang.

Kini gaharu merupakan spesis tumbuhan yang di lindungi di negara kita.Pengambilan gaharu daripada habitat semulajadi merupakan satu kesalahan di negara kita.

Perjanjian antarabangsa seperti CITES(Satu konvensioan yang membincangkan urusniaga antarabangsa yang dilakukan ke atas spesis-spesis terkawal)telah diperakui dan dipersetujui oleh 169 buah negara. Persetujuan ini adalah untuk memastikan urusniaga gaharu tidak akan mengancam kepupusan pokok gaharu di habitat semulajadinya.

Airsoft is a game in which participants eliminate opponents by hitting each other with spherical non-metallic pellets fired from a compressed-air gun (or airsoft gun) powered by gas, manual spring-load, or electrically powered gearbox.

Airsoft participants organize meetings at dedicated airsoft battlefields often adapted to provide walls, bunkers, trenches, buildings, towers, and other similar man-made field enhancements to offer realism analogous to real war environments.

Airsoft games vary greatly in style and composition depending on location, budget, and quantity of participants but often range from short-term skirmishes, organized scenarios, military simulations, or historical reenactments.


Combat situations on the battlefield often involve the use of common military tactics to achieve the objectives set in each game. Participants typically use varying types of non-lethal weaponry designed as replicas of real firearms, tactical gear, and accessories used by modern military and police organizations.

Airsoft guns and playing airsoft is legal in most parts of the world. Some countries have specific restrictions such as maximum muzzle velocity, aka FPS (feet per second), rules against using the trademarks of real firearms, and 'unrealistic' coloring to distinguish them from actual firearms. They are legal throughout the U.S, but restrictions exist in certain cities such as Camden, Newark, NJ, Chicago, IL, New York City and Detroit, MI. The states of New Jersey, Illinois, New York and Michigan, however, do not allow airsoft guns to be used and handled publicly, because of the resemblance to real firearms, although Federal and State laws generally regard airsoft guns as toys and in the United States the muzzle tip must be orange.

Mind machines, mind power, the mind matter phenomenon, the law of attraction, the field, the matrix, the force, the power of intention, the quantum mind, brain plasticity, whole brain integration, hemispheric synchronization, the subconscious, the collective unconscious, the third eye, altered states, meditation, prayer, paranormal, mystical experiences, PSI....


A query into any of the above subjects will provide reams of data, opinions, and public debate intended to shed light on a subject that by its very nature thus defies public revelation. I have studied all of these subjects over the years in a bid to understand the full potential of my own nature and with every new understanding I have continually refined my efforts towards achieving what I've crudely been describing as mastery over my mind, or mind power.

With every process aimed at mastering a skill, there are stages of development followed by plateaus where it seems no progress is being made. And then, usually when you least expect it, another shift occurs and your commitment to the process is reinvigorated pushing you on to progress further. This pattern continues for as long as you keep with the process, until eventually something different happens. Your understanding reaches a critical mass, you experience a seismic shift, developmentally, you experience a quantum leap, placing you at the threshold of your desired mastery.

So far for me the stages that have played a part in developing my own mind's power look roughly like this:

* As a child I had an awareness that there was more to me than what my sensory systems could reveal
* I acquired a faith in an organised religion
* Experienced spontaneous mystical, transcendental experiences
* Entered a dark night of the soul, existential angst
* Lost my faith
* Experimented with drugs
* Explored various world religions
* Became and 'accidental' practitioner of self designed occult practices
* Inadvertently practiced 'dark magic' bringing me to literally death's door
* Realised the 'dark magic' was a misuse of my mind and that my mind had far more power than I ever realised
* Being fearful of the power I had realised I 'shut down'
* Entered another dark night of the soul
* Woke up to the realisation that I had to make my mind's power work for me - because my life wasn't, but how?
* Conducted research on how to harness my mind's potential
* A flow of synchronicities led me to various materials and mind machine systems
* Attempted to establish myself in self designed technique of meditative practice
* Used technologies to change my brainwave states
* Practised sending out love to 'the universe' while endeavouring to stop all judgement
* Learnt a proper meditation technique: Vipassana, and developed a daily practice
* Experienced an increase in synchronicities, psychic phenomenon, manifestations, mystical experiences (this is ongoing)
* Realised increased mind control: more calm, peace, happiness
* Continued to utilise mind systems: binaural beats, rapid data transfer, Solfreggio frequencies ...
* Shared my gained knowledge with those interested in aim of being of service and help
* Began serving at a Vipassana meditation centre to help others learn the technique
* Experienced a seismic mind shift

With hindsight, it is easy to see that I have always been travelling down a path towards enlightenment. A path, I believe we are all in fact destined to journey at some point.

In my own case, I have been quite caught up in what perhaps the sagacious would describe as 'mind playing', a realised ability to experience increased synchronicities, paranormal, mystical experiences, manifestations, prophetic dreams and so forth. Believing at times, they were the goal. They continue to be pleasant and they serve as indicators of my ability to attune my mental powers in certain ways, but the goal has, changed.

By developing my mind's power I have realised a more important goal, understanding that the development of this power is only a step along the way towards something far more important: the purification of my mind.

Only now through direct experience do I understand that by purifying my mind not only am I elevating my vibration, allowing me to be one with higher frequencies of 'the field', causing all manner of good to manifest, but I am, most importantly, developing my ability to experience, at will, my divine being.

We are all divine, we can believe we are, have faith that we are, but to experientially know it is something entirely different. Our minds can be likened to a lens that our consciousness focuses itself through. When our minds are impure, they are out of focus, and we do not see ourselves as we really are. Truth, our true nature is obscured. We are in the dark, which makes us afraid and we act out of this fear, causing all manner of pain and suffering. Rather than masters, we become slaves to our minds and we are blind with it.

As a consequence of striving to develop my mind's power, the fantastic irony is that while realising evermore of it, I have simultaneously surpassed my desire for it. Understanding that what I really want is to purify it, to be without any wanting, to be liberated from thought, to resonate as joy, harmony, peace, love. To be conscious beyond words.

So to you, who are sincerely endeavouring to develop your true mind's power, know this, if you don't already: it is but a step, a quantum step, towards the experiential revelation of your true nature, that you are a divine being.

May all beings in their own right time, know real love, peace and harmony.


By Christine G. Flynn

1957 Italian racing car sets a record for a public auction. The 250 Testa Rossa is one of only 22 ever made.

NEW YORK - A 1957 Ferrari race car was sold at auction in Italy on Sunday for a record $12 million, according to the Italian automaker.

The sale of the 250 Testa Rossa - for 9.02 million euro - blew past the previous auction record scored by a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT, which sold last year for $9.6 million in current exchange rates. The identities of both the buyer and seller were not made public.



"Ferrari prices have absolutely defied gravity for the past few years," said McKeel Hagerty, CEO of Hagerty Insurance, a company that insures high-value collectable cars in Europe and North America.

Private sales of Ferraris have fetched such premium prices before, but this is a record for a public auction. "That is what makes this pretty remarkable. It is a pretty special sale," said Hagerty.

Ferrari, headquartered in Maranello, Italy, made only 22 of the 250 Testa Rossa racecars. The car sold at auction first hit the track at the 1958 Buenos Aires 1000 km, where it came in fourth place.

All 22 models of the Testa Rossa were entered in 19 international championships between 1958 and 1961 and won 10 victories, according to a release from auction house RM Auctions.

The auction for the race car lured bidders from across the globe.

"The historical significance of this car attracted a bidding war as collectors from around the world - both in the room and on the telephone - competed to secure one of the most alluring and iconic of all Ferrari racing cars," said Max Girardo, managing director of RM Europe, in a statement.

Last year, the 1961 Ferrari California Spyder set the record for a price paid at auction.

Big-ticket auction sales are usually kept confidential. But last year's Spyder sale was different because the car had been owned by actor James Coburn, who died in 2002, and was purchased by British television and radio personality Chris Evans.

The market for collectable cars has been dented by the recession, but buyers are willing to pay top dollar for rare race cars like the Testa Rossa.

"It is literally the Van Gogh or Picasso that someone wants to have over their mantle," said Hagerty.

The record-setting auction for the Italian luxury automobile comes in the middle of a global recession that has sent U.S. automakers into a tailspin, forcing them to adhere to strict restructuring plans.

Chrysler has had to shutter 789 dealerships, or roughly 25% of the current number, as part of its bankruptcy filing. On Friday, General Motors (GM, Fortune 500) said it would be terminating contracts with 1,100 of its 6,000 dealerships.

Chrysler was forced to file for bankruptcy and entered into an alliance with Italian automaker Fiat, which owns 85% of Ferrari.

Piero Ferrari owns 10% of Ferrari and Mubadala Development Company, based out of Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, owns another 5% of the company

By Catherine Clifford, CNNMoney.com staff writer

Cornell economist Robert H. Frank explains why a culture of excessive risk taking flourished - and what might push everyone from money managers to homebuyers to act more prudently.

(Money Magazine) -- As a writer and an economics professor at Cornell University, Robert Frank has been trying for years to bridge the gap between the classroom and the real world. Though he has proved his command of the essentials of his profession - he wrote a textbook with Federal Reserve Board chief Ben Bernanke back in 2000 - his vision of economics is broader and more thought-provoking than most.

In "The Winner-Take-All Society" (1996) and "Luxury Fever" (2000), Frank analyzed the economic logic underlying sky-high salaries in business, sports, and entertainment, and the effects of luxury spending on middle-class Americans. In "The Economic Naturalist" (2007), he used economic principles to explain quirky questions of everyday life, like why drive-through ATMs have Braille buttons.

His new book, "The Economic Naturalist's Field Guide," collects dozens of his columns from the New York Times on topics ranging from gas taxes (he likes them) to the over-abundance of hedge fund managers. Contributing writer David Futrelle recently sought Frank's take on some of the hot-button economic issues of the day.

You have compared the problems that caused the financial mess to steroid use in pro sports. How so?

In both cases individual interests don't coincide with collective interests. If you are a fund manager, you want a lot of money under management because that's how you get paid. When some firm crafts a portfolio of slightly riskier securities and leverages it up 50 to 1 - that is, matches every investor dollar with $50 of borrowed money - investors are going to get a huge rate of return, assuming the underlying assets rise in price. Asset managers know investors want high returns, so a lot of them start offering that strategy.

Of course, each price drop produces huge losses for investors. But the managers know there's safety in numbers - if things go sour, they can say everybody else was doing the same thing.

It's like when one athlete gets a boost from steroids: Others have to adjust to the new level of performance.

Exactly. That logic extends to homeowners. During the presidential campaign, John McCain was hammering them for borrowing more than they could afford. But if you take into account the link between how much a house costs and the quality of schools in that neighborhood, you can see that if other people were borrowing more - which they were - and you didn't, then it would be your kids who ended up going to the schools where students score in the 20th percentile and have to go through metal detectors.

In sports the solution is to ban steroids and insist on testing. What's the solution in the financial world?

To start, you can regulate the amount of leverage asset managers could offer. But if you really want to blunt the incentive for investors to squeeze out ever higher returns, scrap the income tax and shift to a much more steeply progressive consumption tax. You would report people's income and savings to the IRS each year. The difference between those numbers is how much they consume.

Tax that instead of taxing people's income, and the government would strengthen the incentive to save and invest, and weaken the incentive to build bigger houses. If other people were building smaller houses, each investor would feel less compelled to take greater risks to keep up.

Wouldn't a consumption tax, which reduces consumer spending, be a drag on economic growth?

The tax should be phased in gradually after the economy recovers. The capital market would direct consumers' extra savings to investors, who would spend the money on capital goods. So total spending would remain the same - and it's total spending that determines output and employment.

You've said that executive pay in America is too high, but you also think pay caps are a bad idea. Why?

The jobs that are the most important, that create the most value, end up paying more. You need [salary] bidding wars to help identify the best people and steer them to the right places. What's not true is that they need big salaries to be willing to work hard. There's no evidence for that. If the differences in their post-tax pay were just a tiny fraction of what we see pretax, everything would work just about as well. So the simplest remedy would be to raise the tax on those high salaries.

But you argue that this logic doesn't apply as well to the financial industry, right?

In the case of, say, the software industry, there's a link between earnings and the extent to which good employees benefit the economy. In the finance industry there's no such link. Those companies earn more when they hire smarter people largely because smarter people can figure out more devious ways to unload risk onto other people.

Anytime it looks as if individuals are generating huge profits for a financial firm, I think the presumption should be that there's some market failure they're exploiting. Regulation can eliminate those failures and therefore those profits. Pay caps are a clumsy instrument. But if you had them in the financial industry, life would go on.

Lower consumer spending has made the downturn worse. Should we feel guilty that we're not spending enough?

No. The amount an individual spends is too small to make a difference. Only the government can print money and borrow it on a big enough scale. But if you want to spend, do it in a smart way - by adding insulation to your house, for example. That puts people to work without making your balance sheet worse in the long run.

"A lot of people are happy to blast the idea of a consumption tax without having heard the logic of it."

By David Futrelle, Money Magazine contributing writer