|  PROBABLY the worst atrocity last year was the Bali bombings that killed 202 people last October - the event was reported in this column on October 22. The bomb blast outside a busy nightclub killed mainly tourists. A lot of them were from Australia where many of Bali s visitors come from.
Recently the person found guilty of this atrocious crime was sentenced to death. He is a 40-year-old garage mechanic known only as Amrozi and his smiling face after being sentenced to death was to be seen in many newspapers around the world.
Amrozi was convicted of planning and carrying out terrorist crimes. He had confessed to buying nearly a ton of chemical fertiliser for the bomb and to supplying the mini-van in which it exploded but he denied planning the attack and his lawyers will appeal against the sentence.
If that fails Amrozi will face execution by a firing squad of 14. He will be hooded before a target is placed over his heart, either hung round his neck or marked out in sticking plaster on his bare chest.
Amrozi has shown n remorse for any of the victims. Most were young visitors enjoying a night out at two popular bars in the heart of Bali tourist area.
He has said that the attacks were part of a war on America, the West and the Jews for their perceived maltreatment f Muslims all over the world.
At the trial the judges concluded that Amrozil was mentally confident, that he intended to cause death and damage and that there was no possible religious justification for the bombing.
Coping with the suicide bomber is the big challenge facing the world today. How can you deal with religious fanatics who firmly believe that their action gives them a straight ticket to heaven? It will always be hard to ut manoeuvre these tactics.
This month there was another attack in "Bali country" this time in the capital city f Indonesia, Jakarta.
A massive car bomb exploded outside a Marriott hotel in the centre of Jakarta, killing at least 14 people and injuring around 150.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack but investigators say the explosives and methods used were similar to those employed in the Bali bombing recorded here.
Security camera footage has revealed the probably identity of the latest attacker.
Brigadeer General Gorries Mere a senior Indone-sian detective said that a man called Asmal was the probable driver of the van packed with explosives that blew up outside the Marriott Hotel.
A hotel security camera showed the van in the driveway before it exploded.
Brigadeer Mere said police had intercepted an e-mail from Asmal six weeks ago in which he expressed a desire to launch a suicide attack. Now police are taking DNA samples from members of Asmals family.
The police will attempt t match those with the remains found in the van. So progress is being made in trying to identify the culprits and, hopefully, these will be successful.
Where green is worn a terrible beauty is born
THE trial of Michael McKevitt concluded on August 7. Here is how the trial was reported in the International Herald Tribune:
"Ireland s no-jury antiterrorism court on convicted the head of the Real IRA, Michael McKevitt, for leading the republican guerilla group that killed 29 people in a 1998 car-bomb attack in Omagh, Northern Ireland.
McKevitt was found guilty of directing terrorism, a new crime introduced by the Irish Parliament after the bombing, but he did not face any charges specifically related to the attack because the prosecution s evidence only related to a period starting in 1999.
McKevitt has been in prison since his arrest in 2001 and has already requested leave to appeal the verdict, a process that could take two years.
The five-week trial concluded faster than expected because McKevitt eventually protested against what he called a "show trial". He fired his legal team and refused to defend himself, or even to leave his holding cell and attend the courtroom proceedings.
McKevitt and his lawyers had earlier complained to the three judges in the Special Criminal Court about the prosecution s extensive use of one witness, an FBI informer from upstate New York. Irish government lawyers relied exclusively on the evidence of David Rupert, a former trucking industry executive, and corroborating testimony from policemen who saw Rupert and McKevitt together.
McKevitt did not take the stand in his own defence. The two men met in 1999, after Rupert spent several years infiltrating Irish republican circles. Defense lawyers attempted to dis-credit Rupert by investigating his complicated history of debt and failed businesses. He is also working with two American journalists to write a book about his experience as a spy.
McKevitt is the highest-ranking paramilitary to be convicted here in recent years, and the verdict is a triumph for the Irish government, which has been frustrated in its efforts to chase down the Omagh killers.
The failure to bring anyone to justice for the atrocity has been an ongoing embarrassment for authorities on both sides of the Northern Irish border, in particular since a report by Ulster s police Ombudsman last year found that Britain s special intelligence division did not pass warnings on to local police.
Only one man has been convicted in relation to the bombing, for assisting the bombers by lending them cellphones .
Did Yeats get it right when he wrote:
"Where Green is worn, A terrible beauty is born."
Brown and Blair in leadership battle
FOR politicians the enemy within is always a hazardous obstacle as the path to progress. And sometimes the most competent leader suffers from that most blatant of enemies the one you think is on your side and he happens to be the one to stab you in the back.
Alan Dukes was surely the most competent leader of an Irish party to be stabbed in the back. He put his country before his party and suffered.
Now in the UK there has been much publicised rivalry between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Brown would like to be PM of course. Tony Blair has had a good enough innings as it is especially after setting a new record for uninterrupted longevity by a Labour PM in office.
A report in The Times (August 8) headed "The Heat Has Gone Out Of Downing Street Rivalry" states in the sub-heading: "the passion has burnt itself out and the Prime Minister and his Chancellor are able to plan ratio-nally for the future."
The compromise reached between the two adversaries is interesting to say the least. Blair intends to step down two years after he has won the next general election. He will have completed 10 years in office and he is quite happy with that score.
After he steps down there will be only one candidate to succeed him, and that will be Gordon Brown.
It looks like Blair and Brown have seen the light in good time to have their house in order for the next election.
They know they need each other otherwise there might not be a lot worth inheriting.
On the brink of collapse
ZIMBABWE is on the brink of complete economic collapse owing to a shortage of bank notes.
With inflation at 360 per cent, there are simply not enough notes to go round, and there have been chaotic scenes at banks as desperate depositors try to extract their savings.
Some banks have already restricted withdrawals to Z$5,000 (£3.87) a day,but with a loaf of bread coasting Z$1,000 the money is not going far.
Mugabe announced large pay rises for civil servants this month in the hope of buying their support, but there is so little cash in circulation that the rises exist in name only. The police and army, on which the regime depends for support, have also been badly affected.
Political scandal prompts suicide
ONE of South Korea s leading businessmen took his own life last week, after becoming consumed with remorse over his involvement in a political scandal.
Chung Mong-hun the chairman of Hyundai, threw himself from the 12th floor of the company s headquarters. He left a note asking for forgiveness for "my foolish deed", a reference to his involvement in a secret scheme to bribe the North Korean leader, Kim Jongil. In return for $500m, channelled through Hyundai, Kim is alleged to have agreed to a summit meeting with the South s president, Kim Dae-jung. After the meeting, Kim Dae-jung was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Hospital death toll mounts
THE death toll from a recent suicide bombing of a Russian military hospital has reached 44, and is expected to rise higher.
The hospital in the border town of Mozdok, one of Russia s main military bases in the Caucasus, was practically destroyed when a Chechen rebel crashed an explosive-laden truck through the hospital gates.
The resulting blast was so powerful that it reduced the four-storey building to rubble. Most of the dead were federal troops recovering from injuries sustained in daily Chechen rebel attacks.
The attack, the worst outside Chechnya since the siege at a Moscow theatre last year, will have come as an embarrassment to President Putin, who has repeatedly vowed to crush the separatist move-ment.
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