British doctors have called for a UK-wide ban on alcohol advertising.

Well, about time too, really.

We really ought to stop pretending that alcohol is, in any way, a good thing. Even the argument that red wine is 'good for you' is untrue - red grape juice has all the antioxidant benefits without the disadvantages. Even a modest amount of booze - well under the recommended limits - dramatically increases your risk of many types of cancer.

However, Britons are now drinking far, far more than people drank back in the 50s, and everyone's health (and national insurance bill) is suffering on account of it. Alcohol abuse is now the third-leading cause of death in the UK and is costing the NHS £3bn a year - 50 quid for every man jack of us.

It's probably hard for those who have the odd glass of wine with a meal to conceive of the way that British yoofs are putting it away these days, but it's no surprise to anyone who lives near a pub-laden city centre and has to walk over the piles of vomit the next morning. Nor is it a surprise to anyone who works in a casualty department, or any doctor who deals with liver disease. People are now hitting the gurneys in their 20s, with the livers of 50-year olds.

Unfortunately, (I say, as I once loved a tipple myself) drink also takes the worst of its toll on women. Not only are our bodies smaller and our livers less efficient at processing what is basically a toxin, almost all rapes take place at or near places of entertainment after the hours of darkness.

Take alcohol consumption out of the picture, and the rape rates would drop dramatically - very few men commit this crime unless fuelled by an intoxicant.You can't stop people drinking altogether, of course, and the doctors are not about to try. But banning marketing, restricting booze to off-licences, raising the price and being far more careful about who gets to drink and when can only do the nation's health good as a whole.  

I suppose it's because I take it as given that as women, we all know that it's women and children who suffer the most in war. You can't protect yourself, you can't protect your children. The threat of sexual violence only adds insult to injury, and it is women, worldwide, and in all times, who have borne the brunt of it.

Most of us are lucky to have grown up in nations at peace. But I still know many women who've been raped. Raped by fathers, brothers, boyfriends, strangers.

Rape exists in every nation even in peacetime, but its use as a weapon of war should be no surprise to anyone who's read Susan Brownmiller's book Against Our Will. I have always remembered (though I paraphrase) General Patton's order concerning his own men: "In spite of my most diligent efforts, there will undoubtedly be some raping...and I want the offenders brought to me so that I can see them properly hanged." He was as good as his word, too - expeditiously trying and executing four American troops in Sicily who had raped Italian women.

Patton knew his history, and he knew that the story of conquest is indivisible from rape. But it was Brownmiller who made it clear that rape is not committed by retreating armies (too busy saving their skins) nor, generally, by front-line troops (too busy winning the battle). It is those who follow that cut a swathe through defenceless womanhood worldwide - the second-line Russians marching into Berlin, frustrated grunts in the Vietcong-infested jungle, irregular troops, militias, marauders and skirmishers of every description, in every war, everywhere, at every time.

In my lifetime, Americans have raped the Vietnamese wholesale, Pakistanis have raped Bengalis, Serbians have raped Bosnians, Israelis have raped Palestinians, and on it goes. The current world focus is on the Janjawiid militias, who are terrorising the women of Darfur, but in the most recent wars, militias raped virtually ALL the women in Liberia, while to this day, the women of the Congo are fair game for every soldier on every side, even those in the uniforms of peacekeepers.

As far as rape in warfare goes, the younger the victims the better (little girls are the best), and the more public the crime, the more effective it is - preferably gang-based, preferably in front of the men, preferably resulting in children of another colour, so that the entire fabric of society is shattered. There is no more certain way to plunge a nation into chaos than to pollute its women. So wholesale was the rape of Bengali women in the Bangladesh war that the government of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman declared all such victims 'heroines of the state' to prevent them being ostracised or killed by their own families.

The adoption of resolution 1820 in the Hague will do nothing to stop rape in war, but it is at least a step in the right direction and let us hope that it leads to the crime being seen for what it is - a political strategy used by the unscrupulous to create conflict and disorder for generations to come.

As of yet, the hospital has released no other information and has declined to comment on rumours that the girl has been reunited with her mother, grandmother and surviving siblings.

Josef Fritzl remains in custody.

For more on this story, visit the BBC website.

A few weeks ago, Burma was struck by a massive cyclone, closely followed by a devastating earthquake in China. These two events have cost the lives of around 200,000 people, a total which will almost certainly rise. Heaven only knows how many people have been injured - lost limbs, crush injuries, infections. Some earthquake victims had limbs amputated in order to remove them from the rubble.

We all recognise that natural disasters just happen - there's nothing you can do to prevent them, little you can to do prepare for them, only deal effectively with the aftermath. We also know that we are able as human beings to come together and deal with the problem. Like so many tiny ants, we scramble about, and extricate bodies and rebuild shattered lives. In particular, the Chinese Government's response has been exemplary. It is, of course, one of the advantages of a totalitarian state with a massive standing army, but the Chinese have mobilised, parachuted in help, assessed what they need and asked for international aid, particularly for tents. They are, fundamentally, on top of the situation.

Burma is a totalitarian state also, but differs in that the junta's main aim is to keep itself in power. Hence the agonisingly slow response and arrogant assertions that rescue and recovery are not needed - they will cope just fine by themselves thank you. This causes immense frustration in any caring human being who recognises that time is of the essence. And yet it is still not deliberate cruelty on the part of the junta - these people don't hate the cyclone victims, they just - utterly mistakenly - think they know what's best for them.

But the Fritzl case is a different matter. This is not a natural disaster, but an example of terrible human cruelty, only made worse by the length of time involved. Some men commit incest. Some men commit rape. Some men commit multiple rape or gang rape. Some men imprison their victims, or chain them up or otherwise degrade them. But this man did all of this to the people he was meant to love the most - his own children. And he did it over the course of 24 years. How on earth, we wonder, is this possible in a society that is meant to be civilised?

Keeping up this kind of sustained criminality is beyond our ken, as it the fact that this terrible thing occurred in peacetime, right under the noses of his neighbours. It wasn't a war situation, where everything is in chaos, and where terrible events occur every day which are then regretted.

The Fritzl case reveals to us the dark underbelly of our own society, and it's something we're unable to deal with, except by crying for revenge - as if revenge will solve it, or give this family back their lost years. Better to study Josef Fritzl, and attempt to understand him, in the hopes of preventing this from ever happening again.

Believe it or not, that's what a bunch of women in Canada are currently doing, according to a story on Asylum.com.

In Burma, powerful men consider women to be inherently inferior and the military is said to have a superstitious belief that contact with women, or with female clothing, will weaken their strength.

The campaign to send knickers - preferably ones which have been worn - to the military was begun as a peaceful protest by women in Burma. Not only is it intended to put the junta to shame, it highlights the regime's record of rape and sexual enslavement of the country's women.

"It's been very well documented that rape has been used as a weapon of war in Burma. Soldiers go into villages and they systematically rape women. They have also used women as sexual slaves," said Mika Levesque, spokesperson for activist group Rights and Democracy.

In Canada, the campaign is being co-ordinated by Rights and Democracy alongside the Quebec Women's Federation.

For more information click here.