Everything seems to be happening extremely fast since I arrived in London last Monday to cover the G8 Summit for Panos London. We left London for Edinburgh last Friday. Other journalist who are Edinburgh for the same reason are Hilary Mbobe, Machrine Birungi, John Kamau, Maura Quartoze, and Salamatu Turay.
A lot has been happening in Edinburgh. Follow our coverage (photos, features, blog entries, etc) here and here. Metro will be featuring stories from us. We are going back to London this coming Friday. London gives me a feeling of being tightly squeezed by old buildings with thick walls, tiny cars, throngs of people running to catch the next train, narrow roads, and tiny bedrooms. London, in a way, reminds me of New York: rush, rush, rush…catch the bus…is it number 38 or 28? Catch the train…what time is the next train leaving?
Back in London we were able to meet different political and media figures. We met Hugh Bayley (Member of Parliament for York), the chair of Africa All Party Parliamentary Group. While seated on a side table in his office, he briefly told us the progress that has been made by his group in bringing to the attention of British politicians and policy-makers critical issues relating to Africa.
Last Tuesday, John and I went to talk to the former CEO of City Water, Cliff Stone, about the Tanzanian governement decision to deport him and cancel its contract with City Water. We did not have enough time to finish the interview; we might do it again face to face or over the phone before we leave the UK. We are still working in this story. The same day, we went to London School of Economics to a public forum entitled: Make G8 History. We got there a little bit late. But I was glad that we did not miss Tariq Ali, George Monbiot, and Mark Curtis.
On Wednesday we met Clare Short (Member of Parliament for Birmingham Ladywood) at House of Parliament. Before meeting Clare Short, Francesca, Nicky, John, and I visited BBC online offices to see what they do. John, apart from blogging for Africavox blog, will also blog for BBC online.
On thursay, the day before we left for Edinburgh, we had informative discussions with two amazing and experienced UK bloggers. Paul Mason writes about our meeting. Rafael Behr talked about being the only blogger at the Observer and showed us the last public speech by Ceausescu. Colin Grant-Bu interviewed me for the BBC programme, Go Digital. He will conduct another interview with all of us next Monday.
Back in London we were able to meet different political and media figures. We met Hugh Bayley (Member of Parliament for York), the chair of Africa All Party Parliamentary Group. While seated on a side table in his office, he briefly told us the progress that has been made by his group in bringing to the attention of British politicians and policy-makers critical issues relating to Africa.
Last Tuesday, John and I went to talk to the former CEO of City Water, Cliff Stone, about the Tanzanian governement decision to deport him and cancel its contract with City Water. We did not have enough time to finish the interview; we might do it again face to face or over the phone before we leave the UK. We are still working in this story. The same day, we went to London School of Economics to a public forum entitled: Make G8 History. We got there a little bit late. But I was glad that we did not miss Tariq Ali, George Monbiot, and Mark Curtis.
On Wednesday we met Clare Short (Member of Parliament for Birmingham Ladywood) at House of Parliament. Before meeting Clare Short, Francesca, Nicky, John, and I visited BBC online offices to see what they do. John, apart from blogging for Africavox blog, will also blog for BBC online.
On thursay, the day before we left for Edinburgh, we had informative discussions with two amazing and experienced UK bloggers. Paul Mason writes about our meeting. Rafael Behr talked about being the only blogger at the Observer and showed us the last public speech by Ceausescu. Colin Grant-Bu interviewed me for the BBC programme, Go Digital. He will conduct another interview with all of us next Monday.
You might be interested in visiting other G8 Blogs:
3 comments:
!!!!
Good work telling us.
The terror attack will change things.
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