A £12m stamp shows that modern collectors are driven by the same obsessive desire as Romans and Renaissance princes The estimated auction price of a stamp that is coming up for sale at Sotheby's puts art in its place. The 1856 British Guiana one-cent magenta , whose last owner was John du Pont, the wealthiest convicted murderer in American history, is expected to fetch $10-$20m (£6-£12m)...
1856 stamp, the only one of its kind known to exist, will be most valuable object by weight and size ever sold, says Sotheby's A one-cent magenta postage stamp printed in what was then British Guiana in 1856 is expected to fetch a record price of $10m-$20m (£6m-£12m), Sotheby's has said. The stamp is being sold by the estate of John du Pont, a chemical company heir who died aged 72 in 2010 in a Pennsylvania...
An electric eel-like fish that can swim backwards as well as forwards South American or gymnotiform knifefishes include about 150 species occurring throughout the humid Neotropics, from Panama south to northern Argentina. With the exception of Chile, gymnotiforms are found in every country on the South American continent. Lacking pelvic and dorsal fins, these fish have narrow bodies and tapered tails...
Measures to preserve forests were supposed to be a done deal at the Cancún climate summit, but try telling that to Guyana Big business backs deforestation deal The event on the edges of the Cancún climate change summit was meant to inspire: a gathering of the powerful and the worthy to celebrate a pioneering Norwegian strategy of fighting poverty and global warming by preserving the world's...
s National party (PNP). He was also a troublemaking journalist and a key trade union organiser. After qualifying as a solicitor in 1941 he served as president of the Jamaica Government Railway Employees' Union (1942-48). The colonial government detained him twice as a subversive during the second world war. In 1945 he helped found the Caribbean Labour Congress. As its general secretary (1947-53), he...
s Temple kill Congressman and journalists who had come to Jonestown, Guyana, as part of an investigation An American Congressman and three journalists have been ambushed and killed in a remote area of Guyana by members of a secret cult which they had gone to investigate. A woman member of the cult was also reported killed. An unidentified American was arrested after the killings, late on Saturday....
Ouverture, named after two Caribbean resistance heroes In the late 1960s the activist and publisher Jessica Huntley, who has died aged 86, co-founded the pioneering, London-based Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications (BLP) with her husband, Eric Huntley. Named in honour of two heroes of Caribbean resistance, Toussaint L'Ouverture and Paul Bogle , and deeply rooted in the concerns of the African diaspora,...
s largest tropical rainforest • New species of the Amazon rainforest - in pictures A purring monkey, a vegetarian piranha and a flame-patterned lizard are among more than 400 new species of animals and plants that have been discovered in the past four years in the Amazon rainforest, conservationists say. Discovered through hundreds of scientific expeditions between 2010 to 2013, the total of 441 new...
jaguar corridor' a network of pathways that would link core populations The lushly forested nation of Guyana on Thursday joined a regional pact to protect jaguars, the elusive spotted cat that is the biggest land predator in the Americas but has become vulnerable as expanded agriculture and mining carves away at their fragmented habitat. Leaders of the government's environment ministry were signing...
s second novel, The Wild Coast (1958), had similar themes but was more autobiographical. A third novel, The Last Barbarian (1960), explored the experiences of a Caribbean student during the civil rights struggles in the US. In 2009, his first two novels were reprinted, with covers featuring Carew's own paintings. While it may be for fiction that he was best known, it is Carew's non-fiction that exemplifies...
An $8.5m Conservation Trust Fund will provide long-term financing for the management of Guyana's rainforests ...
s changed over time • Get the data • Get the 2011 data • See the interactive map • More data journalism and data visualisations from the Guardian The world has become more peaceful for the first time since 2009 according to the annual Global Peace Index (GPI) released today. Austerity-driven defence cuts creating gains in several indicators of militarisation and improvements in the Political Terror...
eliminated' by British in 1950s secret files reveal , 18 April), Owen Boycott suggests that they reveal how "the government in London initially resisted the anti-colonial winds of change". He cites a letter from one of these files, sent to governors by the Colonial Office in March 1953. In fact, a copy of this letter was released to TNA in the 1980s under the standard 30-year rule, and its contents...
s Temple Church from the United States to the Guyanan jungle to make the dream come true. Instead of living there in a "co-operative spirit of harmony and brotherhood" they chose to die – victims of mass suicide. Mass suicides are rare although history does offer a few examples. They fall into two categories: people who choose to die because they cannot face dishonour, or religious groups threatened...
s rainforest region Elton Thompson was out drinking when he was bludgeoned to death by a miner called Frank. He was 14. Arturo Balcazar was a shopkeeper. He was gunned down on a riverboat as his wife looked on. Alan Welch was 54. He was clubbed to death with tree trunks and branches after being accused of theft. Three men, three murders but apparently one common cause: the global economic crisis that...
s Progressive party (PPP) to campaign for workers' rights and independence from British rule for the sugar-producing colony in northern South America. The UK had agreed a new constitution in the early 1950s which allowed British Guiana's political parties to participate in national elections and form a government, but maintained power in the hands of the British-appointed governor. Christopher Andrew,...
s own resources, intermittently funded by a sector in perpetual crisis, were themselves fairly slim. Julia then worked at Haringey council for six years in the heady days of the 1980s, significantly improving the conditions of female home-workers, disseminating accessible information, helping them enforce their rights and campaigning for the TUC to recognise their interests as notably exploited workers....
All 140 passengers survive ordeal after Caribbean Airlines jet breaks in two on landing at Georgetown airport near 200ft ravine A Caribbean Airlines jet carrying 140 passengers from New York crashed and broke in half on landing in Guyana, injuring several people but causing no deaths. The Boeing 737-800 reportedly overshot the 7,400ft (2,200m) runway at Cheddi Jagan international airport in rainy...
s house while he was still a teenager himself. He then became a teacher before moving to Britain in 1961. Gavton's first job in the "mother country" was as an operator at the Balham telephone exchange in south London, but he was determined to follow his earlier career path. In the mid-60s – after a diploma in youth and community work at Leicester University – he became a youth leader at Railton...
s lives could be saved annually through the pneumococcal vaccine. Even at the lower end of this scale, the vaccine could represent a major step forward towards the millennium development goal of a two-thirds reduction in child mortality by 2015. GAVI's track record in reducing the lag between life-saving vaccines being developed and reaching children in developing countries has been impressive. But...