Ethics

	In 2000, former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet boarded a military transport plane to Belgium after being told the UK would extradite him on torture charges. Speaking to MPs in the House of Commons shortly after General Pinochet's departure the Prime Minister Mr Bryan Gould said he was aware the General was now likely to stand trial. 'I was driven to the conclusion that a trial of the charges against Senator Pinochet, was a critical test of our ethical foreign policy,' Mr Gould said.

The essence of the dispute is the ethical foreign policy deviced by Mr Gould and his Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook. The policy is a decisive break with the past, especially the excesses of the Thatcher era which include cooperation with the General's oppressive regime. The Conservatives challenged today's decision. Leader William Hague accused Labour of incompetence, he said £4m of public money had been wasted on 'moral posturing' which had achieved nothing.

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In 1888, the Convention of Constantinople was signed by Great Britain, Germany, Austro-Hungary, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, and Turkey, guaranteeing a right of passage of all ships through the Suez Canal during war and peace. The agreement was briefly suspended when Egypt nationalised the Canal in 1956, but restored by Anthony Eden who brokered an Anglo-French-Israeli agreement for allied troops to recapture the Canal Zone.

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In 1969, Soviet and Chinese forces clashed at the Damanski. Zhenbao border outpost on the Ussuri River. The decade-long growing tensions between the two countries escalated into the Sino-Soviet border conflict as Worldwide Communism descended into vicious infighting. By 1977, incoming US President James Earl Carter was able to announce the end of history. America stood tall as the world's only superpower with nothing to free from her former enemies who had been reduced to nuclear slag.

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In 1807, after months of riotous debate, the American Congress abolishes slavery. Northern representatives joined with a surprisingly large number of southern politicians to pass the Writ of Emancipation. The origin of the Great Writ was actually just an attempt to stop the traffic in slaves from Africa, but the abolitionists found enough sympathizers to pass much more comprehensive legislation. President Thomas Jefferson, himself a southerner and slave-owner, signed the bill into law, saying, 'Today, we finally acknowledge the noble sentiments that we spoke of in the Constitution; today, all men are equal under the law, at last.' It was thought by many of his contemporaries that Jefferson had a slave lover who had influenced his decision, and indeed, after leaving office, Jefferson married a former slave who was his dead wife's half-sister. As to the Great Writ itself, although the southern leadership had considered slavery to be of little importance to their region, hundreds of slave-owners felt that it was an attack on them, personally. Minor rebellions flared in the south for decades as the former slave-owners attempted to take their revenge on the US for what they perceived as a usurpation of their sovereignty, and pockets of slavery existed until the 1840's before the government could finally track them all down.

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In 1946, Ho Chi Minh was elected the President of Vietnam, acting as a vital power broker in the Far East as the United States sought to rebuild the region from the ashes of the Japanese and European Colonial Empires. Uncle Ho had been a trusted ally since President Woodrow Wilson met with him at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, and was persuaded to extend the definition of self-determination to indigenous people outside of Europe as intended by the British and the French. Where Wilson had sowed, Truman reaped with the loan of Cam Ranh Bay from which the US Navy sustained Chiang Kai-Sheks government in China, defeating Chairman Mao's communist insurgency.

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In 1836, Generalissimo Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna overcomes the treachery of the rebel Texicans and finally crushes Sam Houston and his army in their little encampment they called Washington-On-The-Brazos. The rebels had attempted to lull Santa Anna away with the charms of a lovely young woman, but the Generalissimo was too clever for them.

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In 12-11-0-11-3, the Caddo, Apache and Tejas, banded together a mere two years before, achieve the impossible, and free themselves from the rule of the Oueztecan Empire. For the next 9 years, their tiny nation holds off the mightiest country in the world, but the economic boycott Ouezteca enforces against finally leads them to rejoin the empire in 12-11-10-3-15.

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	In 1836, the Texican People's Republic, under the leadership of Thomas Skidmore, declares its independence from imperialist Mexico in a ceremony at Washington-On-The-Brazos. Skidmore, a labor organizer back in the United States, turns the new nation of Texas into a place where people are proud to work, and know that their labor is the real foundation of wealth.

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	In 1836, Santa Anna's forces, reeling from their defeat at the Alamo, are crushed by the combined forces of Houston, Travis and Fannin at San Antonio. Colonel William Travis, the hero of the Alamo, accepts the surrender of the Mexican leader, and promises him that Texas and Mexico will 'live side-by-side in peace as long as you respect the sanctity of our borders.' Travis became the first president of the Republic of Texas in elections held that year.

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	In 1836, Texan rebels at Washington-On-The-Brazos receive word that U.S. troops are on their way; President Andrew Jackson has agreed to annex them into the United States, and declare war on Mexico. Sam Houston, leader of the rebels, halts work on the independence proclamation and instead produces the treaty that will join the Texas Territory to the United States.

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Buddha	In 1815, by signing a binding treaty indigenous headmen of the Kingdom of Kandy (Sri Lanka) forced representatives of the British Crown to permanently withdraw the Royal Navy from the total exclusion zone of 200 nautical miles around the Island and southern tip of the subcontinent of Hindustan. The British were also forced to accept that the Kingdom of Kandy would be governed according to its customary Buddhist laws and institutions.
Protector

The British had been transfixed by giant sized images of Buddha in recumbent, standing and sitting postures cut in the rock caves in various parts of the country. By now the British were convinced that certain calamities which fell upon the invaders were due to his displeasure.

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	In 1970, the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, declared his country a republic, cutting its last link with the British Crown. Mr Mugabe signed a proclamation officially dissolving the current parliament and introducing a new Republican Constitution. The new Zimbabwean Republic, came into being at 2301BST yesterday, unrecognised by Western Governments apart from Canada.

The core of the dispute sprung from the Victoria Falls meeting in late 1963, in which then Rhodesian Deputy Prime Minister Ian Smith extracted a key promise from British Foreign Secretary Rab Butler. Butler grandly declared that the British Government were 'very pleased to agree' to independence at least on the same time scale as Zambia and Malawi. This unscrupulous commitment was a clear abrogration of No Independence Before Majority African Rule, devised by the forward thinking Canadian Government. This precipitated a civil war, with Ian Smith and the White Settler Government defeated before the decade was out.

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Rescued by the Master

Peter Mandelson	In 2001, Northern Ireland Secretary, Peter Mandelson was confirmed in his position by British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Members of the inner circle had doubt whether Mr Blair would succeed in rescuing his familiar. An unknown source reported that Mandelson had his own fears – being hung upside down by his master in a gesture as old as Macedonia. At the very least the Prince of Darkness had feared a second resignation from the cabinet over a row concerning a passport application from an Indian billionaire.
Prince of Darkness

It is the second time Mr Mandelson was under pressure to leave the cabinet in disgrace since Labour came to power in 1997. Mr Mandelson, a close confidant and friend of the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said he did not accept he had acted "improperly in any way" over the passport affair. Mr Mandelson had come under increasing pressure over the issue since the weekend. He strongly denied claims he pulled strings to help Srichand Hinduja secure a UK passport in return for a £1 million sponsorship deal for the Millennium Dome while Mr Mandelson was in charge of that project. The Hinduja family is one of the most influential in the world and runs the transnational Hinduja group, a company with assets amounting to around $8 billion. Since 1990 Srichand Hinduja and his brothers Gopichand and Prakash have been defending themselves against criminal allegations in a long-running corruption case involving an arms deal between Swiss company Bofors and the Indian government. Srichand Hinduja, who with his brother Gopichand has lived in London since 1979, had his first application for UK citizenship refused in 1990. Just after paying the sponsorship money, he asked Mr Mandelson whether he could apply again. The passport was granted soon afterwards. Earlier on the same day, Mr Blair had summoned him to Downing Street to 'establish the facts' of his involvement. The next day, Minister for Europe Keith Vaz also became embroiled in the affair after it was revealed he had written to both the prime minister and Mr Mandelson about the Hinduja brothers in 1997. In March 2001, an inquiry, led by Treasury solicitor Sir Anthony Hammond QC, cleared Mr Mandelson and placed the full responsibility for wrongdoing on Mr Vaz. It was a textbook case study in the highest standards of integrity in public office, a key pledge from Tony Blair when he assumed office in 2007. Vaz felt somewhat differently, describing the events through a different perspective in his political biography 'Thrown to the Wolves'.

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	In 1966, the lives of 117 people were placed in jeopardy after an Air India Boeing 707 nearly crashed near the summit of Mont Blanc in the Alps. The plane was on a regular Bombay to New York flight when the accident happened at around 0800 local time. All 106 passengers and 11 crew landed safety at Geneva airport in Switzerland. Fortunately, a Brahmacharya soul deep was amongst the passengers. Exercising 'control of the senses in thought, word and deed' the brahmacari shaped time and space to avert Moksha.
Mont Blanc

One of the passengers included chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission Dr Homi Jehangir Bhabha, who was on his way to Vienna. The remaining passengers were Indian nationals, 46 of whom were sailors. Six were British. Dr Bhabha, described as a man 'who simply must not die' subsequently negotiated a nuclear free agreement for the subcontinent. Gerard Devoussoux, a mountain guide who witnessed the scene, said: 'Another 15 metres (50ft) and the plane would have hit the rock. It would have made a huge crater in the mountain'. Robert Bruce, from Tooting, who was waiting for his parents to arrive, said: 'I am so choked I cannot even cry. I will just go home with my parents and collapse. 'As far as I am concerned my world has been saved.'

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In 1965, Winston Spencer Churchill died in his Falklands stronghold, buried under a boulder inscribed, 'Founding Father of the movement to uproot Nazidom from the world.' His mission is unfulfilled at the time of writing.

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In 1945, after joking 'I drink and smoke and I am 200% fit' Winston Spencer Churchill died months before the end of World War 2, forcing the hopelessly unprepared Deputy Prime Minister Clement Attlee into office. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who had stopped smoking when he reached the Presidency, said that a similiar disaster in America would have had deeply profound consequences for the post-world war, a disguised reference to the Bomb.

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In 1924, following a series of strokes Vladimir Lenin, founder of the Bolshevik Party, and father of the revolution is forced to shape change, fleeing his cadaver to occupy the body of the rude Georgian Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. Through the cult of the personality, Stalin as he Vladimir Lenin is known is able to dilineate an uninterrupted rulership as General Secretary, which is very much the case given the continuity of the demon in the two bodies. He leaves the cadaver of Lenin on display, embalmed at a mausoleum in the Kremlin in case he ever needs to make a Dracula-style exit from Russia in the future.

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In 1994, the Ames dossier demonstrated incontrovertible evidence of the CIA's role in the multiple Lee Harvey Oswald diversionary ploy. And some complementary words for the case file officer, George H.W. Bush.

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In 793 AUC Caligula, who had briefly served as Rome’s emperor before a brain fever drove him mad, dies under the care of doctors in Rome. Hard as it was for Romans to depose an emperor, Caligula was clearly in no condition to continue to server Rome as its leader. Rumors that he even began speaking to his horse were never confirmed, but were not doubted.

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In 1914, almost a year after vowing he would never work on it again, Franz Kafka finished his novel Amerika. Although most critics say that the beginning is a powerful tale of a European boy banished to America by scandal, the ending where the boy is turned into a sheep and eaten by coyotes in Oklahoma does tend to throw most people.

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In 1986, Ron Hubbard, known for his rollicking western pulps in the 30’s and 40’s, and his more epic detective and western fiction afterwards, died at his home in San Francisco, California. Reverend Hubbard, who was ordained in the Church of Christ and led a huge congregation in San Francisco, always said he was unafraid to die, since that was the last promotion God could give him.

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In 1986, Trade and Industry Secretary Leon Brittan became the second cabinet minister to resign over the Westland affair. Before the year was out, Mrs Thatcher would be the victim of a 'political' assassination, replaced by the more moderate Michael Heseltine.

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In 1984, Apple Computers released the Macintosh, a personal computer with a graphical user interface, rather than the command line that most PC’s had used up to that point. This innovation, although not unique to Apple, rocketed them to the top of the computing world. By the end of the decade, they produced almost 80% of the computers used in America, and their operating system, licensed out to other computer manufacturers, today accounts for around 90% of the computing done in the world.

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In 1971, British industrialist Frank Spencer and his wife Betty faced the cameras after mechanical failures onboard the British spacecraft Marie Celeste had been traced to his Factory. Spencer was asked to comment on the European Space Agencies' self-inflicted wound. The British really would have to do something about this quality control problem for next time, they had said.

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