Soweto strings..

Not for the first time, my original post has been inexplicably deleted. I salvaged this video fortunately. The charity Buskaid's website is worth visiting. Click here too and here.

Another Icelandic explosion?

We have just seen more than 100,000 flights grounded across Europe and a beleaguered airline industry frantically trying to restore to itself the confidence of hundreds of thousands of hapless, stranded travellers. We have witnessed perishable fresh produce rotting away in warehouses in far flung locations such as in the Caribbean, South America and Africa, for want of transport to consumer markets in Europe. Businesses and schools have been disrupted, business meetings have been cancelled.

And all this because one relatively small volcano in Iceland erupted in icy conditions, causing huge volumes of ash to be produced, the ash cloud rising high into the atmosphere. The wind direction too by coincidence was such that it guaranteed that this ash cloud would drift across most of northern Europe. One week later, we are only now just starting to breathe a sigh of relief that this immense disruption has come to an end. But there is another fact that we must be aware of.

And the fact is this: A far bigger Icelandic volcano, Katla, is tipped to erupt in the following months, potentially causing much more severe and sustained disruption to industry and to society as a whole. Eyjafjallajokul erupted last week and records show that each time Eyjafjallajokul has erupted in the last 2,000 years - in the year 920, in 1612 and between 1821 and 1823, Katla has exploded within six months.

The ash from the Eyjafjallajokul eruption was sent to such high altitudes because the ice on top of the mountain melted as the volcano erupted and the mixture of cold melt water and lava caused explosions, which in turn shot the volcanic ash high up into the air. The ash cloud drifted far across Europe because of the high altitude to which the ash had been shot.

Katla however is ten times the size of Eyjafjallajokul, with a correspondingly larger ice field. Were Katla to erupt, there undoubtedly will be shot high into the atmosphere larger amounts of ash than we saw with Eyjafjallajokul, with even more serious disruption the likely outcome, if the winds were blowing in roughly the same direction as with the recent Eyjafjallajokul eruption.

"I certainly wouldn't be surprised if Katla erupted within the next year, but how much it affects Britain and northern Europe depends on what happens with the winds at the time," the volcanologist Bill McGuire told The Independent newspaper.

Bill McGuire is a professor of earth sciences at UCL and widely accepted as one of Britain's leading volcanologists, whose main interests include monitoring volcanoes and global geophysical events. He is a bona fide authority on the subject of volcanoes and his advice is for airlines to start from now to draw up contingency plans. However, it is obvious that not very much can be done if the airspace is taken over by a volcanic ash cloud. What perhaps businesses could consider is to stock up on supplies early on. And travellers could have a rethink about whether they really need to make that trip.

There are jokes being passed around that the volcanic ash is a hidden agenda by the Green movement to limit unnecessary flights. Some have even said that the ash cloud is Iceland's reprisal against Britain for demanding repayment from Iceland of the billions of pounds paid by the British government in compensation to customers of Iceland's failed banks...

God bless you, you're doing a great job

"You're doing a great job, thanks and God bless you. Your special number today was powerful and I believe that your ministration on Sunday will be even more powerful..." is the text of the SMS I received from the pastor of my church last Saturday. It's not the first time either that he has commended my efforts as leader of the choir. Sometime ago, I blogged about my appointment as choir leader in January this year. At first it was daunting, the prospect of managing the complex affairs of a choir. But I dug into my role with gusto and have found myself actually enjoying it.

I am in charge of a group of choristers many of whom are married women with small children, who also have jobs. So there is the fact that members of the choir oftentimes cannot find the time to attend choir practice, (small children can be such a handful sometimes). Then there are issues concerning family commitments and so forth, and it hasn't been an easy ride for me. But I've been open and honest with them about the fact that I am quite inexperienced at this. And by appearing to be naive, I've somehow warmed my way into their hearts, apparently, because all of the members seem to be much more enthusiastic about the choir now than I remember them ever being. And this enthusiasm shows too when the choir ministers during the church services.

I think this might have something to do with the fact that soon after my appointment as leader, I delegated various responsibilities to different members. Also, I have been careful to always seek their opinions, listen to their suggestions and defer to the judgement of the more experienced choristers when making decisions. Such that each of them feel as if they are actively participating in the decision making, and any previous resentment about my appointment as leader appears now to have dissipated.

It was my idea that rather than attending for choir practice on Saturdays and losing our Saturday evenings, we should instead meet for practice after service on Sunday, a time when I calculated that everyone would be in a good mood. This idea has turned out to be quite popular, hence the improvement in the quality of our performance. It is still my job to choose which song(s) the choir would sing at the Sunday service, teach the song to the choir if necessary and direct the music. But I'm not complaining, because I genuinely love doing this. For next Sunday I have picked this delectable song...

Zimbabwe, 30 years under Mugabe

On April 18th 1980, the Union Flag came down in Harare and the last Governor of Southern Rhodesia, Lord Soames, transfered executive power to the first Prime Minister of independent Zimbabwe. On the thirtieth anniversary of Zimbabwean "freedom", how is it working out?

This article is reproduced here with copyright permission from Independent News and Media Limited. You should read Mark Steyn's take on the Zimbabwe story too, which some think might be closer to the reality on the ground in Harare...

General Babangida must NOT become President of Nigeria

It is being reported that a spokesman for General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida has told the international media that General Babangida will run for president in the 2011 presidential poll after seeking the nomination of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP)

Personally, I cannot think of a more inappropriate candidate for the presidency of Nigeria. If the PDP candidate must be from northern Nigeria, there is a multitude of Nigerians from the north who are better qualified than General Babangida and whose reputations are not tarnished in the way that Babangida's is.

As my friend and fellow blogger Akin so aptly put it, "New Blood NOT Incredibly Bad Blood" is what Nigeria needs at this moment for the country's leadership. "General Babangida is incredibly bad blood" Akin states, and I am in complete agreement. It was under Babangida's tenure as president that corruption became endemic in Nigeria, the economy deteriorated and democracy was shoved aside. In fact, it was on the back of Babangida that the evil Abacha regime came to power.

Nigeria as a nation is already in a weakened state, due largely to the inept and incompetent leadership of recent years, a malaise that potentially will only be exacerbated by a Babangida presidency.

Given that sycophants abound in Nigeria, many of whom were enriched and thereby empowered by Babangida and his evil progeny Abacha, and who therefore are today in positions of power and influence, I am justified in my fear that the voices of millions of concerned Nigerians will be ignored; those who like me dread the return to power of the "Evil Genius", (a nickname Babangida gave himself). Shockingly, Babangida on his website even refers to himself as "Nigeria's Best President". May God help us...

You may want to read this interesting piece written by Sola Salako.

Even after death the abuse continues

Even death cannot stop the violence against gays in Africa any more.

Madieye Diallo's body had only been in the ground for a few hours when the mob descended on the weedy cemetery with shovels. They yanked out the corpse, spit on its torso, dragged it away and dumped it in front of the home of his elderly parents.

The scene on 2 May 2009 was filmed on a cell phone and the video sold at the market. It passed from phone to phone, sowing panic among gay men who say they now feel like hunted animals.

"I locked myself inside my room and didn't come out for days", says a 31-year-old gay friend of Diallo's who is ill with HIV. "I am afraid of what will happen to me after I die. Will my parents be able to bury me?"

A wave of intense homophobia is washing across Africa, where homosexuality is already illegal in at least 37 countries. In the last year alone, gay men have been arrested in Kenya, Malawi and Nigeria. In Uganda, lawmakers are considering a bill that would sentence homosexuals to life in prison and include capital punishment for 'repeat offenders'. And in South Africa the only country that recognises gay rights, gangs have carried out so called "corrective" rape on lesbians.

"Across many parts of Africa we've seen a rise in homophobic violence", says London-based gay rights activist Peter Tatchell, whose organisation tracks abuse against gays and lesbians in Africa. "Its been steadily building up for the last 10 years but has got markedly worse in the last year."

To the long list of abuse meted out to suspected homosexuals in Africa, Senegal has added a new form of degradation, the desecration of their bodies. In the past two years, at least four men suspected of being gay have been exhumed by angry mobs in cemeteries in Senegal. The violence is especially shocking because Senegal, unlike other countries in the region, is considered a model of tolerance.

"Its jarring to see this happen in Senegal," says Ryan Thoreson, a fellow at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission who has been researching the rise of homophobia here. "When something like this happens in an established democracy, its alarming."

Even though homosexuality is illegal in Senegal, colonial documents indicate that the country has long held a clandestine gay community. In many towns, they were tacitly accepted, says Cheikh Ibrahima Niang, a professor of social anthropology at Senegal's largest university. In fact, the visibility of gays in Senegal may have helped to prompt the backlash against them.

The backlash dates back to at least February 2008, when a Senegalese tabloid published photographs of a clandestine gay wedding in a suburb in Dakar, the capital. The wedding was held inside a rented banquet hall and was attended by dozens of gay men. Some of them snapped pictures that included the gay couple exchanging rings and sharing slices of cake.

The day after the tabloid published the photographs, police began rounding up men suspected of being homosexual. Some were beaten in captivity and forced to turn over the names of other gay men, according to research by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

Gays immediately went into hiding and those who could fled to neighbouring countries, including Gambia to the south, according to the New York based commission. Gambia's erratic president declared that gays who had entered his country had 24 hours to leave or face decapitation. Many returned to Senegal, where they lived on the run, moving from safe-house to safe-house.

Read more https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna36376840?fbclid=IwQ0xDSwLJN2RjbGNrAsk3NGV4dG4DYWVtAjExAAEekHTsD68oxSB5KbPyJZwE8LVP5dPObCgF-YuiB481O0juTBAjs8L82qHcitE_aem_QLJP3T4jCN8BLM__UtPiHA

Malawi, Release Steven and Tiwonge. Love is no crime!

Today I attended the protest rally organised by OutRage! held in front of the Commonwealth Secretariat on Pall Mall in central London in support of the jailed Malawian same-sex couple, Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga. Turning the corner into Pall Mall from Lower Regent Street and Waterloo Place, I bumped into the duo of Davis MacIyalla and Rev Jide Macaulay. After exchanging greetings and shaking hands all round it was in this esteemed company that I strolled down Pall Mall towards the Commonwealth building, Rev Jide chatting away on his head-set about something that seemed really important. It was a bright and sunny spring afternoon and we had walked only a few steps when another gentlemen in our group, whom Davis had introduced as a friend alerted us that there was someone across the street waving at us. We all turned in that direction and there he was on a bicycle, Peter Tatchell, the embodiment of gay activism. We acknowledged him and then crossed over to join him and together we all made our way to Marlborough House.

Shortly afterwards on the pavement in front of the Commonwealth Secretariat, Marlborough House, this core group was joined by several others, of all races, and Mr Tatchell handed out placards to those of us who wanted one. My placard read RELEASE TIWONGE & STEVEN. LOVE IS NO CRIME. OUTRAGE! Hence the title of this post. Another placard I liked read COMMONWEALTH COLLUDES WITH HOMOPHOBIA. 

Then the protest began in earnest with speeches made by Davis, Rev Jide, Mr Tatchell, one openly gay Green Party parliamentary candidate, two Malawian men, one who said he is gay, but it was the second Malawian man who announced the outcome of the case in Blantyre, Malawi against the gay couple. The Malawian court he said, had ruled that there was a case to answer, with a new hearing to be held on 3 April. Several other people came forward to give speeches.

The point that resonated most strongly with me was that made by one Godwyns, an African gay activist. He pointed out that whole governments of countries rally in support of animal rights. My thoughts immediately went towards the fact that blue-fin tuna and whales are important subjects of discussion at major international conferences, discussions in which the world's most important nations are involved. But gay Africans who are human beings are not considered sufficiently important for an international organisation such as the Commonwealth to openly take a stand against their persecution in their home countries.

These speeches were made on a megaphone as we stood on the pavement holding up our placards. I felt a bit incongruous, since I was the only one smartly dressed in a sharp dark business suit and tie, (I had left work to attend the protest rally). By this time we had started chanting loudly, "Malawi Malawi, No Homophobia! Uganda Uganda, No Homophobia! Nigeria Nigeria, No Homophobia! Africa Africa, No Homophobia!"

But soon, as is typical of London, the weather turned and it became quite windy and chilly. Most of the others had come prepared, wearing anoraks, duffel coats and the like. I alone was in this business suit that was clearly not up to the job of keeping me warm. The weather had fooled me, because it had been quite bright and warm when I left the office. What had been bright and sunny just an hour before had become chilly and windswept. I had no choice but to leave the rally while the protest was still in full swing, returning to the office to round up the day. I wish I had been able to stay right until the end. But I'll be staying with this story and following it closely.