The club of insular leaders goes global
Kevin Rafferty laments the lack of effective response to recent disasters
Man's inhumanity to man, and especially to women, children and the elderly, knows no bounds. The crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in rebel-held eastern Ukraine throws an ugly spotlight on the problems.
Families returning home, specialists going to an Aids conference in Australia, happy holidaymakers - all brought together by the disaster of being blown apart, pawns in a power game, euphemistically called.
Is there anything in terrible suggestions from radical sections of the Western press that a tragedy like this was too obvious a gift for Western countries wanting to put pressure on President Vladimir Putin during the summer months before Russian gas supplies, via Ukraine, are needed to warm Europe?
If it was a case of mistaken identity - pro-Russia separatists thought they were shooting a Ukrainian military aircraft - then Putin's bluster was a miscalculation.
It would have been far better to admit a terrible mistake, immediately open the crash site to investigators, allow families a chance to grieve, and use the disaster to end the destructive fighting.
The end of those on board MH17 was brutal and unnecessary.