Just wanted to acknowledge the fact – a few weeks late, sorry – that BBC journalist Aleem Maqbool won the Gaby Rado Memorial Award at the 2009 Amnesty International Media Awards last month, for his reporting from Gaza after taking over the BBC’s bureau there following Alan Johnston’s kidnap. I was going to link to an interesting article by him in the current Amnesty magazine, talking about his career and experiences – but it’s not available online because Amnesty doesn’t appear to have updated its magazine pages since 2006… (why?)

Never mind. Politics aside, one of Aleem’s most memorable stories – apart from his blog from the haj – came from his idea last year to walk from Nazareth to Bethlehem, retracing the journey made by Joseph and Mary in the Christmas story, arriving in Bethlehem on Christmas Day. If you haven’t read his blog and watched the video clips from along the way, take time to do so – it’s a great travel story, told brilliantly well.