Kony and the Invisible children … March 12, 2012

Over the past week I have been inundated with posts of videos about the LRA leader Joseph Kony and the campaign to make him "famous".

First of all I get ticked off when I watch the video that he got the location of Uganda wrong. Uganda is in East Africa and NOT Central Africa.  Secondly, I feel its a little too late. Ugandans and people in northern Uganda specifically have for the first time in 20 odd years an opportunity to live normal lives, the IDP camps have been disbanded and people are getting back to their homes and salvaging as much as they can.

More

Ugandans in … love online!!

ust last year if you'd said to me there would be a website dedicated in Luganda to people who are "searching" for love, actually that us is not particularly true … these people are looking for someone to marry … I'd probably have laughed out loud.

But I was on the Bukedde website and there it was … a space dedicated to abanoonya … people searching marriage partners. And it in vernacular no less!

Now if you come from London and other first world countries, where there is speed dating and internet dating and programs like "the Bachelor" and "take me out" … this sounds quite archaic.


More

Sarah Greenwood’s Sherlock Holmes Exhibition

BAFTA-winning and three-time Oscar-nominated production designer Sarah Greenwood invite to step inside blockbuster movies Sherlock Holmes 1 and 2 was a thrill for me, I am after all a Sherlock Holmes die hard.

I realised just how little i understood about the making of movies and it was quite an eye opening experience.

More

Soldier accused in Afghan killings on his way to Kansas base

Seattle (CNN) -- The attorney for an American soldier accused of killing 16 Afghans raised issues of stress and multiple deployments Friday that hinted at a possible defense strategy.

Even as John Henry Browne spoke, his client was on his way to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

The soldier had been in protective custody in Kuwait and was expected to arrive Friday evening at Fort Leavenworth, Browne said.

The civilian attorney said he had spoken with the soldier Thursday and he seemed distant, like a deer in the headlights. Their conversation was curt because Browne said he did not believe the phone lines were secure.

But he said he was wary of why the soldier was deployed to Afghanistan after three tours of Iraq left him with mental and physical injury.

More

Ex-Rutgers student faces 10 years or more for anti-gay hate crime

Reporting from New York—

Former Rutgers student Dharun Ravi could face more than 10 years in prison following his conviction Friday for hate crimes, invasion of privacy, tampering with evidence, and a host of other charges related to his spying on his gay college roommate, Tyler Clementi, whose subsequent suicide sparked a national debate on bullying of gay youth.

Ravi, 20, could also face deportation to his native India when he is sentenced in May.

Ravi sat silently, his face betraying little emotion, as the word "guilty" sounded throughout a New Jersey courtroom. He faced 15 counts in the case, which made national news in September 2010 after Clementi, who was 18, hurled himself from the George Washington Bridge in the New York City area after learning that Ravi had set up a webcam in their dorm room and captured him in an intimate encounter with a date.

As court adjourned, Ravi's mother cast him a long, lingering look while she filed out of the room with other spectators.
More

North Korea plans to launch long-range rocket

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea plans to blast a satellite into space next month to mark the centenary of the birth of its founder, Kim Il Sung, which the U.S. quickly called a "deal-breaker" for a new agreement where the U.S. would exchange food aid for nuclear concessions.

After Friday's surprise announcement, the United States said it is "very hard to imagine" it could go through with the exchange if the launch of the long-range rocket took place, and U.N. Security Council members said it may violate sanctions.

The North agreed to a moratorium on long-range launches as part of the food deal with Washington, but argues that satellite launches are part of a peaceful space program that is exempt from international disarmament obligations. The U.S., South Korea and other critics say the rocket technology overlaps with belligerent uses and condemn the satellite program as a disguised test of military missiles in defiance of a U.N. ban.

The launch is to take place three years after a similar launch in April 2009 drew widespread censure.

More