As it turns out, there is no actual Bill being put forward by the government. Mr Taylor is referring to

the ID cards proposed by various bodies which will serve to create an ‘uber class’ of photographer, and restrict the use of cameras by normal citizens.

The fact that there is no legislation in the pipeline has not prevented me from signing the petition. I have personally been harassed by security guards for taking photographs in the City of London with a tripod. It angered me that I was allowed to use my camera hand-held, or indeed to support it on a wall with a beanbag - but that the use of a tripod was prohibited. I believe that anyone should be allowed to take photographs of any public place - regardless of whether they use a tripod to steady the camera!

If you feel the same and you live in the UK then perhaps you should sign the petition too:
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Photography/

I would like to say that the Zimbabwean people are not capable of genocide. I would like to say that only Mugabe and his cronies are evil, and that the rest of the population are well-intentioned people suffering under his tireless tyranny. But I fear that a sinister malignancy has been suffusing the minds of many Zimbabweans.

Yesterday I was speaking to someone on the ground in Harare. She has been active in the community, collecting blankets and clothing for the poor souls whose houses have been demolished by the governement. They managed to get a whole lorry full of supplies to these people, who are suffering without food or shelter in the biting Zimbabwean winter. But this was not a heart-warming story. When the lorry arrived, the police confiscated all the supplies, piled them up and burned them. They said that the people didn’t need help - the State would provide for them. If only that were true.

The malice behind such an act makes me nauseous.

Many of the newly-homeless have been carted off to the rural areas. But they are not being resettled. Some of them, I am told, are being held under guard on farms. They have minimal food, shelter and clothing, and no rights. This sounds suspiciously like what happened in the Darfur region of Sudan. In fact, the words “concentration camp” immediately leap to mind.

Perhaps it is just a matter of time before people are killed trying to escape from this captivity. From there, I fear it would be a very slippery slope down to all out genocide.

In another report today, more people have died in the government’s contraversial urban slum demolition scheme.

Indeed, Zimbabweans don’t only face a bleak future - they are facing a bleak present! I was there in April and I was severely depressed by what I saw. What is even more depressing is that, if the situation there had really been caused by a drought or some other natural disaster, everyone would be clubbing together to alleviate the problem. But instead, for the most part, it has been orchestrated by the country’s despotic President. So even people who want to help find that their efforts are hindered by the country’s own governement.

Britain’s ambassador to the UN, Emyr Jones-Parry, said the government was to blame for many of the problems facing Zimbabwe.

“It is man-made and not a natural phenomenon. The economic collapse in Zimbabwe is the result of bad policies and bad governance,” he said.

Well, good man for speaking up - but pity about the understatement. He almost makes it sound like the Zimbabweans’ predicament it is due to Mugabe’s mistakes - if he weren’t being so diplomatic he would say that most of the problems facing Zimbabweans have been carefully planned by Mugabe in order to control the people and to hold onto power.

In the spirit of Live8 and Make Poverty History I urge you to do something to help the oppressed people of Zimbabwe: visit www.MakeTyrannyHistory.org