Portugal

Portugal: Fifty Years Since The Carnation Revolution

May 20, 2024 John Green, MR Online. Educate! Carnation Revolution, coup, History, Portugal, Social Movements

Fifty years ago, on April 25, 1974, Portugal was shaken by an earthquake. Not a geological earthquake, like the one in 1755 that razed Lisbon to the ground and killed around 50,000 people, but a political one, with only four victims. It was an uprising that would overnight bring Europe’s longest lasting fascist dictatorship tumbling down. Shortly after midnight on April 25, the popular song “Grândola Vila Moreno” (Grândola, my swarthy town) rang out over the airwaves of a private Portuguese radio station. To the nervous soldiers in their barracks listening out for it, this was the signal for them to start the engines of their tanks and armored cars and begin their revolt by rapidly taking Lisbon, the capital, and other large towns by storm.

Portugal’s Proposed Ecocidal Airport Grounded

May 19, 2024 The Canary. Resist! Air Travel, Airports, climate crisis, Ecocide, Environment, Portugal

The Portuguese government has grounded an ecocidal airport that would have decimated a biodiverse wetland. However, it isn’t the end of the climate-wrecking air travel plan. Specifically, the government is still hurtling ahead with plans to build the new airport at a different location. Of course, this will be disastrous for the climate crisis and nature. Portugal’s airport plans In 2019, the Portuguese government announced plans to build a new airport outside of Lisbon. The government planned to build this in the Tagus Estuary, close to Portugal’s capital. However, it is one of the main estuaries in Western Europe and Portugal’s most important wetland for waterbirds.

Youth Challenge 32 European Nations In ‘Truly Historic’ Climate Trial

October 1, 2023 Isabella Kaminski, DeSmog. Resist! climate crisis, Europe, Legal System, Portugal, Youth Activism

After Portugal experienced massive wildfires and extreme heat waves this summer, six children and youth from the nation appeared in the European Court of Human Rights Wednesday for a landmark lawsuit against 32 European nations charged with violating their human rights due to the impacts of climate change. At the hearing in Strasbourg, France, lawyers representing six Portuguese young people said the youth were being discriminated against by state inaction in cutting greenhouse gas emissions, the effects of which have been “foreseeable for decades.” Inadequate action to curb global emissions, the lawyers argue, violates the youths’ rights to life, privacy and family life, and to be free from torture, inhuman or degrading treatment.

Portugal’s Novo Banco Ordered To Return $1.5 Billion To Venezuela

August 14, 2023 Orinoco Tribune. Educate! Legal System, Portugal, Sanctions, Venezuela

Venezuelan authorities have announced that Portuguese courts have ruled in favor of Venezuela and ordered Novo Banco to return $1.5 billion illegally seized from accounts belonging to the Venezuelan government, following the failed 2019 US-led regime change operation that attempted to oust President Nicolás Maduro. “Breaking news: the Bolivarian [Venezuelan] government wins trial and recovers its assets in Portugal,” wrote the Venezuelan minister for communication and information, Freddy Ñáñez, officially disclosing Portugal’s judiciary decision via social media this Wednesday, August 9. “$1.5 billion were released by Novo Banco.”

Adventures In NATOstan: Sparks Flying In Ibiza, Locked Down Bilderberg

May 24, 2023 Pepe Escobar, Orinoco Tribune. Educate! European Union (EU), Ibiza, NATO, Portugal, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

I was a guest at a top business gathering – mostly Spaniards but also featuring Portuguese, Germans, Brits and Scandinavians: ultra high-level executives in real estate, asset management, and investment banking. Our panel was titled “Global Geopolitical Shifts and Their Consequences.” Before the panel, participants were invited to vote on what worried them most when it comes to the future of their business. Number one was inflation and interest rates. Number two was geopolitics. That prefigured a very lively debate ahead. Little did I or the audience know that would turn into a wild ride. The first presentation came from the director of a “Center for European Politics” in Copenhagen.

Thousands Of Portuguese Workers Rally Against Inflation

July 11, 2022 Fight Back News. Resist! Inflation, Mass Action, Portugal, Worker Rights and Jobs

Lisbon, Portugal - Thousands of Portuguese workers marched July 7 to condemn inflation and stagnant wages. People traveled from across the country to gather in Lisbon, the capital city of Portugal. Many traveled by train from Porto, the biggest city in the northern region of Portugal, where the train departed from Campanhã Train Station with around 800 protesters aboard. The thousands converged on Marqués de Pombal Park in Lisbon then marched to the Portuguese parliament.

Portugal’s Home Working Laws Are A Model For The Post-Pandemic World

November 27, 2021 Andrew Kersley, Tribune Magazine. Create! COVID-19, Portugal, Work From Home, Worker Rights and Jobs

When Covid first spread to the UK, the only thing that might have topped the public consciousness more than the pandemic itself were debates about ‘working from home’. From its effectiveness and impact on office economies to the future of work itself, these debates have since been inescapable. But as cliché as it is, this shift in the way we work has completely changed what we understand as the rights of the worker—as well as what it means to work. A huge number of jobs can’t be done remotely. Even during lockdowns, as many as 10.6 million people, or a third of the overall workforce, were employed in key worker industries. But more and more of are likely to be working from home in future.

Allow Humanitarian Aid To Reach Venezuela

September 30, 2021 Progressive International. Resist! Health Care, Portugal, Sanctions, Venezuela

We are writing to you to urge Novo Banco to execute the transfer of a modest portion of the now technically unfrozen assets belonging to Bandes, the Venezuelan economic and social development bank, so they may be transferred directly to the Brazil-based Pan-American Health Organisation to pay for vaccines and medicines for infants in Venezuela. Bandes informed us that they submitted this request to Novo Banco on 22nd July and have yet to receive a response. At this point in time there is no legal or extralegal obstacle that would preclude a Portuguese bank from making a transfer of Bandes’ own funds in Brazilian reales directly to a Brazilian bank account in order to pay for humanitarian supplies for children. Nearly 2 billion USD (in various currencies but a large amount in euros) have been withheld by Novo Banco illegally since late 2017.

In And Against The European Union?

December 29, 2019 Hilary Wainwright, Transnational Institute. Strategize! Austerity, European Union (EU), Portugal, Socialism

The government of the Portuguese Socialist Party supported and pressured by an alliance with the Communist Party and the Left Bloc have shown that it is possible to implement an effective anti-austerity programme as a member of the EU. This entailed successfully standing up to EU negotiators and facing down their repeated opposition to the government’s measures, leading to tough but ultimately successful negotiations. The result was a reversal of all the austerity measures introduced under the supervision of the Troika by the previous conservative government, while remaining within the EU’s 3% deficit limit. From the Portuguese standpoint, the success of these negotiations depended on a favourable balance of power reinforcing the government’s bargaining position.

The Global Left Can Learn A Lot From This Tiny Country

October 14, 2019 Natasha Hakimi Zapata, Truthdig.com Strategize! Electoral Politics, Europe, Ideology, Left Politics, Portugal, Revisionism

There’s a place in the West where a smattering of anti-austerity, pro-immigration, pro-public-spending left-wing parties are not only in power, but are actually popular. I’m talking about Portugal, the small European country I have witnessed grow into a global political marvel. On Sunday, progressives around the world cheered as a loose left-wing coalition won enough seats to rule the country for another four years. The story of Portugal’s resurgent left starts in 2015, when, as a center-right government continued to force austerity measures painfully down the throats of a suffering nation, the Portuguese voted for an alternative—sort of.

How Ending Austerity Built Economic Growth In Portugal

January 27, 2019 Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead, Occupy.com. Create! Austerity, Ecology, Portugal, Socialism

Since Britain voted to leave the E.U. in 2016, the country has witnessed an alarming spike in rightwing hate crime. Many are now warning that the “febrile” atmosphere escalating around Brexit as leaders struggle to come to an agreement could be further exploited by far-right extremists. Though it’s not just Britain that is seeing a surge in far-right populism. Rightwing protests fueled by anti-immigrant sentiment are hounding Germany’s streets. Sweden’s once fringe far-right party, the Sweden Democrats, are rising in popularity threatening to stop asylum seekers coming into the country. Hungary, Poland, Austria and Finland are all experiencing a reactionary surge.

At Its Convention, Portugal’s Left Bloc Gears Up For Year Of Crucial Fights

November 23, 2018 Dick Nichols, Greenleft.org.au Resist! Electoral Politics, Portugal

In 2019, European and legislative elections will take place in Portugal in a national political context different from anywhere else in the European Union (EU), where austerity policies still reign and the racist and xenophobic right is rising, writes Dick Nichols from Lisbon. Over the past three years in Portugal, the minority Socialist Party (PS) government has been supported from outside by the Left Bloc, the Communist Party of Portugal (PCP) and the Ecologist Party-The Greens (PEV). During that time wages and welfare payments have risen, privatisations have stopped, unemployment has halved to 6.3%, casual workers in the public sector have been made permanent, and the electricity and public transport bills of about 700,000 poor families have been cut.

How Portugal Launched The World’s First National Participatory Budget

November 2, 2018 Staff, Govinsider.asia Create! Funding, New Economy, Participatory budgeting, Portugal

Citizens in Portugal vote on how public funding is spent on national and regional projects, in the world’s first participatory budgeting scheme of its kind. The project is led by the Administrative Modernisation Agency to build trust among citizens and bring them into government. It was awarded the Best Citizen Engagement award at the recent Innovation Labs World hosted by GovInsider. The Portugal Participatory Budget (PPB) allows citizens to present investment proposals and then choose, through transparent and open voting, which projects should be funded and implemented. The budgeting process has two main phases: citizens first present budget proposals via the PPB’s online portal or in person at participative meetings held across Portugal.

What It’s Like For American Drug Reformer To Go To A Country With A Compassionate System

April 4, 2018 By Phillip Smith, AlterNet.org Educate! Drugs, Policy, Portugal

The American activists couldn't wrap their heads around it. Sitting in a dingy office in a nondescript building in central Lisbon, they were being provided a fine-grained explanation of what happens to people caught with small amounts of drugs in Portugal, which decriminalized the possession of personal use amounts of drugs 17 years ago. The activists, having lived the American experience, wanted desperately to know when and how the coercive power of the state kicked in, how the drug users were to be punished for their transgressions, even if they had only been hit with an administrative citation, which is what happens to people caught with small quantities of drugs there. Nuno Capaz was trying to explain. He is vice chairman of the Lisbon Dissuasion Commission, the three-member tribunal set up to handle people caught with drugs.

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