Pepperpot epaper 10 16 2016

What future for

Guyana’s beef industry?

► Centre

‒ How farmers are being helped to modernise their operations

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Chronicle Pepperpot October 16, 2016

World Food Day

‘Climate is changing: Food and Agriculture must too’ Today marks the celebration of World Food Day. Every year, World Food Day is observed on October 16. This year’s theme ‘Climate is changing: food and agriculture must too’ recognizes how climate change affects agriculture and the steps that must be taken to adapt agricultural practices to the changing climate in order to feed the growing world population.

● Keep up to date on climate change. Because climate change affects us all and is a threat to livelihoods, farmers especially should want to keep informed to find out how to adjust their actions to aid in reducing this problem.

WATER SCARCITY AND AGRICULTURE A key component of producing food is water. Water is needed by crops and animals alike. On the other hand, one of the major effects of climate change is an increase in temperature. This means that our water resources would be threatened since higher temperatures would lead to a decline in the amount of water that is available to us.

Increased cases of droughts would mean that soils would lose their moisture content and become drier. Additionally, higher temperatures could cause animals and plants to be subjected to heat stress, which would lead to a decrease in productivity.

Another effect of climate change is increased strength and incidences of storms. This would especially affect coastal areas that are reliant on agriculture as storms would

damage farm lands and render them incapable of producing.

Increased rainfall would result in flooding in other areas, resulting in decreased production from these areas.

Changing weather patterns would affect normal growing seasons and it would be difficult to predict the best time to plant. All these effects highlight the fact that agriculture will be one of the sectors to be hit hardest by climate change.

Agriculture and climate change, the flip side Ironically, while agriculture will be largely affected by climate change, it is a major contributor to this phenomenon. Agriculture contributes to the release of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxides, and methane into the atmosphere which compounds the problem.

However, as this year’s World Food Day theme points out, agriculture can adapt to aid in reducing climate change, which in essence means that the sector would be saving itself from related effects.

Some tips for farmers to consider:

● Use animal manure as a fertiliser to reduce the dependence on manufactured fertilisers. ● Apply fertiliser on damp days; this will increase absorption and reduce evaporation. ● Practice crop rotation and use crops that fix nitrogen, e.g. beans, to increase nitrogen uptake. ● For livestock farmers, consider installing a biogas set-up to help reduce methane emissions while also obtaining biogas for electricity on the farm or for cooking. ● Practice composting! To reduce food waste that will be improperly disposed or end up in the landfill, set up a compost bin/ heap to produce compost which could be added to your plants. ● Manage the use of water on the farm. Ensure plants are not overwatered or water troughs are not left to overflow.

CLIMATE SMART AGRICULTURE In Guyana, most of our fertile lands are located on the coast which is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, especially floods. In recognition of this the Ministry of Agriculture is promoting Climate Smart agriculture. This approach has two parts. The first is to adapt to the impacts of climate change on agriculture; and the second is to apply measures to reduce the contribution of the agriculture to climate change. Climate Smart agriculture aims not only to ensure that there is food on your table but also to protect human health and the environment. So this “World Food Day”, the EPA encourages farmers and gardeners to examine their agricultural practices and exercise wisdom. Remember better environmental practices will reduce the negative effects on the environment and hence will safeguard your livelihood in the long run. Let’s not focus only on the economics but also on putting healthy and safe foods on our tables.

For more information on Climate change and agriculture visit the FAO’s website at http://www.fao.org/world-food-day/2016/ theme/en/.

Kids’ Activity Identify at least six differences between these two scenes. Feel free to cut out the image and colour.

You can share your ideas and questions by sending letters to: “Our Earth, Our Environment”, C/O EIT Division, Environmental Protection Agency, Ganges Street, Sophia, GEORGETOWN, or email us at: eit.epaguyana@gmail. com

Chronicle Pepperpot October 16, 2016

III

Library at Cheshire Home reopened Peace Corps volunteer Liza Rudd and residents of the home worked hard to reopen the library.

CHESHIRE Home’s library has reopened its doors after almost 20 years, thanks to the efforts of Peace Corps volunteer Liza Rudd ad five residents of the home who cleaned, organized, repaired, and color-coordinated the books.

Liza has been volunteering at the said facility in Mahaica, East Coast Demerara, which is a home for people with disabilities, since July of 2015. When the relevant committee expressed interest in re-opening the library, she thought that it would be a great community resource and an excellent project for the residents to be a part of. The library was transformed over a period of four months.

Last October 8th, Cheshire Home is one for persons Cheshire Home welcomed with disabilities. people from the village and neighboring communities to join in the opening of the the Explorer and Frozen. library.

Afterwards, students were able to explore Liza, alongside fellow volunteer Allee the library and take free books home from the Schlitz, gave out fun gifts like stickers and “give-away” shelf. erasers to a group of excited students before “My favorite part of the event was when reading popular children's books such as Dora the students applauded the Cheshire Home

Residents of the facility have great artistic capabilities

residents' hard work. The residents are so proud of themselves, but it's the entire community that benefits when we promote the inclusion of people with disabilities,” said Liza.

Meanwhile, Allee recalled a moment with a young gentleman who was looking for a book on Home Economics. She said, "He wants to be a chef when he gets older. It was great to see the students excited about books and I'm glad the library is here to spark interest in reading and support kids like this who have big dreams."

Three residents from Cheshire Home's Independent Living Phase are currently being trained as Librarian Assistants - learning job skills and gaining confidence in themselves in the process.

They will be able to assist community members in locating books, as well as keep the library organized.

In addition, Liza said all three residents have excellent artistic capabilities and will continue to assist with the decoration of the library and the making of posters for future events.

The library will be open the first two Saturdays of every month from 09:00 h to 12:00h.

There are books for all ages with special sections including Autobiographies, SelfHelp, and Arts and Crafts.

Anyone interested in becoming a volunteer librarian is invited to call Cheshire Home for details. (Telesha Ramnarine)

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Chronicle Pepperpot October 16, 2016

Problems of the jaw joint The temporomandibular joint (TMJ) is the hinge joint that connects the lower jaw to the upper jawbone.

It functions through five pairs of muscles attached to the facial bones. The structures (bones, muscles, ligaments, and discs) that make it possible to open and close the mouth are very specialized and are required to work together to enable you to chew, speak, and swallow.

The muscle pairs must work in proper balance so that stresses on both sides of the jaw are distributed as equally as possible.

The TMJ is considered very complex because it is capable of making many different types of movements, including combinations of hinge and gliding actions. The juncture where the two joints are connected has a disc that acts as a shock absorber to biting and chewing forces.

Any problem that prevents this complex system of structures from working together properly may result in cycles of pain, spasm (cramp), muscle tenderness, and damage to the tissue and joint. This is known as temporomandibular disorder (TMD).

Most researchers agree that temporomandibular disorders are grouped into three main categories, as follows, and note that it is possible for a person to have one or more of these conditions at the same time.

Myofascial pain is the most common form of TMD. It involves pain in the muscles that control the jaw function, the neck, and the shoulder.

Internal derangement of the joint means a dislocated jaw, a displaced disc, or injury to the condyle.

Degenerative joint disease includes osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis in the jaw joint.

Symptoms that TMD sufferers have include: - An ache in the area of the ear extending

to the back of the head, into, the, neck and shoulders - Hearing a clicking or popping sound on opening and closing the mouth - Pain brought on by yawning, opening the mouth widely, or chewing - Difficultly in opening the mouth and chewing (limited movement) - Headaches that can mimic migraines, earaches, dizziness, and neck aches - Jaw that ‘get stuck,’ lock, or ‘go out’ - Tenderness of jaw muscles - A sudden change in the way the upper and lower teeth fit together.

It is important for your dentist to get a complete health/ dental history in order to be able to make a diagnosis. Regular dental X-rays and TMJ X rays are not useful in diagnosing this disorder.

Diagnostic techniques that include CT scans, MRI scans are usually needed unless the health professional strongly suspects arthritis or the pain and symptoms do not improve with treatment.

Some clear cut causes of TMD are ar-

researchers feel behavioral and physical factor all contribute to TD. It is important to note that at this time we do not know the exact causes of this disorder.

A combination of one or all of these symptoms can also be present for other problems. There are no exact causes and symptoms of TMD, so diagnosis can be difficult.

After guidelines have been established it will be easier for health professionals to identify TMD correctly and make proper treatment choices for patients.

thritis, trauma or severe stress.

Unfortunately, TMD is usually a combination of factors, and not easily diagnosed.

It is common for the disc in the temporomandibular joint to slip forward and click, pop, or even get stuck for a moment. In the absence of pain in the jaw this is a minor problem that does not require any treatment.

Stress often results in clenching or grinding the teeth which may be a factor that starts the cycle of muscle pain and spasms. Many

Conservative (reversible) treatments include counseling or biofeedback training to reduce emotional stress; muscle massage, relaxants, or tension monitors to aid in breaking the spasm-the-spasm cycle; short-term soft diets to give the jaw movements (yawning, gum chewing); physical therapy that focuses on gentle muscle relaxing exercises; and shortterm use of anti-flammatory and muscle relaxing drugs.

Dr. BERTRAND R. STUART, DDS.

Chronicle Pepperpot October 16, 2016

By Subraj Singh

Miss Peregrine’s

Home for Peculiar Children

Tim Burton is, without a doubt, one of the world’s cinematic geniuses. His particular brand of filmmaking, his style, his aesthetics, his storylines and well-loved quirky characters, his uncanny ability to mesh the dark and the humorous together have given him one of the most distinctive, one of the most easily recognizable filmographies in the world.

B e e t l e j u i c e , E d w a rd S c i s s o rh a n d s , S w e e n e y Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Corpse Bride, Batman, Big Fish and many other films by Burton all contain similar elements that convey his own interests as a director and they all manage to give the audience and critics something that is new and different from what cinemagoers are used to.

Burton’s newest film, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children showcases the director’s particular styles and sensibilities and yet, like much of his later fare (Alice in Wonderland, Dark Shadows, etc.), lacks the equally important emotional content that is supposed to hook the audience and keep them interested in the characters and story instead of relying on only the beauty and the oddness, the razzle and the dazzle, of the film to do so.

This is not to say that Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is devoid of emotional content. In fact, it is a step up from some of his films that have the same fault. It is simply a case where the film needed to be two equivalent halves

of cool visuals and heart, but one ending up outweighing the other.

Nevertheless, the film is still very likable and can still be quite a fun watch.

There are many other things that are enjoyable in the movie, which is based on Ransom Riggs’ well-known novel (which I have never read) of the same name.

The story follows a young boy named Jake (Asa Butterfield) who, influenced by the stories his grandfather told him as a child and motivated by his grand-

father’s own brutal death, travels to a small Welsh island that once hosted a children’s home run by the enigmatic and intelligent Miss Peregrine (Eva Green).

Jake eventually discovers that Miss Peregrine and the children, all of whom are Peculiars, blessed with special powers and abilities, still live in the home, existing in a time loop, where it is always September 3, 1943, in order to survive.

Things get more complicated when Jake realizes

that he himself is a Peculiar with the ability to see the monstrous Hollows (which are invisible to everyone else) being led by the villainous Mr. Barron (Samuel L. Jackson) in an attempt to devour the eyes of the Peculiar children, as the eyes of Peculiars can help Hollows to be restored to their previously human form.

Yes, the whole thing is quite complex, but at least it still manages to be fun.

Jake’s growth as a character and the journey he takes us on has drawn parallels with the Harry Potter and X-Men franchises and one can see the similarities. In all three cases, the audience is swept into a world with a new set of norms and rules and that in itself is quite thrilling. The potential of such worlds and the contrast they form with our mundane real world is part of what draws us into these stories and Tim Burton ensures that the world of his movie is both exciting and attractive.

The very concept of the Peculiars, isolated and gifted children who are hidden away from the world, is one that immediately appeals to the viewers. The special effects used in the film to highlight the powers of the Peculiars are, for the most part, commendable. The underwater scenes, for example, when Emma (Ella Purnell), a Peculiar who manipulates air, and Jake’s love interest, leads him to a sunken ship and then later proceeds to resurrect the wreck, are ravishing to behold.

The image of Jake and Emma swimming among the skeletons and the destroyed dining hall may be

one of my favourite shots from any of the films I have seen this year. The other Peculiars: Fiona who can

V manipulate plant life, Enoch who can give life to inanimate objects, Hugh who keeps bees in his stomach, invisible Millard, Olive who is pyrokinetic, and all the others offer a range of ways in which characters can be used to fascinate an audience and represent individual personas.

Asa Butterfield in the lead role did his part well enough, evoking the right mix of being kind and loyal and good, while also being a bit of an underdog beset by loneliness and the awkwardness that comes with the teenage years, so we do feel like his character is someone we should root for.

Samuel L. Jackson is more funny than evil and this kind of hampered with the potential for him to be a real menacing villain in the film. Tim Burton usually blends humour and darkness well, but this does not happen with

Jackson’s character, nor in the scene with the Hallows and the battle at the fair. It was nice to see Eva Green acting again after so many hearts were broken when Showtime’s Penny Dreadful got cancelled. She brought some of the emotion to the film and the scene where she asks Jake to protect the Peculiars is one of the best acted in the entire movie.

Overall, the Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children has a few flaws, but these must be forgiven because the “Burtonesque” in movies is something we all need in our lives. I mean, why would anyone not want to see a film dealing with eyeless children, monsters with tentacles coming out of their mouths, time travel, a love interest who is a light as air, and Eva Green turning into a falcon? It is really is a lot of fun.

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Chronicle Pepperpot October 16, 2016

Relocation and Mental Health Hello Everyone, I hope this week has treated you well.

In my field of work, I am fortunate to meet new people daily, Guyanese and others.

I recently met a 22-year-old American female that moved to Guyana a month ago and will be here for the next year. She is here representing Mercy Volunteer Corporation- a Catholic based organization- to help out in the field of mental and physical health.

In order to relocate here, she had to agree to dedicated service, growing her faith and living simply.

However, there is nothing simple about a life change like that.

I had a long chat with her which made me think of how relocation can both positively and negatively affect one’s mental and even physical health. That’s exactly what I’m going to talk about today.

At one point or the other, so many of us have had to relocate, or

may have to.

This can be either to to different regions/ villages throughout Guyana or outside of Guyana completely. If you have done so already, can you think about how this affected you? If you’re about to, let’s talk about what to generally expect.

Firstly, why might people move/ relocate?

There are many reasons why people move or relocate such as new job/ school opportunities or promotions, to be closer to family, to get away from family, to get married, to obtain better health care or just an overall better lifestyle.

When you think about events that can cause high stress and anxiety, changing location and job/schools are high on that list, especially since more often than not, these tend to happen at the same time. I remember when I moved to England to further my studies, I had to learn everything about my new surroundings while focusing on school. It was very diffi-

cult and I’m sure would be for many.

Of course, the neighbourhood itself can also be responsible for specific effects. For example, studies show that youth who live in high poverty areas exhibit higher levels of poor mental health.

Now, let us talk about culture shock for a second. I’m sure most of us have heard this term before.

Culture shock happens when one moves from a familiar environment to one that is unfamiliar. People believe that it occurs mostly when ‘first world-ers’ move to developing countries such as Guyana but that isn’t the case. I experienced culture shock when living abroad in two different first world continents. This was due to factors such as transportation, customer service as well as the overall diversity of individuals.

So, what are the effects of culture shock? It can cause numerous physical and emotional symptoms.

It has been known to cause head and stomach aches, low self-esteem

and concentration, high stress and anxiety levels, irritability, isolation, depression and suicidal thoughts. On the other hand, culture shock also has many positives such as education of a new culture and way of life. It is also an opportunity to learn valuable skills, new languages, adaptation and resilience.

Since some of us are experiencing it now and some of us may have to in the future, what can make relocation easier? Of course, detailed planning always helps. This helps both on a domestic and international scale.

First and foremost, cater for moving expenses – know that it will be costly. Prepare for a new cost of living. This automatically increases if you are moving from rural to urban areas or if you are moving internationally. Also, consider the exchange rate.

Know your new surroundingsnothing creates unnecessary stress and anxiety than constantly getting

lost. Know how the transportation system works. Find out where the nearest health care facilities are. Educate yourself with the new culture and language if there is one. Completely immerse yourself in it.

Pay attention to how conservative the society is, and what role women play in it – for example, you and your partner may be unhappy in a "traditional" society in which people in some groups are respected less than others.

If you are not moving for a job, research beforehand to know whether there are any available in your field or not. The same goes for school.

Look for events or activities going on around you – this is a great way to socialise and meet people.

Finally, know that feeling homesick is okay. It takes a while to make friends that will stick around.

Accept this and actually be grateful for it.

When I asked the woman I previously mentioned about her new life in Guyana- she said it was hard being a foreigner in Guyana. She claimed it to be very hot, full of bugs and slow paced.

However, she said that the people she’s met are really friendly and helpful. That reflects greatly on us and our hospitality. I asked how she is dealing with the changes that come with the move and she said she is immersing in our culture, which has helped her to gain a better understanding of people in general as well as transform her world view as she has never been to a developing country before.

Thanking you for reading.

Please keep sending any topics you’d like to talk about to caitlinvieira@gmail.com Or come in to see me at: Georgetown Public Hospital: Psychiatric Department: Monday- Friday – 8am12pm Woodlands Hospital: Outpatient Department Drug and Alcohol group meetings - Mondays 4:15 Good mental health group meetings- Wednesdays 4:15 Say Yes to Life and No to Drugs! Always!

Chronicle Pepperpot October 16, 2016

VII

Success of mental health programes depends on education

Mental Health is a branch of medicine to which greater attention is being paid today.

This is not surprising as it is only from the 19th century with the development of Psychology and Psychiatry that Mental Health began to be seriously accepted as a discipline comparable to other disciplines of medicine.

In former times, mentally ill persons usually became the responsibility of religion or individual healers such as shamans and the treatments ranged from beating the devil out of the patient, exorcism, herbal medicines and exercises, to having the patients attend special religious sessions.

In Guyana, there still exists some churches where faith healing of mental illness is practiced and among the most well-known are the Kali Mai temples which attract multi-religious, multi-racial mental health sufferers.

In Guyana, the first "asylum" for the mentally ill was established in the 1850's and long remained a place where only basic treatment was given. There was one doctor and a few nurses and the administering of tranquilizers was one of the main treatments.

The fact is that the society as a whole regarded mental illness as a curse and mental sufferers were locked away or merely abandoned and families felt intense shame in having a mentally ill relative.

All mentally ill persons were termed "mad", which term implied an intense degree of schizophrenia and they were ignored or marginalized by the family. Even older members of families who may have been professionals like teachers or lawyers and have begun to suffer from memory-loss (Alzheimer) are termed "dotish" and are ignored.

Families are completely uninformed as to mental illness and its symptoms and do not know what to do if a member of the family is afflicted. They become distraught and unable to act and no help is rendered to the mentally ill person who would accordingly deteriorate.

In addition, this ignorance of what mental illness is or what characterizes it has led to the ostracism and intense stigmatization and discrimination against sufferers which in turn result in sufferers and their families avoid seeking treatment.

October is regarded as the month when special focus is given to mental health since it is

associated with the World Health Organization designation of 10th October as World Mental Health Day. The theme of this year's Mental

Health Day is "Dignity in Mental Health - Psychological and Mental Health First-aid for all."

The Ministry of Public Health has been taking some appropriate and valuable action in addressing the problem.

They have published a Mental Health Plan 2015 - 2020 and among the chief programes in it are the Integration of Mental Health into Primary Care, Psycho Geriatric clinic, Drug and Alchohol Prevention programe, Suicide Prevention programes, and extending the service to all Regions.

Most important, a Mental Health Institute will be established to provide training and clinical experience. To avoid these programes from becoming a mere wish list, sufficient nurses and doctors trained in the discipline must be recruited and integrated in the programes.

One of the most im-

portant factors in any mental health thrust is the education of Guyanese Society and the family in particular as to what is mental health and mental ailment, its clin-

ical treatment and how the family could deal with a member who may be afflicted.

Guyanese society is almost completely ignorant of what are

mental ailments and that there are modern treatments for them. This ignorance leads to fear, prejudice, and intense stigmatization and discrimination which if not tempered or exorcised could defeat all efforts and mental health programes of the Public Health Ministry.

It is therefore important to develop an effective programe of Education. The successful AIDS educational programe could provide something of a template.

Education of the family as to mental ailments and treatments will have to begin in the schools.

Families should be taught how to recognize the symptoms of mental illness and how to deal with them.

If a member of a family is attacked by mental illness, the other members of the family are puzzled and do not know what to do and feel entirely helpless. Education would prevent such a scenario.

The theme of this year's Mental Health Day is "Psychological and Mental Health Firstaid for All" and such First-aid could be in the form of Education and could immediately be given to a number of families in the various Regions as a pilot project.

VIII

Singer

Chronicle Pepperpot October 16, 2016

Toneika Thompson to release new single G U YA N E S E - b o r n singer Toneika Tacie Thompson, who is now based in Barbados, recently recorded seven new songs and will later

this month release one of her singles called “I’ll be there.”

She told the Chronicle a few days ago that she worked on her new songs in New York with Producer Kisko Hype of Studio 91 Records.

Toneika recently completed her US Jubilee Tour and is here in Guyana this time around mainly for her

launch on October 20th at Tower Hotel’s Club Privilege on Main Street. She will be performing the song to officially launch it.

During her US tour, Toneika performed at the Guyana Embassy in Washington DC, at Guyana Day, and Carifesta in Baltimore.

After her releases here, Toneika said she is set to travel to the United States, United Kingdom and other places, to promote herself, her music, and her country.

Another one of her songs, Feva, was released last August 1 in Baltimore, New York, and its video will also be released on the evening of October 20th. Local entertainer and comedian Chris Gopaul will be managing and hosting the event.

Tickets to her launch are free to the public and can be uplifted from

Tower Hotel and from her via her Facebook account bearing her name. In the latter instance, the interested person only has to inbox their details to Toneika so that she can get the tickets to them. As another option, DJ Avalanche and DJ Akelo will also be in possession of tickets and can be contacted anytime they are on air.

Toneika, 28, completed her schooling in Barbados and attended the University of the West Indies to study English and Communications. Although she was living in Barbados, she often travelled to Guyana to spend time.

Her first song, which she recorded in 2006, was called “Infatuation.” This was after she entered the Ian Johnson competition here and won.

Toneika definitely sees herself pressing on in her career and taking her music to higher levels.

She is also hoping to one day get on the X Factor Show in the United Kingdom.

She is mother to one son, Element. (Telesha Ramnarine)

Chronicle Pepperpot October 16, 2016

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X

Chronicle Pepperpot October 16, 2016

Migration memory and the Guyana experience

onto Eve Leary with persons - A look back at the Un|Fixed Homeland exhibitionner from all walks of life waiting, “A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.” ― George Moore from The Brook Kerith.

Although these “needs” vary from person to person, it is precisely this movement between spaces both familiar and alien, driven by the desire to seek out more for ourselves and our families, that came under investigation in the recently concluded exhibition of photographic works aptly titled Un|Fixed Homeland.

Thirteen artists with varying connections to Guyana engaged with themes of displacement and the Guyanese identity in an expansive and equally impressive collection of works at the Aljira Cen-

hoping to secure the ticket that halfway-ensured escape (be it temporary or otherwise) from their current lived experience.

On the first day, the sun had barely risen when disappointment and anger swept over everyone’s face after realizing they would have to go through this process again the following week. Some had been trav- eling since the day before from the furthest regions of the country only to be turned away an hour before the doors officially

Ali describes this process of “sustaining the vulnerable threads to homeland” as “beautiful, fraught, disruptive, and evolving.” What better way to begin unraveling the complexities of migration from our shores than by looking at works produced in response to that concept of “place and placelessness” as she describes it?

How have these creative practitioners held on to their memories of this space and the stories recounted by their parents? How have they pieced together the fractured memories of a place that has been weathered by waves of transformation and yet ironically, managed (in more ways) to remain unchanged? How do gender and religion factor into this equation, if at all?

How important is

ouse g, Mother’s H 66.

Frank Bowlin 19 , of the Dog with Beware r, 56.5 x 47.5 in. | pe pa on Acrylic y of the cm. Courtes 143.5 x 120.5 London New York. es artist and Hal rtesy of the artist) (Photo: Cou

Donald Lo Sparro cke, Songs Mount w: The Balla for the Migh canvas ain, 1998. M d of Monkey ty ixe , estate 18 x 24 in. C d media on ourtes o f D o n Courte y sy of t ald Locke. (P of the he est ate of hoto: Donald Locke )

ter for Contemporary Art in Newark, New Jersey.

Grace Aneiza Ali, curator of the Un|Fixed Homeland exhibition, described migration as “one of the most defining movements of our time,” and it’s hardly a surprise at all.

In fact, were you to take a quick trip down to the main immigration office, located on Camp Street, Georgetown, and it would immediately become apparent that the Guyanese identity is still very much shaped by mass exodus now as it was decades ago.

At 05:00 a.m. on any given day, there would be at least 50 persons standing in line along the side of the road, waiting for the doors to swing open at 07:00 a.m. and the immigration officers to start processing their documents.

Just three months ago, I was in that line for two days before I finally got a new passport. The line stretched around the cor-

opened. Quite a few persons expressed their disgust at the tiresome process, saying it had been their third or fourth unsuccessful trip to Georgetown.

“Next time come earlier!” someone shouted from the head of the line.

Naturally, that did very little to quell the mounting frustration. At the time it seemed a strange metaphor for something much larger than what my sleep-deprived brain was willing to contemplate. Like everyone else, I was annoyed that old men, pregnant women, restless children and everyone in between were forced to stand on the road, exposed to the elements, traffic and a slightly threatening character who, apparently, spent every morning cursing “jezebels” for wearing pants and makeup.

Guyana’s history of voluntary and forced migration is often examined from the perspective of politics: The main agitator in a story about the unfulfilled potential of a country torn at the seams by racial tension. The simple answer to the question of why we choose to move, whether for a month or a lifetime, is almost always a version of “I want better for my family.” For those persons who choose to uproot themselves, this desire to do more for their family overshadows any uncertainty or risk involved in being transplanted into a new and unfamiliar space.

The “why” is also perhaps far less interesting than the question “what happens next?” How do these migrants adapt to their new environment while still maintaining their connection to home? What gets lost or abandoned en route to this new home?

it that we document the depressed footpaths in the earth that map various routes in and out of this place we call “home”? These are all questions that would have, at some point, confronted viewers as they hitched a ride on the journey to Guyana and back.

The exhibition proposed that this “homeland” in question could be both fixed and unfixed, a “constantly shifting idea and memory, a physical place and a psychic space.” Each artist’s unique point of entry may have originated from a solitary environment but what resulted was the culmination of a collective history that allowed both the makers and viewers to see a little or a lot of themselves in each other’s narrative.

Speaking on the relationship between each artist’s approach and theme of the exhibition Ali described their engagement with photography, particularly “[…] the archival image of British Guiana, contemporary photography on present-day Guyana, self-portraiture, studio portraiture, painted photographs, passport photos, family albums, selfies, photography in video installations, and the documentary format, among others” as the vehicle used to “unpack the global realities of migration, tease out symbols of decay and loss, and explore the experiences of displacement and dislocation.”

Ali goes on to say, “The artists in Un|Fixed Homeland intimately understand this liminal space of leaving and returning. As they represent both the ones who leave and the ones who are left, these artists examine what survives and what is mourned.”

TURN TO PAGE XI ►►►

Chronicle Pepperpot October 16, 2016

XI

Keisha Scarville, Untitled, from the i am here Series, 2013. Archival digital print, 24 x 16 in.

(Photo: Courtesy of the artist)

◄◄◄ FROM PAGE X As they represent both the ones who leave and the ones who are left, these artists examine what survives and what is mourned.”

This being the year of our 50th Independence Anniversary, our Golden Jubilee, the exhibition coincided perfectly with the period when hundreds of thousands of Guyanese worldwide took time to consider the aspects of our identity that warranted celebration and the parts in desperate need of repair. The works on display offered a much more critical and pointed assessment of self and citizenship as it provided a platform not only for practitioners in the diaspora to engage with feelings of displacement, but also to local practitioners who might have been disillusioned by their proximity to the problems that continue to plague our country’s development.

Regarding the global perception of Guyana’s visual culture Ali believes that it “centers on the exotic, the tropical, the colonial, and the touristic.” Un|Fixed Homeland, she says, aimed to “counter this historic malpractice by challenging, disrupting, manipulating, and even exploiting the ‘picturing paradise’ motif often associated with the region.” Far beyond that, the structure

Maya Mackrandilal, Kal/Pani, 2014.

SD Video with sound, 8:53 mins.

(Video Still: Courtesy of the artist)

Guyanese-born curator Grace Aneiza Ali is the recipient of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Curatorial Fellowship. She has spent her fellowship researching the canon of contemporary Guyanese artists, which still remains largely unknown on the world stage. Ali is a faculty member in the Department of Art & Public Policy, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University and the Editorial Director of OF NOTE —an award-winning online magazine on art and activism. Her essays on contemporary art and photography have been published in Nueva Luz Journal, Small Axe Journal, among others. Highlights of her curatorial work include Guest Curator for the 2014 Addis Foto Fest; Guest Curator of the Fall 2013 Nueva Luz Photographic Journal; and Host of the ‘Visually Speaking’ photojournalism series at the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center. Ali is a World Economic Forum ‘Global Shaper’ and Fulbright Scholar. She holds an M.A. in Africana Studies from New York University and a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Kwesi Abbensetts, Rice and Stew, from the series, Pieces of Land, From Where I Have Come, 2016. Mixed media, painting, and photography on canvas, 8 x 10 in.

(Photo: Courtesy of the artist)

of the exhibition allowed Guyana to become a metaphor for much larger and more urgent “universal concerns” that underscored “the tensions between place and placelessness, nationality and belonging, immigrant and citizen.”

Un|Fixed Homeland opened on July 17 at the Aljira Center for Contemporary Art in Newark, New Jersey and closed on September 17, 2016. The exhibition featured photographic works from artists Erika DeFreitas (Canada), Sandra Brewster (Canada), Karran Sahadeo (Canada), Khadija Benn (Guyana), Michael Lam (Guyana), Frank Bowling OBE RA (United Kingdom), Roshini Kempadoo (United Kingdom), Hew Locke (United Kingdom), Kwesi Abbensetts (United States), Marlon Forrester (United States), Donald Locke (1930 – 2010, United States), Maya Mackrandilal (United States) and Keisha Scarville (United States).

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Plant pests testing available at NAREI collection of insects which affect various crops. These insect boxes are kept for referencing purposes.

Services provided by this department are free of cost. They are done with the intention of assisting farmers to find solutions to their plant pest problems. As it relates to research, this department strives to find new environmentally friendly treatment options to help solve and or manage these issues.

For example, one achievement of the department was the creation of the Acoushi Ants Bait. This bait was developed following a series of complaints from farmers about the Acoushi Ants, which have the capacity to destroy a grown plant in one night.

Samples of affected/infected plants, fruits and soil need to meet following requirements before they could be accepted in the laboratory: The lab Insects which feed on crops and destroy them in the process are commonly known as pests. The devastating impacts of crop destruction negatively affect the farmers’ livelihoods and consumers’ pockets.

As such, the National Research and Extension Institute (NAREI) has a department which specializes in the identification and diagnosis of insect pests. This department is called the Plath Pathology, Entomology and Weed Science. Some common pests that the department encounters are leafminers, aphids, thrips, mealybugs, mites and achousi ants.

Entomology is a branch of science which deals with everything about insects and other related arthropods. While, entomology is the study of insects, the persons who study insects are called entomologists.

This department is staffed with a Research Scientist, Research Assistants, and Research Technicians. They are tasked with Research and Development and diagnostics. Currently, focus is being placed on environmentally friendly ways of controlling the Red Palm Mite and the Acoushi Ant just to name a few.

This department also keeps an extensive

Plath Pathology, Entomology and Weed Science's booth on display at NAREI's Open Day last Thursday

1) Samples should be stored in zip lock bags (sealed bags) 2) Samples should be correctly labeled a) Name b) Location c) Phone number d) Name of crop 3) Samples should be stored in a cooler to prevent contamination, especially if the sample is coming from a great distance.

4) Samples should be brought into lab as quickly as possible – try not to keep samples on hand over night because they will degrade and a fresh sample will be required.

5) All fruit samples should be sent in with both the fruit and leaves.

Please note that NAREI’s Plant Pathology, Entomology and Weed Science Laboratory does not test for pesticide use on any plant material. (Contributed by NAREI)

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Chronicle Pepperpot October 16, 2016

Andy Narine, bird lover and his quest to get a checklist printed

By Telesha Ramnarine SIXTEEN years ago, bird lover Andy Narine returned from Guyana’s remote interior where he worked as a field assistant with experts from Smithsonian.

They were some of the best United States based scientists in ornithology (the scientific study of birds) and they were especially interested in reaching the pinnacle points of Guyana during their research.

And so year after year, beginning around 1995, Andy would trek through the most remote areas of Guyana with the group. When he

returned to the city though, an idea occurred to him, especially as he observed the many single-parent families along the Lamaha Railway Embankment. He was living in Light Street, Alberttown, and a stone’s throw away from the embankment.

“Why not gather these kids and teach them something? Why not form a bird society with them?” thought Andy. This idea became very appealing because it occurred to him that the group he worked with focused mainly on the peak areas.

“I realized that we could do the areas that everybody walked passed. Most researchers want

The society wants the ‘Guyana Checklist’ printed as soon as possible

to go to the high mountains and the remote parts of the jungle, but on the coastal parts and the flatland, no one was actually doing anything.”

With just about 15 youths from his neighbourhood, Andy began the Guyana Amazon Tropical Bird Society (GATBS) which would eventually grow to have some 162 members scattered all across Guyana. This is notwithstanding that the society lost many of its mem-

bers when the government distributed house lots to those persons on the embankment.

“They (the youths) are the ones who helped us form the society. We would have sessions with them each day and I would take them to the gardens to view the birds. If you go to the Botanical Gardens, you can see as many as 50 TURN TO PAGE XVI ►►►

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Andy Narine, bird lover...

Andy (in the forefront) with Acting President of the society George Croal (at left) and Public Relations Officer Simon Sutton

them to the gardens to view the birds. If you go to the Botanical Gardens, you can see as many as 50 different species of birds in two hours. And we would also go across Guyana and conduct inventories,” he fondly recalled during an interview at the society, Light Street, Alberttown, Georgetown.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) heard about Andy’s great work and gifted the society $172,000 which was used to buy 10 pairs of binoculars. “We took these kids so that they won’t be hanging in the

wrong place in the evening, and so they could be a part of something.”

Andy has since found that many of the young people whom he took under his wings have turned out to be tour operators, tour guides and so forth. “Our greatest achievement in the society has been to help people establish themselves,” says Andy.

Andy, whose inspiration for birding comes from David Finch of from Wings International, started the society as an at-risk youth programme but it became a national programme

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◄◄◄ FROM PAGE XIV

The stolen toucans were nursed back to perfect health at the society

instead because he ended up forming a society to protect the birds in Guyana.

“We proposed to the Friendly Societies Act at the Human Services Ministry and in 2005, we got a certificate from them as a special authorized society. For a number of years, we have been mapping Guyana, doing a water bird census in important bird areas.”

The society has also been working along with Bird Life International and Wetlands International, among other organisations.

Taking on the challenge to list the birds in Guyana, Andy and his team found that the birds were restricted to their habitats, which contain certain bird species that won’t be found overlapping in other habitats.

Dorothy E. Snyder had built Guyana’s first checklist in 1966 with the 720 bird species that she found. Today, 50 years later, Andy and his team has found a whopping 910 species.

PRINTING THE CHECKLIST Andy explained that 910 bird species on the Guyana checklist were noted by the society, not only to help educate the tourism sector but to help the local tour guides who may have to answer questions about bird species from tourists. “These individuals can be able to tell a tourist exactly where in the country to find a particular bird.”

The society has since put together a 25page document on ornithology, which along with the checklist will assist the school’s curriculum.

A proposal was worked out with the Ministry of Natural Resources to get this information printed. “So we are waiting for the board to meet so that we can get support to print 500,000 copies for the schools.”

The ministry has since written to the society putting it on hold. “Our number one tourism product in Guyana is bird watching and we recognize that we need to have our checklist out for the tourism sector, so we are looking to the general public and the private sector to look into the society.

“The tourists need the list so that as they travel across Guyana, they can tick off the birds they see. So the list is vital right now.

We recognize that we need to wait on the ministry to put that board together to have the list in schools. But in the time we are waiting, we are looking to print the checklist for the tourism sector because next month is Guyana

Tourism Month,” expressed Andy.

He is hoping that the private sector would lend its support to the initiative since this data can also serve to boost their marketing strategy. “The checklist is growing because we still need to reach into areas we have never gone into before. So there’s still a lot of work to do.

Having the checklist would be able to boost Guyana’s birding tourism. We just can’t put 900 birds in a magazine and there is no such thing as that list. Without that list printed, our society, which is run on a voluntary basis, is being stagnated.”

PLENTY GROUND WORK Today, the society works hard to produce vital birding information to anyone who may be interested such as the private sector, and university and school students. At times, the private sector would hire the society to go out and do a special inventory.

“Today, you could go to any resort in Guyana and find a bird book thanks to the bird society. The society has reached out, and as a result has developed a network across the 10 regions of Guyana. It is now an important database center in the country.

“A lot of people don’t respect the work that people put out in Guyana and we non-governmental organisations are doing a lot of the ground work. But there’s supposed to be a benefit at the end of the day.”

The space in which Andy and his team operate is definitely not conducive to the amount of work that they do on a daily basis.

“So we want a building with more space so as to get more people involved and more things done. Our database also needs a bit of strengthening and support for the data we have been gathering over the last 15 years.

The society also has a foster bird programme where injured birds can be taken there by anyone and the team would help the bird recuperate using natural medicine that is grown there.

Last year, someone stole three toucan chicks from the bird sanctuary in the Botanical Gardens and it was Narine and team who worked tirelessly to get them back. Today, the birds are as healthy as ever, being nursed back to good health at the society.

The public can call the society on 225 2190, or send an email to gatbs@yahoo. com. It is also opened to the public between 9 am and 3 pm on a daily basis.

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Dr. Michelle Yaa Asantewa Writing on Komfa and Guyanese Folklore

Dr. Michelle Yaa Asantewa

As more and more young Guyanese writers refuse to become a part of our country’s great literary tradition, which has emerged from the pens of great writers like Martin Carter, A.J. Seymour, Wilson Harris, Pauline Melville, and others, it does seem as if the literary landscape of Guyana will become a more and more barren one. For if our own people, those situated within the country, refuse to write about themselves and what is theirs, then who will do it for them? The importance of maintaining a core of local writers and ensuring that

Guyanese people, especially young people, know their literary h e ritage are two things that D r. M i c h e l l e Yaa Asantewa, a writer and academic of Guyanese heritage who recently returned to the country of her birth, is keenly aware of and, perhaps, is one of the reasons why she, as woman who was born in this country, continues to focus so much of her own research and writings on Guyana.

Dr. Asantewa has written three books that are all intricately tied to the Guyanese experience and she was recently hosted

at a Moray House event where, in collaboration with the University of Guyana, she was able to launch all three books to Guyanese readers. The main book, called Guyanese Komfa: The Ritual Art of Trance was borne from Asantewa’s PhD research. The research explored Komfa through the postcolonial lens, through literary criticism, through social anthropology; it was even viewed as literature, which clearly indicates the dynamic nature of Komfa and the multidisciplinary ways in which that particular Guyanese practice is so rich in meaning and content that it lends itself well to a variety of fields. Dr. Asantewa, has said that Komfa is ultimately “an artistic expression as well as an obviously spiritual one” and that she was intent on showing “how dynamic it is as a representation of art and also as a representation of cultural identity, especially Guyanese cultural identity.”

Dr. Asantewa admits that conducting research for the book was quite difficult as there is not much literature that is readily available on Komfa. This lack of preservation of Guyanese folklore and oral traditions is something that will continue to plague writers and academics who are interested in our folklore and oral traditions. Although, it should be mentioned that there is potential for the preservation of such intangible literary heritage through the University of Guyana’s Oral Literature course, which falls under the School of Education and Humanities’ English program, where students conduct field research in the field of Oral Literature every year. Dr. Asantewa’s struggles, therefore, to find material for her own research only emphasizes the need for more initiatives to preserve the country’s folk forms and literary traditions.

Another reason why it is sometimes difficult for proper research to be done when it comes to Guyanese folk traditions has to do with the fact that Guyanese practitioners of Komfa and other spiritual arts, probably because of stigma and label of being taboo that is attached to them by their fellow Guyanese, usually have to practice their arts in the underground, in secret, away from prying eyes. This is something that Dr. Asantewa seems very much against, as she says that were she to write another

book on Komfa, she would want the practitioners to be named and photographed in the s a m e w a y that other practitioners of similar folk traditions are represented in the literature of the Caribbean diaspora.

“I would want them to be more proud and celebrative”, Dr. Asantewa says of the Komfa practitioners in Guyana.

The way in which Komfa engages with all ethnicities present in Guyana (in the way that the practice sometimes includes

spirits from varying racial backgrounds) is something that is also of interest to Dr. Asantewa, especially when Komfa, as a cultural, spiritual and artistic form that exists among the folk, among the people in the villages away from the city, and the way when it is juxtaposed against what exists outside of the rural and real background from which Komfa emerges highlights what might almost be considered an inclusivity of all the major ethnic groups in this one cultural form which means that, at its core and the way it which it engages all people, Komfa manages to form a nice contrast to the ethnic disharmony that is constantly plaguing Guyana.

Commenting on the stigma attached to Komfa and those who practice it, Dr. Asantewa taps into the postcolonial ideology that has wrapped up all of the Caribbean since the arrival of the Europeans to this part of the world and, according to her, Guyanese people need to get over some of the stigma of Komfa because such an attitude to the art means that “even though we are independent…even though we are no longer under the yoke of colonialism, we, in fact, still are… They [Guyanese] need to embrace all the aspects of our culture.”

She finds it quite interesting that because of cultural imperialism and the existence of a persistent colonial ideology that there are Guyanese people who wholeheartedly embrace foreign traditions, such as Halloween, and yet become confused and even shun Guyanese traditions that deal with the spiritual, such as Komfa itself. Similarly, she was able to point out, based on her travels in Guyana, that Guyanese children are not reading enough of our local literature and highlighted an experience she had in Austin’s Book Store where Guyanese teenagers were unable to name a single Guyanese author when asked. Summing it up quietly nicely, she remarked that such experiences show her that we as a people are looking outside ourselves instead of looking inwards and seeing what we have and what we can celebrate.

The second book released at the launch by Dr. Asantewa is called Something Buried in the Yard and like Guyanese Komfa also came out of the research Asantewa was doing for her PhD research. Something Buried in the Yard is a novel presenting a storyline that has to do with Komfa and the spiritual. The third book is Mama Lou Tales which Dr. Asantewa describes as both a biography of her mother and a collection of stories that her mother often told. All three of the books can be found at Austin’s Book Store, where they can be bought by the Guyanese reader interested in learning more about the rich culture of Guyana.

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What future for Guy

- How farmers are being helped

By Neil Marks Guyana’s beef industry has its roots in the 1800s and when demand started to grow, the great Rupununi cattle trail was created.

In what reads as a great epic tale, vaqueros would drive hundreds of heads of cattle from ranches in the Rupununi all the way to Tacama in the Berbice River (the home of the Army’s jungle training base). From there, the animals were loaded onto barges and sailed to the Rosignol train station for transport to the capital Georgetown and other locations, all covering over 400 miles.

You’d think that by now, the country would have figured a way to satisfy all its demand for beef and be exporting to the bountiful market available just in the Caribbean, but that’s not the case.

The Marriott Hotel in Georgetown gets its choice cuts of steak from the U.S. and Rossignol Butchery in the capital has to even import cow heel to satisfy the demand of customers.

Foreigners working in Guyana, including those attached to mining companies also import some of their meat.

SO WHAT’S THE PROBLEM? The quality of a beef animal depends on at least four factors: age, breed, health and the quality and quantity of pastures and sup-

At Sundarban farm, 300 acres of Antelope grass was cultivated

plements. And that’s the struggle Guyana’s industry continues to face.

But the Guyana Livestock Development Authority (GLDA) is trying to change the way the industry operates and is enlisting cattle farmers who are willing to modernise their operations and meet local demands even before thinking of export market.

On a visit to Guyana back in

2007, Dr. Steven P Washburn, Professor and Extension Specialist, Department of Animal Science, North Carolina State University, said that for Guyana to achieve successful beef production, farm improvements including water control, fencing, pastures, and handling facilities were required.

He said too there should be records to know how one’s animals were performing, including simple

things like knowing the weight of the cattle and the carcass weight (beef) once the cow is slaughtered.

SUNDARBAN One of the farmers who has taken on the challenge to modernise his operation is Mr Harripersaud Ramsewack, who operates Sundarban farm at Hopeland, East Coast Demerara.

The farm, which now has just

Sundarban farm uses a grass chipper to ensure that there is no wastage. After the grass is chipped, it is then compressed with molasses and left to cure for weeks before it is fed to the animals. (Adrian Persaud photo)

over 400 cows and calves, has been in operation for the past 17 years and bit by bit, he is taking the advice of the Livestock Authority to improve his operation.

A major part of his operation is ensuring that his animals are fed right. To achieve that, he is investing in pasture grounds. Currently, he has 300 acres of Antelope grass under cultivation, while another 200 acres has natural grass species.

These two types of pastures utilise a rotational grazing system and allows sufficient time for regrowth so that the animals have optimum use of the grass species, explains Fenton Nickram, the National Coordinator for the Beef Sector.

To meet the constant demand for growing animals, in particular calves, Mr Ramsewack has resorted to harvesting the Antelope grass and chipping it using his grass chopper machine, so that there will be little wastage.

Once chipped, molasses is added to improve the energy level and improve palatability.

“It smells like chocolate,” he said, looking into silage bins that have been set up at Sundarban farms.

Explaining the process, Nickram said the grass is cut into one inch pieces and then compressed into layers of about four inches thick after which the molasses is poured on each layer in order to exclude oxygen.

“When the requisite height of the bins are reached, the surfaces

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yana’s beef industry?

d to modernise their operations This is stored and used, with molasses, to feed the animals during the very dry spells when there is not enough grass.

Mr Ramsewack knows too that cutting the grass at the right time is also important, because, if, for example, the Antelope grass is allowed to “flower” then it loses its protein content. All of this he would not have known were it not for the help of the Livestock Authority.

Further, for his breeding programme, Mr Ramsewack utilises the breeding bulls suggesting by the Livestock Authority and this together with embryo transplant and artificial insemination leads to improvement in the genetics

Nickram added.

The farmer knows that he has much more work to do, but he is willing to follow the lead of the Livestock Authority to improve his operation.

“I want to reach a stage where we can move to export market, but I know I have to reach a certain standard and follow instructions.”

LIVESTOCK AUTHORITY The beef industry is perhaps one of the oldest in the local livestock sector , and today the best estimate is that the number of heads is 200, 000-250, 000 heads.

The coast has always been known for beef and dairy cattle, whereas the Rupununi was mainly

gests that the best days for beef cattle had to be between 1970 and 1990s.

During that period, there was the Ebini ranch, which was owned by the Livestock Development Company, which functioned as the premier breeding centre. Farmers were able to buy improved breeds of cattle.

With the demise of the Livestock Development Company, farmers no longer had ready access to breeding animals.

In 2010, the Ministry of Agriculture, with the support of the Inter-American Development Bank started the Agriculture Diversification Programme, and among its objectives was the development

beef cattle.

The Rupununi is known for its beef cattle and enjoyed a thriving industry until the 1970s when foot and mouth disease halted exports to the coastland.

The coast, because of easy access to market, maintained a robust industry and in the heydays of the industry, the Livestock Development Company had a number of large ranches, with some having as much as 15, 000 heads.

The Livestock Authority sug-

of the livestock sector, including beef cattle.

This led to the formation of the Livestock Authority, which Mr Cumberbatch now heads.

He said that the programme brought in 33 live bulls and 25 were given to beef farmers along the coast. Later, females of the same breeds of males, namely the Brahman/Zebu, the Beef Master and the Brangus, were brought in.

Some of the bulls were kept by the Livestock Authority to be

Sundarban cattle farm at Hopeland, East Coast Demerara. (Adrian Persaud photo)

are sealed using canvas and covered with various sealing agents to ensure the anaerobic process takes place for curing,” Nickram explained.

After 6 to 8 weeks the silage is ready for use. As needs be this cured silage is given to animals whenever the farmer wants.

Apart from this, Mr Ramsewack utilises his Hay Bailor, and compacts rice straw into bails ranging from 25 pounds to one tonne.

of his herd and lends to greater profitability.

“Sundarban farm achieves higher birth weights in calves, better weight gains, faster growth rate, and animals are weaned earlier,” Mr Nickram attested.

“This farmer’s investment will reap greater dividends within the next two to three years when he would have reached close to 1000 head of cattle and at this stage will be in a state of readiness to improve market opportunities,” Mr

used for semen collection at the Ebini lab, where live breeding is also done.

In addition, embryos and semen of the three breeds mentioned were also brought in.

LACK OF ABATTOIRS This was all done with the aim of improving the genetics of the beef cattle on the coast, Mr Cumberbatch stated. The overall intention was to allow Guyana to export beef, but other factors, such as the lack of certified slaughter facilities that meet international standards has not allowed that to happen.

Mr Cumberbatch said that Guyana lost the opportunity during the 2010-2013 period to construct modern abbatoirs.

“We’re again having discussions and hopefully if this other IDB programme we are trying to get comes through, there is a real possibility that we will get an abattoir,” he stated.

However, he said that “there are a number of things that come along the way” that can cause Guyana not to have modern abattoirs, but he is hopeful.

“There is a real possibility that we will get it here on the coast as well as in the Rupununi - two pilot abattoirs - and it would certainly assist in ensuring that we can fulfill the dream of exporting,” Mr Cumberbatch stated.

But even before reaching the export market, Mr Cumberbatch said that farmers should aim to meet local demands of the hospitality sector.

“The beef that is imported is at the top end of the market, choice pieces. That is what our farmers should be looking at initially.”

He said that to achieve this, farmers would need to step up to the plate and engagement in modern technologies, ending the “open gate and chase” method of rearing cattle.

Currently, a farmer has to wait until about four years to get beef to the market, but with the right type of animal, proper feeding and better management of the animal overall, Mr Cumberbatch said that time could be reduced to two years.

The Livestock Authority sees it as easy good breeding animals, good management systems, and good grass and water.

With efforts like that of Mr Ramsewack and his Sundarban farm, Mr Cumberbatch is confident farmers can take care of total demands for beef in Guyana before moving on to the export market in the future.

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Obituary: Thailand's King Bhumibol, world's longest reigning monarch (Reuters) King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died peacePOLITICS fully on Thursday, was the Though officially above world's longest-reigning monpolitics, he first started to speak arch, credited with restoring out on political issues in the the influence of Thailand's 1960s against the backdrop of a royalty during 70 years on the creeping communist insurgency. throne and earning the devoIn 1973, he intervened pertion of many of his subjects. sonally after bloodshed in BangFor the majority of the kok when students demonstrated country's 68 million people, the against military rule. He nomking was a pillar of stability in inated a new prime minister, rapidly changing times - Thaidiffusing the political tension. land embraced industrialisation Although backing the studuring his reign but also saw its dents then, as a social conservaparliamentary democracy punctive King Bhumibol was wortuated by 10 military coups, the ried about the threat to public most recent in May 2014.

Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej leaves the Siriraj order inherent in any people's King Bhumibol, who as- Hospital for a ceremony at the Grand Palace in Bangkok movement, and three years later cended the throne on June 9, in this December 5, 2010 file photo. REUTERS/Sukree he intervened on the side of the Sukplang/File Photo 1946, was seen as a force for military after another bloody unity, and there have long been putsch. concerns that the political tensions that have riven Thailand The king's image as a political truce-maker peaked after over the past decade could worsen after his death. bloody clashes in 1992 between pro-democracy protesters and That may be less likely under the regime of the leader of the army. He summoned the protagonists, a former general the most recent coup, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha. The leading the protests and an army-chief-turned-prime minister, former general has held a tight grip on power since toppling and with the two prostrate before him, ordered them to desist. the remnants of Thailand's last democratic government in 2014.

His intervention led to the subsequent collapse of military "His Majesty has passed away at Siriraj Hospital peaceful- rule. ly," the palace said in a statement on Thursday, adding he died Often referred to as "Por", the Thai word for father, many at 15:52 (0852 GMT).

Thais looked to him for moral guidance and saw him as a Thailand has been divided for years between the royalist neutral arbiter during their nation's darkest hours. establishment and the red-shirted supporters of exiled former "We are in the middle," the king said in a 1979 BBC docu- Queen Sirikit and King Bhumibol Adulyadej in uniforms Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 mentary. "One day it would be very handy to have somebody in the Throne Room of the Grand Palace in Bangkok coup. impartial, because if you have in a country only groups or Telecommunications billionaire Thaksin, now in self-exile, political parties which will have their own interest at heart, The Crown Property Bureau, which manages the instibuilt up a powerful patronage network that competed for power what about those who don't have power?" tutional assets of the monarchy, has stakes in top Thai firms and opportunity with Thailand's old-money order.

The king retreated from active political intervention after such as Siam Commercial Bank and Siam Cement Group and the events of 1992 in favour of influence wielded through a extensive land holdings believed to be worth tens of billions POOR HEALTH network of ageing generals, judges and bureaucrats on his of dollars.

The king had been in poor health for some time, and has Privy Council of advisers who helped oversee what some acaThe bureau does not publicly disclose its overall income, or spent most of the past six years in Bangkok's Siriraj hospital. demics view as a "managed democracy", in which the military detail where the money is spent. The Foreign Ministry insists King Bhumibol was re-admitted in May 2015 and was last remained prominent. the bureau's assets are not the king's personal wealth. seen in public in January, when he spent several hours visiting The army avoided direct intervention in politics from Despite the monarchy's wealth, King Bhumibol was the his Bangkok palace.

1992 until the 2006 coup against Thaksin, a populist telecoms keen proponent of a "sufficiency economy" philosophy The Royal Household Bureau in its statement on Thurs- billionaire the military said was corrupt and disloyal to the known in Thai as a "just-enough economy", or the idea of modday did not give a reason for the king's death. The king been monarch. eration and self-reliance, which drew on Buddhist teachings. treated for a respiratory infection, a build up of fluid surrounding the brain and a swollen lung in the past REVERED BY MANY few months.

The king was seen as semi-divine by many From illuminated billboards in bustling Bangkok ordinary Thais, an image bolstered by Thailand's to portraits in offices and millions of rural homes, education and legal systems.

Thailand is festooned with images of the jazz-loving "The King shall be enthroned in a position of king. revered worship and shall not be violated," states King Bhumibol headed a conservative establishthe constitution. ment that still wields considerable power 84 years Thailand has lese-majeste laws that impose after the abolition of absolute monarchy. long prison terms for insulting the monarchy. The Born in 1927 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where laws have been enforced harshly as the estabhis father, Prince Mahidol, was studying medicine, lishment sought to control new, less deferential King Bhumibol spent much of his early life abroad, political forces and as dissent has found avenues first in the United States and then in Switzerland. of expression through social media.

He became king in 1946 after the still unexplained Prayuth is a staunch royalist and under his govgunshot death of his elder brother, 20-year-old King ernment there has been a surge in prosecutions and Ananda Mahidol who was also known as Rama VIII. tougher sentences for lese-majeste.

King Bhumibol returned to Thailand for good four King Bhumibol himself said in a 2005 speech years later to be crowned King Rama IX. that he was open to criticism and those jailed for The saxophone-playing King Bhumibol was a offending him should be released, but that did not celebrity visitor to foreign capitals in the early years stem the rising number of cases in the troubled of his reign with Queen Sirikit, a distant cousin whom years since. he married in 1950 shortly before his coronation.

The country faces an uncertain future. The vast People weep after an announcement that Thailand's King Bhumibol The king who acceded to the throne as a young majority of Thais have lived only under Bhumibol.

Adulyadej has died, at the Siriraj hospital in Bangkok, Thailand, October 13, man cut a quite different figure from the sombre 2016.

REUTERS/Jorge Silva His presumed successor, Crown Prince monarch into which he matured.

Maha Vajiralongkorn, 63, has taken a more Over the years, he was groomed as a national figurehead through civic and ceremonial duties. He undertook Thailand's monarchy is one of the world's richest, although prominent part in royal ceremonial and public appeara stint in the Buddhist monkhood and developed a keen interest the value of its assets and the wealth of family members have ances in recent years, but he does not command the same level of devotion as his father. in the environment and rural development. never been made public.

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Thailand cracks down on migrant workers as anti-immigration feelings rise against immigrants in Thailand, mirroring such sentiment elsewhere in the world.

"There seems to be a surge of national sentiment in Thai immigration policy claiming migrants from Vietnam, for example, are taking jobs that are reserved for Thai nationals," Sunai Phasuk from Human Rights Watch told Reuters.

"We haven't seen this kind of rise in anti-immigrant sentiment for decades.

This has a lot to do economic concerns."

Sanit Choklamlert, a shop keeper in Bangkok's Silom business district, said migrants are seen as competitors for some Thais.

"There are too many

A migrant worker cries during a crack down on illegal migrant workers at a market in Bangkok, Thailand, September 27, 2016. Picture taken September 27, 2016.

REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha

(Reuters) Thailand is cracking down on migrant workers from neighboring countries, saying they are "stealing jobs from Thais", amid fears that anti-immigrant sentiment is rising as Southeast Asia's second-largest economy stagnates.

In an operation led by the Thai labor department, police and troops on Wednesday raided a fresh produce market in Bangkok and arrested 14 people, most of them from neighboring Myanmar.

"We have received many complaints about illegal immigrants working in markets including Vietnamese and even South Asians who were stealing jobs from Thais," Thai immigration police chief Nathorn Phrosunthorn told Reuters.

"They should be doing the jobs that Thais don't want to do like work as house cleaners," he said.

Under the terms of a 2015 memorandum of understanding Vietnamese citizens are restricted in their employment in Thailand and

can work only as manual laborers in Thailand's fishing or construction sectors.

Cambodians also have been nabbed in the raids, along with people from Myanmar and Vietnam.

ANTI-IMMIGRATION FEELINGS More than 3 million migrants work in Thailand, the vast majority from neighboring Myanmar, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Thailand became wealthy compared to its neighbors when its economy boasted annual growth rates of over 7 percent in the 1980s and 1990s, drawing migrant workers from across the Greater Mekong Delta region and other parts of Asia. They mostly did jobs Thais tend to spurn, including backbreaking work in the fishing and construction sectors.

But, more than two years after the military government seized power and with Thailand's economy on shaky ground, rights groups also see rising resentment

Myanmar people here now and they're fighting for the same jobs as us," he said.

"We need to send some back."

HUMAN TRAFFICKING Thailand's economy is on course to grow 3.0 percent in 2016 after expanding 2.8 percent in 2015 and only 0.7 percent in 2014.

Nathorn said the crackdown was not driven by an anti-immigrant policy. "We still need migrant labor. We just want to keep some order," he said.

The raids have targeted fresh markets, restaurants, supermarkets and shopping malls. Around 153 immigrants were rounded up be-

tween Sept. 1 and Sept. 26, according to labor department figures. Those caught face up to five years in prison, a fine of up to 3,000 baht ($100) or deportation.

Migrants are often at risk of falling into the hands of human trafficking rings, who sell them into virtual slavery on plantations, timber mills and fishing boats, human rights groups say.

Thailand was removed from the bottom rung of the U.S. State Department's annual list of worst human trafficking offenders this year despite what the department described as "widespread forced labor" in the country's vital seafood industry.

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Chronicle Pepperpot October 16, 2016

The Holdgate Report on - Landmark Commonwealth study gave world a ‘wake-up call’ on climate change and sea level rise (Commonwealth Secretariat) A ground-breaking study laying down the devastating consequences of climate change and rising seas was published by the Commonwealth Secretariat in September 1989.

Produced amid a backdrop of disastrous floods in Bangladesh and growing sea inundation in Maldives, the report provided world leaders with a glimpse of the dangers they would face in coming decades.

The “Climate Change: Meeting the Challenge” study, led by eminent British scientist Martin Holdgate, looked at the projected impact of rising sea levels on vulnerable countries and concluded that the world’s poor would be the “main victims” of climate change.

The ‘Climate Change: Meeting the

Challenge’ report called for: 1. Improved research and monitoring 2. National and international adaption strategies 3. Safeguards for biological diversity and natural forests 4. Reductions in CO2 emissions and energy usage 5. Improved coastal defences to manage sea level rise “At a best estimate, we now face changes of 1.0 to 2.0 degrees Celsius in a time period of 40 years and this lies outside the envelope of past experience at a global level,” the report warned. “Changes in climate will change the frequency of extreme climatic events such as severe tropical storms, floods, droughts or extremes of heat.”

It continued: “All countries will be

faced with the need to adapt to rapid change, with attendant costs – in many cases the resulting disruptions and tensions are likely to be considerable.”

‘FIRST MAJOR INTERGOVERNMENTAL REPORT’ Shridath Ramphal, then Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, who commissioned the report from an international expert group at the Commonwealth Heads of Government summit in Vancouver, Canada, in 1987, described the threat of climate change in his foreword as “truly global in its implications”.

He said: “If the Earth is to warm by even the most modest of the various projections, there

retariat, contributed to the Holgate study.

Looking back, he said it was “arguably the first major intergovernmental report” on climate change and sea level rise.

“The conclusions are not controversial now but, at the time, broke new ground,” Mr Cable recalled. “The group, which included developed and developing country representatives from a wide range of backgrounds, first set out in rigorous, and very qualified terms, the then scientific

Guyanese Shridath Ramphal, the then Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, who commissioned the report

The report

could be far reaching, long term implications for natural ecological systems, farming, the design of major energy and water projects and for low lying areas that could be affected by rising sea level.”

The Holdgate report called for a “major international initiative” to establish “global responsibilities” for preventing unmanageable rises in the world’s temperature. It also spelt out practical steps which poor and small countries like Guyana, Bangladesh, Maldives, and Pacific islands, could take to monitor their changing environment.

ARTICULATING THE SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS Vincent Cable, a former economic adviser within the Commonwealth Sec-

consensus and the consensus forecast for global warming and sea level rise.”

Dr Holgate and his colleagues in the expert group, explained Mr Cable, were able to highlight how climate change would “bear down disproportionately on the world’s poorest people – more exposed to the risks attendant on rain-fed agriculture, very often in the most marginal and disaster-prone areas, and with few resources to adapt to change.”

A CALL TO ARMS FOR WORLD LEADERS The report followed another Commonwealth study, ‘Our Common Future’, which had developed a definition of the then controversial topic of ‘sustainable development’ for policy-makers.

The Holdgate report led to the development of the small states grouping, the Alliance of Small Island States, which has lobbied against big energy producing and consuming countries in the climate change debate.

(The ‘From the Archive’ series delves into the Commonwealth’s history to spotlight major milestones and achievements over the past 50 years)

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What women want At least in beauty, it's always good to share your makeup concerns. I can never be weary of hearing and reading the same beauty concerns - wrinkles, dark circles, redness, and discoloration.

That's ok, I'm a perfectionist too. It's understandable why any woman would have those concerns.

A woman's look can be life changing.

People treat her better.

But as it is blessing, it is also a curse, since it always subjects a woman to their appearance more than what they say or do, and this is unfortunately, since most women, especially those in powerful positions, often have to deal with men. Suffice to say women didn't choose the struggle!

I remember as a young girl eavesdropping on salon gossip, and never forgetting the day a woman stormed into the salon, in dire need of a new hairdo.

Wondering what could pose such an emergency, I could vividly recall her saying these immortal words as it will forever be engrained in my mind: "I have an executive meeting at work, and I have to face a bunch of men, so

the world, only to debate against a chauvinist, pompous misogynistic businessman.

Little attention is given to her views, her accomplishments and her perfect matte red lipstick! Lest we remind them that she played an intricate role in bringing down a terrorist called Bin Laden...but unless she looks like Melania Trump or Kim Kardashian, let's be real, no one really cares.

At a wedding a woman's look is often the subject of conversation, rather than the man's (unless he shows up in a licking red suit!) it's always about what the woman looks like, and where she's going, as if it's anyone's business!

However, what women truly want is the respect. They want to be able to express themselves without qualms or flak. Women don't spend the equivalent of US$30 on a lipstick, to hear "gyal you lips look sweet."

I have to approach this as much confidence as possible."

I can faintly remember the look she chose, except for it being a short one.

Fast forward to current times when Hillary Clinton is vying for the position of president of one of the most powerful countries in

Seriously?

Putting effort into your look gives a domineering demeanor, and shows the world that you care what you look like. That alone demands respect, and the relevance of such effort should be recognized, acknowledged and admired.

There's more to makeup than expressing inner beauty; it's a multimillion dollar business, that only businessmen are now realizing is worth every penny of the investment.

Because let's face it, makeup can be more addictive than ridiculous video games. Who wants to watch yet another animated character slaughter another animated character in a faux virtual world?

Makeup is real! Even football fans wear face paint! There's nothing more alluring than looking enthusiastic about living. And makeup is part of that process.

Embrace the look, live to self-express, and be beautiful!

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Aries Relationship insecurity could sap your vitality today as you exert your need for independence. The feelings of a significant other can be a major source of concern as the Full Moon in your impulsive sign opposes the Sun in your 7th House of Partnerships. Hopefully, you've already made significant decisions that are positively affecting your personal life. Now it's time to take things to the next level. If you're bogged down in an emotional funk, shift your thinking. If you can't change the situation, change your attitude.

Taurus You may be more tempted to flee than to fight when the spontaneous Aries Full Moon lights up your 12th House of Escapism. However, it's far healthier to lead than to follow when it comes to conflict resolution. Ultimately, the message is simple: stay conscious of the impact of your actions before making your move. Maintaining your cool in the midst of a struggle that threatens your long-term plans is the best way to stay on track. Keep in mind the quickest route is not necessarily a straight line.

Gemini You're inclined to take a risk before considering all the ramifications of your current actions, leading to an unscheduled lesson in instant karma if you extend too far.

You're eager to take charge of your life as the incorrigible Aries Full Moon highlights your 11th House of Long-Term Goals, pushing you forward whether you're fully prepared or not. However, you could lose your sense of direction if you move too quickly. You know you're on the right path when you become uninterested in looking back.

Cancer Unexpected changes in your daily routine are best met with short-term solutions now. Try not to overreact if your status at home or in the community feels threatened.

Take whatever time you need to fully assess a situation that's still in flux. Although the Aries Full Moon brings instability to your 10th House of Career, making your home a more peaceful place creates a firm foundation on which you can build the next phase of your life. When you are unable to find tranquility within, it's useless to seek it elsewhere.

Leo Complications at work and at home won't likely be simplified until you reveal your new personal vision for the future. Nevertheless, you must handle any misunderstandings that arise before you can take complete advantage of the fearless energy of the Aries Full Moon that shines in your 9th House of Big Ideas. As hard as it is to be aware of the potential in every difficult situation, your positive thinking carries more influence than you realize. What consumes your mind, controls your life.

Virgo Intense discussions with a business or personal partner tend to gravitate toward financial topics today. A heated debate may reopen old wounds and, hopefully, release their toxic effects once and for all. A reassessment of jointly held property may be required as the Aries Full Moon rattles your 8th House of Shared Resources. An unstable relationship might be pushed right to the edge, yet you can seal the deal at the very last minute if you consciously express your willingness to take things in a new direction. Open your mind before your mouth.

Libra Although it might seem as if you're standing still, the powerful tides are actually changing directions. The enterprising Aries Full Moon energizes your 7th House of Partners, revealing an entirely new path that you can take into your future. Unfortunately, it's not yet clear where the current circumstances are leading. Nevertheless, your negotiating skills are being called into action as you attempt to settle an old score. It's time to bring relationship issues to the front burner while you are motivated by a commitment to your own agenda. Self-sacrifice is often much easier than self-realization.

Scorpio You may be highly sensitive to invisible forces as conversations deepen, sending your thoughts inward to unravel the mystery of relationships. A clear sense of your identity is your foundation for learning what you need from others. However, a crisis in awareness is in the making when the pioneering Aries Full Moon occurs in your 6th House of Health and Habits, revealing lifestyle choices that need to be adjusted.

Retreating from the world for a while can provide you with the objectivity necessary to recognize your strengths and weaknesses. Self-reflection is the school of wisdom.

Sagittarius Participating in new forms of merriment and self-expression is exhilarating as long as you don't upset your friends and colleagues by ignoring their immediate concerns. The spontaneous Aries Full Moon brightens your 5th House of Love and Play, tempting you to leap before you look. If your restlessness makes you too impatient to get along with others, work independently until the dust settles. The more you love your decisions, the less you need others to love them too.

Capricorn Wild ideas and chaotic communication continue to spike your nervous system, leaving you so wired that it's impossible to relax. A squabble with a relative is possible as the combative Aries Full Moon lands in your 4th House of Home and Family.

Thankfully, a quantum leap in awareness can clear the decks of outmoded dreams, making way for exciting new ones. The potential shakeup of long-term plans casts your career path in a different light. Nevertheless, don't make a choice just yet; there are still a few surprises ahead that could redirect your trajectory.

Aquarius It may be wise to stick to your position today, but you can inadvertently put everything at risk if you attempt to take advantage of someone else's weakness. Holding your ground requires diligence now that the Aries Full Moon destabilizes your 3rd House of Communication. But don't raise the stakes on the game by turning an inconsequential skirmish into an unpleasant confrontation. Wayne Dyer wrote, "How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.

Pisces Trouble surfaces when a stark contrast between your priorities and those of someone you trust is brought to light. Money matters could come to a head when the reactive Aries Full Moon illuminates your 2nd House of Income. If you recently rushed into a financial commitment, it may be cheaper to back out now than to push your luck further. Economic independence is an admirable goal yet this lunation's opposition to the Sun in your 8th House of Shared Resources suggests you shouldn't try to go it alone. Competition makes you faster; collaboration makes you better.

Chronicle Pepperpot October 16, 2016

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Hopes of justice fade for Vic Puran’s family

By Telesha Ramnarine

IT was after her father, the popular Vicramaditya “Vic” Puran died, that she started disliking Guyana, or for the most part, the existing system.

Mishka Puran says absolutely nothing has ever been done to investigate the true cause of her father’s death. No one dared to venture near the investigation, and it has reached to a point where Mishka and her family feels that nothing may ever come out of her father’s untimely death.

It was around 21:00h on Saturday, October 15, 2012, when Mr. Puran, who would have been 61 years old Saturday, was returning to Georgetown after having visited his pig farm, where he would daily take food for the animals.

Puran, who lived at Barr Street, Kitty, purportedly died after his blue Toyota Tundra careened off the Mahaicony branch road and ended up in a canal at Esau and Jacob, Mahaicony. A popular theory at the time was that he died of drowning after his vehicle went into the canal. But Mishka, having been one of the first persons on the scene, begs to differ.

The things she observed after arriving on the scene convinced her that her father was murdered. For one thing, after the vehicle was pulled out of the trench, Mishka saw that the seats were not wet. “The trench was very shallow and he purportedly spent hours in the trench. I spend half an hour in my bathtub and I come out with pruned skin. His skin wasn’t like that,” Mishka, who followed her father’s footsteps of becoming a lawyer, told this newspaper.

Lawyer Mishka Puran

Furthermore, all of the seats inside Mr. Puran’s vehicle were still clean.

“You know how Mahaicony murky water is. But his clothes were still clean.

There was no sign that it was soaked in that kind of water; Mahaicony water would have gotten it dingy.”

That was not all. She saw that the blood which emanated from her father’s ear was dry on to his face. “Clearly, if you hit your head and go

Vic Puran was a completely different person when he was not in the public’s eye

into the water, it bleeds out into the water. It had to have had some sort of time to dry somewhere to form that layer over his face.”

Mishka feels that her father’s murderer had to be someone he knew. “He never would have stopped his vehicle. I think he would have stopped and this is what happened to him. The windows were up, the AC was not on, his lights were not on at

Mishka remembers the little things her dad did for her as a child

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Hopes of justice fade... the time. Who drives at night with their lights off? And when I peeped into the vehicle, it was in park.”

Adding to her conviction that her father was not engaged in a mere accident, Mishka said Mr. Puran’s death certificate says that he died of asphyxiation, but it does not state asphyxiation by drowning. “It simply says asphyxiation which can cover many things, including being strangled. It’s very, very wide. Also, there were marks on his skin which could not be explained.”

On the day of the funeral, Mishka could not understand why her father was wearing gloves. “I had never seen gloves on a dead body. Then I figured it out. His veins were as big as pencils which could have only happened before he died.

It couldn’t pool up in his veins after he died. So whatever caused your veins to get big would have happened while you were alive because your body is preserved as it is when you die. So it would lend credence to the fact that somehow he was restrained.”

Mishka said despite all this physical evidence was available, the police did not make the slightest effort to investigate the case, even from the standpoint of it being an accident.

PAYMENT WILL BE MADE In an interview with this newspaper a few days ago at her Smyth Street office, Mishka said she has come to terms with reality that nothing may ever be done about her father’s death, even as the new crime chief has been recalling old cases.

“Nothing has ever moved off from point A to point B. I saw that old cases were being reopened and I did feel a little hope in my heart that something could come out of it, but I don’t think it would. It’s been over a year and no contact was made with anybody. The country that we are living in right now doesn’t foster that hope. We stand on our platforms airing our voices but we ourselves as citizens do nothing to forward a change.”

Mishka can never forget the last day of the prayer ceremony after Mr. Puran died. The family was asked to pray and focus on one wish that they had for the family. “For me, I concentrated on the word justice. I don’t know what my other siblings prayed for, but I felt I should just keep concentrating on this word so that my message would somehow get to God. And I still do that. But I don’t think I will get the justice that I am looking for or that the family is looking for – that his case would ever be solved; that anybody would ever look into what really happened.

“But I realised that justice in God’s terms is not the same as justice in my terms. But I do feel that at some point, payment will have to be made because that’s just the way God works and the law of nature works. Our bad deeds come back to us in one way or the next,” expressed Mishka.

She said she and her family will never be able to find full closure in the matter because not even the slightest effort was made for her father. “I think if even the slightest effort was made, we’d feel an ounce of contentment. I don’t think that will ever happen.”

NO SYMPATHY Mishka said she believes that one of the reasons the public didn’t clamor for anything to come out of her father’s case is that they feel that because he was a criminal lawyer, he doesn’t deserve the same measure of justice that an “innocent” person deserves.

“So there’s no sympathy for him because they would say perhaps he helped to keep these criminals on the streets. But what people don’t know is that Vicramaditya Puran was a different person when he was not in the public arena…he was very introverted; people don’t know that. When he didn’t wear that Vic Puran hat, he couldn’t even order a pizza. And if you tore away at the outer layers, you would have seen that he was a very good person, and a very loving person. But unfortunately, few people knew that aspect of him because he was very shy.

Furthermore, it was little things that Mr. Puran did for Mishka during her childhood days that proved to her that he was a very loving person. “He wasn’t a person to spoil us.

Contrary to everyone’s belief, I own nothing that my dad has ever given me. He never gave me anything outside of the basics. There’s nothing that I own, not a pin, which was given to me by my dad.

But the truth is, he was always there for you when it mattered. Because he was never able to portray to the public his true self, I think that’s why there isn’t that sympathy for him.”

The family has decided to move on, though, because they realised that to keep hoping for something to happen would only contribute to more hurt.

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“The reality in this country is that there is corruption, and too many incompetent people in places where they shouldn’t be. We’re always going be plagued with cover-ups and there’s this parallel economy where Guyana isn’t run by any natural resources. Those were things that hit me and I started disliking the system in Guyana. Now who I really pray for are the honest people of this country as opposed to justice for my dad. I think those are the people who really suffer – people who have no reach into the government and into running this parallel economy.”

Mishka remembers her dad as a very smart man who is irreplaceable around the courts. “I don’t think we have managed to replace him, so he will always be relevant until somebody else burst on the scene like a shooting star I presume.”

A moment with her dad around the courts

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Famine fears rise after hurricane wrecks Haiti's bread-basket Although Port-au-Prince was largely spared the hurricane's effects, Donnay said an agricultural crisis would reach beyond the south.

"They will be affected because it is the farmers here who feed the capital," Donnay said.

Matthew killed at least 1,000 Haitians, according to a Reuters tally of numbers given by local mayors, and left more than 175,000 people homeless.

"Disaster can be avoided if we act really quickly, in terms of helping people clear their land and start planting again," said Hervil Cherubin, Haiti country director for Heifer International, an agricultural aid group.

"People need access to seeds really quickly," Cherubin said.

A woman cooks in an area destroyed by Hurricane Matthew in Les Anglais, Haiti.

(REUTERS/Andres Martinez Casares)

(Reuters) Hurricane Matthew tore up large tracts of food crops as well as mature coffee and cocoa plantations when it ravaged Haiti's fertile south last week, with a U.N. official expressing concern about possible famine in the poorest nation in the Americas.

The destruction of crops like rice, corn and beans in the area puts more than 100,000 children at risk of acute malnutrition, the United Nations said on Friday, in a Caribbean country where half the population already was underfed before the powerful hurricane hit.

While about half of Haiti's food supply is imported, much of what it does produce is grown in the south.

As well as tearing up food staples and filling fields with sea water and trash, the storm uprooted plantations of cocoa, coffee and fruit trees, cash crops that are exported and that experts said will take at least five years to grow back.

"This is devastating, and it basically could mean that we have a famine in six months," said Yvonne Helle, Haiti's senior country director for the United Nations Development Programme.

Helle said preliminary figures indicated 60 to 80 percent of crops in the affected area had been lost to the storm.

"Not only has the harvest been lost, there also has been tremendous damage to fruit

trees," Helle added, mentioning the mango, one of Haiti's primary exports.

Paul Joseph Maxel, a 75-year-old farmer based in the town of Saint-Jean-du-Sud, said he lost all but one of his 20 mango trees on a 15-acre (6-hectare) property he manages. He said coconut palms and avocado trees also were lost to the hurricane.

In front of a tent that his children, who live in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince, bought and set up for him beside his hurricane-damaged house, Maxel said he hoped for aid in rebuilding the farm.

"Our worries are about how to begin planting trees again," he said.

The path to the farm, located on the side of a rolling hill and accessible only by foot, was littered with cracked coconuts and spoiled mangoes from uprooted trees.

On the other side of the hill, Auguste Donnay, a 30-year-old agronomy student, sat outside his family's damaged house.

It was the only structure standing remotely intact on the property, although it was missing most of its roof. Fallen trees covered the land, and two other buildings were reduced to wooden frames.

Donnay called for government assistance to the area's farmers, who he said do not have the resources to start again without help.

"If they must do it alone, many people will die ... of hunger," Donnay said.

Children sleep over metal sheets in a partially destroyed school used as a shelter after Hurricane Matthew hit Jeremie, Haiti. Hurricane Matthew has killed over 1,000 people in Haiti, tens of thousands have lost their homes and some 1.4 million are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. (REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins)

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Scientists seek to map all human cells in vast atlas (Reuters) Scientists launched a global initiative on Friday to map out and describe every cell in the human body in a vast atlas that could transform researchers' understanding of human development and disease.

The atlas, which is likely to take more than a decade to complete, aims to chart the types and properties of all human cells across all tissues and organs and build a reference map of the healthy human body, the scientists said.

Cells are fundamental to understanding the biology of all health and disease, but scientists cannot yet say how many

we have, how many different types there are, or how they differ from one organ to another, one project leader said.

"The human cell atlas initiative is the beginning of a new era of cellular understanding," Sarah Teichmann, head of cellular genetics at Britain's Sanger Institute, told reporters.

"We will discover new cell types, find how cells change across time during development and disease and gain a better understanding of biology," she said.

The project is currently led by a team from the Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

and Harvard in the United States and the Sanger Institute and Wellcome Trust in Britain. The plan is for research teams and funders worldwide to collaborate.

By making the atlas - essentially a vast database of cellular detail - freely available to scientists the world over, the scientists hope to transform research into human development and the progression of diseases such as asthma, Alzheimer's and cancer.

The human body is made of trillions of cells – the fundamental units of life – which divide, grow and take on distinct functions in the embryo, eventually leading to different cell types such as skin cells, neurons or fat cells.

Until recently, scientific knowledge of cells has been limited to what can be found out by looking at them under microscopes,

or by genetically analyzing clumps of hundreds or thousands of cells and finding their average properties.

But technological advances in a field known as single-cell genomics means researchers can now separate individual cells from different tissues and organs, analyze their properties and measure and describe which molecules are produced in each.

"We now have the tools to understand what we are composed of, which allows us to learn how our bodies work, and uncover how all these elements malfunction in disease," said Aviv Regev of Broad Institute, who is working on the initiative.

"We believe that a successful description of all the cells in the healthy human body will impact almost every aspect of biology and medicine in the decades to come."

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English 2016-10-16

STUDY SUCCESS Dear Student, You need to try something physical at this point in time. What about this upcoming relaxation technique for your head and neck? At an appropriate time allow your head to drop forward. Try not to pull it down. Feel muscles at the back of your neck stretch. The weight of your head causes this. The full score is that as many times as needed, allow your head to drop forward, then drop backward, then to the left and right. Be wise.

Love you.

GRAMMAR Dangling Modifiers Some time back we noted specifically that you should avoid the use of dangling modifiers – they are those modifiers you do not take time and care to relate logically to some other word in the sentence.

Here is what one source has to say about dangling modifiers: Conventionally, a participial phrase, prepositional phrase, infinitive phrase, or an appositive phrase modifies the nearest word in the same sentence.

The same is true for adjectival or adverbial phrases. If that noun appears in an earlier sentence, or doesn't appear at all in the paper, the reader will become confused.

This situation is called a dangling modifier. In the case of adverbs, adverbs should modify the nearest verb or the subsequent adverb or adjective in the same sentence.

If not, it also is a dangling modifier.

Examples of Dangling Modifiers: a) I was late for the credit union meeting again. Running for the minibus, my pouch fell into the only muddy pot hole in sight.

(Was the meeting running for the minibus? It's the only nearby noun beside pot hole.) b) Deciding to join the singing group, the group sponsor enthusiastically squeezed Ezra’s hand.

(Was the sponsor deciding to join the singing group? The only other option is Ezra's hand.) c) Upon entering the new city mall, a naked mannequin caught my attention.

(Was the mannequin entering the new city mall? The only other option is my attention.)

Take Note: Any short descriptive phrase in a sentence conventionally modifies the closest noun in that sentence. Your writing will confuse the reader if that phrase is positioned unclearly -- even if the right word does appear in the same sentence. This is a subtype of the dangling modifier called a misplaced modifier.

Something to Do A. Read each of the following sentences carefully along with the accompanying question. After you make them all right, read the finished product to a study partner.

Chronicle Pepperpot October 16, 2016

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Fair tresses man’s imperial race insnare, And beauty draws us with a single hair.

ALEXANDER POPE (1688-1744), The Rape of the Lock Canto ii, Line 27

Prepare for some comments, or upgrades. i) By leaving now, the traffic crush can be avoided. (Who will be leaving?) ii) To make a better arrival time, another punt was acquired. (Who wanted to make a better arrival time?) iii) While drinking deep in the red wine, the tinkling was heard. (Was the tinkling drinking deep?)

B. Place modifiers where they will make meaning clear and sensible.

The first is done for you. i) a) I have almost read all these “The Family’s Hope” magazines. All are not mine. (Misleading) b)) I have almost read all these “The Family’s Hope” magazines. Not all are mine.

(Clear) ii) I spent an hour mending the fence with the kind-hearted neighbour. iii) I watched the protesting professors passing the Cultural Centre leaning out its doorway. iv) I put the fancy clothing into the bag that I had just bought. v) She told me before she came she had lost her sense of direction.

C. Improve the use of modifiers in the following sentences. i) Waiting here in the burning sun, the time really crawled. ii) He agreed after the illness he would visit his baby girl more regularly. iii) Holly Coker spent the weekend arranging flowers with her great-aunt. iv) You have almost killed all of these tomato seedlings. All are not standing. v) All of the church dancers are not women. I just saw a few of them. vi) I told you when you were exercising you should call me. vii) While viewing Newsweek, a noise completely filled my room.

THE PASSAGE It is the opinion of my grandmother, God bless her, that all men should labour, and at the table, a moment ago, she said to me: You must learn to do some good work, the making of some item useful to man, something out of clay, or out of wood, or metal, or cloth. It is not proper for a young man to be ignorant of an honourable craft. Is there anything you can make? Can you make a simple table, a chair, a plain dish, a rug, a coffee pot? Is there anything you can do?

And my grandmother looked at me with anger.

I know, she said, you are supposed to be a writer, and I suppose you are. You certainly smoke enough cigarettes to be anything, and the whole house full of smoke, but you must learn to make solid things, things that can be seen and touched….

(William Saroyan’s “The Shepherd’s Daughter”) Now attend to the questions below. a) Give the meaning of the following terms as clearly as you can express yourself: opinion, labour, moment, something, craft, anger, supposed. b) Why does the writer say of his grandmother “God bless her” in the opening line? c) Describe what is “good work” according to the grandmother? d) Find one word that describes the grandmother’s attitude to the grandson who is a writer?

Chronicle Pepperpot October 16, 2016

XXXV

Bollywood Movie Review

- M S Dhoni: The Untold Story

(Reuters) Neeraj Pandey’s “M S Dhoni: An Untold Story” opens with a story that has been told a thousand times. The Indian cricket captain walks out to bat in the final of the 2011 World Cup, bails his team out of trouble and hits the winning runs. That shot of Dhoni, his eyes blazing, determination writ large as he hauls the ball over the boundary has been replayed countless times,

hood and teens. In the process he introduces us to a motley ensemble cast of Bollywood’s most talented character actors (Kusum Chaudhary, Brijendra Kala, Rajesh Sharma) who form part of the rich backdrop to this story.

Pandey and production designer Sunil Babu get the small details right - from the matchbox-sized government

and remains one of the defining moments of his brilliant career.

It is no surprise that this official biopic (co-produced by Rhiti Sports, a company owned by Dhoni) begins and ends with that pivotal match. The scenes in between are packed with three hours of cricket, some song and dance and a lot of Sushant Singh Rajput.

In what is perhaps the role of a lifetime, Rajput plays Dhoni to the hilt, mimicking his gait, shrug, and the unruffled demeanour. He gives us a real feel of what it must have been like growing up in an industrial township in a backward state that doesn’t figure much in the cricket stakes.

Pandey seems determined not to miss out on any moment of his subject’s life, starting from the maternity ward where Dhoni was born, and takes us through his early child-

quarter where Dhoni grew up, to the chaotic railway station where he worked as a ticket collector and the dry cricket grounds where he initially practiced.

As long as Pandey is focused on Dhoni’s struggle to get into the Indian team, the director seems to be in total control of his story. There is enough screen space given to friends who went out of their way to make sure “Mahi” reached the top and the coach (delightfully played by Rajesh Sharma) who recognised Dhoni’s calibre. Given the real man’s reticence over his personal life, a lot of this is a revelation and a pleasure to watch if you are his fan.

But as with many other stories, once the golden glint of success reaches Dhoni (mirrored in his long, blond tresses), Pandey and his story (co-written by Dileep Jha) loses steam.

A romance angle is intro-

duced, there are songs in foreign locations and cricket goes out the window, re-emerging only as a means to finish the film.

Despite a run time of more than three hours, Pan-

dey doesn’t find the time to tell us about Dhoni’s rise to captaincy and his temperament on the field. He pays lip service to Dhoni’s decision to axe senior players from the one-day team.

Even there, he is politically correct, never naming the players (Saurav Ganguly, V V S Laxman and Rahul Dravid). We never get a sense of his weaknesses or flaws, and the intimacy that was the hallmark of the narrative in the first half of

the film is sorely missing in the second half.

For a film that starts off so well, “M S Dhoni: The Untold Story” is unable to achieve what its subject has made an art out of - finishing off in style.

XXXVI

Chronicle Pepperpot October 16, 2016

Entertainment

Young filmmaker aims to tell besieged Syrians' story (Reuters) A Syrian filmmaker whose harrowing footage Mohamed Demashki, a business student and professional of sarin gas victims in 2013 was seen around the world is bodybuilder before the war who plays the main character, said using his experience of the attack and conflict to make a he took part in the film because of its message. drama looking at why people take up arms in a war which "It tries to convey to the world that the people who live began as a peaceful revolution. here are not just fighters, they Humam Husari's self-financed short film explores the chemical attack near Damascus through the eyes of a rebel fighter who lost his wife and child but was denied time to bury them. Instead, he is called to defend his town from a government offensive. The story is based on real-life events, he said.

"We need to understand how people were pushed into this war and to be part of it," said Husari, 30. "I am talking about a story that I lived with. They are real characters."

U.N. investigators established that sarin gas was used in parts of the rebel-held Ghouta suburbs of the Syrian capital Damascus in 2013.

The United States accused Syria's government of conducting the attack, which it estimated killed around 1,400 people, but Damascus denied reHumam sponsibility and blamed rebels. m directed by Crew of a fil eat after the end of Making the film was an emotional but necm Douma Husari grill essary experience for Husari and his performers, e re b el h el d s, Syria th in g in lm fi cu as who were witnesses to and victims of the attack, d of Dam neighbourhoo . (REUTERS/Bassam and not trained actors.

16 20 6, er Octob "The most difficult thing was the casting Khabieh) and auditions," said Husari, who took about two months to write, produce and direct the 15-minute are not terrorists. They are people film and is currently editing it. with a life. The war conditions them to become fighters," he "A 70-year-old man said to me: I want to be part of this said. movie because I lost 13 of my family ... I want the world to When the sarin attack happened, Husari took his camera to know what we've been through. And all I wanted from him is the makeshift hospitals that sprang up to cope with thousands just to be a dead body," he said. of victims and sent the footage to international media.

"I was amazed with how much those people were able to "I wasn't filming because I am a cameraman, I was filming express their tragedy and to cooperate with me on this movie." because this is the only thing I could do for the victims," he Syria's civil war has killed hundreds of thousands of peo- said. ple and displaced 11 million -- about half of Syria's pre-con"During it, you can't feel anything, you just feel shock ... flict population. It has caused a refugee crisis in the Middle After, when you just think about what you have witnessed, East and Europe and drawn in regional and global powers. you rethink how big and real and really tragic this was. It is

not easy for me to watch my footage."

U.S. President Barack Obama had said use of chemical weapons would be a red line, but after the 2013 attack, it became clear Washington would not back up his words with military action.

While Syria destroyed its declared stockpile of chemical weapons under international supervision, warring parties continue to accuse each other of attacks involving mustard gas, chlorine and other chemicals.

Husari, who studied film at the Brighton Film School in Britain, now makes a living covering the Syrian conflict for international news organizations, but still hopes to make filmmaking his career.

Speaking to Reuters by phone over a background wail of air raid sirens and the roar of warplanes, Husari said that living the daily reality of war will equip him to tell the story of the conflict when the war ends and films can start to be made.

"Let's just think about how I reacted to those war jets in the sky. It has become something very normal to me, and this is something it is really hard to understand from the outside," he said.

He has acquired the tools to direct actors to accurately respond to events in a conflict setting, he said.

"I feel I have a responsibility in the future to tell this story, these stories, through cinema and drama. That's usually what happens after every war," he said.

With parts of Damascus's Ghouta under opposition control from the beginning of the conflict, a number of areas have come under siege by Syrian government and allied forces.

Making cinema in a place where there is no free passage of food, people and other supplies is tough. Husari made his lighting equipment and camera track himself, but had the good fortune to have access to a good quality camera.

"It is an irony that in a besieged area you can find the best cameras you need," he said.

In Bob Dylan's hometown, an awkward embrace for its Nobel son (Reuters) Well before a teenage Robert Zimmerman became Bob Dylan and embarked on a legendary music career that earned him a Nobel Prize on Thursday, he set himself apart in Hibbing, Minnesota by busting up a guitar and setting it on fire to warm a cabin where he was staying with friends.

"He wanted attention. He wanted to be noticed no matter what," said Leroy Hoikkala, 77, Dylan's former bandmate in a Hibbing group called the Golden Chords.

To many in his hometown who still remember him, Dylan, now 75, was an outsider in the Jewish minority with greased hair working in his father's home appliance store.

Dylan lived from ages 6 to 18 in the multi-ethnic mining town, part of the so-called "Iron Range." His childhood home is still there and a street is named after him. But there is no statue or memorial for the rock star hailed as "the voice of a generation," who became the first singer-songwriter to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

"Hibbing is a town where people don't get too excited about anything," said Hoikkala,

adding his bandteaching courses mate was "indeon Dylan for the pendent, impatient past decade. and restless."

One of Dylan's Growing up, early love songs, Dylan saw the "Girl From the harsh realities of North Country," life in the town also has been of biting winters linked to his homeabout 180 miles town, with many (290 km)north people thinking of Minneapolis. it is about a girlWhile his family friend from Hibwas relatively bing High School. comfortable, he A papier mache sculpture as seen in the Bob Dylan Since leaving, saw lots of local museum in the basement of the local library in the he has seldom reworkers toil at childhood home of Bob Dylan, winner of the 2016 turned. mines that were Nobel Prize for Literature, in Hibbing, Minnesota, One notain decline in Hib- U.S., October 13, 2016. REUTERS/Jack Rendulich ble visit came in bing, which then 1969, when Dylan had about 17,000 people. was riding a wave of global fame and stopped "His sense of social justice is a function of by for his 10-year high school reunion. He was his contact with a lot of working class people in met with enthusiasm by some classmates and Hibbing," said Alex Lubet, a professor of usic anger by others who felt he turned his back on at the University of Minnesota who has been the town.

"You can see northern Minnesota in so many of his lyrics when he talks about the colors, the cold, the rails and working with iron," said Joe Keyes, one of the founders of the former Dylan Days festival in Hibbing.

He now leads Dylan tours in the town for fans making pilgrimages.

Dylan's birth certificate and other artifacts are collected in the basement of Hibbing's public library, which has also put together a walking tour. It includes a stop at the bowling alley where Bob Zimmerman and a team named the Gutter Boys won a competition.

Hibbing City Council member Jennifer Hoffman Saccoman said the Nobel Prize may add to the push for a permanent Dylan museum but she thought it may be best for local leaders to talk to Dylan himself to see how he wants to be remembered at home.

High school classmate Roz Whalen said she will always remember Dylan as the cool kid who played a rocking version of "Great Balls of Fire" at a school recital.

"I really, really liked his music when we were in high school," she said.