Welcome South Sudan

I thought it would be a nice idea to make my first entry on this blog a celebration of the birth of South Sudan. After years of neglect or reports of the horror of the war which raged on and off for close to fifty years, how wonderful to see the unbridled joy reported by journalist Peter Martell in Juba in the BBC report here.

For once the story making it into the headlines around the world was one of an enormous party, colour and excitement, and not the jaded image of war-torn Africa. Of course South Sudan has many challenges ahead, but I hope that the taste of freedom and self-determination experienced by all those dancing ‘on the streets in the baking sun’ will stay with the new nation in the important years ahead.