Is Karma fate?

I remember Lazy Yogi Liudmila's tale about a couple who left London to escape the crimes and violence there only to find war in their newly adopted place in Falkland Islands. Now, she asked , Is that fate or karma? A blogger at Blogcatalog left a comment somewhere that he had believed in the concept of karma for more than 30 odd years only to find that the concept binds a person to the wheel of life and rebirth, creating a sense of guilt and self judgement. Karma or intentional activity as defined by the Buddhism Dictionary can be divided into common karma and fixed karma and all are subjected to change. Fate according to Wikipedia is destiny, an inevitable course of events, something unlike the Protestant concept of predestination where it can be envisaged as fore-ordained by the Divine. Now, the question now is karma, fate? Will it bind a person to the wheel of life and rebirth?
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