FEAST OR FAMINE

The Snakebite Survivor's Club (2001)  is a fascinating read, combining a science documentary with a travelogue. Jeremy sets out on an adventure to four countries to learn more about their deadliest snakes: the eastern diamond rattlesnake of America; the taipan of Australia; the black mamba of Africa; and the Indian cobra. The intricate descriptions of the creatures are entwined in true stories of death and survival. From the depths of herpetological literature, the serious and comic tales are entertaining, witty, and wonderfully bizarre.  My favourite tale is set in Barbee Lane, Scottsboro, Alabama in 1992 from the court transcript of a murder trial. Glenn Summerfield, a preacher and herpetologist, attempted to make his wife’s death look like suicide when she deliberately placed her hand into the diamond rattlesnake’s cage in the farmyard shed. There were seventeen snakes in the shed and it wasn’t quite so deliberate: she had a gun pointed at her h...

Sandalwoods are medium-size, fragrant, exotic trees found in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Australia, Indonesia, and the Pacific Islands. In India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka it is called Chandan. However, it is also a threatened species. Some countries regard the sandal oil trade as ecologically harmful as it encourages overharvesting. Although sandalwood trees in India and Nepal are government-owned and their harvest is controlled, many trees are illegally cut down. Sandalwood oil prices have risen dramatically, and therefore the illegal trade has increased. The illegal trade route from India to China via Nepal by smugglers is being continually monitored by police in Nepal who often seize red sandalwood near the border with Tibet. Sandalwood oil is commonly used in the cosmetic industry and sandalwood paste is known for its healing qualities. For acne, the Nepalis make a paste of half a teaspoon each of turmeric powder and sandalwood powder in a little water and ap...

In Okubahal in the district of Lalitpur in Kathmandu Valley is the 15th century Mahabodhi (or Mahabuddha) Temple; the "Great Awakening" Temple. It is believed to have 9,000 statues of Buddha engraved on its outer surface. Pandit Abhayaraj, in 1564, laid the foundation stones in his own residential courtyard. Goddess Vidhyadhari came to him in his dreams and directed him to build a temple. He recreated his temple from the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodhgaya in India. After his death, his sons and grandsons continued the construction, over four generations of the Abhayaraj family, taking 36 years to complete. The images of Buddha in the temple represent the past, present, and future. Shakyamuni Buddha is place in the main sanctum facing east, accompanied by images of Samantabhadra Bodhisattva and Vajrapani Bodhisattva on the sides. The temple was demolished in the 1934 earthquake and reconstructed over four years. The Rana Prime Minister of the time, Judhha Shamsher, was s...

News reports claim that Hong Kong is introducing birth control measures to curb the monkey population boom. All female monkeys will be sterilized. The Hong Kong government first introduced population controls in 2002, applying vasectomies on males and temporary injections on females. The government wants to control the 2,000 macaques to a population of around 1,500 because they are aggressive. Kathmandu too is home to a large Rhesus macaque monkey population in the Pashupatinath and Swayambhunath Temple areas. Most of the monkeys in Kathmandu are in poor health because of inadequate food (due to the competition by about 250 deer in the same area). No birth control measures are currently in place in Kathmandu to reduce the population.

Georgia is increasingly promoting tourism, and subsequently there has been an increase in the construction of hotels and guesthouses, and an increase in the demand for people in the service sector. Customer services personnel are greatly needed in areas such as restaurants, bars and cafes. People with language skills are in high demand – translators/interpreters especially in languages other than English. Massage therapists, alternative medicine specialists, medical officers, health tourism specialists and conference planners are all in demand. Other professions in demand include architects and builder-engineers. Currently Georgia employs international specialists in these professions, but it is encouraging local youth to gain skills for greater employment options. The increase in agricultural production has resulted in a demand for people with skills in animal husbandry, and horticulture. Veterinarians and viticulturists are also in demand. The Government of Georgia has an...

Rabi Thapa’s collection of short stories in Nothing to Declare (2011) in fact has everything to declare. His stories tell of cultural practices and influences on Nepal from India, China and other neighbouring nations. In “Initiation” a boy undergoes the rights of passage ceremony to become a man while dreaming of a passage to America to become “modern” and “upper class.” In “Night out in Kathmandu” and “After Party” local youths smoke pot, get drunk, and visit a dance bar full of Western tourists and middle-class Nepalis who have worked or studied abroad. Thapa juxtaposes generational differences: the foreign TV programs and movies influencing their parents and grand-parents, and the influences of foreign jobs and locations. He tells of the new generation becoming “almost, though not quite” upper class. The youth seem to be caught between imitating their Western counterparts while being conflicted about their traditional values. Thapa’s characters all refle...

The International School of Economics at Tbilisi State University tracks inflation and the cost of living across Georgia’s major cities using the bread index. To be more precise, or more Georgian, it used the Khachapuri Index. Khachapuri is traditional Georgian bread – and to track inflation, ISET uses a simple and robust formula. It includes the prices of only those ingredients that are needed to cook one Imeretian khachapuri – cheese, butter, flour, yeast, eggs, and milk – plus the cost of energy inputs – gas and electricity. Monthly costs track the fluctuations in prices in the major cities of Tbilisi (the capital), Kutaisi, Batumi, and Telavi. With bread being a staple food, the price can be compared each year. From May 2010 to May 2011 the inflation in food prices (the Khachapuri Index) increased by 19.7% (from -3.1% to 14.3%). During the same period, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 14.3%. CPI measures changes in the price level of consumer goods and services p...

From June 1 to July 1, 2011, there will be three eclipses. The first eclipse on June 1 was a partial solar eclipse at the Moon’s descending node in Taurus. It was best seen from the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in Siberia, China and Alaska. People in Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland also had a good view of the eclipse. The second eclipse on June 15 was a total lunar eclipse which occurred at the Moon’s ascending node in southern Ophiuchus west of the Lagoon Nebula. The Moon passed through Earth’s shadow over a reasonably long period of time – 100 minutes. The last time a lunar eclipse lasted longer than 100 minutes was in July 2000. The whole 100 minutes was best seen in eastern Africa, the Middle East, central Asia and Western Australia. People in much of Europe only saw the last stages of the eclipse, whereas people in eastern Asia, eastern Australia and New Zealand only saw the beginning stages of the eclipse. None of the eclipse was seen from North America. ...

Recently women in Nepali societies have been able to put aside social stigmas connected with the breakdown of their marriages. Urbanization together with modernization and female empowerment, have strengthened women to take bold and radical steps which were once considered taboo. Financial security and job opportunities have enabled women to take decisions and move forward rather than staying in an unwanted relationship. The May 2011 figures from Kathmandu District Court indicate a rise in the number of divorces. Eighty percent of cases are filed by women – predominantly in urban areas. Bala Ram Acharya in his research, “Sociological Analysis of Divorce: A case study from Pokhara, Nepal” cites that the major reasons for divorce are economic hardship; sexual maladjustments; unequal social, economic and educational status; and the wife being barren. The first written legal code permitted a man to leave his wife by a method of sinko-kati chuttinu – the husband breaks a s...

Professor Russell Foster, a circadian neuroscientist from the University of Oxford in England, says that conditions such as asthma, autism, and schizophrenia may be linked to a mother’s exposure to sunlight during pregnancy, thereby creating the link between a child’s birth month and the medical conditions the child is likely to contract. It’s all related to vitamin D exposure. Circadian rhythms have long been studied in shift workers – how the 24-hour a day cycle of light and darkness affects work functionality. It’s often been called the “body clock” and linked, not only to shift work, but also to jetlag and crossing time zones. Professor Foster’s study examines sunlight’s effect on pregnant women, and ultimately their children. How long a person lives and the extent of their health could be linked to the month of your birth. Babies born in spring appear to be at greater risk than those born in autumn. On a month by month basis (of a person’s birth in the northern hem...

The Economist (June 4, 2011) states that a draft United States Agency for International Aid (USAID) report found that last year's Haiti earthquake statistics were inflated. The report indicated that between 46,000 and 85,000 people were killed, and not 316,000 as Haiti's government claimed. Not only did the government inflate the statistics, aid agencies (international non-government organizations - INGOs) cited 600,000 living in tent cities, although the USAID report believes it was only 66,000. Inflating emergency, disaster, and post-conflict statistics is not new - in previous years the numbers were never verified and thus there were high discrepancies between the actual and the estimated. I am a DQA specialist - a data quality audit/assessment - and have frequently encountered INGOs and governments over-estimating figures or double counting. It's understandable because the amount of donor funding increases as the statistics rise. But no matter how much money dono...

The Bridge of Peace, Tbilisi’s ultra-modern glass and iron pedestrian walkway, connects the ancient city of Tbilisi - Old Tbilisi - to a newly-landscaped park. The Peace Bridge emits universal messages of peace in Morse code via 30,000 white light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and 240 sensors, which is particularly spectacular at night. However, now during the day, pedestrians can sit on benches, watch the fountain, walk amongst the sculptures, meander along the river, or climb the steps to the upper embankment.The bridge was opened on May 6, 2010 and a year later the first stage of the left bank construction was opened in time for Independence Day on May 26, 2011. To be known as Riverside Plaza or Tbilisi’s Left Bank, the first stage is an urban public space. MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends ...

NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have released spectacular photographs from the International Space Station – 350 kilometres (220 miles) above Earth. Not photographs of Earth, but photographs of the module with a space shuttle docked – the first time that ISS has been photographed fully assembled and with a shuttle in its parking bay. It will also be the last time. The Endeavour shuttle flew its final mission last month, in May. It has only one more mission as the new Atlantis prepares for launch next month, in July. The photographs are amazing, not only because of the choreography taken to get the right shot, but also because they almost didn’t make it back to Earth (the photographs that is, not the astronauts). Paolo Nespoli, an Italian astronaut, took the photos on May 23 from the window of the Soyuz, a Russian spacecraft, piloted by Commander Dmitry Kondratyev, as it flew past the ISS, an orbiting space laboratory (with personnel on board). Soyuz was 18...