Day of Death

Monday the 19th of December 2016 will go down in history as one of the most dramatic and tragic days in recent years. In Berlin a man hijacked a juggernaut and drove it at high speed into a crowd of people shopping at a Christmas market. Twelve consumers were killed and forty-eight injured. (As terrible as that is I can't help wondering why the casualty rate was so much lower than the attack in Nice, France a few months ago, see: http://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/programme-201-podcast-nick-kollerstrom.html.) The lorry had a Polish number-plate and the driver is believed to have been killed before somebody else took the wheel. There is a man in custody, but the police are not sure if he is the killer, see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38374470. There was also a shoot-out at an Islamic centre in Zurich, Switzerland, see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38377878. Then the Russian ambassador to Turkey was shot and killed in Ankara, Turkey. Ironically the murderer was a diplomatic security policeman. The ambassador Andrei Karlov was giving a speech at an art gallery when a man approached him and shot him in the back. He was taken to hospital, but could not be saved. The assassin was named as Mevlut Mert Altintas. He stood at the microphone which Karlov had been using and made a speech about alleged Russian atrocities against Aleppo in Syria. He did not drop his weapon and continued to wave it around as he ranted, so his colleagues had no choice but to shoot him dead as well. It's chilling to think that this event is so very similar to one that happened a hundred and two years ago in Sarajevo, Bosnia in which Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir apparent to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was shot dead by Gavrilo Princip of the Black Hand Serbian nationalist group. This event triggered the most terrible human conflict in history, at least in purely military terms; see links below. How will Russia respond to this? And who was therefore really behind the Karlov assassination? What makes all this bloodshed even more symbolic is that this day was also when the US Electoral College confirmed Donald Trump as the new president of the United States. Trump appears to be a peacemaker who will ally the USA with Russia and end the "war on terror", but there is still a month left to go before he is inaugurated. Until then the incumbent Barack Obama is still holding the reins and has a window of opportunity to make mischief. What on earth is going to happen now?

See here for background: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/president-trump.html.

And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/world-war-i-centenary.html.

And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/you-really-dont-like-russia-do-you.html.

And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/will-russia-be-blamed-for-jihadists.html.

And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/putin-did-it.html.