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United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has pleaded to Indonesia to stop the execution of prisoners on death row for drug crimes. AFP PHOTO

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The pope wrote that the principle of legitimate personal defense isn’t adequate justification to execute someone. Photograph: Zuma/Rex

Obama becomes first president to visit US prison (US Justice Systems / Human Rights)

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US President Barack Obama speaks as he tours the El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in El Reno, Oklahoma, July 16, 2015 (AFP Photo/Saul Loeb)

US Death Penalty (Justice Systems / Human Rights)

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Woman who spent 23 years on US death row cleared (Photo: dpa)



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"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it), Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse), Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

… The Shift in Human Nature

You're starting to see integrity change. Awareness recalibrates integrity, and the Human Being who would sit there and take advantage of another Human Being in an old energy would never do it in a new energy. The reason? It will become intuitive, so this is a shift in Human Nature as well, for in the past you have assumed that people take advantage of people first and integrity comes later. That's just ordinary Human nature.

In the past, Human nature expressed within governments worked like this: If you were stronger than the other one, you simply conquered them. If you were strong, it was an invitation to conquer. If you were weak, it was an invitation to be conquered. No one even thought about it. It was the way of things. The bigger you could have your armies, the better they would do when you sent them out to conquer. That's not how you think today. Did you notice?

Any country that thinks this way today will not survive, for humanity has discovered that the world goes far better by putting things together instead of tearing them apart. The new energy puts the weak and strong together in ways that make sense and that have integrity. Take a look at what happened to some of the businesses in this great land (USA). Up to 30 years ago, when you started realizing some of them didn't have integrity, you eliminated them. What happened to the tobacco companies when you realized they were knowingly addicting your children? Today, they still sell their products to less-aware countries, but that will also change.

What did you do a few years ago when you realized that your bankers were actually selling you homes that they knew you couldn't pay for later? They were walking away, smiling greedily, not thinking about the heartbreak that was to follow when a life's dream would be lost. Dear American, you are in a recession. However, this is like when you prune a tree and cut back the branches. When the tree grows back, you've got control and the branches will grow bigger and stronger than they were before, without the greed factor. Then, if you don't like the way it grows back, you'll prune it again! I tell you this because awareness is now in control of big money. It's right before your eyes, what you're doing. But fear often rules. …

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Padang Tegal expands forest for environment

I Wayan Juniartha, The Jakarta Post, Ubud, Bali

The usually quiet Monkey Forest turned into a bustling field of activity on Sunday morning as the people of Padang Tegal celebrated the launching of the Tree Adoption Program, aimed at expanding the area into arguably the largest community-managed forest in the island.

The customary village of Padang Tegal comprises four banjar (traditional neighborhood organizations) with more than 2,600 residents and is the traditional custodian of the Monkey Forest, more than eleven hectares of woods to the south of Ubud.

Visitors consider the forest to be of Ubud's main attractions. The locals, who prefer to call the forest Wanara Wana, view it as a sacred sanctuary.

"The important Dalem Agung Padang Tegal temple and a holy springs of Beji lie inside the forest. The monkeys that dwell in the forest have always been considered by the locals to be the servants of the gods. That's the primary reason why the locals have always maintained and protected this sanctuary," the bendesa (head) of Padang Tegal customary village, I Made Dana, said.

Behind him, children from various kindergatens in Ubud were sitting in small groups under rows of young trees.

Each of them tried to capture the beauty of the surrounding nature on a piece of drawing paper. Sitting leisurely on the grassy field, still a bit wet due to the previous night's shower of rain, these children's innocence accentuated the woods' fresh natural beauty.

The drawing competition was part of Sunday's program, appropriately titled "Save the Planet and the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary".

"Those young trees are the result of the reforestation program we carried out in 2003. Now, some of them are already six meters tall," the forest's promotion head Kadek Gunartha said.

Prior to 2003, the forest covered only seven hectares. But that year, the village assigned its young people to transform more than 3 hectares of village land south of the forest into wood.

"The reforestation and conservation activities have been carried out for years, but this year we realized the need for a better and wider promotional drive to inform the public at the regional and national levels of our efforts," Gunartha said.

This year, the village took the program to a new level by allocating more than Rp 2 billion out of its own budget to purchase one hectare of privately owned land bordering the forest.

"We will turn that land into forest, an extension of the original forest. In the future we will make several similar purchases to ensure the existence of this sacred forest," Made Dana said.

The move was simply extraordinary, particularly for the island, where villages generally spend billions of rupiah on religious rituals or renovating temples and not on environmental programs.

The expansion of the Monkey Forest, Gunartha explained, would serve several important purposes, the first of which was to provide a larger habitat for the forest's growing monkey population.

A census carried on June 2007 at 25 sites in the forest found out that there are now 346 monkeys living in three different packs.

"The number is expected to increase, so they will need a larger area both for playing and feeding. Soon, the number of the packs will increase to four because we have observed a significant power struggle in a pack that occupies the eastern part of the forest," I Dewa Gede Rai Putera, a physician responsible for the scientific aspects of the park's management.

The second aim is to increase the number and variety of the trees in the forest. So far, the forest houses 163 species of plants. The management now plans to add more local and rare species to the forest.

One way to achieve that is the Tree Adoption Program, which was officially launched on Sunday morning. By contributing Rp 150,000 (US$16), a visitor can have a specific tree planted in the forest.

"The management will maintain and take care of the tree, and will issue a certificate acknowledging the visitor's contribution to the program. The program is carried out in cooperation with the Gianyar chapter of the Indonesian Hotels and Restaurants Association (PHRI) and 58 visitors have agreed to join this scheme," Gunartha said.

The program, he said, was an excellent carbon emissions offset option for those who wanted wipe out the carbon debt they had generated during their trip to Bali.

The third objective was to turn the forest into a center of environmental studies for the locals.

"The forest will be a field laboratory to increase the awareness of the locals on environmental issues," Rai Putera said.

So far, the forest's management has carried out several scientific cooperation activities with researchers from Bali and abroad, including Udayana University (Bali), the University of Alabama, Central Washington University and the University of Notre Dame. The results have been published in more than eleven scientific publications.

"These cooperations help us in understanding the monkeys' behavior, thus, in minimalizing their aggressive attitudes and in providing them with the medical treatment they need. This research also confirms that the monkey populations are free from dangerous diseases, such as TB," he said.

Next year, the management will construct a compost plant inside the forest to teach locals how to make environmentally friendly fertilizer.

The fourth objective is to provide residents with rare plants that are essential to the rituals of Balinese Hinduism.

"We must be able to sustain our religious tradition without having to inflict a damaging burden on the environment," the bendesa said.

Around 200 meters to the north of the drawing competition site, hundreds of Padang Tegal youths were busy digging soil and planting trees in a large clearing. On a higher elevation, a Hindu high priest Ida Pedanda Gde Manuaba observed the activity with a smile on his face.

"This is the site of our Ritual Forest. Today, we are planting more than 20 species of ritual plants. We are still searching over the island for the other ritual plants," the forest's field manager I Wayan Selamet said.

When the activities ended on that bright Sunday morning, the people of Padang Tegal had added 700 more trees to their beloved sanctuary.

"The thing that really makes me proud is that everything has been done by our own people, including the management of this forest," I Made Dana said.

The bendesa has a good reason to be proud. Not many village in Bali have that kind of environmental enthusiasm.

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