According to the independent Iraq Body Count group, 4,497 civilians met violent deaths in the country last year. That’s not quite as bad as the figure of 9,226 for 2008, but horrifying enough when you think how profoundly we in Britain were shocked by the loss of 56 people in the bus and train bombings of 2005.
Meanwhile in Pakistan, the death toll from the suicide bomb at a volleyball match in the north-west of the country has risen to 93. Altogether, more than 600 people have died in militant attacks since the army launched an offensive against Taliban strongholds in October.
A millennium ago this winter, Kent was suffering a reign of terror of its own after an “immense” Viking army arrived to plunder and extort protection money. Canterbury paid out a huge sum to get them to go away, which they did for a while – sacking towns like Oxford, Cambridge and Northampton instead.
In 1011, they returned, and burned Canterbury to the ground, killing, it is said, nine tenths of the inhabitants. They carried off Archbishop Alphege, but he bravely insisted that no ransom should be paid for him, so the Vikings murdered him, making him the first Archbishop of Canterbury to be martyred. I have just written the story for Kent on Sunday, and it can be accessed here on page 17:
http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/digital_editions/Page17_dceedd34-e22b-4c41-ba22-4b45e0962c66_8c14e057-f400-4ae2-a814-91554b91ef1c.aspx
Showing posts with label 1009. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1009. Show all posts
Sunday, 3 January 2010
Saturday, 1 August 2009
Bhopal, America and extradition + 1,000th anniversary
Almost 25 years after the world’s worst industrial disaster, a new arrest warrant has been issued for the former boss of the company responsible. When the Union Carbide pesticide plant at Bhopal in India leaked poison gas in the early hours of December 3, 1984, 2,000 people were killed in the next few hours, followed by at least 15,000 over the next few weeks. How many more have died from its effects in the years that followed is not known, but it is thought that more than half a million have been damaged in some way.
Warren Anderson was arrested soon after the disaster, but got bail, left India and has never returned. Now a court at Bhopal has asked the Indian government to seek his extradition from the United States. In view of the Obama regime’s intransigence in demanding the extradition of the British computer hacker Gary McKinnon, it will be interesting to see how it reacts if a request comes from another government to surrender a US citizen for alleged wrongdoing abroad.
On this day…..1,000 years ago, a fearsome Danish army landed in England. Over the next two and a half years, the Danes harried the land mercilessly – ravaging fifteen counties and burning down towns such as Oxford and Northampton.
Eventually in April 1012, they accepted £48,000 – an enormous sum in those days – to leave the country in peace, but not before they had murdered the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Danes had demanded a separate ransom for him, but he bravely insisted that nothing more should be paid, so they pelted him, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, with the “bones and heads of cattle” then split his skull open with an axe.
Warren Anderson was arrested soon after the disaster, but got bail, left India and has never returned. Now a court at Bhopal has asked the Indian government to seek his extradition from the United States. In view of the Obama regime’s intransigence in demanding the extradition of the British computer hacker Gary McKinnon, it will be interesting to see how it reacts if a request comes from another government to surrender a US citizen for alleged wrongdoing abroad.
On this day…..1,000 years ago, a fearsome Danish army landed in England. Over the next two and a half years, the Danes harried the land mercilessly – ravaging fifteen counties and burning down towns such as Oxford and Northampton.
Eventually in April 1012, they accepted £48,000 – an enormous sum in those days – to leave the country in peace, but not before they had murdered the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Danes had demanded a separate ransom for him, but he bravely insisted that nothing more should be paid, so they pelted him, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, with the “bones and heads of cattle” then split his skull open with an axe.
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