NAIROBI (2)

Three weeks ago, I was in Nariobi on business. It was a peaceful, bustling, slightly chaotic city. Today, part of it is a bloodbath, as terrorists linked to Al-Qaeda have shot and killed a lot of people in a busy shopping centre. The stand-off with security forces is not yet over.

What is different about violence in the world today from (say) when I was gowing up is that it is so random. Innocents are killed, and are meant to be killed. Whether you as an innocent are caught up in that violence is purely a matter of luck. That is scary.

Walter Blotscher