I-Spy Cascais: a memorial to four of Portugal's wars

Cascais is a charming historic town along the Tagus estuary from Lisbon. Its war memorial, pictured above, commemorates four of Portugal's wars.

First, the War of Roussillon and Catalonia (1793-5) when, following the French Revolution, they landed troops in Catalonia to join up with Spanish forces and tried to attack France in the Pyrenees. It did not go well.

 The second was the Peninsular War (1808-14) in which British troops joined the Portuguese and Spaniards to drive out the French who had occupied the Iberian Peninsula. The war turned the tide against Napoleon in Western Europe and made the reputation of the Duke of Wellington, who went on to become the victor of Waterloo.

The third commemoration is of a Portuguese auxiliary division that fought in one of Spain's civil wars in 1837.

And the fourth is the First World War, or Great War (1914-18). Portugal had been Britain's ally since 1377, but approached the conflict cautiously. It had been hoping to remain neutral, but there were clashes in Africa where German South-west Africa bordered Portuguese Angola. 

Britain was at the time Portugal's most important overseas market, and when German U-boats tried to impose a blockade, Portugal seized German ships in its ports, so in 1916 Germany declared war. More than 12,000 Portuguese servicemen were killed in the conflict.

WORLD EXCLUSIVE. Leaked letter from UK to the Kremlin

Someone has just leaked me this extraordinary letter. It appears to be addressed to President Putin at the Kremlin, but who can it be from?

Dear Vladimir,

I’m sorry about the delay in getting the trade war with the EU underway, but now we’re motoring. I’m as keen as you are to destroy the EU. I know perfectly well how embarrassing it is to have neighbours who are more prosperous, more efficient and more democratic.

Of course I am aware that without your money, bots, lies, dirty tricks, etc. I would never have got my job, but you have to understand I’m in a very tight corner. Even some of the foolish people who voted for Brexit have begun to see through my lies! So, apologies once again that it has taken so long.

And I appreciate you invading Ukraine so the mendacious right wing press and my stupid MPs could trot out the line about: ‘We can’t change prime minister! There’s a war on!’

And I can understand that you’re cross about me sending weapons to Ukraine, but you have to see it from my point of view. This has got to look good! If too many people start to think I am in your pay and in your pocket, the outlook for me could be really bleak.

Onwards and upwards!

Your friend in the FUK (Former United Kingdom) 

Should our MPs have a say on World War Three?

So Theresa May wants to go to war against Syria and, by implication, its ally Russia. One false move and it could be World War Three, but what could possibly go wrong with Donald Trump in the White House and Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary?

President Assad is plainly a very bad man, but what is an attack on him designed to achieve? Help the Islamic extremists who are among those opposing him, so it will be easier for them to attack people in British streets? Get our forces involved in a complex, murderous civil war, with no end in sight? Set off a war against Russia?

Our MPs should be debating these questions NOW. Theresa May plainly wants to delay any discussion until AFTER she has taken military action. That is not good enough. MPs should not be waiting for an invitation, they should be at Westminster demanding their voices are heard.

This is what I have written to my MP, Labour's Sir Keir Starmer.

Dear Sir Keir,

Why aren't you and your fellow MPs in the House of Commons? The survival of our country could be at stake. One false move and we could be into World War Three. (Just remind me - who is our Foreign Secretary?)

You should not be waiting for a summons from the Prime Minister. You should be in the chamber debating what to do about this crisis even if the government doesn't want you there. If you can't get into the chamber, I'm sure there are plenty of other places to hold a debate.

MPs scandalously failed us over Brexit. You wanted to be an irrelevance on that great question. Now Theresa May plainly thinks she can ignore you when it comes to starting a war too.

What are you going to do about it?

I look forward to hearing from you.

John Withington

Wars, ethnic rivalries and weather

Last year, nearly 102,000 people were killed in armed conflicts across the world according to the Peace Research Institute Oslo. Many of them died in civil wars, and since 1946, two-thirds of civil wars have been fought between rival ethnic groups.

But climate-related problems, like crop failures, also play a role. Research published last year found that between 1980 and 2010, 23% of civil wars coincided with climate-related disasters in countries with deep ethnic divides. And worryingly global warming may make this kind of disaster more common.

Delving back into history, another study discovered that outbreaks of violence against Jews often seemed to be linked with economic shocks. The authors examined more than 1,360 pogroms or expulsions in more than 930 cities between 1100 and 1800, and plotted them against falls in temperature big enough to reduce crop yields.

They found that a fall of just one third of a degree increased the danger of a pogrom or an exclusion by half over the next five years. As we have seen recently, in times of economic difficulty or disappointment, it is very tempting to blame people who are different in some way.

For more on the link between global warming and war, see my posts of 21 September and 25 November, 2009.

Brexitwatch: what Boris Johnson really thinks about the EU - 2

During the UK’s referendum campaign, the Remain camp have argued very strongly that one of the EU’s greatest achievements has been to make war between its member countries unthinkable. If you look at Europe’s history, the normal state of the continent since the dawn of recorded history is not peace, but war.

I am very grateful for the EU’s peace-keeping achievement. My father and grandfather both had to go to war in Europe. My son and I have not had to.

The Leave campaign have tried to dismiss this achievement, with Boris Johnson comparing the EU to Hitler. But in the past, Johnson admitted that to save us fighting any more wars in Europe, we need to be ‘intimately engaged in the doings of a continent that has a grim 20th-century history, and whose agonies have caused millions of Britons to lose their lives.’

How disgraceful to change sides and risk the peace of Europe just because he thinks it will help him become Prime Minister.

Europe: stay or leave? Focus on fact - 10

Today’s fact: My father and grandfather both had to go to war in Europe. My son and I have not had to go to war in Europe. I am very grateful.

The greatest achievement of the EU is surely that it has made war in most of Europe unthinkable. When you remember that more than 450,000 British people were killed in World War Two, and about 750,000 in World War One, while millions more were injured, and millions more lost their homes, it is odd that nobody seems to care about this.

Perhaps people in Britain now just take peace in Europe for granted. That is very, very foolish. The peaceful years since the founding of the EU are actually a glaring exception in Europe’s history. Before that, since the dawn of time, the continent’s history has been dominated by virtually unrelieved war.

What is particularly worrying about the anti-Europeans, is that they do not just want to leave the EU, they want to destroy the organisation and make everyone else leave too.

But even if that happened, in this day and age you could not get, say, ten years of war, with mass rape and murder, atrocities on all sides, hundreds of thousands driven from their homes, could you? No? Ever heard of Yugoslavia?

However much you hate immigration, is this a price worth paying to reduce it? War is hell. Keep it out of Europe. Vote Stay.

Gaza - normal lack of service resumed

After Israel carpet-bombed Gaza last year, destroying 17,000 Palestinian homes, international donors promised $3.5 billion to rebuild it. While the Palestinians waited, their babies died of hypothermia in the plywood huts they had been reduced to living in.

A year on, the number of houses that have been rebuilt is.....0. Israel constantly obstructs the importation of the materials that are needed, in spite of vague promises that its blockade would be lifted.

Most of the help donors promised has not been delivered, but then if you know that anything you do rebuild will soon be destroyed again by the Israelis, you might start asking what is the point?

Power cuts last up to 16 hours a day. Unemployment is 43 per cent. As for the relief effort, the Palestinians say: 'People come to talk to us every month. They talk, and they leave, and nothing ever changes.'

There are now signs that ISIS is feeding on the despair, and could be making Gaza its next target. With their blind support for Israel, Western leaders like David Cameron are laying out the welcome mat.

As for Israel, it calls its periodic attacks on Gaza 'mowing the lawn', and another one is expected soon. As one Israeli newspaper put it: 'Israel is heading to the next violent eruption with the Palestinians as though it is some sort of natural disaster that can't be avoided.'

See also my posts of July 22 and 28, 2014.

South America's Great War

150 years ago, just as the American Civil War was drawing to its close, Latin America’s deadliest war was just getting going. The War of the Triple Alliance pitted Paraguay against Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.

The war was sparked by a coup in Uruguay in 1864, which Brazil and Argentina backed. Paraguay had been involved in boundary and tariff disputes with its powerful neighbours for years, and its dictator, Francisco Solano López, believed the coup threatened the regional balance of power so he went to war with Brazil.

Brazil joined up with Argentina and the new Uruguayan government to form the Triple Alliance, and they declared war on May 1, 1865. The fighting ended five years later in Paraguay’s total defeat. About 400,000 died, and the effect on Paraguay was devastating as the population was reduced from about 525,000 to just 221,000, of whom only 28,000 were men. There the conflict is known as the ‘Great War’.

An exhibition of remarkable photographs of the war is now being toured around Paraguay. They were commissioned by a Montevideo photo shop owner, who had spotted how well scenes of Civil War battlefields had sold in the US.

Diary Date - flood talk October 9

I'm giving a talk entitled 'Are floods getting worse? at Swiss Cottage Library on October 9 at 1830, based on my book Flood: Nature and Culture.  Admission free.  All welcome.   

Last year, the UK’s Environment Agency issued a record number of flood warnings, while also in the last few years, Pakistan has had its worst monsoon floods in eight decades, Thailand suffered one of the costliest inundations in history, Colombia and Brazil experienced the severest in living memory, and Australia’s prime minister declared the Queensland floods perhaps the worst natural disaster ‘in the history of our nation’.

So are things actually getting worse? I will be revealing that floods are the natural disasters humans are most likely to experience, and that some of the most ambitious structures ever built have been put up to defend us against them.

I will also be telling how stories like that of Noah’s ark, about an apocalyptic flood which almost wipes out humanity, feature in dozens of religions all over the world. Floods caused by rain, melting snow, storms, tsunamis, tides, the failures of dykes or dams, or deliberate act of war all feature.

The talk will also look at the way floods have been portrayed in films, literature and art.

More refugees than ever

This week 45 African men suffocated in the hold of a ship as they tried to get themselves smuggled into Italy. It is said they had begged to be released but that they were kept below in case the vessel capsized. Another 70 boat people were lost in the Mediterranean in a separate incident.

Over last weekend, patrol boats picked up 5,000 migrants, following a reversal in Italian policy. Until 2011, the country had tried to block them, sending those it caught back to Africa, but after 360 drowned off Lampedusa last year, it has started search-and-rescue missions.

Since then, the number of arrivals has ballooned to 65,000, compared with 8,000 in the first half of last year, while Greece has seen the number of illegal migrants more than double. Earlier this week, Italian police arrested five Eritreans they said were running a people-smuggling operation.

Across the world, 2013 saw 6 million people driven from their homes by violence and conflict, taking the global total for refugees to more than 50 million. The war in Syria has displaced 9 million people – nearly half the population.

Bangladesh - the war goes on

It is more than 40 years since the brutal war of independence that allowed the new nation of Bangladesh to emerge from what had been East Pakistan. In that war, up to three million people died.

Now Bangladesh is torn by riots over the conviction of two leading politicians for collaborating with the Pakistan army to target pro-independence activists during the struggle. The spiritual leader of the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami party, Ghulam Azam, has been sent to gaol for 90 years, while another leading member of the party, Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, has been sentenced to death.

The verdicts were handed down by the International Crimes Tribunal in Dhaka, set up in 2010 by the current government led by the Awami League. Two people have been killed in riots this week, and 100 so far this year.

Mr Mujahid was a student leader in 1971 who wanted to keep Bangladesh part of Pakistan. His party claims the trials are politically motivated, while Human Rights Watch has described them as "flawed".

'War on drugs' - holes and digging

Last week it was revealed that, in addition to the 60,000 people known to have been killed in Mexico’s ‘war on drugs’, another 25,000 are missing.   Now the Economist has produced some startling statistics concerning drugs globally.

Since 1998, when the United Nations held an event entitled ‘A drug-free world – we can do it’, consumption of cannabis and cocaine has risen by about 50%, while used of opiates has more than trebled.   The illegal drugs industry now has an income of about $300 billion a year.   That is equivalent to about one eighth of Britain’s gross domestic product – everything the country makes.

The UN reckons that 230 million people worldwide use illegal drugs.   Back in 1919, a well-meaning American government banned alcohol, and created a huge criminal industry.   For the last half-century, well-meaning governments across the world have done the same thing for the drugs business.

A famous British politician, Denis Healey, once said – ‘when you’re in a hole, stop digging’.  It was good advice.

War crimes - first conviction in Bangladesh

More than 40 years after Bangladesh’s war of independence, in which as many as 3 million people died, a special tribunal in the country has convicted its first war criminal.   Abul Kalam Azad was sentenced to death in his absence for genocide and murder.

Azad is described as a former leader of the youth wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s biggest Islamic party.    Its youth wing was the main source of paramilitary recruits for those supporting West Pakistan’s efforts to stop East Pakistan, as Bangladesh then was, seceding.

Its members are alleged to have abducted and murdered dozens of civilians.   Azad himself is accused of killing at least 12 people and of rape.    He fled the country last year, and is believed to be in Pakistan.

Critics, though, allege irregularities in the judicial process, and complain that it has been subverted in order to damage opponents of the government.

Iraq - what a mess we left behind us

Just days after former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan castigated Tony Blair for failing to prevent the Iraq War, another dreadful reminder of its disastrous consequences, as a series of explosions ripped through the country, killing at least 9 people.

Worst hit was the town of Taji, 12 miles north of Baghdad, where 8 people died and more than 20 were injured by 3 car bombs.   According to some reports, the bombs were placed near Shia Muslim homes in the mainly Sunni town.

On September 9, at least 58 people were killed in a wave of attacks in 10 cities.   Then the bloodiest were in Amara, 185 miles south of Baghdad, where two car bombs exploded outside a Shia shrine and market place.

Just over a week later, at least 7 people lost their lives in a suicide car bomb near the heavily guarded International Zone in Baghdad, while June saw the deadliest day since American troops withdrew, with 84 people killed and nearly 300 injured.

Korean War + 59 - still alive and kicking

The rumpus over showing the wrong flag at the North Korean women’s opening Olympic football match (above is the one that should have been used) reminds us that 59 years after an armistice, there is no peace between North and South Korea.     Today is the anniversary of that armistice.

The Korean War is seen as the first Cold War conflict.    At the end of World War Two, the Americans occupied the southern half of the peninsula and the Soviet Union the northern end, where they established a Communist regime.     War broke out in 1950.

A United Nations force dominated by the Americans, but including also troops from the UK and 20 other countries, fought against the Chinese and North Koreans.   The US had nearly 40,000 of its servicemen killed, and South Korean military losses were around 46,000, while perhaps 200,000 North Koreans and 400,000 Chinese troops were killed.

Both sides committed atrocities against civilians.   In areas it occupied, the North Korean army executed all the educated people it could find, while the South Korean regime killed left-wing and communist sympathisers.      Total civilian deaths are estimated at up to 3 million.

"War on drugs" - more victims

Another 40 deaths in Mexico’s “war on drugs”. (see my blog of June 9) More than 30 gunmen arrived in the northern city of Chihuahua in six trucks. They attacked a drug rehabilitation centre, shooting staff and patients, then fled.

Nineteen people died and four were wounded. It’s not the first time a rehabilitation centre has been targeted. Drugs traffickers complain that the clinics harbour people from rival gangs.

Further south, another 20 people were killed in Ciudad Madero on the Gulf of Mexico in a series of gun battles. An alleged leader of one of the region’s main gangs had been arrested in Monterrey. In retaliation, gunmen hijacked cars, set up roadblocks and even attacked police stations.

President Calderon said the attacks only reinforced his determination to prosecute the “war”.

"War on drugs" - Mexico

A staggering 23,000 people have been killed in the last three and a half years in Mexico’s “war on drugs.” Poor Mexico is right next door to the biggest drugs market in the world, the United States.

The “war” was declared by President Felipe Calderon when he came to power. He has bussed troops and police into cities such as Juarez, which stands on the main smuggling route, in an attempt to halt the traffic into the US. In spite of all those security forces, more than 1,000 people have been killed in the city in drugs-related violence this year, and the mayor has to drive around in a heavily armoured vehicle.

Most of those killed are aged between 14 and 24, but while Mexico sees its future bleeding away, the drugs cartels just find other paths for their product. Unemployment is high, and the gangs have no difficulty in recruiting killers for £30 a week.

As I wrote in my blog of May 28, perhaps the most depressing thing about the “war on drugs” is how little evidence there is of an intelligent debate about whether the policy makes sense.

D-Day - civilian casualties

I’ve been reading Anthony Beevor’s impressive tome, D-Day. Beevor puts the number of French civilians killed in the months leading up to the 1944 Allied landings in Normandy at 15,000.

The Allies’ trump card was their air supremacy, but Churchill had mooted the idea of setting a ceiling of 10,000 for the number of French civilian casualties during the campaign. After that bombing would have to cease. The suggestion was rejected.

About 3,000 French people were killed in the first 24 hours of the operation, double the number of US service personnel who died. Among the places that suffered particularly heavy casualties during the invasion were Saint-Lo where about 300 died, and Caen, where the death toll was over 800.

The Germans, meanwhile, continued their systematic murder of French civilians. On June 8, 1944 they hanged 98 citizens of Tulle from the town’s trees. Two days later, in the most notorious massacre of all, they descended on Oradour-sur-Glane, shooting all the men, then herding the women and children into the church, which they set on fire. A total of 642 died, and the Nazis had got the wrong village. They were supposed to be taking revenge for an attack by the Resistance at Oradour-sur-Vayres, 15 miles away. Altogether, nearly 20,000 French civilians perished during the campaign.

Chechnya - war is over?

Russia has announced the end of its “counter-terrorism” operation in Chechnya, claiming that life there has been "normalised to a large degree". When the old Soviet Union fell apart, the Chechens tried to grab their independence, and there followed two Russian invasions. Now the country is ruled by a 32 year old pro-Moscow hard man, Ramzan Kadyrov, who has been rewarded with hand-outs of hundreds of millions of pounds to re-build the country.

The Chechens certainly needed it. The wars with Russia had turned their capital Grozny into what the UN described as "the most destroyed city on the planet". The first war from 1994-6 resulted in a humiliating defeat for Moscow, and the deaths of up to 100,000 people – most of them Chechen civilians, but the Russians effectively won the second war in 1999-2000.

The Chechens tried to retaliate by taking the battle into Russia. They seized 900 hostages at a Moscow theatre in 2002; 120 of whom were killed as Russian troops tried to free them. The next year suicide bombers hit a Moscow rock festival, killing 16 people, and an attack on a school at Beslan in North Ossetia in 2004 cost the lives of 330 people including 150 children.

Mr Kadyrov claims that terrorist attacks have now been halted, but thousands of people have disappeared, and his government is accused of kidnapping, torture and murder.

It's only money (2) + unhappy country

So now it’s official. Labour have been telling us that we are uniquely well placed to face the economic recession, but in fact we are uniquely badly placed. The International Monetary Fund has let the cat out of the bag, saying that we will be worse hit than the United States, Western Europe or Japan, and that we're heading for our worst slump since the 1930's with the economy shrinking by 2.8 per cent this year.

There is something we could do to mitigate this financial disaster, of course, but Labour are far too doctrinaire to try it. The economy needs people to spend. Poorer people are much more likely than better off people to spend their money rather than saving it, and more likely to spend it on local goods and services, rather than foreign holidays for example. Rich people, unfortunately, were given huge tax cuts by Mrs Thatcher (then the richest further rewarded themselves with huge pay rises). Many believed these tax cuts were unsustainable, and, indeed, they are now destroying our economy. We need tax increases for those at the top, with the proceeds distributed to poorer people as tax cuts or benefit increases. How nice to be able to do something that is not only right but profitable, but Labour won’t.

At the Congo war crimes trial of Thomas Lubanga yesterday, the first prosecution witness changed his story and said he had not been one of the 30,000 child soldiers recruited to fight in the civil war in the Ituri region. The court was then adjourned amid worries about intimidation of witnesses.

Today war is still raging in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and altogether more than 5 million people have died since 1998, making this the world’s deadliest conflict since World War Two. Back in the 19th Century, the region was taken over by King Leopold II of Belgium as his personal domain. During a 23 year reign of terror, according to official estimates, half the population of the Congo was wiped out, by murder, forced labour, starvation and disease. See A Disastrous History of the World.