Glasgow

By Sue Turton in Asia on November 23rd, 2010
Photo by Reuters

It's the kids that break your heart in Kabul.

Picking through rubbish dumps for something that might have a worth or scavenging for firewood to keep their family warm. There are ragged youths at every roundabout here tapping on the car window begging for Afghanis or proffering tin cans of burning charcoal that promise to rid your car of evil spirits.|

The daily violence does not discriminate between old and young and the numbers of children ripped apart by IEDs and suicide bombers gets ever higher.

If you're born in Afghanistan the odds are stacked against you from the day of your birth.

Mortality rates during child birth have improved but they're still amongst the highest in the world. One in every five don't make it to their fifth birthday.

If the conflict doesn't get you, the pneumonia, hypothermia, diarrhoea or tuberculosis just might. And that's just the physical side.

By Alan Fisher in Europe on September 16th, 2010
Benedict celebrated Mass on Thursday in Glasgow's Bellahouston Park [AFP photo]

 
They came in their tens of thousands - for a while the scandals, the controversies the arguments forgotten.
 
In the warm early autumn sunshine – unseasonably nice for Glasgow - they waited patiently for the man they all want to see.
 
It's a curious mix. One of our team said it felt like a music festival, with the strains of the organ rising above the general chatter of an excited crowd.
 
With the flags and the smell of burgers hanging in the air, the vendors pushing their programmes, to me it felt more like a football match.
 
Looking across the crowd – and there are easily 60,000 here, there are flags from Spain and France, from Ireland and Sweden, from Denmark and even India.
 
And there are the flags of the Vatican City, the world's smallest nation and of course, the white cross on the blue background, the Scottish Saltire.
 

By Al Jazeera Staff in Europe on September 16th, 2010

18:30 GMT: Right, that's it from me for the day. Hope you enjoyed the coverage. Don't forget to check back for more updates tomorrow, and remember, you can follow this and other world news 24 hours a day by tuning into Al Jazeera English, or online at www.aljazeera.net/english. But I'm guessing you knew that...

18:23 GMT: Susan Boyle is back on stage, and the first day of the Pope's visit to Britain is over. He will now head to London to spend the night there, ahead of a visit to Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canturbury, scheduled for Friday.    

18:11 GMT:  Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher reports from the mass: "What the pope got here in Glasgow was what we would have expected from the fathful. It's not just Scots that are here; we've seen flags from all over Europe.

By Alan Fisher in Europe on August 11th, 2010

I read on Wednesday of the death of Jimmy Reid, aged 78. He'd been ill for some time.

His name will mean nothing to many - he loved the fact I once described him as "world famous in Scotland" -  but part of his story is worth re-telling.

Born in the grinding poverty of Glasgow's East End, his humble upbringing did not stop him excelling at school. 

But there was never any question of young Jimmy going on to university. There was a need to help the family, to go out and earn some money, so at the age of 14, he went to work.

Although he started working in a stockbrokers, he became an important figure in Glasgow's famous shipyards.

There was a time that being 'Clydebuilt' was a mark of quality known the world over.

In 1971, the then Conservative government decided it was time to close the five yards on the river, with the loss of 6,000 jobs. 

Reid was one of those who co-ordinated the workers' action.

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