Thai green chicken curry

Ingredients

• 225g new potatoes, cut into chunks
• 100g green beans, trimmed and halved
• 1 tbsp vegetable or sunflower oil
• 1 garlic clove, chopped
• 1 rounded tbsp or 4 tsp Thai green curry paste (you can't fit the tablespoon into some of the jars)
• 400ml can coconut milk
• 2 tsp Thai fish sauce
• 1 tsp caster sugar
• 450g boneless skinless chicken (breasts or thighs), cut into bite-size pieces
• 2 fresh kaffir lime leaves finely shredded, or 3 wide strips lime zest, plus extra to garnish
• good handful of basil leaves
• boiled rice, to serve

Method

   1, Put the potatoes in a pan of boiling water and cook for 5 minutes. Throw in the beans and cook for a further 3 minutes, by which time both should be just tender but not too soft. Drain and put to one side.

    2, In a wok or large frying pan, heat the oil until very hot, then drop in the garlic and cook until golden, this should take only a few seconds. Don’t let it go very dark or it will spoil the taste. Spoon in the curry paste and stir it around for a few seconds to begin to cook the spices and release all the flavours. Next, pour in the coconut milk and let it come to a bubble.

   3,  Stir in the fish sauce and sugar, then the pieces of chicken. Turn the heat down to a simmer and cook, covered, for about 8 minutes until the chicken is cooked.

    4, Tip in the potatoes and beans and let them warm through in the hot coconut milk, then add a lovely citrussy flavour by stirring in the shredded lime leaves (or lime zest). The basil leaves go in next, but only leave them briefly on the heat or they will quickly lose their brightness. Scatter with the lime garnish and serve immediately with boiled rice.

Maldives protests prompt travel warning

    The Foreign Office has updated its Maldives travel advice after demonstrations erupted over the postponement of Saturday's presidential election.

      "Demonstrations have already started in the capital, Malé, and on some non-resort islands," it warns. "Further demonstrations are likely. Previous political demonstrations have led to violence and arrests. Friday afternoons are traditionally potential flashpoints."

      Visitors to Malé are warned to "take care, seek up to date information, and keep away from any demonstrations". It adds that: "There is no indication at present that any political unrest will affect tourist resorts or airports, but if you have any concerns you should check with your hotel or tour operator." Similar warnings have been issued by the governments of Australia, Canada and China.

While the demonstrations are not yet likely to affect holidaymakers, who usually travel straight from the airport in Malé to one the country's private island resorts, proposed strike action by resort staff could cause problems. Last week the Tourism Employees Association of the Maldives (TEAM) – which represents around 5,000 tourism workers - promised "prolonged" strike action should Saturday's vote not take place.

     The election - a run-off between Mohamed Nasheed, the country’s first democratically-elected leader, who was overthrown in an alleged coup last year, and Abdulla Yameen of the Progressive Party of Maldives, which was founded by Maumoon Gayoom, the country's autocratic ruler from 1978 to 2008 - was postponed by the Supreme Court of the Maldives earlier this month following allegations of electoral fraud during the first round of voting.

How to Make Lemon Drizzle Cake

     Are you tired of making the same desserts and ready to try something new? Try this light, fluffy and lemony cake. This cake will easily please the crowds that do not like rich chocolaty desserts. It involves simple ingredients and only a few steps.

Things You'll Need

• 1 cup of soften unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
• 2 1/4 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• finely grated zest 1 lemon
• juice from 1 & 1⁄2 lemons
• 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp. powdered sugar

nstructions

     Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a loaf tin with wax paper.Beat the butter and 2 1/4 cups of sugar together until creamy. Then add the eggs one at a time, until they are completely worked in the batter. 

1. • Sift in the flour and add the lemon zest.
     
     
     Spoon the batter into the pan. Level it out using the back of a spoon.
     
     
     Bake it for 40 to 50 minutes. It is finished when a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
   •  
     Mix together the lemon juice and 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons of the powdered sugar in order to make the syrup.
     
     
   • After the cake has cooled, use a fork to prick it all over. Then pour the syrup over the cake, letting it soak down into the cake.
   • When the cake is completely cool remove it from the pan. Then sprinkle it with a handful of powdered sugar and serve.

Toxic Tours - X: Going bananas in north Kerala

   Thanks to the banana chip's growing popularity, the paddy fields of Kerala are being converted into banana plantations that demand the widespread use of harmful chemical fertilisers and pesticides 

A farmer loading his truck with bananas in Wyanad

If the coconut and rubber plantations don't get on your nerves after a point, rest assured the banana plantations will. All of Kerala, except for the few biodiversity hotspots in the Western Ghats, is under plantation of some kind or the other, which adds to its overwhelming greenery. Bananas, it seems, is the latest crop that the Keralites are cashing in on at the cost of destroying their remaining paddy cultivation. As the humble Kerala banana chip gains global popularity, the Keralites are riding on its boom and going overboard.I arrived in Kalpetta, district headquarters of Kerala's Wyanad district, hoping to spend some time in the Wyanad Wildlife Sanctuary and at Kurwadweep island -- two exquisite destinations for wildlife enthusiasts. As luck would have it, before I could escape civilisation for a short sabbatical, a newspaper item about a pesticide accident in the area caught my attention.
The local newspapers had pictures of children admitted to hospital following exposure to pesticides. They called it a pesticides accident but, as I discovered during my investigation, the children were victims of continuous exposure, over a fortnight, to a deadly pesticide called Phorate that is used extensively on banana crops.

    I joined Usha and Raju of Thanal, an extremely proactive Trivandrum-based NGO that has done some phenomenal work in the areas of both wildlife conservation and toxic pollution in Kerala. They were visiting the affected areas on a fact-finding, damage-control and pesticide-awareness mission.

      The women's ward of the Kalpetta Government Hospital was brimming with 8-14-year-old boys and girls crowded on three beds put together. Most of them were up and about and seemed to be recovering from symptoms of vomiting, giddiness and headache. Some even managed a smile for my camera. 

     The visibly distraught parents revealed that this was the second time in the last week that they had had to bring their children to hospital. The first time was 10 days earlier. According to the first information report available with Thanal, on July 10, 2002, children arriving at the Kottathara upper primary school complained of an unbearable stench, obviously from the banana fields where workers were busy applying a mixture of fertiliser and pesticide (Umet Phorate 10%) to the soil before planting the banana rhizomes. As the day progressed, and aided by the breeze, the smell became worse and the children started complaining of severe headache and dizziness. Meanwhile, efforts by the school authorities to stop the workers from continuing using more pesticide were met with a firm refusal. The situation soon began to get out of hand as children began fainting; gram panchayat officials were contacted for jeeps to help carry the students to hospital.

      On July 17, the children were back in hospital with similar complaints. Doctors confirmed that the symptoms were of acute toxic exposure and, although it was difficult to pinpoint a single chemical or pesticide, they were planning to carry out a detailed analysis. Meanwhile the district administration, including the district collector who visited the hospital, was being apprised of developments. Talk of a fact-finding committee was in the air.
A visit to the site revealed an open valley below the Karinjakannu hills that was being cultivated. Houses dotted its edge. The place, of course, stank of chemical pesticides. The upper primary school building and a madrassa occupied one end of the valley while the rest was under banana, arecanut and coconut plantation. According to a local farmer, the open three-acre field in front of the school is where the banana planting "that could possibly be responsible for the incident," was in progress. He was not willing to say that the use of pesticides had caused the incident. He pointed out that the madrassa was only a few metres away. "How come those students were not affected?" I tried to educate him on wind speed and direction, but he was sceptical. Naturally, I was told much later, he could have been one of the guilty parties.

     The caution label on the Umet (Phorate 10% CG) -- encapsulated soil and systemic insecticide, manufactured by United Phosphorus Ltd -- clearly states `Keep away from children....Do not use in situations where there is a possibility of harming bees, birds, animals and fish.... Do not drink or smoke during application', indicating its extreme toxicity. The farmers were certainly guilty of not following instructions and causing injurious harm to innocent school children. It is a different thing altogether that they use no personal protection when applying the deadly stuff; they drink, smoke, throw used packets into river streams and generally pollute the environment without batting an eyelid, in their pursuit of wealth at any cost.

     Usha enlightened me about the banana chip boom. Traditionally, the banana chip was an Onam preparation, a savoury that was prepared once a year from a particular variety of banana (known to most of us as the Kerala banana -- the big green one). During the last decade or so, the banana chip decided to offer serious competition to the invasion of multinational potato chips. That led to paddy fields and marshlands being converted for the industrial cultivation of bananas. Soon enough, `wyala nadu', or `land of paddy fields', in Malyalam -- from which Wyanad gets its name -- was being converted into a banana republic. 

    Such large-scale cultivation automatically entailed extensive use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides to make the investment worthwhile. Incidents similar to the one in Kottathara were reported from many places, although none was so bad as to make newspaper headlines.

     The disappearance of jackals and wild cats from the area, and the drop in fish catch reported from the Wyanad district, are also blamed on the extensive use of pesticides and the gradual poisoning of the local environment. 

    The Kasargod tragedy, where the population of entire villages were seriously affected by the aerial-spraying of endosulfan -- another systemic insecticide -- has kick-started a huge debate on the wisdom of continued use of pesticides. The first round of this battle was won by NGOs representing the villagers of Kasargod, when the courts banned all aerial-spraying of pesticides. But that victory was shortlived as the state government went back on its order of a total ban on endosulfan following pressure from the industry.

    Just when the rest of the country had begun to look to Kerala to take the lead in the anti-pesticides campaign and show us the way towards alternatives in organic and natural agriculture, the Kerala government's position put anti-pesticide campaigners into a tizzy. This unfortunate event involving Umet Phorate might just put the larger debate back on the table

Toddler with eight limbs branded 'reincarnation of Hindu god' to undergo life-saving operation

     A toddler born with eight limbs and believed by some to be the reincarnation of the multi-limbed Hindu goddess Vishnu, is set to undergo a 40-hour operation to remove half of her limbs.

    Lakshmi Tatma was born joined to a 'parasitic twin' and will go under the knife at the hands of 30 surgeons to remove two of her useless arms and legs.
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Torment: Lakshmi can not walk or crawl and is unlikely to survive her teens without surgery

Torment: Lakshmi can not walk or crawl and is unlikely to survive her teens without surgery

The headless 'twin' is joined to Lakshmi at the pelvis and has its own spinal column and kidney.

   Without the operation the little girl would never be able to walk or crawl and would be unlikely to live past her early teens, doctors said.
The extraordinary eight-limbed baby was born in a poverty-stricken region of Bihar, India - on the day devoted to the celebration of the four-armed Hindu deity
 Vishnu.

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Fused: Lakshmi's body is joined with the parasitical twin which is attached to her body at her pelvis

Fused: Lakshmi's body is joined with the parasitical twin which is attached to her body at her pelvis

Her mother Poonam Tatma said she believed her daughter was "a miracle, a reincarnation" of Vishnu.

   Dr Sharan Patil, who will be leading the surgery at the country's Narayana Health City, in Bangalore, said: "Fortunately, Lakshmi has one complete body with a near perfect set of organs.
"Her skeletal system involves two bodies which are fused together at the level of the pelvis.

    "The operation itself, although presents several challenges, is not the most complex in the world. What is highly unusual in Lakshmi's case is precisely how her bodies are fused, almost mirroring each other."

The Hindu god Vishnu is the preserver and protector of creation

Parents Poonam Devi and Shambu Das, who earn about 50p a day as casual labourers, were turned away from several hospitals before her plight was taken up by Dr Patil.
The operation is expected to cost about £100,000.

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Hope: Lakshmi and mother Poonam prepare for the operation

Hope: Lakshmi and mother Poonam prepare for the operation

Poonam, who gave birth to Lakshmi on the celebration day of the four-armed Hindu goddess of wealth and prosperity after whom the new born was named, said: "She is a miracle, a special blessing from God. But she is my daughter and she cannot live like this."
Laskhmi is the subject of a Channel 4 documentary as part of the Bodyshocks series.

Meet Salem - the cat who uses a human TOILET to amazement of animal experts

The talented cat can also shake paws and roll over - and is currently being taught to fetch.

    A cat-lover has amazed animal experts by teaching his pet moggie Salem to use a human toilet.

   29-year-old Luke Evans became fed-up with the puss using a smelly litter tray in his second floor flat.

    So he trained nine-month-old Salem to go to the toilet in his bathroom by offering cheese-flavoured treats as a reward.

   The talented cat can also shake paws and roll over - and is currently being taught to fetch.

   But it is his human-like toilet skills that have left experts baffled.

      Luke, who lives with his partner in Solihull, West Midlands, said: "A lot of the time we don't even realise that he's been to the loo.
  

     "Sometimes we hear him scratching at the seat but it's only when we step into the bathroom and see the evidence in the toilet that we know for sure.
"He can't use the flush yet - he needs more training for that.

     "It took a couple of months for him to pick it up - we used a child's toilet training seat at first

    "I guess it's a pretty rare thing. I mentioned it at work and everyone was pretty amazed."

      Their local veterinary practice was so impressed with Salem's tricks that it crowned the marvellous moggy a cat in a million.
Becki Pratt, practice manager at YourVets Solihull, said: "We see many talented animals here at the clinic but Salem is a cut above the rest.
"Most cats go out in the garden or litter tray.

    "We've heard the phrase: 'You can't teach an old dog new tricks', but apparently you can teach a young cat anything - as Salem has proved."

57,000 strokes later, woman swims non-stop around Isle of Wight

A woman has become the first person in almost 30 years to swim non-stop around the Isle of Wight. 

     Anna Wardley completed the 56 mile challenge in 26 hours, 33 minutes and 28 seconds – more than three hours ahead of schedule.

      The 37-year-old, from Gosport, had started from Ryde Pier on Friday morning and swam through the night.

     She stopped only for a maximum of two minute spells to take on food at half-hour intervals, provided by her support team, accompanying her in motor boats and kayaks.

    She needed food that would glide down her throat easily so her meals included Percy Pig sweets, jam doughnuts, rice pudding and a Spanish omelette.

At one point during the swim, she was pushed back more than a mile by the tide, so had to move in towards the shore, where the current was weaker.

   When she returned to Ryde Pier on Saturday, there were cheering crowds waiting for her.

   After completing the swim, she said: “I’m absolutely thrilled and it’s a dream come true. I’ve trained for two years for this and I knew I could do it.

   "I even managed to beat the time set by one of the previous three swimmers who have completed the swim so that’s brilliant too.

   "I want to thank all my supporters – especially those on the isle of Wight who came out to cheer me on. It really did help me.

   “Those last few miles were seriously hard but knowing I had raised £50,000 for charity kept me going.

   “There was no way I was going back by boat before I’d finished.”
Her swim is calculated to have taken 57,120 strokes at an average of 56 per minute, with Miss Wardley burning up 15,300 calories – the number an average man would burn in six days.

   Only three swimmers have completed the circumnavigation feat, with the last successful attempt in 1984.

   Miss Wardley, a PR consultant, carried out the swim under the rules of the British Long Distance Swimming Association wearing just a standard swimming costume, goggles and a swimming cap.

   It marks the culmination of the a two-year, five island swim challenge she had set herself.

   She has already swum around Portsea, in Hampshire (13 miles), Jersey (41 miles) and Dragonera (six miles) off the coast of Spain.

   However, she abandoned her 30-mile swim around Tiree, an island in the Hebrides, in August, as she struggled with sea conditions and jellyfish. She has not ruled out making another attempt.

   Miss Wardley has also swum across the English Channel, the Gibraltar Straits, the Hellespont, between Europe to Asia and two lengths of Windermere in the Lake District.

   She has raised £50,000 pounds for the Samaritans, the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust and Sail Africa

WAFA Ireland 2014

'A FLORAL ODYSSEY'

        The 11th World Flower Show is being hosted by the Association of Irish Floral Artists (AOIFA) and takes place at the Royal Dublin Society, Dublin, Ireland 18-22 June 2014.

         This historic venue covers 45 acres and has long been associated with botany, agriculture and the arts.  The spacious conference halls are the ideal location for the competitive classes and the Industry Hall will accommodate a wonderful variety of trade stands.  In the immediate vicinity of the RDS there is a wide selection of places to stay, from 5-star hotels to Bed & Breakfast accommodation.  The area is very well served by public transport.  For those arriving by sea, Dun Laoghaire Port and Dublin Port are within minutes of the venue.  The RDS car park can accommodate 2,000 cars.

         Dublin's greatest asset is its people: it is renowned as a friendly and welcoming city and visitors are assured of a warm welcome in 2014.

        An exciting Show Schedule is being devised by the WAFA Ireland Management Committee.

        Visit the WAFA Ireland website to keep up-to-date with information www.wafaireland.com