On first impression it’s enough to put a nesting Robin off its stride for good and liable to bring other garden creepers into disrepute - but it’s just the English celebrating Spring.

The caption to Toby Melville’s picture informs us, “A costumed festival participant marches in the Jack In The Green procession in Hastings in southern England May 5, 2008. The traditional annual May Day festival has origins at least as far back as the 17th century, with hundreds of costume-clad dancers and musicians - many dressed in green foliage - marching through the coastal town and symbolically slaying a giant Jack at the finale.”.

Some are more ‘out’ than others.

Elsewhere other revellers cover themselves in the remains of dead animals and 

there is evidence that it is something to do with fertility;

also that the Kruegers may have English country cousins.

Having grown up in the ‘Green Belt’ around London believing that ‘rural’ meant nothing to do evenings and weekends, I had always considered myself something of a country boy; however I was completely oblivious to any of this organised ritual fertility business. Of course it may just have been that I never got invited but surely all of us look pretty much alike after a couple of coats of green paint. 

As the song has it, “it’s life Jim but not as we know it“.

I wonder if it works with Magnolia emulsion paint?

 From Mabvuto Banda, Namitete, Malawi, May 2

 - Bernard Banda makes $5 a day carrying people on his bicycle, good money in a country
where more than half the 13 million people live below a dollar a day.
 
    “I charge MK70 (50 U.S. cents) per trip and on a good day I
make about MK700 ($5) or more,” Bernard says.

 
    Banda is not the only one cashing in on a bicycle transport
industry now booming because of the rising costs of fuel pushed
up by strong global oil prices.
 
    Along Mchinji road — the highway linking Malawi to Zambia’s
eastern province — colourfully decorated bicycles are neatly
parked, waiting to transport students to a nearby government
college, nursing staff to a hospital and visitors around the
area.
 
    The bicycles are remodelled to suit the business. A second
seat is attached to the bicycle behind the driver’s seat. The
passenger seat is finished in colourful but cheap leather,
comfortably sized to accommodate any size of passenger.
 
    Stand by the roadside for just a few minutes and you can see
how important the bicycles are to the area.
 
    Bernard is hired to transport a bag of maize. Another 
driver picks up a new passenger and cycles off.
 
    “To do this you have to be strong because sometimes we ride
uphill carrying a passenger or hired to transport a bag of
maize,” says Langiton Sitima.
 
    This form of transport is fast-becoming a common sight
across Malawi. In each province the bikers are called by
different names.

 
    “This form of transport is our future. I can no longer
afford to pay K150 ($1) a day for a one-way trip using public
transport,” says Maggie Yotamu, a student at the College of
Natural Resources which is along the route the bicycles service.
 
    In the capital Lilongwe and its surrounding districts they
call the bikers “Kabadza”, which means hard worker. In the
Northern Province they call them “Sacramento”, named after the
Brazilian buses that ply the long routes across the country.
 
    To underscore the importance of the bicycle, police have
been organising identity cards for these bikers.
 
    “In most cases police have moved in because we recognise
that they are giving a very important service to the public and
therefore we give them identity cards for security purposes,”
police spokesperson Willie Mwaluka told Reuters.

Pictures by Siphiwe Sibeko

Yesterday May 1 saw voters in England and Wales go to the polls to elect their local authority representatives. Londoners will have to wait until this evening to know who will be their new mayor but it is hard to imagine that it won’t be either the incumbent Labour Party candidate Ken Livingstone or the Conservative challenger Boris Johnson. Whatever the merits or otherwise of the other contenders, this has pretty much been a two horse race almost from the start. 

Some reports have said that Mayor Ken Livingstone has looked rather weary and Stephen Hird’s picture (which appears on the front of  yesterday’s FT), shows him taking a break from the last day of campaigning, at what is colloquially know in this country as a ‘greasy spoon’ cafe. Intended, I suspect, to demonstrate his ‘just-like-us-ness’. It may in fact have succeeded rather too well because he does look just like any other tired old bloke.   

Traditional symbols have been mercilessly exploited. Boris, an old Etonian had as his campaign bus one of the famous old red Routemaster London buses that Ken, as mayor, banished from service (Toby Melville).

On Polling Day Ken donned the traditional Labour politican’s garb of raincoat and Red Rosette (Toby Melville) and Boris seemed to complete the transformation into Winston Churchill that he had shown signs of earlier in the campaign (Darren Staples and Alessia Pierdomenico).

Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.

Spring in London has finally sprung. The lid of concrete grey cloud has occasional cracks in it allowing the sun to shine through which completely transforms the appearance of the place.  

The seasonal ’showers’ this year have had a monsoon-like intensity but having suffered the discomfort of long days of rain, Londoners have been rewarded by some wonderfully dramatic sunsets as Toby Melville demonstrates

The rain has transformed London’s parks into an explosion of lush new foliage and sprawling suburbs are transformed by cherry blossom. 

However as Alessia Pierdomenico shows, for those without access to parks and gardens all is not lost, because when the sun sets the Guerilla Gardeners emerge. Working under cover of darkness, armed with seed bombs, chemical weapons and pitchforks they transform urban wasteland. “Their tactics are anarchistic, their attitude revolutionary. Their aim: to beautify.”

And London can be a very beautiful city indeed.

I live close to Richmond Park in South West London, where at dusk a few days ago the sun setting beyond the vast expanse of Heathrow Airport, shone diffused through a rain shower, turning new leaves transluscent and with the herd of deer grazing in the foreground looked just like a scene from Ridley Scott’s Legend.

Unfortunately it was one of those ‘better remembered than photographed’ moments.

For those who may have missed it, this is the Reuters story reporting the killing of Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. It is a tragic loss and I would like to add my condolences to his family, friends and colleagues.

Reuters cameraman killed in Gaza 

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - A Reuters cameraman was killed in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday in what appeared to be an Israeli military strike.

Fadel Shana, 23, was covering events in the enclave for the international news agency on a day of intense violence when 16 other Palestinians and three Israeli soldiers were also killed.

Two youths passing by died in the same explosion that killed Shana, witnesses said. The cameraman had stepped from his car to film an Israeli tank dug in several hundred meters (yards) away.

Video from Shana’s camera showed the tank opening fire. Two seconds after the shot raises dust around its gun, the tape goes blank — seemingly at the moment Shana was hit.

Reuters soundman Wafa Abu Mizyed, 25, sustained a shrapnel wound and was being treated in a Gaza hospital.

The Israeli army declined immediate comment on what caused Shana’s death. It expressed sorrow but also said journalists were putting their lives at risk in areas of combat.

The Reuters vehicle was an unarmored sport utility vehicle bearing “TV” and “Press” markings. The blast on a country back road left the car shattered and ablaze. Shana’s body amour had been partially torn off. Abu Mizyed had no recollection of the incident, which occurred in good light around 5 p.m. (1400 GMT).

An Israeli military spokeswoman, Major Avital Leibovich, said there had been clashes there throughout the day after the three Israeli troops had been killed overnight in the same area. 

A military official said: “We wish to express sorrow for the death of the Palestinian cameraman… It should be emphasized that the area in which the cameraman was hurt is an area in which ongoing fighting against armed, extreme and dangerous terrorist organizations occurs on a daily basis.”

“The presence of media, photographers and other uninvolved individuals in areas of warfare is extremely dangerous and poses a threat to their lives.”

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s spokesman said: “In our operations we try to be as surgical as possible and make every effort not to see innocent people caught up in the fighting.”

CALL FOR INVESTIGATION

Reuters Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger called for an investigation: “This tragic incident shows the risks journalists take every day to report the news. All governments and organizations have a responsibility to take the utmost care to protect professionals trying to do their jobs,” he said.

“Our thoughts are with his family. We request an immediate investigation into the incident by the Israeli defense forces.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who was visiting Moscow, telephoned Reuters in Gaza to express his condolences.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Paris-based Reporters Without Borders mourned Shana’s death.

“We are asking the Israeli authorities to publicly commit to carrying out an exhaustive investigation into this incident and to make its findings public,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon in a statement. 

Shana, who had worked for Reuters in Gaza for more than three years, was wounded in 2006 when an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at a Reuters vehicle. That car also carried markings showing it was operated by the media organization.

Shana, who was unmarried, was a gentle and popular figure among the 15-strong Reuters news team in the Gaza Strip. The bureau was honored by Britain’s Royal Television Society for its coverage of last year’s factional fighting in Gaza.

Hundreds of journalists and well-wishers flocked to the hospital where Shana’s body was taken. The family planned to hold a funeral on Thursday.

Journalists have become casualties on numerous occasions in the Palestinian territories. Media watchdogs estimate that nine have been killed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 2000.

An Israeli soldier shot a Reuters photographer in the leg in Gaza in October. Two Reuters journalists were wounded by an Israeli tank shell in the enclave in 2003.

Also in 2003, one of the most widely renowned Palestinian journalists to work for Reuters, television cameraman Mazen Dana, was shot dead by a U.S. soldier in Baghdad. Six other Reuters journalists have been killed in that conflict.

On Tuesday last week, family members, friends and colleagues of Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk gathered at Kiev to remember the fifth anniversay of his death in Baghdad.  After a church ceremony flowers were laid on his grave and a toast drunk to him in accordance with local custom. 

Taras was killed along with Telecinco cameraman Jose Couso by an American tank shell fired at the Reuters office in the Palestine Hotel. The shell also severly injured his Reuters colleagues Samia Nakhoul, Paul Pasquale and Faleh Kheiber.

Taras’s widow Lydia and nephew Andriy stand at his grave.

The circumstances of Taras’s death are still an issue in Ukraine and the memorial celebrations were prominently covered by local television and newspapers. 

A Ukrainian man places his handprint on a portrait of the late journalist Taras Protsyuk near the U.S. embassy in Kiev, April 8, 2006 on the third anniversary of the death of the journalist killed when a U.S. tank shell hit the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad as troops entered the Iraqi capital in 2003. REUTERS/Ivan Chernichkin

I, for one, will never forget that day.

Taras and son Denis - picture by Sergei Karazy.

My thanks to Mykhailo Chernichkin for the graveside pictures and to Sergei Karazy and Yann Tessier who were there.   

I’d like to add my own congratulations to the plaudits being lauded on Adrees Latif who has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography. It is one hell of a picture.

The following images are unlikely prize-winners but serve to demonstrate the delight with which news of his win has been received by his Reuters colleagues. In the first Paul Barker, Editor Asia News Pictures and Asia Chief Photographer Russell Boyce toast his image;

while in the second the editorial team from text, TV, graphics and pictures at Reuters Asia HQ in Singapore drink his health as Adrees himself listens-in via the telephone on the desk to the right of the frame, from his assignment in Nepal.  

I bet he’s pleased now that he diversified beyond basketball and maybe at long last my spell-checker will stop trying to correct his name to ‘Address’.

http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news  /2008/04/pulitzer.html

Hats off to Luis Vasconcelos for this powerful picture.

The caption says, “An indigenous woman holds her child while trying to resist the advance of Amazonas state policemen who were expelling the woman and some 200 other members of the Landless Movement from a privately-owned tract of land on the outskirts of Manaus, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon March 11, 2008. The landless peasants tried in vain to resist the eviction with bows and arrows against police using tear gas and trained dogs. REUTERS/Luiz Vasconcelos-A Critica/AE (BRAZIL)”.

Images of heavy-handed oppression really don’t come much better than this - defenceless, screaming woman clutching naked child is shoved and beaten by faceless, armoured authority.

The symbols are reinforced by the strong composition. The woman and her child appear all the more vulnerable as the only elements of humanity and colour against the advancing wall of shields and boots.Such a potent image leaves very little room for any doubt. In such circumstances do we need to know the details of the dispute to have any doubts that what we are witnessing is wrong?

So you’re covering a Hillary Clinton campaign rally in the gym of the St. Clairsville High School when in your viewfinder the face of Old Nick or one of that ilk hoves into view behind the former first lady. What do you do?

Do you:  1 - Point, scream, run away?

               2 - Shrug, put down your camera and just wait resignedly because you’ve suspected for a while that you were due a visit?

               3 - Shoot only pictures of The Evil One because recorded public appearances are infrequent and even though it isn’t exclusive this is great archive material?

              4 - Ignore the distraction and concentrate on the candidate?

              5 - Not panic because you know it is only the symbol of the school’s Red Devils sports team, but include a couple of frames of it as part of a balanced report just like that produced of the actual event by Reuters photographer Shannon Stapleton?

Are we suggesting that Hillary Clinton is in league with the Devil? No more than we are suggesting that Barack Obama has natural radiance or that light emanates whence the sun does not normally shine.

Allowing their charge to be pictured in the same frame as a Red Devil does not appear to have been something that troubled Senator Clinton’s campaign managers and media advisors, maybe they saw it for what it was - a virtually guaranteed front page picture.

They set ‘em up, we knock ‘em over.

As a child, the Chinese Lunar New year was “the” highlight of the year. There was no school, we could stay up all night, there was unlimited food and sweets everywhere, every adult we met would give us little red packets of money, cool long lost cousins would turn out of nowhere and we would play and watch TV all day long. Most importantly, there would be no mention of homework. It was like Disneyland every year.

As with most festivals, Lunar New Year would tend to lose its magic as we get older, especially when we have to start helping out, and conversations with long lost cousins go from who gets to be super duper Ultraman to who is making more money. Celebrations this year for my family was especially quiet as my grandmother just passed away and we would be in mourning for three years. We are, however, still allowed to celebrate a toned down version of it.

This is a Singaporean traditional Lunar New Year salad called “Yu Sheng”, or raw fish, to symbolise “Nian Nian You Yu”, or years and years of excess. 

There is an elaborate ritual to eating this dish, one of which involves getting the whole family together to mix the ingredients and shout auspicious phrases. Through years of experience, I have learnt that this is one of the most inefficient ways of mixing vegetables with dressing as the dish inevitably ends up being too sweet on one end and sour on the other.

As we are still in mourning, there would be no elaborate four-hour prayer session to the Heavenly God to welcome the New Year. We had a short prayer to the God of the Earth to ask for simple blessings instead, and instead of the usual stacks and stacks of incense paper money, this is all we are burning for the year… all folded by me, hence the intricate craftsmanship.

The paper money is burnt, prayers sent out, all we can do now is keep our fingers crossed.

The big day itself. At first light, we would take turns to offer tangerines and blessings to our parents, wishing them good health and good luck. In return, they would give us red packets and a short friendly lecture on working hard and being nice. “Friendly” being the operative word because harsh words and scolding are considered to be inauspicious. Doing chores and running errands are all disallowed too. During the New Year, one is only allowed to have fun and nothing else, just like in college. Also, notice my parents are both in green, not the traditional auspicious red. This is because they were both born in the Year of the Rat.

Being in mourning also means no visiting of relatives, which also means a substantial loss of income for us kids. To cheer us up, my dad decided to take us to the “River Hongbao” festival organised by the various clans in Singapore. Since young, we have always been too busy visiting relatives and/or playing to go for events such as this, and I always thought they were quite lame. But being in the thick of the action, getting squashed with the crowd, and watching young attractive women haggle with storekeepers does get me into the festive mood and put a smile on my face.

Here’s wishing all Gong Xi Fa Cai - Happy Chinese New Year!