Plastic

85% of all waste found on beaches in the world is plastic.

Disposable cutlery (plastic plates, cups, forks, and knives) should be forbidden in the catering industry if it is up to Portugal’s left-wing parties.

A draft legislation thereupon was submitted in July 2017 and discussed in Parliament early this year. Heloísa Apolónia – MP of the Ecological and Green Party (PEV) – explains ‘our proposal is to ban the use of plastic disposables in restaurants and bars and to look for biodegradable substitutes within 3 years.’

The director of the Hotel and Restaurant branch organization AHRESP, Jose Manuel Esteves, is not happy with the proposition and has more confidence in recycling. ‘This idea doesn’t make sense at all. If there is one sector that is exemplary for a circular economy, then it is ours.  Besides, the main users of disposables are not restaurants but institutions, hospitals, and public festivals.’

António Fonseca, the president of the Association of Bars in the Historic Center of Porto (ABZHP) – that encourages the legalization of the use of alcohol in public places – believes that the plans are irresponsible in the light of the danger glassware can cause in nightlife.

The MP of the ruling socialist party (PS) Joao Torres agrees with the proposals but doubts if a timetable of 3 years is realistic. He is more in favor of a ‘gradual implementation to enable the industry to develop sustainable alternatives’. The socialist government has therefore set up a working group and intends to present a bill on the matter in May.

To mobilize the public opinion, the Party for Animals and Nature (PAN) has written an open letter to Al Gore – former US vice-president and author of the documentary Inconvenient Truth – to involve him in their campaign in the social media to reduce plastic cutlery in Portugal (#AlGoreReplytoPan).

‘We have written this letter given his engagement in the pollution of our oceans – where the ‘plastic soup’ has meanwhile reached a size that is equivalent to 17 times the surface of Portugal – declares Andre Silva, MP of PAN. ‘The problem is too big to wait because in 10 to 20 years there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans and microplastics (from cosmetics and cleaning agents) will not only have killed the fish but also entered our bodies via the food chain.’


The non-profit environment organization Quercus recently challenged the Portuguese not to use disposable plastic products for the next 40 days (#40diassemplastico), at least until Easter.


Bom fim de semana                                                  Have a great weekend

 

 

 

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Earthquake

‘The question is not whether another major earthquake will take place but when.’

On January 15 at 11.15 am, the population of Arraiolos – some 120 km east of Lisbon – was startled by an earthquake with a magnitude of 4.9 on the Richter scale. There were no casualties and the damage was limited to a few cracks.

‘This earthquake can be considered as moderately severe’, says Fernando Carrilho, chief seismologist at the IPMA (Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere). ‘People shouldn’t worry too much as the southern part of the country has always been seismic active.’

‘It has to do with earth crust activity, where 2 tectonic plates are pushing against each other over the last thousands of years’, explains Pedro Cunha, a geologist at the University of Coimbra. ‘The African plate moves to the northwest and lifts the Iberian plate, that is moving to the east. So, the question is not whether a major earthquake will take place but when. Unfortunately, nobody can – despite all our sophisticated measuring devices – predict the latter.’

‘Preventive measures are warranted’, especially in the densely populated areas in the south – like Lisbon and the Algarve – that are most at risk’, says Daniel Oliveira, a civil engineer at the University of Minho. ‘Although a law from 1958 requires earthquake-proof construction, most buildings in the historic capital date from before that time and there is hardly any monitoring of the implementation of the law.’

Over the past 500 years, Portugal has suffered four major earthquakes – in 1531, 1755, 1909 and 1969 – with a magnitude of 6 or more on the Richter scale. The biggest and by far most tragic one was in 1755. With a magnitude of 9 on the Richter scale, it developed apocalyptic proportions and completely wiped out the lower part of the capital. This earthquake (terramoto) inspired poets, influenced philosophers, activated prophets and motivated politicians – like the Marquis of Pombal – to a completely new architectural reconstruction of the Baixa, Lisbon’s city center.

The last severe earthquake was in 1969. Although it had a force of 7.9, the damage was limited as its epicenter was 250 km away from Lisbon. ‘The bigger the distance, the less harm’, says Maria Baptista of the Geophysical Center at the University of Lisbon.


In memory of Portugal’s main natural disaster, the City Council has recently approved plans to build – in collaboration with the private company Turicultur  ( Tourism and Culture in Portugal) – within two years an earthquake museum (Museu do Terramoto) in Belem.


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Relations

One or two mothers?
One or two fathers?
In one or two houses?
With one or more sibs?
From one or more parents,
together as long as it takes or until ‘death them part’?


‘When I got pregnant from my first child, we had a superficial relationship in which cohabitating was never an issue. I decided to go on and only asked him if he wanted to acknowledge the child. He agreed and we continued living apart together ever since’, says Ana, a 38-year-old primary school teacher.

The Portuguese population not only declined for the ninth consecutive year – due to one of the lowest birth-rates in Europe and a negative migration balance  – relationships are also undergoing change.

Nowadays, half of the children are born outside marriage and in 20% parents also do not live together, a number that has doubled in the last 6 years.

This ‘solitary family’ – in which parenthood is no longer associated with marriage or cohabitation – is poorly studied, says Maria João Valente Rosa, demographer, and director of Portada. ‘It was initially thought to be a consequence of the economic crisis and therefrom forced emigration of men. But this trend is going on, despite the economic recovery and a decrease in emigration’.

‘It is interesting though, that this concerns mainly firstborn children’, explains Maria Filomena Mendes, president of Portuguese Association of Demography. ‘As soon as a second child is due, mothers tend to cohabitate more. Most likely to share caring responsibilities’.

In parallel to a decline in the number of marriages, there has been an increase in the number of divorces, with Portugal ranking first in Europe. Remarkable is that women have to wait longer than men before they can remarry, ten months instead of six!

This 1967 law has to do with any new pregnancy in order to assess whether the child born is of the first or second husband. ‘Absolutely out of date’, says Sandra Cunha, sociologist, and MP of the Left Block, that wants to abolish this old-fashioned and discriminating law as soon as possible.

Same-sex marriages comprise only 1% of the wedlock but are four times more common in Lisbon and Porto than in the sparsely populated interior. Since 2010 – when gay marriage became legally possible in Portugal – 2300 gay couples have married, two-thirds being men.
As of February 2016, homosexual couples can also adopt children.

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Pavement

‘We barely notice when we walk and what we step on,  until walking on the pavement provides a surprise’
Ana Cannas. Sidewalks of Portugal. CTT, 2016

Portugal’s famous pavement originates from the nineteenth century. Under The Lisbon City Council has employed mestres calceteiros ( paving masters) ever since and even founded a vocational school for pavers in 1986. Despite this professional training, pavers have been in short supply for years as their work is hard and badly-paid.
A monument to the paver – a bronze status made by Sergio Stichini in 2006 – can be found on Lisbon’s famous square Restauradores.

Calçada Portuguesa ( Portuguese-style pavement) is characterized by tight paving with small, irregularly shaped – usually white and black – limestones. Not only ships, animals, stars, flowers, anchors or mermaids inhabit the ground, also geometric patterns show themselves as magnificent stony carpets. Their extraordinary symmetry is impressive in this respect.

Figures in artistic sidewalks and squares – characterized by the application of stones of different color and shape – were traditionally performed with the aid of wooden molds. The base-color stone, usually white, is first laid around the mold and after removal, the darker stones are fitted inside.

Advantages of mosaic pavement are the use of local materials, its sustainability (stones can be re-used), the ease of removal, the invisibility of restorations (when performed professionally), the efficient drainage and its cultural and touristic value.


On ramps and steep streets, Portuguese pavement should be adapted by the incorporation of granite stones to increase friction and mitigate the greatest drawback of worn – polished – limestone, becoming slippery when wet!


Throughout the years, this beautiful pavement has fallen victim to poor maintenance and repair (stones becoming uneven or loose), causing discomfort when walking, in particular for disabled people.
And take care, these sidewalks are very stiletto-unfriendly!

 

Bom fim de semana                                                Have a great weekend

 

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Under

Quis sobretudo ser franco                   ‘I mostly wanted to be frank,
fala aberto o coração!                          to speak openly from the heart!
Trabalho o preto e o branco               By working with black and blank,
sou um ourives do chão.                     on the ground produced fine art.

( Toni Rosa, paving master and popular poet )

Since Portugal has been declared World’s Leading Destination and Lisbon Best City Break in 2017, I’ am sure you are dying to visit the country in order to see for yourself, whether these prestigious awards are justified. BIG-5. In that case, remember to pay attention to what you walk on because the Portuguese pavement provides a surprise: it is all public art under your feet!

However, that hasn’t always been the case. It started as a forced task performed by prisoners in the nineteenth century. Only later it evolved into a craft and pavers (calceteiros) became recognized artisans, whose art became appreciated in such a way, that it spread to many cities and continents.

In 1842 Lieutenant-General Eusébio Pinheiro Furtado –Governor of St. George’s castle in Lisbon – took the initiative of engaging prisoners under his command in the mosaic paving of roads leading to the castle. The chosen pattern was a simple black and white zigzag using limestone and basalt.

It became an immediate success and similar works were ordered, such as the paving of Lisbon’s major square Praça D. Pedro IV – popularly known as Rossio (meaning ‘wide and public space’) – that took place between 1846 and 1849.

The pavement of Rossio was called ‘Wide Sea’ (Mar Largo) for depicting waves, symbolizing the encounter between the Tagus river and the Atlantic Ocean, which launched the Portuguese into the Discoveries in the 15th century. After Rossio, Lisbon adopted mosaic pavement for all its squares and sidewalks and it became the most popular pavement in historic Portuguese towns and famous worldwide.

Bom fim de semana                                                  Have a great weekend

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Immigration

‘Migration is a right, not a privilege’ – António Guterres, UN Secretary-General

Only immigration can save the Portuguese from extinction as more old people die than babies are born and the number of people leaving the country continues to be greater than the number entering it.

Over the past ten years more than 400.000 ‘new citizens’ have been added to a population of 10 million due to an extension of the law in 2006, allowing expatriates to obtain the Portuguese nationality after residing at least six years in Portugal. But who are these migrants and where do they stay?

The majority of the ‘new citizens’ originate from Portuguese speaking countries such as Brazil (120.000), Cape Verde (75.000), Guinea–Bissau (35.000), and Angola (35.000). During the same period, a considerable number of Ukrainians (25.000) and Romanians (30.000) settled in the country.


About half of the ‘new citizens’ live in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, over 60.000 in the sunny Algarve, about 35.000 around Setúbal and 25.000 in the northern harbor town Porto. Lately more Western Europeans – primarily French and English – than Eastern Europeans and Africans are entering the country.

Portugal’s state of security, quality of life and favorable fiscal climate – especially of interest for wealthy pensioners from EU countries – definitively play a role.

It has always been difficult to get a residence permit without a fixed work contract. Yet last summer, the socialist government decided to relax the law allowing migrants with a provisional work contract or even a promise of employment, to apply for a permit. Moreover, immigrants caring for minors and those who are born in Portugal may no longer – according to the new legislation – be simply expelled from the country. A prerequisite, however, is that they haven’t entered Portugal illegally.

Timothy Macedo – from the NGO Solidaridade Imigrante (SOLEM) – is happy with the new law, but points out that there are more than 30.000 illegals (the vast majority living in Lisbon) and that most of them are waiting for years to be assessed by the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF).

Without legal documents, they are condemned to dirty, illegal and badly-paid jobs and deprived of social security. Cynthia Paula – from the NGO Casa do Brasil – also denounces the lack of political will, huge bureaucracy and enormous waiting lists at the SEF, giving rise to unnecessary ‘slow and unjust’ integration and exploitation of illegal workers.

Bom fim de semana                                              Have a great weekend

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BIG-5

Ever heard of the Big 5? No, not the elephant, rhinoceros, giraffe, buffalo and lion, Africa’s largest animals.
I mean Portugal’s Big 5. No, not the country’s most famous explorers in the 15th century, Bartolomeu Dias (discovered Cape of Good Hope), Diogo Cão ( Kongo & Namibia), Pedro Álvares Cabral ( Brazil), Vasco da Gama ( India) and Ferdinand Magellan (first trip around the world).

The last year and a half have been extremely successful for Portugal. Not only did the socialist government of António Costa managed to repair its broken economy [Fairy tale ], the country also succeeded in showing five major achievements to the world.

It all started in July 2016 when the national football team – with captain Cristiano Ronaldo as the best male footballer in the world – won the European Football Championship for the first time in history.

In December of that same year António Guterres – international diplomat and ex-prime minister of Portugal – was appointed as Secretary-General of the United Nations, one of the toughest political jobs in the world [https://lusolobo.com/levend ]

Nine months after the Football Championship, Portugal delivered another number one, by winning the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 with Salvador Sobral’s ‘Amar Pelos Dois’ [https://youtu.be/ymFVfzu-2mw]

Seven months after the Eurovision Song contest the Portuguese economist and Minister of Finance – Mário Centeno – was elected as the next president of the Eurogroup, an informal but powerful gathering of 19 eurozone finance ministers. Centeno will be the first holder of the post from one of the South-European countries forced into a bailout by the euro crisis.

And last but not least, just before the end of this year, the World Travel Awards designated Portugal as the World’s Leading Destination in tourism. It is the first time that a European country wins this prestigious award. In addition, Lisbon won the award for best City Break in the world. The WTA’s – founded in 1993 – are internationally considered as ‘the Oscar’s of tourism’. In September Portugal had already won the award for Europe’s Leading Destination  [Touristentsunami]
Feliz Ano Novo                                                                   Happy New Year

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Romaphobia

Paint the grass the color you want, it will always be grass  –  Gypsy proverb

‘When other children discover that I am a gypsy, they start cursing and shouting that we are worth nothing’, says 11-year-old Lindinho Cambão. ‘But we are not really that bad.’

Prejudices about gypsies are very persistent. They are said to be stealing, begging, criminal and asocial.
Originating from Northern India, the Roma migrated some 500 years ago to the Iberian Peninsula where they are marginalized and discriminated ever since. In Nazi Germany, gypsies were exterminated in concentration camps, just as Jews and homosexuals.

‘If a gypsy takes a seat on the bus, his fellow passenger will anxiously hold his bag’, says Idália Serão, MP of the Socialist Party, whose grandfather was Roma. ‘Ethnic minorities – like gypsies and blacks – are excluded in our society and only become visible when problems occur.’ Parliament, university and media are overwhelmingly white.’

In Portugal, 80% of the estimated 50.000 Roma has no regular income and 60% lives on benefit. The youth is poorly educated. Only a third has completed primary school and 15% is illiterate (more girls than boys). Girls tend to marry very early– at the age of 13-15 years – and get their first baby on average at 19.

Housing is dramatic with 20-30% of the families living in precarious conditions. Neighbourhoods like Bairro das Murtas in the center of Lisbon – without water and electricity – and Bairro da Torre in Loures, on the outskirts of the capital, are famous in that respect.

An investigation by the FRA (Fundamental Rights Agency) amongst gypsies in Europe last year, revealed that nearly half of the Roma population in Portugal feels discriminated, most notably in the areas of public service, work, and healthcare.

Pedro Calado – High Commissioner for Migration – sees progress in the integration, albeit changes are slow. ‘Visits to crèches increase as well as women’s participation in literacy courses. More than 90% of the Roma families have a GP nowadays and the vaccination coverage in children is over 70%.’

Last year Leonor Teles, a 23-year-old Portuguese film director whose father is Roma, won with her Rhoma Acans ( Gypsy Eyes) in Berlin the Golden Bear Award for the best short film.

https://youtu.be/RCuZXMI2lgA

Bad people don’t sing  –  Gypsy proverb

BOM FIM DE SEMANA                                                                      Have a great weekend

 

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Overhead

‘Senhor, senhor.’ João woke up, turned drowsy around and looked straight into the smiling face of a black man, who was waving with a bunch of sunglasses over his head. ‘Very cheap, very good.’ ‘Thanks, man, I don’t need anything’, João muttered turning back on his bath towel.

He was sleeping badly since that horrible peace mission operation in Mali last month when El Qaida had, completely unexpected, attacked the hotel in the capital Bamako and killed – besides a dozen of tourists – two of his best friends. Young guys still. Shame!
Fortunately, he had sat high and dry in a plane on his way home, when the raid occurred. Despite the fact that he – as a sergeant at the Air Force – had carried out numerous peacekeeping missions in war zones all over the world, he felt that the safest place on earth was high in the sky.

How lovely was this calm beach with the afternoon sun gently roasting his back, the rhythmic burbling of the surf nearby and the smell of salty sand. His thoughts wandered off how horrible it must have been to be confronted all of a sudden with a batch of terrorists storming the hotel, shouting Allah Akbar and killing as many people as possible.

Maybe this was a warning, that he should stop this kind of work and look for less risky employment. But an office job on the ground? No way! Was flight instructor perhaps a good alternative? After all, he had lots of experience after flying for more than 25 years. Besides, he was also getting older with his 56 years. His 83-year-old mother would love it to have him around. Especially since his father had passed away last year and she had moved from Lisbon to a smaller apartment in Caparica, near the beach.

Satisfied he fell asleep again, while he heard in the distance the familiar sound of an approaching airplane.


A 56-year-old sergeant of The Air Force was killed when a Cessna aircraft made an emergency landing on the São João da Caparica beach, 20 km to the south of Lisbon. ‘The plane hit the man as he sunbathed on a towel’, witnesses declared.

BOM FIM DE SEMANA                                                                             (photo Público)

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Poverty-related

‘If it were ever to rain soup, the poor would only have forks’ – Brazilian proverb

Poverty and disease go hand in hand, not only in so-called developing countries but also in more affluent societies.

‘The fact that 20% of the population has limited access to healthy food – due to financial constraints – has serious consequences’, says Helena Canhão, investigator at the Health Science Faculty of the New University of Lisbon.
‘A poor people’s diet of cheap and fast food leads to obesity and diabetes.’

Obesity is Portugal’s biggest Public Health problem [zwaargewichten].
More than half of the population is too heavy, 75% of the elderly and nearly a third of all children.
Obesity is more common in the poor and rural parts of the country, in particular the Alentejo province.

People with primary school only are 3 times more often obese than higher educated people, who are not only better informed, but also earn more and can afford a healthy diet with fresh nutrients.

‘That social inequality has an impact on health is beyond doubt.
People who have access to a Mediterranean diet are socially more privileged’, says Pedro Graça, director of the National Program for the Promotion of Healthy Nutrition.

The average Portuguese eats for two, meaning almost 4000 calories per person per day!
Not only is this far too much, the quality of food is also poor. It contains three times the recommended amount of meat, fish and eggs and only half the amount of vegetables.

And although Portuguese cherish their daily bowl of soup, it is often too salty. Moreover, the intake of alcohol and soda is considerable. Nearly a quarter of all men and at least 10% of women drink too much and half the population consumes soft drinks on a daily basis.

As a result of the obesity epidemic diabetes is very common and Portugal even has the highest prevalence of diabetes in Europe. One in every 7 citizens is affected and 25% of the people – who die in hospital – have diabetes. The risk to get the disease is four times higher in people, who haven’t completed primary school – a number twice as high in Portugal, than elsewhere in Europe.

‘We are wasting our money on the wrong side’, says Luis Correia, head of the Diabetes Observatory. Treatment of diabetes now devours 12% of our national health budget. It would be much cheaper to prevent the disease instead.’

BOM FIM DE SEMANA                                                    (photos Observador/SAPO)

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