Mumbai train bombers convicted

In India, 12 men have been convicted for their part in the co-ordinated bombings of Mumbai commuter trains in 2006 that killed 189 people and injured more than 800. One man was acquitted. Sentencing is due tomorrow.

The seven bombs went off during a 15 minute spell, and appeared to have targeted first class compartments as people were going home from jobs in the city’s financial district. Explosives were packed into pressure cookers, then put in bags.

Prosecutors said the attack was planned by Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI, and carried out by the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba with help from the Students' Islamic Movement of India, a banned Indian group. Pakistan has rejected the allegations.

Mumbai has been hit by a number of terrorist attacks. In 2013, bombs killed 257 people, and bombers also struck in 2003 and 2011, killing a total of 70, while in 2008, gunmen attacked a number of places in the city, killing 165.

Iraq and madness

‘Put a sock in it!’ That was London Mayor Boris Johnson’s advice to Tony Blair after his latest attempt to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Mr Johnson, who voted for the war, declared that Mr Blair ‘has finally gone mad’.

You can see why the mayor might take this view. Bush and Blair attacked the country as part of the ‘war on terror’. When they launched their invasion, there was plenty wrong with Iraq, but there was no terrorism to speak of. Now Prime Minister David Cameron rates the ISIS Islamic extremists of Iraq and Syria as the biggest terrorist danger to the UK.

One of the reasons why so many people in the UK opposed invading Iraq was that it would put us at risk of events like the 7.7 bombings of 2005. Now, what do you know? Mr Cameron is warning us that ISIS is planning attacks in the UK.

It is, of course, the Iraqi people themselves who are the main victims of terrorism, and I have blogged frequently about their suffering. Last month nearly 800 people were killed, and already this month, hundreds more have died.

Aircraft that vanished

The hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines 777 goes on, and on, but, of course, it is not the only aircraft to have vanished without trace. Perhaps the most famous was the Lockheed Electra being flown by Amelia Earhart (pictured) in her attempt to become the first woman to fly around the world in 1937. A voice message from Earhart and her navigator near Howland Island in the mid-Pacific was the last thing ever heard from the flight.

Much bigger aircraft have also disappeared. In 2003, a Boeing 727, being leased by TAAG Angola Airlines, took off from Luanda with its tracking transponder switched off. The aircraft had been idle for 14 months and had racked up millions of dollars in airport fees. No trace of it or the one person known to be on board has ever been found.

In 1962, a Flying Tiger Line Lockheed Super Constellation chartered by the US military disappeared over the western Pacific. It had departed from Travis Air Force Base, California, carrying 93 American soldiers to fight the Viet Cong, 3 South Vietnamese military personnel and 11 crew. The pilot’s last message gave the aircraft’s position as 280 miles west of Guam.

A tanker in the area reported seeing what looked like an aircraft exploding, but one of the biggest air and sea searches in the history of the Pacific found nothing. Another Super Constellation from Travis Air Base carrying secret military cargo crashed the same day in the Aleutian Islands, leading to strong suspicions that both were sabotaged.

Iraq: another bloody year

The mayhem unleashed by Messrs Blair and Bush when they so carelessly invaded Iraq in 2003 continues. Last year was the worst for six years, with at least 7,818 civilians and 1,050 members of the security forces killed according to the United Nations.

Since April, there has been a surge in sectarian violence following a deadly crackdown on a Sunni protest camp in Hawija. Sunni militants stepped up attacks across the country, while Shia groups launched reprisals.

Since the US-UK invasion, Al-Qaeda has emerged as a major force in Iraq, and the black flags of their allies are reported to be flying over two cities in the west of the country, Ramadi and Fallujah, showing they are still in control of parts of them.

December alone saw at least 661 civilians killed, plus 98 members of the security services, and tensions have increased this week with the arrest of a prominent Sunni MP.

*Just had news that my A Disastrous History of the World is going to be translated into Romanian. It has already appeared in Spanish and Estonian.

Tornadoes - poor Moore

 

Lightning may not strike the same place twice, but tornadoes do.  Moore, Oklahoma, which was devastated yesterday, was also hit in 1999 and 2003.

This time winds of up to 200 mph flattened whole neighbourhoods.  Schools were destroyed, and at least 24 people have been killed.  President Obama has declared it a major disaster.  Tornadoes, hail and high winds also hit Iowa and Kansas. 

The 1999 tornado (pictured) caused devastation for nearly 40 miles, killing 41 people, destroying thousands of homes, and inflicting damage that cost more than $1 billion.    In 2003, houses, businesses, two hotels and a church were among the buildings destroyed or damaged.

The most devastating twister in US history was the Great Tri-State Tornado of 1925, which wrought havoc in Missouri, Illinois and Indiana, killing around 700.  

* The fourth video in my series on Britain’s 20 Worst Military Disasters – the Anglo-Saxon Conquest is now up - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVC0oEVukmA

Freak rain brings Argentina floods

In the UK, we have just had the coldest March in more than 50 years.  In Argentina, they are mourning their dead after the heaviest rainstorm in a century hit Buenos Aires and La Plata.

At least 48 people were killed by flooding in La Plata, where the provincial governor said the city had ‘never seen anything like it’, and half a dozen more in the capital.   More bodies are still being found.

Thousands of people have had to be moved from their homes, including the mother of the president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, while many others are sheltering on roofs or in trees.  In some places, people blocked roads to demand more help from the authorities.

These were probably the worst floods in Argentina since the city of Santa Fe was inundated in 2003 after heavy rain made river levels rise by six feet in just three hours.   More than 150 people died, and 100,000 had to be evacuated.

Iraq disaster goes on......and on

The disaster that Bush and Blair unleashed when they blundered into Iraq a decade ago shows no sign of abating.   Yesterday at least a dozen people, mainly Shia pilgrims, were killed in a series of bombings across the country.

No one has claimed responsibility, but Sunni militants, some of whom have links to al-Qaeda, have been blamed for much of the recent violence.   On Wednesday, more than 40 people were killed by bombs.

According to the authoritative independent Iraq Body Count monitoring group, last year 4,471 civilians were killed, an increase on 2011.   Every week on average, there are 18 bombings in the country.

Relations between Sunnis and Shias appear to get worse by the day.  Under Saddam Hussein, the Sunnis ruled the roost.     Since the invasion, they feel they have been marginalised and they have begun staging strikes and sit-ins.

* http://lagotafria.blogspot.com.es/  2nd blog on this page discusses my Historia Mundial de los desastres

Honduras prison fire was accident

The death toll in the Honduras prison fire has now reached 359, making this probably the most disastrous prison fire in history.    Preliminary inquiries suggest that it was an accident caused by a cigarette.   Initial reports that the blaze was started deliberately are now being dismissed.

American inspectors say the gaol was overcrowded and that it contained too much inflammable material.   Relatives who stormed the morgue where the bodies of their loved ones were being held, claim to have seen evidence of bullet wounds, though the authorities have denied that any prisoners were shot.

Honduras has the highest murder rate in the world, but many of the prisoners at Comayagua had not been convicted and were awaiting trial.   Last year the US State Department said that many inmates in Honduras’s gaols suffered from malnutrition.

This is the third major prison fire in the country in just 9 years    In 2003, 70 inmates were killed at another prison, and in 2004 the death toll was more than 100 at a third.    Human Rights Watch say that following the fires: ‘everybody feels pretty sorry for a few days.’    Then presumably the feeling passes.

Space disasters

On this day……44 years ago, Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov died in the world’s first fatal space accident. A new kind of spacecraft was being used and it ran into a number of problems, culminating in the parachute failing to open properly on re-entry so that the capsule crashed into the ground.

The world’s deadliest space accidents both involved the American Space Shuttle. Challenger was destroyed 73 seconds after lift-off at Cape Canaveral on January 28, 1986. A faulty seal allowed hot gasses to escape causing the craft to break up in mid air, killing all seven people on board. Fragments are still occasionally washed ashore in Florida.

Seventeen years later, on February 1, 2003, Columbia was lost on re-entry at the end of a two-week mission. A piece of insulation foam had broken away during launch and damaged the shuttle’s left wing. It broke up over Texas, and all seven crew members were killed, including the first Israeli in space.

Heatwaves, drownings and vodka

I loved the hot weather while I was in Cornwall, but, as ever it has been claiming victims, especially among the old. In the UK, the Health Protection Agency says its initial impression is that there have been “several hundred excess deaths” over the past two weeks.

This is not particularly surprising. The heatwave of 2003, probably the deadliest Europe has ever seen, is believed to have cost more than 2,000 lives in the UK, and perhaps 50,000 over the continent as a whole.

More surprising is the news from Russia, where temperatures have been pressing close to the all-time Moscow record of 36°C, and the country is suffering what may be its worst drought in a century.

In just a week, more than 230 people have drowned, many of them through going for a swim when tanked up with vodka. The death toll also includes six schoolchildren who drowned, while the summer camp workers who were supposed to be looking after them were drunk.

(See also my blogs of 2nd Feb, 27th June, 26th July, 2009.)

India's big freeze + Whitehall Palace

Every year in India, hundreds of people die in the summer from extreme heat, but in the winter the cold is a serious hazard, especially for the poor. This winter, up to 100 people have perished, mainly in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh – most of them homeless or old people.

Six years ago, the death toll reached an estimated 150 – with half of the victims in Uttar Pradesh, and the others in Rajasthan and Bihar. In Bihar, the authorities ordered bonfires to be lit to help keep the homeless warm.

On this day….312 years ago, what was once the greatest palace in Europe was burned down. London’s Whitehall Palace covered 23 acres, but it came to grief because a servant left some linen drying by a fire.

The flames got out of control and destroyed almost the whole of the complex apart from the magnificent Banqueting House, outside which Charles I was executed, which can be visited to this day. For the story, see The Disastrous History of London.

Bus crashes

A bus carrying farmers and traders home for Christmas has plunged 250 feet into a ravine in the Peruvian Andes, killing at least 42 people. They were travelling between Arequipa, Peru's elegant second largest city, and the town of Santo Tomas.

The accident happened in an area that was so remote that the nearest village did not have a doctor. A local schoolteacher said the road was potholed and in poor condition, but investigators will also be looking at whether a mechanical fault or recent rains might be a factor.

Back in 1995, 110 people are said to have been killed when a tanker carrying liquid benzene collided with a bus on the outskirts of Sriperumbudur in India’s Tamil Nadu state. If this figure is correct, this would probably be the worst bus crash in history.

Better documented is the accident in 2003 in which a coach drove into a reservoir near the town of Bethlehem in South Africa, killing 80. This too happened in a remote area, and it seems that the driver lost his way in the dark and found himself driving along a jetty towards the water. By the time he realised his mistake he was going too fast to stop.

Blair official: "I lied over Iraq"

Of course, Mr Blair is not going to come out and say “OK, l lied so I could bomb, invade and occupy Iraq, killing tens of thousands of innocent people who never did us any harm.” He’s a lawyer, for Heaven’s sake, but he has admitted as much in the unlikely environment of an interview with Fern Britton.

He told her that he didn’t care whether Saddam had weapons of mass destruction or not. Even if he hadn’t, “I would still have thought it right to remove him.” It would simply have meant that other pretexts would have needed to be found: “I mean obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments.”

So when Mr Blair told the House of Commons in February 2003 that if Saddam was prepared to get rid of his weapons of mass destruction, he would not attack his country, he was lying. I’m old enough to remember a time when a minister who lied to the House of Commons about a love affair had to resign – at once, no arguments.

In many ways, the most interesting thing about the whole Iraq fiasco is not Mr Blair – who has plainly never been burdened by any sliver of respect for the truth – but the Labour party. They have managed to persuade themselves that it’s no problem if you tell a pack of lies so you can have a war. Until they unpersuade themselves, there will be no escape from the political wilderness.

Mumbai bombings anniversary

Mumbai has been marking the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks that killed 174 people. The targets included luxury hotels and a railway station. The only surviving attacker is currently on trial in India while seven other people have just been charged in Pakistan with being involved. (see my blog of July 23)

The 2008 attacks were just the latest in a series that have targeted India’s financial capital. In 1993, a number of bombs hit targets such as the Stock Exchange, a shopping complex, and banks. A total of 257 people were killed, including 90 on a crowded double-decker bus.

During the winter before the bombings, about 900 people, mainly Muslims, had been killed in inter-communal rioting in the city – a sad blot on Mumbai's reputation for diversity and tolerance.

Another bombing campaign in 2003 cost the lives of more than 50 people. Then in July 2006, terrorists planted explosives on seven rush hour trains taking commuters home from the city. This time the death toll was 209. For more details, see A Disastrous History of the World.

Sierra Leone trial

A special United Nations court at The Hague has turned down a plea from former Liberian President Charles Taylor that charges of crimes against humanity that he faces should be dismissed. Taylor is being tried on 11 counts relating to his alleged role in the brutal civil war in neighbouring Sierra Leone, which cost tens of thousands of civilian lives. He is accused of bankrolling and equipping rebels who committed murder, rape, hacked off people's limbs, and used child soldiers.

Taylor had been a warlord who launched Liberia’s civil war in 1989, before being elected president in 1997. Two years later, though, an insurrection against him began and in 2003 he resigned under pressure from the United States. The trial is scheduled to resume on June 29, and if Taylor is convicted, he will serve his sentence in the UK.

Last month, an international court in Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown sent three rebel leaders to gaol for a total of 120 years for war crimes and crimes against humanity (see my blogs of March 4 and April 10) In Rwanda too, the process of holding people to account for their part in the country’s genocide goes on. (See my blogs of January 23, March 1, 4, 23, 25, April 9.)

Arson

Police in Australia are questioning two men in connection with the bush fires that have killed at least 180 people, though it is not clear whether they are under suspicion of arson or looting. If many of the fires turn out to be arson, this will be one of the worst cases in recent years, though probably not as deadly as the incident on February 18, 2003, when 198 people died on an underground train in Daegu, South Korea.

The arsonist was an unemployed former taxi driver, who was apparently unhappy about the medical treatment he had received following a stroke, and the fire may have been a failed suicide attempt. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, but died in gaol a year later.

A more novel punishment was handed out to an arsonist in the fourth century BC, who destroyed the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus - one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The young man was named Herostratus, and apparently did it so that, in the words of a Roman historian, “his name might be spread through the whole world”. Not only did the authorities execute Herostratus, they also forbade anyone to mention his name under pain of death. The fact that we are still writing about him 2,300 years later suggests this latter penalty was not altogether effective.

The very worst acts of arson, of course, have been committed by armed forces in wars. The Luftwaffe tried the tactic of creating a firestorm – notably in Coventry, where they killed more than 500 people. The same method was adopted with even more deadly effect by the allies, who killed more than 40,000 at Hamburg, a similar number at Dresden, and perhaps 140,000 in Tokyo.