The Shipman murders continue to baffle Britain, Belgium out to exorcise ghosts of its colonial past and the heat's on in Alaska.
The report, however, fails to unravel his motive. The doctor’s modus operandi was to win his patients’ trust with "a wonderful bedside manner", and administer them the dose when they were alone. He took to killing in 1975, averaged 30 a year in 1995 and 1996, and peaked to 37 in 1997. He had already claimed 18 lives till he was arrested in September 1998.
Psychological experts feel the idea of limiting suffering could have enabled him to justify his action. Subsequently, it became "a form of addictive behaviour." A bad advertisement for euthanasia, indeed.
It’s a century too late, no doubt, but Belgium feels it must exorcise the ghosts of its colonial past. More than 100 years after King Leopold II claimed Congo as his personal colony, the state-funded Royal Museum for Central Africa has commissioned eminent historians to investigate the allegations that the country had perpetrated genocide in Congo. A debate on Belgium’s past was sparked at the time American author Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold Ghost was published in Belgium in 1999. He accused King Leopold’s army of murdering nearly 10 million Congolese, amputating, raping kidnapping and looting the local populace for refusing to work on rubber plantations. The commission is expected to present its findings in 2004.