The past month has been a long month, a busy month, an interesting month. Took a little blog sabbatical in a sense without ever having planned to do so but that’s the way the cookie crumbled.
After 10 years of civil war, Sierra Leone is at peace. Charles G. Taylor, the former president of Liberia and once a powerful warlord, was convicted April 26 by an international tribunal of 11 counts of planning, aiding and abetting war crimes committed in Sierra Leone during it’s civil war in the 1990s. Taylor was guilty of involvement in crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, rape, slavery and the use of child soldiers. Prosecutors alleged that Taylor, from his base in neighboring Liberia, directed and armed the rebels and because of that, bears direct responsibility for the results of that war. The eleven-year conflict (from 1991-2002) left more than 50,000 dead and was marked by unprovoked and unjustified violence – especially the amputation of limbs. Sierra Leone is peaceful, a decade later, but is among the world’s poorest countries, with a much longer recovery in store.
2011 TED Prize winner, JR recently visited North Korea. Although taking pictures in public can cause issues with authorities in the Communist country, that didn’t stop the French photographer from snapping away, shooting the streets, landmarks, buildings, signs, soldiers, and more.
“Filthy Luker invades Manchester with 50ft high fully interactive space invader game created using road work barriers and traffic cones. Software created by Jnr Hacksaw. The project is a work in progress and under deconstruction, coming to some scaffolding near you soon.”
