Peace Gardens, Manchester City Centre, 1.40pm.

Tony recently travelled to Colombia and visited the site of a recently discovered secret graveyard in the town of La Macarena.

On the same day local people gathered to listen to different speakers who told of the killings of ordinary people, sometimes by security forces and sometimes by paramilitaries. One of the recent scandals to emerge has been the incredible story of young men being lured away from their homes in BogaFa with the offer of good employment, but these young men were shot by the army only hours later in different parts of the country so the army could claim they were guerillas shot in action.

This scandal is known as the false positives, and the picture above shows the platform of ‘no more of the false positives’.

The two women pictured above lost their sons in this scandal. The t-shirt reads ‘they didn’t deserve to die, the killers deserve punishment.’ Sadly, the outgoing President Uribe denounced all those involved in La Macarena as enemies with links to terrorism.

Tony attended the opening of new Arrahman Community Centre in Alexandra Park, Moss Side, pictured below.

The new centre will serve as a mosque, especially for the Somali community in Moss Side. The Centre will also open its doors to the wider community, both old and young, to act as a local community centre.

The anniversary of the Independence of Pakistan will be commemorated by people of Pakistan origin in Manchester on 14 August.

Saturday saw a community event in The Pakistan Community Centre in Manchester. The picture shows three young mancunians performing a comedy drama about different perspectives of the older generation and young people growing up here in Manchester.

Tony attended the RoadPeace annual remembrance service at The Grange Community Centre, Beswick, on 6 August 2010.

Tony said, “June Webb has campaigned strenuously on road safety for ten years. June lost her own daughter in a horrific and criminal car crash. Two young women lost their lives that day, inspiring June to campaign so other families don’t suffer the same tragedy.

“In particular there should be recognition that reckless driving is every bit as criminal as other types of criminal behaviour and should be treated as such when it comes to court sentencing.”

Today Tony met with University of Manchester PhD student Edwin Broni-Mensah who has recently launched “Give Me Tap”, a campaign that lets people fill their aluminium “Give me Tap” bottle with tap water at food and drink establishments across Manchester. Edwin came up with the idea to save on buying expensive bottled water and reduce the number of plastic bottles being discarded. For more information you can visit the Give Me Tap website.

Tony is pictured here with Edwin Broni-Mensah at Herbivores Vegetarian Cafe, the first place to sign up to Edwin’s campaign.

On 5 August 2010 Tony Lloyd visited Loss of Innocence: An Exhibition of Children’s Art from Gaza at Manchester Cathedral.

The exhibition has been collected by Rod Cox in March and April 2009 and displaying the work in the UK is the result of a promise made to the schools and youth groups in Gaza that he visited. The work is intended to educate us in the West and provide a psychological boost to those living in Palestine, helping them to believe that they are not as isolated and restoring some self-esteem. The project is supported in this regard by Gaza Community Health, the Gaza Ministry of Education and UNESCO.

The Children are very excited about their artwork even though a van, painted over by a Gazan school and intended to carry the project from Gaza to the UK, was not permitted to leave Gaza. The exhitiion can be viewed at www.rodcoxandgaza.blogspot.com

I visited Gaza myself in February 2009 following the Israeli invasion. The level of destruction and loss of human life made the invasion an unacceptable tragedy.

To an outsider the scenes were shocking but for the children who drew and painted the pictures in this exhibition this is what they actually witnessed and what is really shocking is knowing an estimated 300 children were killed.