Euro Dive

The Euro has been getting killed by recent concerns with Greece, Spain, and Portugal:

The euro slumped to a four-year low against the dollar on Tuesday as investors balked at a move by Germany to ban certain kinds of bearish trades against stocks and bonds.

I'm going to Spain in August and my dad asked me if he should buy Euros...when the Euro was at 1.43$/€. I told him the Euro was going to tank:

The euro fell as low as $1.2165 from $1.2384 Monday. The euro has declined 14.7% from the beginning of the year, when it fetched more than $1.43.

I hate it when I'm right.

Rain Down: Floods in Madeira

The Island has been rocked by flash floods:

The Portuguese government meanwhile has declared three days of mourning after at least 42 people died in the floods.

Crews continues to try and clear things up:

Specialist army teams are working to get through to communities that remain cut off, with roads blocked and bridges collapsed.
Military personnel and civilian emergency teams have been clearing huge piles of rocks from roads and pumping mud and water out of shops and houses.

While people have been told to evacuate:

Dozens of people in Madeira have been ordered to evacuate their homes, amid fears of fresh landslides following deadly floods on the island.

It's not a very good situation on the Portuguese Island.

Background of the Togo Attack

A recent revelation from Angolan rebels has revealed that the attacks were meant to be on the convoy and not the Togolese team:

"This attack was not aimed at the Togolese players but at the Angolan forces at the head of the convoy," Mingas told France 24 television. "So it was pure chance that the gunfire hit the players. We don't have anything to do with the Togolese and we present our condolences to the African families and the Togo government. We are fighting for the total liberation of Cabinda."

Rodrigues Mindas is the secretary general of the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (Flec). I didn't know much about the organization, so I decided to look up more information about what they are about:

The Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda is a guerrilla and political movement fighting for the independence of the Angolan province of Cabinda.

It's guerilla organization seeking independence from Angola. Cabinda is separated from Angola by a strip of land of the Democratic Republic of Congo. There are some of the largest oil fields in the world off the coast, making at an important territory for Angola. Disputes over the territories date back to Portuguese colonization and the Treaty of Simulambuco. The Treaty made Cabinda a protectorate of the Portuguese Crown:

“the princes and governors of Cabinda”.

Article 1 of the treaty, states, “the princes and chiefs and their successors declare, voluntarily, their recognition of Portuguese sovereignty, placing under the protectorate of this nation all the territories by them governed”

Article 2 goes farther:

rticle 2, which is often used in separatist arguments, goes even further: “Portugal is obliged to maintain the integrity of the territories placed under its protection.”

Cabinda was incorporated separately into the Portuguese Empire from Angola. This is the heart of the separatist fight. The claim that Angolan rule is illegal. You can read more about Cabinda here.