Ellee Seymour

In 1970, when Brits wore bellbottoms, platform shoes, a white disco suit and danced the night away to John Travolta, unimaginable horrors were being inflicted in Vietnam.

Spraying the jungles with Agent Orange, a toxic defoliant, was one of them. The legacy of this nightmare lives on as thousands of babies are still being born with horrific defects. Just like the child who has a face with no eyes.

Or the baby with the head the size of a melon and hydrocephalus - fluid on the brain. Another child just has stumps for legs. One poor innocent has a crazily pointed skull and bulging eyes and just lies in his cot staring at the ceiling.

It is estimted that 500,000 children have been born with birth defects caused by contamination with Agent Orange and 2 million suffered cancer and other ill effects. High levels of dioxin remain in the soil in hotspots across southern Vietnam, leaching into the water to contaminate new generations. No one can tell how many more generations will be affected.

Agent Orange is one of the most toxic chemicals known. The spray was intended to harm plant life, not humans, and American soliders who sprayed the defoliant have been compensated.

The innocent victims in Vietnam have not been so lucky and are hoping an appeal this week for compensation will be upheld. Last year they unsuccessfully sued the same US chemical companies that compensated Americans claiming they knew Agent Orange contained a poison and that their action constituted a war crime.

They have been gaining unprecedented support, including that of Labour MP Robert Marshall-Andrews, who has placed an early day motion in the Commons calling for the Vietnamese to be “similarly compensated” to the Americans 20 years ago.

However, while America digs in its heels, Vietnam is considering its position carefully as the government is anxious to join the World Trade Organisation and boost its trade - and, unsurprisingly, the Americans are the last big obstacle in their way. Embarrassing the US government at this point could sink Vietnam’s hopes.

Have victims of war been compensated before? Who will win this time?

The everyday life of an Iraqi woman who kept a blog has been published as a book. It gives a graphic insight into how her life has been transformed by the invasion, the loss of her job and freedom.

The computer science graduate, alias Riverbend, has given an extraordinary account of life in occupied Iraq in 2003.

The book, entitled Baghdad Burning, has been long-listed for the Samuel Johnson literary prize. Is this the first time a blog could win a literary award?

And is this the first time a blog has been made into a book?

Here is an extract:

“I am female and Muslim. Before the occupation I more or less dressed the way I wanted to. I lived in jeans and cotton trousers and comfortable shirts. Now I don’t dare leave the house in trousers. A long skirt and loose shirt (preferably with long sleeves) has become necessary. A girl wearing jeans risks being attacked, abducted or insulted by fundamentalists who have been …. liberated!

“Fathers and mothers are keeping their daughteres stashed safe at home. That’s why you see so few females in the streests (especially after 4pm). Others are making their daughters, wives and sisters wear a hijab. Not to oppress them, but to protect them. Girls are being made to quit college and school”.

I hope she was able to keep the blog running after 2003.