By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Dec 16 2010 (IPS)

While the shadow of a speculative assault looms over Portugal, similar to the economic crises that hit Greece and Ireland, this Iberian nation manages to hold up the beacon of renewable energy.

Partial view of the Amaraleja Photovoltaic Solar Plant. Credit: Courtesy of Sustentator

At the top of the EU list for clean energy use are Sweden (44.4 percent), followed by Finland (30.5 percent), Latvia (29.9 percent) and Austria (28.5 percent). But Portugal leads the way in fastest growth of renewables, and its goal is to reach 31 percent by 2020.

Already two years ago, Portugal surpassed the EU-wide goal for 2020 to reach 20 percent renewable energy.

The government of socialist José Sócrates has set up economic incentives and launched a massive publicity campaign to foment the use of clean energy. Solar power is spreading quickly as photovoltaic panels are cropping up on homes across the country.

The pace of renewable energy growth has a leg-up from Portugal’s natural wealth in sunshine, wind and coastline.

But Portugal has also made it a priority to export technology that captures the energy from the sun, wind, ocean waves and biomass.

Earlier this month, the municipal enterprise Lógica, based in the southeastern Portuguese city of Moura, signed a two-year agreement with the renewable energy technology foundation FCTER, in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, to build a photovoltaic energy laboratory.

Moura is located in the Alentejo region and has seen several solar energy projects over the last five years, when Mayor José María Prazeres Pós-de- Mina pushed to build the world’s largest solar farm there.

The solar plant began operating two years ago and, for his efforts, Pós-de- Mina received the 2008 People of the Year award from the non-governmental organisation OneWorld, one of the major international awards for defenders of the environment. In Europe and in Latin America, meanwhile, his reputation has grown as “the mayor of the future.”

The Amaraleja Photovoltaic Solar Plant was built as part of the energy park in Baldio da Ferraría, the European valley receiving most hours of sunlight — 3,000 per year.

Until 2009, when Spain’s Puertollano and Olmedilla de Alarcón solar farms surpassed it, Portugal’s Amaraleja was the largest of its kind in the world.

The 320 hectares of Amaraleja generate 64 megawatts with 2,520 solar- tracking units and 268,000 photovoltaic panels, for an estimated 93 million kilowatt-hours — enough to power 30,000 homes.

“When we build such big energy plants, the opportunity arises to negotiate something more,” engineer Helder Guia told IPS. He heads the Sunflower project, which facilitates environmental cooperation amongst European municipalities.

Guia explained that this was the case for Moura: “When the agreements for the construction of the Amaraleja plant were being finalised, they also agreed to build a photovoltaic panel factory.”

Mayor Pós-de-Mina’s reputation made him the guest of honour at the Latin American Conference on Renewable Energy, held in November 2008 in Florianópolis, capital of Santa Catarina, Brazil. That event marked the first step in the agreement signed this month.

The Portugal-Brazil partnership aims to establish technical, scientific, educational and cultural cooperation between FCTER and Lógica, as a way to promote research and innovation of mutual interest, especially in the area of solar energy — both thermal and photovoltaic.

The solar laboratory included in the pact is to have the capability for all sorts of tests to certify photovoltaic panels, whether they are made using crystalline silicon or fine-film solar cells.

Also in the agreement is labour professionalisation through an exchange of Brazilian and Portuguese students and technicians. They will participate in hands-on training at the Lógica plants and the solar energy labs of FCTER.

Lógica announced that it is working on plans to build two plants in Brazil “with the capacity to produce photovoltaic panels based on various technologies.”

By 2020, about 60 percent of the electricity consumed in Portugal will come from different renewable sources. The country already reached a very respectable 45 percent this year.

The proliferation of wind parks across the country has boosted that endeavour. In December 2008, the installed capacity of the wind turbines totalled 2,858 megawatts, and by the end of the next decade, should reach 8,500 megawatts, according to the government’s plans.

The star is perhaps the Alto Minho complex, in the northeastern province of Minho. Built in less than two years with an investment of 480 million dollars, it has been operating since December 2008.

The park has 120 wind turbines spread across 27 kilometres, with a 240 megawatt capacity — the equivalent of preventing 370,000 tonnes of climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions annually. Alto Minho is the leader in European wind parks in terms of power generated.

In an article published Sep. 19 by the British newspaper The Guardian, titled “Let’s Learn From Portugal’s Renewable Energy Policy,” Syma Tariq, an environmental issues reporter, suggests that Britain should follow in Portugal’s footsteps.

Tariq recognises that Portugal’s clean energy industry “benefits from a favourable climate,” but notes that Britain “has 10 times more coastline and benefits from plenty of wind throughout the year” — and yet is failing to take advantage of these traits.

“If Portugal can increase its reliance on green electricity from 17 percent to 45 percent in just five years, our own leaders have little excuse for our measly three percent,” she wrote.

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Nov 19 2010 (IPS)

Helicopter gunships patrolling the skies, missile launcher ships in the Tagus estuary, police with heavy machineguns and armoured cars deployed on the main streets of the Portuguese capital have created a warlike ambience in the city hosting the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Summit.

Heads of state and government of the 28 NATO member countries have been cloistered in the Parque das Nações, a part of Lisbon that has been turned into a top-security area similar to Baghdad’s “green zone”.

The security measures are unprecedented in Portugal. Lisbon is being subjected to tough restrictions on movement and operations, especially affecting retail trade and tourism.

Airspace closure, perimeters guarded by thousands of soldiers and uniformed and plain-clothes police, security cameras on the streets, roadblocks and a ban on private navigation off the Lisbon coast are some of the measures in place.

The Schengen Agreement on free movement without border controls was suspended from the early hours of Tuesday to midnight this Saturday, in order to guarantee domestic security and public order.

The border agreement covers European Union countries with the exception of a few members like the United Kingdom and Ireland. The non-EU countries of Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein are also included in the pact.

Among the most heavily-guarded people at the summit are U.S. President Barack Obama and President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia, a member country of NATO’s Partnership for Peace programme that aims to forge closer links with other European states and former territories of the dissolved Soviet Union.

This Friday and Saturday, as is customary since the foundation of NATO, the 28 leaders are debating a working agenda drawn up by the United States, which is proposing the adoption of a new strategic concept to deal with threats in a multifaceted world, with special attention paid to security.

The strategic mission of the military alliance, which was originally defence in the context of the Cold War, will be reformulated in Lisbon because of significant changes in the global chessboard over the last two decades.

In 1999, NATO’s strategic concept was shaped by the 1992-1995 Bosnian War, and today it is marked by the war in Afghanistan. At the Lisbon summit, the idea is to make progress towards stabilisation and then transition in Afghanistan, which was invaded in 2001 by a military coalition led by the United States.

NATO was founded in Washington in April 1949 to confront “the Russian threat,” but in 1991 it was left without an enemy when the Soviet Union was dissolved and the East European socialist bloc disintegrated.

Since then NATO has had to struggle for survival, and its lifebelt has been what the United States and Europe call “threats to global security.”

By inviting Medvedev, NATO is signalling that its Cold War thinking is a thing of the past, and it now regards Russia as a cooperative partner, rather than an adversary. The gesture is intended to improve relations, which have been all but frozen since the 2008 war in Georgia.

On his departure from Lisbon, Medvedev will carry in his briefcase a proposal to interconnect the Russian anti-missile defence system with that of NATO.

The final declaration to come out of the Lisbon summit “is a document that has already been agreed, reflecting in a balanced way the consensus among the allies,” said Teresa de Sousa, an analyst with the Lisbon newspaper Público, quoting a Portuguese diplomatic source.

The text includes considerations about the tasks and scenarios in which the organisation is involved, especially the threat of terrorism, nuclear proliferation, the war in Afghanistan, maritime piracy, and the plan to create an anti-missile shield to protect all of Europe, including Russia, financed by NATO member countries.

There were few details left to work out Friday. The plan, rather, was to adapt NATO’s mission statement to the set of new threats, whose common denominator is that they are unpredictable, and can flare up at any point on the planet.

Some voices have raised the question of what the role of NATO should be in international politics today. Should it limit itself to its original sphere of action, the North Atlantic, as its name suggests, or should it act globally?

“I do not understand how an organisation created with defensive goals in a bipolar world could have become the offensive instrument of a single super-power,” retired colonel Vasco Lourenço, one of the chief leaders of the 1974 “Carnation Revolution” that overthrew the Portuguese dictatorship in power since 1926, told IPS.

Lourenço, a former military governor of Lisbon, criticised “the move to convert NATO into something else, no one knows what, but something that will clearly only serve the interests of its main member, the United States.”

However, “keeping the same name will only create confusion,” he complained.

A number of demonstrations have been held in Lisbon this week by peace activists from all over Europe, who accuse NATO of having become “planetary police” and an offensive, not a defensive, force.

NATO’s self-assigned role has impinged on the attributions and competencies that were formerly the exclusive preserve of the United Nations, usurping the U.N.’s authority for solving conflicts, some critics say. Among them is former Portuguese president Mario Soares (1985-1995).

Another debate is about financial contributions to the organisation’s budget. The United States and Canada want Europe to increase its commitments, in spite of the economic difficulties the continent is experiencing, with large fiscal deficits, high foreign debt and high unemployment.

The economic crisis has led to mass movements opposed to excessive military spending in several European countries.

In addition to its new strategic concepts, emphasising military responses to threats against world security, NATO must also come up with a second strategy, to respond to criticism from civil society that views military spending as a threat to social security.

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Nov 16 2010 (IPS)

With the announcement that his country is ready to buy Portuguese debt, the president of East Timor, José Ramos-Horta, set a precedent in international economic relations that was universally praised in political and financial circles in this southern European country.

The president of one of the poorest countries on the planet, whose per capita income of 600 dollars ranks it 130th in the world, offered a hand to its former colonial power to help it weather the financial crisis.

“I don’t see difficulties for East Timor, in terms of buying Portuguese debt,” Ramos-Horta said Sunday on a visit to the former Portuguese enclave of Macao in China, where he announced that the government of Prime Minister José Alexandre Xanana Gusmão had decided to diversify investments by East Timor’s petroleum fund.

The oil fund was established by the government in 2005 to receive and distribute billions of dollars in tax revenue from emerging oil and gas projects in the Timor Sea, with the aim of ensuring the proper distribution of the earnings.

The president added that other investments could be made in highly successful public or quasi-governmental enterprises that guarantee high returns, such as companies in telecoms or renewable energy, an area in which Portugal is a world leader.

On Monday, State Budget Secretary Emanuel dos Santos described Ramos-Horta’s announcement as “a gesture of friendship.”

According to initial projections, East Timor’s investment in Portugal, slated for next year, could total one billion dollars.

However, the Diario Económico newspaper of Lisbon put the amount at 700 million dollars, because the East Timor oil fund is worth around seven billion dollars and by law, 90 percent of the assets must be invested in U.S. Treasury bonds.

Other positive news for the economy of Portugal, reported Monday, comes from another former Portuguese colony: Brazil.

South America’s giant plans to make major future investments in Portugal — following in the footsteps of Angola, another ex-colony, which holds shares in Portugal’s biggest oil company, the privatised Galp Energia.

Oi, Brazil’s biggest phone operator, is getting ready to buy an up to 10 percent stake in Portugal Telecom, the largest private business in the country, in 2011.

Next year, Portugal Telecom will be on the board of Oi, and it is then that Brazil plans to acquire a minority stake, estimated at 1.19 billion dollars, in the Portuguese firm.

The planned investments by East Timor and Brazil — the poorest and most powerful economies in the Portuguese-speaking world, respectively — have come just when this EU country is in the midst of a severe crisis, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warning on an almost daily basis that the country is on the verge of bankruptcy.

Certainly in a country with a GDP of 233.4 billion dollars and a public debt of 198.6 billion dollars, measures like those planned by Brazil and East Timor will not solve the bulky fiscal deficit, which stood at 9.3 percent in 2009 and is projected at 8.4 percent in 2010.

But they are seen as important injections into the Portuguese economy, and in the case of East Timor, there is also a strong symbolic aspect.

Economist and journalist Helena Garrido, one of the country’s leading economic analysts, warned in the Jornal de Negocios business newspaper that Portugal should gear up for “a 2011 that will be much worse than people now imagine.”

As if the situation were not dire enough, Germany and France threw more wood on the fire, with remarks about more restrictive rules in the future on aid to EU countries that find themselves in financial trouble.

If Ireland, currently the country most targeted by speculators, capitulates and turns to the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF) for aid and the IMF dictates terms to Dublin, Portugal will be next on the list and will have to prepare for the worst, according to financial publications in the EU.

That prospect was acknowledged for the first time on Monday evening by Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos, who admitted that there is a high risk of Portugal turning to the EFSF.

However, the problem is not only Portugal’s, but has to do with “the stability of the entire Eurozone,” he stressed.

In effect, the repercussions would go beyond this small country of 10.6 million people. A bailout for Ireland would give rise to a serious danger of a domino effect involving Portugal, Spain and Italy, and possibly a relapse in Greece, which was the immediate origin of the current wave of turmoil in the EU.

According to Garrido, “in an attempt to please voters,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy “created the risk of exhausting the EFSF.”

If Spain fails to hold out and Germany and France continue to insist “on a facile discourse aimed at winning votes, the euro will experience the worst possible nightmare,” she predicted.

“Politically, the pressure put on Ireland last weekend fuels the mistrust among the countries of the Eurozone, contributing nothing to the cooperation that is essential today in order to overcome the threats looming over the monetary union,” the analyst said.

University of Lisbon economics professor Mario Olivares told IPS that there are two main hurdles standing in the way of debt relief for many countries.

In first place, “the countries that should relieve the debt burden don’t want to do so,” he said. “The wealthy in the developed world, such as the 500 companies that represent nearly half of the entire planet’s GDP, should spend on the treasury bonds in several countries, to lower the risk.

“China, which has one-third of the world’s liquid reserves, isn’t doing so, or does so drop by drop, following a geoeconomic strategy,” the academic said.

The second factor “is that as a profession, economists educated in the last 20 years have stopped studying macroeconomy; although they do study something they call ‘macroeconomy’, it is actually a conglomeration of companies, whose behaviour is treated as if they were a rational individual…which only spends what it has — something that is true for an individual, or a family, but not for a country.”

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Sep 11 2010 (IPS)

Over the centuries, racism in the Americas has targeted indigenous peoples, African slaves and their descendants, while in Europe, secular racism has long centred on its once-enslaved gypsies, as their recent persecution in France and Italy confirms.

Daniela Rodrigues, of SOS Racism, condemns ongoing anti-Roma government actions. Credit: Katalin Muharay/IPS

The participants in this annual meeting of the Gypsy Lore Society (GLS) underscored in a resolution that the anthropological society is alarmed by the anti-Roma rhetoric of authorities from France and Italy.

Bastos told IPS that they expressed “strong concern over the policy of expulsions, which could lead to serious consequences for community relations between Europe’s majorities and the vulnerable Roma minority.”

The French government of Nicolas Sarkozy enacted a plan in August of forced removal and destruction of Roma encampments, with mass expulsions to Bulgaria, Romania and other countries.

A similar offensive has been carried out by the government of Silvio Berlusconi in Italy since 2008 — the difference being that the Italian leader did not make public his “security package” under which thousands of Roma have been expelled.

The Roma are a large minority group in Europe, with a population estimated at 10 to 16 million. But their numbers don’t protect them from discrimination or seemingly cyclic waves of persecution.

In sad irony, the latest incidents have come in the middle of the Decade of Roma Inclusion (2005-2015), “an unprecedented commitment by European governments to improve the socio-economic status and social inclusion of Roma.”

Last week’s Lisbon meet drew representatives of Roma groups and rights organisations from most European countries, but also from as far away as Brazil and Japan.

Bastos noted that GLS does not usually engage in political matters but on this occasion could not keep silent about France and Italy’s ethnic persecution of the Roma communities.

GLS, “with 120 years in existence, is the oldest anthropological scientific society in the world, founded in 1888 in London, relocated to 1989 to the United States, this time condemned the measures adopted in France and Italy,” he said.

The professor pointed out that the Roma have been the slaves of Europe since the sultan of Ghazni (now Afghanistan) began to make incursions into northern India, capturing villages in that zone.

In the winter of 1019-1020, the sultan conquered the sacred city of Kannauj, “in that era one of the most ancient and learned cities in India, capturing thousands of people and selling them in Persia,” explained the anthropologist and activist.

The Persians in turn sold the slaves in what is today Eastern Europe.

“It is known that 2,300 of them were placed in an area of the Orthodox Christian principalities of Transylvania and Moldavia, which today constitute two-thirds of Romania, where they were made slaves of the prince, of the convents and of the rural estates,” explained the host of the GLS meeting.

During the persecutions of Jews and Muslims in the 15th century, the “gypsy hunts” began, “because they were considered vagabonds and criminals.”

“In Germany and Netherlands, they were exterminated using guns, and the hunters were paid per unit,” said Bastos, summarising that “in Europe the goal of exterminating the gypsies has always been very clear.”

Anthropologist Daniela Rodrigues, member of the non-governmental organisation SOS Racism, told IPS that the expulsions of Roma from France and Italy is a “populist strategy” of those governments — a bid to appeal to their extreme conservative bases.

Rodrigues, who works to promote education for Roma children in Portugal, explained that one of her key efforts is “mediation with the families, to give them incentives to send their children to school.”

“Low school attendance among gypsies also has to do with their perception of themselves, in which many think that going to school will make them lose their ethnic identity,” she said.

This phenomenon “is much stronger for girls than for boys. When a gypsy girl achieves an education, her own community begins to say that she is no longer a gypsy, and look upon her with some scorn,” she added.

Rodrigues stressed that there is discrimination against Roma people in Portugal as well, “especially by the police, who when they are checking merchant credentials at the street fairs, they target the Roma merchants.”

“But unlike France and Italy, in Portugal the operations to control undocumented foreigners is not focused on them,” explained the expert.

In those two countries, “instead of conducting general immigrant controls of possible undocumented persons, what they do are operations against a specific ethnic minority, which follows a populist strategy,” said Rodrigues.

Another key difference is that Portugal “adopted a system of socially mixed neighbourhoods, constructed with the perspective that the Roma coexist with Africans, Brazilians and Portuguese, whether white or mixed race, and there is little discrimination there,” she said.

In a presentation to the conference, Santiago González Avión, director in the Spanish autonomous community of Galicia of the Gypsy Secretariat Foundation, pointed to the open wound that is the division amongst the Roma communities themselves.

“Fragmentation is strong between the Galician gypsies and the Castilian gypsies, and for the Roma that hold Spanish nationality. Also between them, and those with Portuguese nationality, there is strong segregation,” said González.

The conference document also denounces “the conditions of social precarity, in addition to economic poverty and social exclusion” of these groups.

The board of the Foundation laments the fact that “the Roma of Eastern Europe have not established ties with the rest of the gypsy populations. As a result, there is weakness in articulating a gypsy movement when the time comes to vindicate our rights as citizens and demand inclusive policies.”

“It is the general policies, of an inclusive nature, that have had greatest impact in improving the living conditions and recognition of rights of gypsy populations,” he said.

And only inclusive plans “guarantee what is known as the logic of access, but not the logic of roots: feeling the policies are one’s own, and incorporating them into personal plans and group strategies,” said González.

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Sep 3 2010 (IPS)

A trial that dragged on for six years amidst public outrage ended Friday in Portugal with the unexpected sentencing of prominent personalities, found guilty in a child sex abuse scandal that shook the nation.

The sex ring scandal involving the Casa Pía state-run children’s home in Lisbon broke in late 2002, when a whistleblower went to the press.

After a police investigation, the case went to court in November 2004, and became the longest, most costly trial in the history of Portugal.

In the 66,100-page, 273-volume ruling with 588 appendices, whose summary took all day long to read out, the three-judge panel convicted six of the seven defendants of child sex abuse committed in the 1980s and 1990s.

In Casa Pía, which is home to 3,500 orphans and abandoned or troubled children from around the country, a pedophile ring whose clients included politicians, diplomats, doctors, lawyers and journalists, operated in secrecy for two decades.

The youngsters, mainly boys, were driven by the Casa Pía driver, Carlos Silvino, to different locations, where they were abused by the six men sentenced Friday.

Since the start of the trial on Nov. 25, 2004, 461 hearings were held in different courtrooms; 1,000 CDs, 352 DVDs, 1,000 tape recordings and 12 videos were listened to or watched; and 981 people, including witnesses, victims and defendants, testified.

The most well-known defendants are Carlos Cruz, the country’s most popular television presenter until 2002, and Jorge Ritto, who retired in 2002 after a long and distinguished diplomatic career that included assignments as Portugal’s ambassador to South Africa and to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in Paris.

Silvino, who was at the centre of the ring, was sentenced to 18 years in prison; Cruz and Dr. João Ferreira Diniz to seven years; Manuel Abrantes, a former assistant director of Casa Pía, to five years and nine months; Ritto, to six years and eight months; and lawyer Hugo Marçal, to six years and two months.

Gertrudes Nunes, 68, whose home in Elvas, 13 km from the Spanish border on the road from Lisbon to Madrid, was used by the sex ring, was acquitted.

Five of the convicted men have to pay compensation of 25,000 euros (32,200 dollars) to each victim, while Silvino has to pay 15,000 euros (19,325) to each.

The defendants can appeal the verdict, which the three judges took turns reading out.

As a result, the case will likely continue to drag on for years, due to the slow pace of justice in Portugal, which has caused public outrage.

However, the initial public reactions were positive. Fernanda Aguiar, who was in the crowd outside the courthouse, which was cordoned off by the police Friday, told IPS “this is the first time the judges have convicted prominent people, which could indicate that things are starting to change.”

Aguiar, who works at a Lisbon hotel, added that the case was especially important because “it involves pedophilia, which includes child prostitution, something I see every day from the windows of the hotel,” which sits across from the Eduardo VII park in central Lisbon.

The park is a notorious gay cruising spot, where many of the male prostitutes are underage, and most of the clients who pick them up are over 40.

“That’s why today, when I got off work, I came over here to see what would happen,” she said. “I hope this serves as an example for the men who cruise by the park in their fancy cars picking up boys who are poor.”

Child sex abuse is a problem throughout the European Union, which began in 2004 to expand and strengthen its mechanisms for tracking down missing children and combating child sexual exploitation, which is especially an issue in the bloc’s poorest countries.

That year, the European Commission, the EU executive organ, released a study on the practical application of the Interpol’s international child sexual exploitation database.

Without questioning the police measures taken, the European Communist Party says child sexual exploitation is inextricably linked to problems like discrimination and poverty — in other words, the problem can only be solved “when that situation is also resolved, independently of the necessary law enforcement action.”

In March 2009, the EU formed an alliance between companies and police forces, with the aim of exchanging private financial information and identifying criminals involved in the sale of online child porn.

The initiative to fight child porn web sites and protect victims involves the EU, credit card companies, internet providers and police forces. Companies that have signed on include MasterCard, Microsoft, PayPal and Visa Europe.

In March, Cecilia Malmström, EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, presented proposals to harmonise the prosecution of child sex abuse and human trafficking, and to step up the fight against online child porn by including new forms of abuse, such as luring children over the internet, having children pose sexually in front of webcams, or watching child porn without downloading.

In response to criticism, she said “Child pornography is not about freedom of expression. It is a horrendous crime. It is not about circulating an opinion.”

Worldwide, reports of online child porn increased 149 percent between 2003 and 2008, according to a 2009 report by an Italian NGO, Telefono Arcobaleno, which monitors the internet on a daily basis to detect pedophile activity and warn web operators and the authorities.

Europe is the region with the most online, and fastest-growing, child porn activity. From 2003 to 2008, child porn material grew 406 percent on European web servers.

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
GERÊS, Portugal, Aug 31 2010 (IPS)

Environmentalists are alarmed: fires have destroyed close to 100,000 hectares of forest in Portugal this summer, releasing one million tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Worst of all, the forests are losing their ability to absorb carbon.

Fire threatens Salamonde dam in Peneda-Gerês Natural Park. Credit: Katalin Muharay/IPS

Up to Aug. 15, the area burned in summer fires this year was 75,000 hectares, but since then unofficial estimates indicate that another 25,000 hectares have been devoured by the flames.

The Quercus National Association for Nature Conservation (ANCN) said estimates indicate the fires have released 1.1 million tonnes of CO2 so far in 2010, equivalent to 29 million cars being driven the 310 kilometres that separate Lisbon from the northern city of Oporto.

Quercus acknowledges that this is not a huge quantity, but underscores that this CO2 should not have been emitted; it contributes to further reducing the capacity of forested areas to absorb carbon, and is a stain on Portugal’s performance under the Kyoto Protocol.

The Kyoto Protocol is an annex to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which recognises that the preservation of forested areas helps curb global warming.

In 2008, Portugal’s forested areas absorbed 4.42 million tonnes of CO2.

Official statistics for 2009 are not yet available, but projections by Off7, a private company that certifies emissions, indicate a three percent loss of absorption capacity, equivalent to about 100,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions that the forests were unable to prevent.

Recovery of this carbon capture capacity could take decades, even if reforestation is carried out immediately, because trees take years to reach their full absorption capacity, Off7 warned.

The experts at Quercus and Off7 concur that by the time the Kyoto Protocol commitment period expires in 2012, Portugal’s CO2 emissions might be 10 million tonnes higher than its permitted quota.

Added to the worrying effect on greenhouse gas emission levels, August has been a tragic month for huge protected natural areas in the centre and north of the country.

The Peneda-Gerês National Park in the extreme north of the country was one of the worst affected, with 10,000 hectares destroyed, 12 percent of its total area.

In the designated “total protection areas” within Peneda-Gerês the devastation was greater still, with 26 percent of the areas earmarked for special conservation destroyed.

Likewise, in the first 20 days of August, 5.5 percent of the 101,000-hectare Serra da Estrela Natural Park, also in the north, was consumed by fire. Eighty-five percent of the Vale de Azares, a valley in the park, was burned to cinders.

Who is to blame? The usual suspects: logging and pulp companies, landowners who fail to clear their land of brushwood, and arsonists. So far the police have arrested 38 people suspected of deliberately lighting fires.

The state, as the principal owner of forested areas in the country, “has never taken responsibility for them, and instead threatens us, ordinary people, with intervention of our land if it looks neglected,” José Ferreira Serrão, who lives in the Peneda-Gerês area, told IPS.

“The exodus of young people to the cities in the last few decades, the failure to clear brushwood from public and private forested areas, and the virtual disappearance of the old occupations of shepherd and cowherd, who have been replaced by big, modern cattle, goat and sheep farms, are all factors that have led to the increasing accumulation of brushwood,” Serrão added.

At the peak of summer, with temperatures reaching 41 degrees Celsius in August, this brushwood makes excellent fuel, whipped up by strong winds from the northern hills.

In the first 12 days of August, the country had an average maximum temperature of 33.9 degrees, 5.1 degrees higher than the normal temperatures for 1971-2000. July was the driest month in 24 years, with an average maximum temperature of 31.7 degrees, the highest since 1931.

Environmentalists and agronomists agree that climate factors have favoured brush fires. But they underline that the lack of proper forest management is the main culprit in the devastation of large areas of the country every summer by forest fires.

Serrao agreed with the experts’ unanimous view, because in his opinion, “in Portugal forestry problems are only discussed and analysed when thousands of hectares of forest are going up in smoke.”

Another local farmer, Rui da Gama, said “the really big fires in Portugal came along with the interests of pulp companies” that produce the cellulose needed to make paper.

“Show me one fire, just one, that started on pulp company lands. They arrived, set fires, and bought the vacant land for a song, becoming the largest landowners in the country. You’d have to be blind not to see it,” he alleged.

In more moderate terms, José Viseu, a local small farmer, complained that the government of socialist Prime Minister José Sócrates only uses showy means to fight the fires, like recently acquired airplanes and helicopters, “which provide excellent images for national and foreign television stations.”

But Viseu said that “fighting the fires is no solution; what is needed is a consistent forestry policy that includes proper zoning, management and maintenance. Without that, our country’s natural heritage will be increasingly impoverished.”

This year there have been more fires in Portugal than in Spain, France or Italy, southern European countries with a similar climate, but with territories between four and six times the size of Portugal’s.

The number of forest fires in 2010 has already surpassed the average of the last three years, although it is still nowhere near the tragic records of 2003 and 2005, when a combined total of 764,000 hectares of woodland burned to the ground, equivalent to 14 percent of Portugal’s entire forested area.

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Jul 28 2010 (IPS)

Football functions on so many levels. It can be big business, moving astronomical quantities of cash, with obscene salaries for owners, coaches and star players. And it can be a widely played sport, found in every park, street or vacant lot. And it can be the common ground for multicultural coexistence.

Immigrant football teams playing at the Primeiro de Dezembro Stadium, in Sintra, Portugal. Credit: Katalin Muharay/IPS

The relevance of this intercultural sporting event is reinforced by the personal commitment of Portuguese President Aníbal Cavaco Silva, who heads its Commission of Honour.

Hosting the matches of the “Mundialinho” are Lisbon and the neighbouring city of Sintra, just 30 kilometres away. The tournament was inaugurated Jul. 17; the championship match is slated for Aug. 1.

The tournament’s mission is to promote a sporting and social gathering of people of different national origins and professions, from humble workers who have come to Portugal to build a decent life, to university professors, doctors, economists and diplomats.

The most enthusiastic participants are the immigrant labourers, especially those coming from Portugal’s former colonies in Africa, as well as from Brazil, and from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

This year 16 teams are participating, hailing from Angola, Brazil, Britain, Cape Verde, China, Germany, Guinea-Bissau, Morocco, Moldavia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Romania, Senegal, São Tomé and Principe, Spain, and Ukraine.

Spain and Portugal are the only European Union countries that hold this type of competition, financed primarily by their national and municipal governments, with the aim of creating an environment of equality and integration amongst foreign residents and with the broader society.

“Because of its social component, one could say that the Little World Cup is the most democratic and egalitarian sporting event held in our country,” Nascimento, an advisor to the mayor of Sintra, told IPS.

However, the scores of the football matches held so far have not been at all “egalitarian.”

The teams from the African countries and from Brazil, made up of mostly of youths who generally have physically demanding jobs and play football in their free time, have truly thrashed their opponents.

Some of the match results have been particularly lopsided: 23-1 (Cape Verde v. Morocco), 11-1 (Cape Verde v. Britain), and 18-1 (Guinea-Bissau v. Germany).

Nevertheless, the matches were “not at all humiliating for the losers,” assured Nascimento, because the teams from Germany, Spain and Britain are made up of immigrant university-trained professionals “who play football only on weekends for fun.”

The immigrant labourers, meanwhile, especially the Portuguese-speaking Africans, “train every day, driven by the idea of becoming professional footballers, starting in the second or third division, which would increase their income, and allow them to provide a better life for their families,” he said.

Offering another explanation is Hungarian Szabolcs Sebestyén, economics professor at the Catholic University and member of the British team because there weren’t enough players from his country to form a team here.

“The true reason behind those thundering defeats of the Europeans is the fact that there are some professional footballers playing on the African teams,” Sebestyén told IPS.

Nascimento stressed that the rules prohibit professional players from participating in the Mundialinho, but admitted that there have been some cases in which Sebestyén was correct. But when that occurred, he said, the penalty was forfeiture of the match.

“The only verified case this year was not reported on an African team, but Brazil’s, which easily beat its opponent, but when it was discovered there was a professional player on the pitch, the maximum penalty was given, which was to invalidate Brazil’s victory and award the win to the opposing team,” he said.

However, the rules do not prohibit the participation of former professionals, “and that must be the case that the Hungarian professor is referring to,” said Nascimento, and cited Sebestyén’s own team, “which has a former English professional, who is about 50 years old, but on the pitch he looks 35.”

Nascimento noted that “what is really important is the coexistence of people of all origins and professions, without violence or misconduct, a way to get to know each other through a sport played in its purest state.”

The two-week tournament was organised by the municipal governments of Lisbon and Sintra and the national government, through the Interior Ministry, the Secretariats of Sports and of Social Integration and through the office of the High Commissioner for Migration.

Contributing to the financing were two companies: Ibérica Comunicação Empresarial, and Mota-Engil (which has major construction projects in Angola), as well as the Catholic institution Santa Casa da Misericórdia.

The Foreigners and Frontiers Service and the immigration police haven’t let the opportunity of the Mundialinho escape them — not to check the participants’ immigration papers, but rather to promote legalisation for those who might be undocumented.

Broader and more ambitious projects are planned for future tournaments.

For the Third Little World Cup of Integration, in 2011, initiatives include matches between immigrant children and exhibitions for artists from the participating countries.

Why do these integration football tournaments only take place in the Iberian Peninsula countries? Nobody wanted to give a definitive response, but Nascimento, who is also a historian, ventured a possibility for why his country stages the Mundialinho.

“Portugal started globalisation six centuries ago. Its former colonial empire was always marked by a strong mestizo (mixed race/ethnicity) component and our policy of integration, with its ups and downs, continues to have that hallmark.”

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, May 24 2010 (IPS)

First Angola, and now Brazil, Portugal’s two largest former colonial possessions, are extending a helping hand to the battered Portuguese economy.

Besieged on all sides by international speculators, who according to local economists are trying to turn this country into “another Greece,” Portugal may find a remedy for its weakness in stronger economic ties with its two “sister nations.”

Last year Angola and Portugal created a bank intended to foment large joint ventures on an equal-share basis, in which the Angolan oil company Sonangol and the state Portuguese bank Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) are partners.

With an initial capital of one billion dollars, the CGD/Sonangol partnership promotes investment in the areas of energy, sanitation, hospitals, cement and construction, transport and telecommunications.

Now that Brazil has increasing clout on the world stage, Portugal sees the South American giant that was its colony for 322 years as offering another opportunity to rescue its precarious economic and financial situation.

This is the general conclusion reached by economic analysts in Portugal after Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s brief visit to Lisbon May 19, where he met with Portuguese President Aníbal Cavaco Silva and Prime Minister José Sócrates.

In the space of a few hours, Lula signed agreements in the fields of science, defence, technology and renewable energy, all of them emphasising the economy, in the context of Portugal’s enthusiasm for increasing cooperation with one of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) group of countries, which were least affected by the global crisis and today are the drivers of the international economy.

In Sócrates’ view, the affinity between the two countries, which share a common language, is an opportunity to pull Portugal back from the brink of the crisis that is tirelessly predicted by the credit rating agencies that quantify the risk attached to sovereign debt.

Lula’s support for increasing trade between the two countries and for more bilateral projects in Portugal occurs at a time of new opportunities created by increasing Brazilian investments in Portugal, his spokesman Marcelo Baumbach said in Lisbon.

One of these projects, announced in 2008, is to build two factories for the Brazilian aircraft manufacturing company Embraer in Évora, 140 kilometres south of Lisbon, representing an investment of 500 million dollars.

However, the project was delayed for two years while the European Union reached a decision about the compatibility of its competition rules and Brazilian government subsidies for Embraer, a multinational corporation ranking third in the world in the aeronautics industry.

Lula’s visit to Lisbon included the regular annual summit meeting between the two countries. With regard to the economy, the emphasis was on energy production, and a memorandum of understanding on biofuels was signed between Portugal’s oil and natural gas company Galp, and Brazilian state oil giant Petrobras.

Galp and Petrobras will build a biodiesel refinery in Sines, 110 kilometres south of Lisbon, to process palm oil from a plantation in the Brazilian state of Pará.

But the companies are demanding clarification of the conditions of the investment, amounting to over 400 million dollars, before they go ahead, especially of the tax that will be levied on biodiesel and the Portuguese state’s package of financial incentives for the project.

If these issues are clarified, the new plant could become operational in 2015. Petrobras would also use Sines as its logistical platform to export aviation fuel to the European market, and the two oil companies would partner in exploration for oil off Brazil’s Atlantic coast.

According to Lisbon newspaper Diario Económico, the Galp-Petrobras partnership, like that created with Angola’s Sonangol which is a part owner of Galp, is “a prelude for the influx of Brazilian capital” into the Portuguese energy company.

As for economic, financial and trade cooperation, Lula and Sócrates agreed on the need to improve their countries’ trade balance, which is currently unfavourable to Portugal, as well as to diversify trade, promoting the exchange of high-value goods and services.

Lula highlighted the potential of the Brazilian market for Portuguese companies, and the business opportunities provided by the 2014 Football World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games to be hosted by his country.

Both governments regard it as essential to create a Portugal-Brazil Business Confederation as the embryo for future EU-Latin America and Caribbean dialogue to foment business and employment opportunities and the use of new technologies among the countries and regions.

So far, Sócrates has proposed essentially an austerity plan without a sound economic basis, says the May 21 editorial of Diario Económico, which criticises the prime minister for adopting deficit reduction measures that are only “an accounting solution.”

A sharp tax hike “is a solution that does not address any of the structural problems that affect the competitiveness of Portugal’s economy,” and although budget control “is a necessary condition to ensure economic growth, such control is not sufficient to set the economy in motion,” it says.

The Sócrates administration “must govern, not merely react to the orders given by Germany and France,” the editorial concludes.

All political and economic sectors are apparently glad to accept the opportunity of diversifying economic relations outside of the EU, especially with countries with such close ties to Portugal.

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, May 11 2010 (IPS)

Pope Benedict XVI began a four-day visit to Portugal Tuesday in an uncomfortable scenario for himself and his followers, amidst accusations that the Catholic Church leadership protected pedophile priests, and the free distribution of condoms by hundreds of protesters here.

Activists handing out condoms ahead of pope's mass in Lisbon. Credit: Mario de Queiroz/IPS

While 84.5 percent of the 10.6 million people in this southern European country identify themselves as Catholics, only 18.7 percent are practicing Catholics.

In addition, just 10.3 percent of the population are regular church goers, and only half of all weddings are held in churches, while divorce and abortion are legal and a same-sex marriage bill has been passed by parliament and is set to be signed into law.

Coinciding with the pope’s visit, hundreds of young people flocked to distribution points in the capital to hand out free condoms, to protest the Vatican’s refusal to endorse the use of condoms as a method to fight HIV/AIDS.

The campaign began when three young lawyers — Rita Barroso Jorge, Diogo Caldas Figueira and Joana Vieira da Silva — created a small group on the social networking site Facebook on Mar. 20. But it mushroomed until it had the support of nearly 15,000 people.

“By handing out free condoms, we are raising awareness in the fight against AIDS,” one of the campaign’s organisers, Barroso Jorge, told IPS.

The activist said the campaign was “a success beyond our expectations, because we distributed 18,000 condoms in three hours instead of the 16,000 in five hours that we had hoped to hand out.”

The initiative, which has the support of Portugal’s main women’s and gay rights associations, among other civil society groups, will continue Wednesday and Thursday in Fátima and Friday in Porto, the pope’s next stops.

Another of the organisers, Caldas Figueira, pointed out to IPS that in March 2009, the pontiff acknowledged in Africa that AIDS was a global tragedy, “but said the distribution of condoms made the problem worse.

“Our protest was born in response to the pope’s amazing distancing from reality and the extremely serious consequences that his statements can cause in the fight against AIDS,” said Figueira.

Other aspects of the pope’s visit will be smoother. By contrast with what has happened in other countries with large Catholic populations, in Portugal “there are no concrete cases of pedophilia” by the clergy, as the Portuguese bishops’ conference stated.

Bishop Antonio Marto, vice president of the bishops’ conference, said that “no one, to date, has presented concrete complaints about specific cases.”

But Carlos Esperança of the Portuguese Athiests Association (AAP) said the protests against child abuse by priests were against the innumerable cases that had emerged around the world.

Responding to reporters’ questions aboard the papal plane on his way to Portugal, the pope said “Forgiveness cannot substitute justice.”

He also said “The greatest persecution of the church doesn’t come from enemies on the outside but is born from the sins within the church.”

The AAP activist said the pope must be treated with respect and given a reception befitting a head of state. But he added that “this is a pope who is under suspicion of complicity in the cover-up of crimes of pedophilia in the Church.”

Esperança said legal experts in several countries were studying the possibility of suing the pope for complicity.

The government of socialist Prime Minister José Sócrates, meanwhile, has drawn criticism for declaring Thursday a national holiday and for allowing people not to go to work on Friday, which means thousands of people will make use of the opportunity to take a short holiday.

Ricardo Alves, president of the Associação República e Laicidade (ARL – roughly the “secular republic association”), said there is a “silent majority” in Portugal “who don’t care at all about the pope’s visit” and whose absence at work will hurt the economy.

“Their lives will also be affected by the lack of services, mainly in schools and hospitals,” he said.

The pope’s visit has created “a stifling environment,” said Alves, who is opposed to making Friday an unofficial holiday, because workers “will be forced to use one day of their annual vacations to take care of their children since the schools and child-care centres will close.”

In Lisbon, Porto and Fátima, prices have little to do with Christian charity these days: rooms in modest pensions that usually cost between 40 and 80 dollars a night were being booked for 180 to 385 dollars a night May 11-14, while the going price for access to a private balcony offering “a view of the pope” was as high as 250 dollars.

And while street stalls and small shops did brisk business selling t-shirts, ceramic plates, tiles, ashtrays, key-chains and all sorts of souvenirs with Pope John Paul II’s image, there is little enthusiasm over merchandise with the image of Pope Benedict.

“Products with the image of the new pope have been a disappointment,” said Fátima shopkeeper Jaime Alexandre.

Under Pope John Paul, sales ahead of the anniversary of the May 13, 1917 “apparition of Fátima” averaged 32 dollars a day, but now Alexandre has sold just 6.40 dollars in such merchandise, he said.

“Unfortunately, this pope is not as revered as John Paul II,” he lamented.

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, May 7 2010 (IPS)

Portugal is caught in the crossfire between credit rating agencies and international financial speculators who see this country as offering an excellent opportunity to turn a quick profit.

This time it was Moody’s turn. The ratings agency warned Thursday that the debt crisis in Greece could spread to banking systems especially in Portugal, but also in Spain, Ireland and to a lesser extent Britain and Italy.

The report says these banking systems “have weakened from within, often due to excessive loan growth” and the “bursting of the real estate bubble.”

Moody’s, which like the other agencies sells its financial analyses and ratings of companies and governments, adds that the “contagion could potentially also spread to these banking systems where sovereign creditworthiness has been impacted by developments within the banking system.”

Moody’s Investor Services also warned it may downgrade Portugal’s AA2 debt rating in the next three months, just a week after its main rival, Standard & Poor’s, did so.

Citing a weakening in Portugal’s public finances and its long-term growth prospects, senior Moody’s analyst Anthony Thomas said that “in the context of a small and slow-growing economy, Portugal’s debt metrics may no longer be consistent with an Aa2 rating”.

The warning shook the markets. Stocks on the Lisbon stock exchange plunged to lows not seen since July 2009, while the cost of insuring Portuguese government debt against default soared to the highest level since the euro was introduced in 2002.

Meanwhile, a statement by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) denied rumours that Spain or Portugal were seeking huge emergency loans.

Three people were killed in Greece Wednesday when protesters set fire to a bank in downtown Athens during a nationwide strike against stringent austerity measures imposed as part of a massive 142 billion dollar bailout by the EU and the IMF. The deaths, the first to occur during protests in nearly 20 years, were the harshest reflection of the depth of the country’s collapse.

In a joint letter published Thursday by the French daily Le Monde, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said budgetary oversight over the 16 countries that use the euro should be reinforced.

The leaders of Europe’s two strongest economies called for “more efficient sanctions” against those who violate deficit limits and for “a robust framework” for dealing with crises to avoid a repeat of the current situation.

At the end of a meeting of European central bank governors in Lisbon Thursday, Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), said “Greece and Portugal are not in the same boat….”This is obvious when you look at the facts and figures.”

He also announced that the ECB decided in Lisbon, for the 13th month in a row, to hold Eurozone interest rates at the record low of one percent.

All of this occurred just a week after Standard & Poor’s cut Portugal’s credit rating.

The fact that the credit ratings agencies are not actually international, but are from the U.S., has made European politicians, economists and analysts wary that the ratings might favour speculation by U.S.-based transnational banks.

In the view of two economists who were ministers during conservative governments in Portugal, Antonio Bagão Félix (2002-2005) and Luís Mira Amaral (1985-1995), the warnings from the credit agencies should be taken as “a serious notice” because “they bring Portugal to bay” in the international markets.

According to Mira Amaral, the credit rating cuts and warnings translate into “a chain reaction from the credit rating agencies that will have serious consequences for Portuguese families,” due to the rise in interest rates on loans, a view shared by Bagão Felix.

Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos declined to respond to Moody’s report, but defended the idea of the creation of a European credit rating agency, because “the U.S. monopoly in this field is not healthy for the world.”

Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics and international business at New York University, recently wrote that “The Greek financial saga is the tip of an iceberg of problems of public-debt sustainability for many advanced economies, and not only the so-called PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain).”

The acronym was coined in the 1990s to refer to the poorest countries in the EU, but it also now refers to nations with high government debt levels and slow growth rates.

In a mid-April oped posted by Project Syndicate, an international not-for-profit newspaper syndicate and association of newspapers, Roubini wrote that “Within the PIIGS, the problems are not just excessive public deficits and debt ratios…They are also problems of external deficits, loss of competitiveness, and thus of anemic growth.”

He pointed out that “even a decade ago” the PIIGS were losing market share to China and Asia, because of that region’s “labour-intensive and low value-added exports.”

Roubini warned that if GDP falls, “achieving a certain deficit and debt target (as a share of GDP) becomes impossible. This, indeed, was the debt death trap that engulfed Argentina between 1998 and 2001.”

Greece’s GDP shrank two percent in 2009. “Short of a miracle, Greece looks close to insolvency,” Roubini wrote, pointing out that the southern European country had a more alarming budget deficit, public debt and current-account deficit than Argentina at the start of its financial meltdown.

But “Greece is currently too interconnected to be allowed to collapse,” he wrote three weeks ago, noting that three-quarters of the country’s 400 billion dollars in public debt is held abroad, mainly by European financial institutions, which means “a disorderly default would lead to massive losses and risk a systemic crisis.”

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Apr 26 2010 (IPS)

Worrying economic indicators and gloomy forecasts by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are rapidly making Portugal a magnet for international speculative capital.

Independent lawmaker Rui Tavares, a historian, writing in the local press, described the international financial actors preparing to attack the fragile Portuguese economy as “gigantic octopus-vampires” that manipulate markets to make money.

The IMF revised its 2010 forecast for Portugal’s economic growth sharply downward on Apr. 20.

Instead of the 0.7 percent growth estimated by the government of socialist Prime Minister José Sócrates, the IMF now predicts 0.3 percent, well below the average of one percent forecast for the 16 countries belonging to the Eurozone.

If the Portuguese economy goes into recession, it will lose at least 90,000 jobs this year and the unemployment rate will reach 11 percent, according to the IMF, which sees Portugal as the second most likely country to cause disruption in the Eurozone, after Greece, which formally requested an enormous financial aid package from the EU and the IMF last week.

A recession would be particularly serious for huge numbers of people in the lower social strata in Portugal, which along with Bulgaria and Latvia is one of the EU countries with the highest social and economic inequalities.

In practice, this means that nearly two million Portuguese, one-fifth of the population, will not command adequate incomes to provide them with minimum living standards, a situation that puts Portuguese families in a far more vulnerable position than those in Greece.

In a recent article titled “The next global problem: Portugal”, IMF’s former chief economist Simon Johnson said this country is the next target for financial markets because, like Greece, “it is on the verge of bankruptcy.”

Portuguese Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos called Johnson’s article “nonsense.” “In a world of free expression, unfounded nonsense can be written,” that reveals “ignorance about the differences between the various countries in the Eurozone,” he said.

But the minister’s indignant response was ineffectual. Eurostat, the EU’s official statistics agency, confirmed on Apr. 15 the generalised suspicions about the health of the Portuguese economy and that of four other members of the 27-country block.

Portugal had the fifth largest budget deficit among EU countries in 2009, at 9.4 percent of GDP. At the top of the list was Ireland, with 14.3 percent of GDP, followed by Greece with 13.6, the United Kingdom with 11.5 and Spain with 11.2 percent, according to Eurostat.

Teixeira dos Santos said that Portugal and Greece are not in the same boat, “in terms of neither their deficits nor their debt levels, which right from the start make Portugal’s status substantially different from the situation in Greece.”

Portugal’s statistics agencies are “more robust, credible and trustworthy” than those of Greece, and its banking system “has shown itself to be highly sound,” he added.

Economy professor Mario Gómez told IPS that “the cost of belonging to a rich man’s club has been the absence of mechanisms for correcting and adjusting to loss of competitiveness.

“With a fixed exchange rate, introduced when the euro was adopted in place of the escudo (Portugal’s former currency), aggravated by the rise in value of the euro against the dollar, competitiveness must be maintained or increased by productivity growth.”

This, however, “has not happened in Portugal since 2000,” and the economic situation “has been worsening, requiring continuous and growing external financing,” which has forced the adoption of a financial plan that relies on debt bond issues simply to meet interest payments.

In this context, he said, “uptake of the debt bond issue is a matter of speculation, as markets rationally anticipate the state’s inability to pay the debt, increasing the risk premium to five percent, second only to Greece’s seven percent.

“The Portuguese government has proposed a plan that is facing criticism from the opposition and trade unions, and is questioned by foreign analysts, pushing Portugal’s credit rating down,” Gómez said.

Portugal will have to “pay more interest on its debt, in a climate of economic stagnation, frozen salaries and rising unemployment,” presenting “a grim picture in the midst of a political power play” in which the conservative opposition is calling for more spending cuts and further privatisation of public assets.

“The poor will have to wait, while the rich still have no alternative to Sócrates’ Socialist Party,” the economist concluded.

Tavares maintains that “it is not worth denying the situation, as Minister Teixeira dos Santos did. I have bad news: the dish for the next dinner of the giant vampire-octopus is a small country called Portugal.”

The signs are all around, “in the international financial press that is now showing interest in our little problems, sometimes with good intentions, sometimes with bad, who identify us as the next cause of pan-European problems, with effects like the (recently erupted Icelandic) Eyjafjallajokull volcano on the economy.”

The EU, “after much hesitation, finally promised Greece serious money, 39.8 billion dollars, but it was not capable of guaranteeing from the outset something that would have cost nothing: political cohesion. And seeing that European countries lack solidarity for each other, the giant octopus is heading for its next victim.”

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Feb 22 2010 (IPS)

Prominent Portuguese environmentalists blamed the Dantesque scene in the tourist island of Madeira Monday, in the wake of flash floods that claimed at least 42 lives over the weekend, on seriously flawed urban planning.

One of the worst storms in the history of the small hilly Portuguese archipelago, which lies around 500 km off the coast of Morocco in northwest Africa, caused raging torrents of brown mud to drag trees, rocks and cars down streets, destroying houses, bridges and roads in and around the capital, Funchal.

Environmentalists have long complained about chaotic urban planning and overdevelopment as the island boomed as a tourist destination over the last few decades. They point to luxury hotels and other real estate projects built along the coast and near waterways, preventing storm runoff from draining into the ground.

The death toll was expected to rise as rescuers began to reach previously inaccessible villages. According to unofficial estimates, between 40 and 200 people are missing, including both locals and foreign tourists. In addition, dozens of people were injured and treated at hospitals. There are fears that more bodies will be found in the flooded underground parking lots of shopping malls, for example.

After the worst flooding in the island in 100 years, many areas are still without power, water or communications, and government buildings and schools remain closed. The Portuguese government declared a three-day national mourning period.

The storm was one of the worst to hit any part of Portuguese territory in a century: on Saturday it rained 114 litres per square metre in just five hours in Funchal, which receives an average annual precipitation of 750 litres per square metre.

The heavy rainfall, combined with Madeira’s geography of steep slopes slanting towards the coast, led to the formation of rivers of mud that swept up everything in their path, carrying boulders and slabs of cement bouncing along like tennis balls.

Madeira has no weather radar, which would have helped meteorologists forecast the intensity of the rainfall, said Ricardo Trigo, a climatologist at the University of Lisbon’s Geophysics Centre.

But while environmentalists acknowledge the magnitude of the storm, they largely blame the reckless development of this small group of islands, whose population of 250,000 depends heavily on the year-round tourism industry.

The unusually heavy rainfall “obviously had to do with what happened, but it wasn’t the only cause. The situation has gradually been aggravated due to land-use zoning problems and errors committed on the island,” said Hélder Spínola, a member of the board of directors of Quercus, Portugal’s leading environmental organisation.

In a statement issued Sunday, Portugal’s Green Party (Partido Ecologista “Os Verdes” – PEV) criticised “land-use and urban planning errors that have been allowed to occur in favour of private interests, and that later have devastating effects” in severe climate situations like Saturday’s freak storm.

The tourism development boom led to the construction of roads and the paving over of much of the coastline areas, and the drainage channels that run through Funchal parallel to the main roads were unable to cope with the copious amounts of water and overflowed their banks.

Ricardo Ribeiro, president of the Portuguese association of civil protection experts (ASPROCIVIL), pointed to urban sprawl and uncontrolled construction in hilly areas at risk of flash floods and mudslides, the excessive paving over of land, which impedes drainage, and the poor inter-connection of waterways and flood channels.

The governor of Madeira, Alberto João Jardim, rejected these allegations, and highlighted a number of measures taken in the region to curb the risk of flooding.

Funchal Mayor Miguel de Albuquerque also reacted to the criticism, which he called “ridiculous.”

Perhaps there was “a mistaken urban planning decision here or there,” but they can’t be blamed for the disaster, he said.

But Quercus’s Spínola said overdevelopment had modified and obstructed the normal course of Madeira’s three main rivers – the São João, Santa Luzia and João Gomes – on their way to the sea, and that as a result they overflowed their banks, which led to the widespread destruction of buildings, roads and bridges.

“There was a natural component, but there is also a human one, and a prevention aspect, both of which failed,” the environmentalist said.

Funchal has mushroomed in the last 20 years, “especially with the growing urban sprawl in the lowest-lying areas, where the water runs down to,” he added.

Former PEV lawmaker Isabel de Castro told IPS that the problem must be analysed in the broader context of what has been going on in the country in the last two decades.

Although “Portugal has some of the most advanced (environmental) legislation in the world, and protection of the environment is enshrined in the constitution as a basic right, there is a huge gap between the country’s laws and the reality,” said the environmentalist.

“Public policies defending and promoting ecological balance have been abandoned, and the state has become less and less accountable,” she added.

De Castro complained about “the dismantling or precariousness of oversight and monitoring mechanisms, a lack of political will and vision, and the prevailing impunity that favours attacks on the environment and environmental degradation.

“With the complicity, through omission, of successive administrations, our natural heritage is being destroyed in the name of quick, easy profits,” said the environmentalist.

This country is experiencing “impoverishment of the soil: over half of the territory is threatened with desertification, one-third is suffering severe erosion, and the demographic imbalance is growing, with one-fourth of Portugal’s 10.6 million people forced to flee to the cities from the countryside,” said de Castro.

Around 20 percent of the population has moved from the interior of the country to coastal areas, where 90 percent of economic activity is concentrated.

De Castro said this leads to “chaotic land use and urban sprawl, with the resultant concreting over, under the pretext of ‘the public interest’, even in areas at risk of flooding” – like what happened in Madeira, with the subsequent tragic results.

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Feb 2 2010 (IPS)

Just a decade ago, criticism rained down on sunny, windy Portugal for not making the most of nature’s gifts to develop renewable energy sources. Now all signs indicate that it did not fall on deaf ears, as the country has become a leader in the field.

Environment Centre at São Pedro do Estoril Credit: Katalin Muharay

And when adjusted to take into account the 23 percent shortfall in hydroelectric power in 2009, wind and solar power represent 41.1 percent of electricity supply, according to the Portuguese Renewable Energy Association (APREN).

The greatest expansion was seen in Portugal’s wind energy industry, which has taken second place in the world after Denmark, displacing Spain to third place.

According to Lurdes Ferreira, an environmental expert with the Lisbon newspaper Público, 15 out of every 100 watts of electricity consumed last year in Portuguese homes were generated by wind energy, while in Denmark, just over 20 percent of electricity came from wind energy, and in Spain the figure was 14.3 percent.

In 2009, according to an assessment report released in early January by Rede Electrica Nacional (REN), which operates Portugal’s electricity grid, out of every 24 hours of electricity supplied, on average three hours and 36 minutes were wind-generated, an increase of 31.6 percent over 2008.

The struggle to promote wind energy is fought on a number of fronts, including promoting private use of small wind turbines.

In São Pedro do Estoril, a coastal resort and fishing village in the municipality of Cascais, linked to Lisbon by 26 km of highway that carries some of the country’s heaviest traffic, seven small wind turbines have been set up in order to prompt their use in private homes and businesses.

The turbines supply electricity to the Centro de Interpretaçao Ambiental da Pedra do Sal (CIAPS – Pedra do Sal Environmental Centre) in São Pedro do Estoril, producing enough energy for the building’s normal needs and demonstrating their potential benefits to visitors.

The wind-powered generators installed at CIAPS “are part of a project for optimising and supplementing energy production, run by the Cascais Energia agency,” said Vera Ferreira, a manager at this not-for-profit private municipal organisation.

“The agency’s goal is to promote sustainable, monitored consumption of electricity in the CIAPS building, and at the same time put on a demonstration to educate visitors about energy efficiency concepts,” she responded in an email to IPS.

CIAPS is also equipped with a meteorological station that can measure wind speed and direction, rainfall and solar radiation indices, and display these values in real time.

This monitoring is useful for assessing “the results of renewable energy generation systems,” as well as “for weather and climate studies,” Ferreira said.

CIAPS was designed as an ideal place to “promote the values of diversity in the biophysical world and of the richness of the landscape, allied with a pedagogical dimension to encourage the exchange of knowledge between the scientific community and visitors,” Ferreira said.

In the last three years, other renewable sources of energy have also grown, on both a grand scale and a more modest one, like the Cascais project.

Solar energy increased by 315 percent over that time period, albeit from a very low initial level in 2007, and hydroelectric power grew by 24.7 percent.

Taken together, renewable energies provided 35.9 percent of the country’s total electricity consumption last year, approaching the goal declared by socialist Prime Minister José Sócrates, who wants 45 percent of Portugal’s power consumption to come from renewable sources by the end of 2010.

The head of APREN, Antonio Sá da Costa, recently said that it might be possible to achieve the 45 percent figure by the end of this year, but added that “it will be difficult.”

Meeting the goal would require: implementing all the wind energy projects that are currently tied up in red tape awaiting permits; upgrading dams at hydroelectric power stations belonging to Energias de Portugal (EDP); and greater co-generation (recycling ‘waste’ energy for electricity or heating) with renewable energy.

Sá da Costa said that reaching the target would depend, above all, on there being no increase in electricity consumption, or a maximum increase of one percent. If demand increases further, the country will have to import fossil fuels, which will bring down the share of renewables in the energy mix.

With nearly half of the energy it produces to come from renewable sources in 2010, the state-controlled EDP pledged in a Jan. 16 communiqué to reduce its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 70 percent in 2020.

Portugal and Spain are favourably placed in terms of renewable energies, in contrast to most of the other countries of Europe, which are concerned about cutting CO2 emissions while securing a future that is less dependent on imported fossil fuels.

In response to the fiasco of the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 15) held Dec. 7-18 in Copenhagen, nine European countries meeting in December in Ireland decided to create a new “green-energy” electricity grid, the Lusa news agency reported.

This has been the main European reaction so far to the Copenhagen summit’s failure to reach an agreement, and it involved Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom.

The grid will connect 65 power plants in the nine countries – eight from the European Union, and Norway – using a cutting-edge distribution system and drawing exclusively on renewable sources of energy. The cost of the project is estimated at 30 billion euros (43 billion dollars).

Most of the costs will be absorbed by private companies, especially the big European energy consortiums, Lusa reported.

Thousands of kilometres of high-voltage undersea cables will be laid over the next 10 years, mainly off the coasts of Germany and the United Kingdom, to transmit wind energy from these countries, hydroelectric power from Norway and wave energy from the North Sea to the heart of Europe.

The grid’s main purpose will be to balance wind, water and solar energies to prevent overall fluctuations in supply. Another reason for the innovation is that the existing grid has no way of storing wind energy.

Sven Teske, an energy expert with global environmental watchdog Greenpeace, welcomed the initiative, saying the European energy network “is in urgent need of expansion, as it is no longer in a position to store energy from existing wind farms,” according to Lusa.

The colossal increase in the number of European projects to develop alternative energies “has its roots in the appalling rise of pollution, or in other words, in irrationality and the failure of the dominant model of economic growth, which has created the need for a new energy culture to replace dependence on oil,” Portuguese environmentalist Isabel de Castro told IPS.

A determining factor, even for those who do not support clean energy per se, “is the permanent political instability in the region where most oil production and natural gas reserves are located, which makes the search for alternative solutions a global priority.”

De Castro, a lawmaker for the Ecologist Party (the Greens) from 1992 to 2002, is a keen supporter of renewable energies, efficiency, and “above all, the capacity to put into practice new ways of living, producing and consuming.”

According to the activist, efforts need to be put into “alternative energies, not just wind power but also solar heating, photovoltaic energy, biomass, waves and tides, as well as encouraging energy efficiency and changing production processes, relying on innovation and clean production.

“An eco-efficient energy policy ought to be a global strategy. Saving the planet will take more than wishful thinking,” de Castro concluded.

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Jan 24 2010 (IPS)

Nearly a decade after its inception, and in spite of some reverses, on balance the World Social Forum (WSF) has proved a resounding success as a platform for planet-wide debate, from the point of view of the people most affected by the world’s problems.

This is the conclusion derived from a close reading of texts by the principal activists and promoters of the forum for another world, which began in January 2001 as a counterweight to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, an annual meeting of top business and political leaders and invited guests.

The WSF was founded after the 1999 protests at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting in Seattle, Washington, which were a milestone of civil society resistance to neoliberal (free-market) globalisation, and relied on instruments recently designed by global capitalism: information and communication technologies.

Because of Seattle and, two years later, the WSF, it became possible to imagine an alternative kind of globalisation, based on civil society movements and organisations.

However, Portuguese sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos, one of the main promoters of the WSF, maintains that sectors expecting world policies to be decided on by the forum’s movements and organisations have been disappointed at the decline of their organisational model.

Sousa Santos, a professor at the Universities of Coimbra in Portugal, São Paulo in Brazil and Wisconsin in the United States, said that on balance the WSF development process has been very complex, and he believes the WSF should become settled and established, in a broad sense.

The colourful annual gatherings of the WSF contribute most to its visibility, but they are only one of the pillars of this global justice movement, and in Sousa Santos’ view, not the most important one.

Another main pillar of the WSF process is the exchange of ideas and strategies and the building of alliances between movements active on the same issues. In recent years these movements have been able to agree political agendas to be carried out at national, regional and global level, particularly indigenous organisations which have increasingly taken on a leading role, especially in the Americas.

Several initiatives have been strengthened, such as the World Water Forum, the global audit of the foreign debt of the poorest countries, the continental agenda of Amazonian peoples, the global agenda on sexual and reproductive rights, and the continental agenda of Afro-American peoples, especially in regard to recognition of their ancestral territories.

Another main pillar of the WSF is the Assembly of Social Movements, best known for organising global days of struggle against the economic crisis and climate change, and in support of the Palestinian people. These actions were all based on political decisions arising from debates held at the WSF, which also recommended closer coordination between the social movements’ Assembly and the WSF.

A fourth pillar, in a broad sense, is made up of progressive governments that have transformed their countries politically, in part due to inspiration by the WSF.

Presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Fernando Lugo of Paraguay and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela attended the Ninth WSF in Belém do Pará, Brazil, in 2009.

They shared concerns with 133,000 participants from 142 countries, representing 4,312 social organisations from Latin America, 489 from Africa, 155 from North America, 334 from Asia, 491 from Europe and 27 from Oceania.

Sousa Santos has often stressed that among the social struggle innovations introduced by the WSF is that its core is dominated by workers’ organisations. However, they do not identify themselves as such, but as campesinos (small farmers), unemployed people, indigenous people, Afro-descendants, women, “favela” (shanty- town) dwellers, human rights activists or environmentalists, he said.

The WSF motto “Another World Is Possible” has circulated widely among the world’s people, reflecting the inclusiveness and diversity that are the essence of the forum and that have gradually translated into a remarkable capacity to articulate different strategies for transforming society.

Founders and activists frequently affirm that the impact of the WSF over nearly a decade has exceeded all expectations, pointing particularly to the rise to power of the progressive presidents of Latin America. This phenomenon would be hard to understand without taking into account the ferment of social awareness among social movements, that arose or was strengthened by the WSF.

Among its other successes, they highlight that pressure from the WSF, and in particular its organisations fighting to cancel debt in the countries that have been most impoverished by free-market policies, forced the World Bank to agree to debt relief.

Denunciation of the orthodox financial and economic model applied by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the WTO was decisive in opening up political spaces that would consider using heterodox economic policies.

The remarkable visibility gained by indigenous peoples’ struggles through the WSF also strengthened the continental and global dimensions of their strategies.

But although the diversity of the participating movements and the concept of inclusion have been the WSF’s main propelling force, they have also been a weakness.

Sousa Santos admits it has not been easy to reconcile movements opposed to capitalism in general, with movements that only oppose neoliberalism, which they define as predatory and anti-reformist; or organisations that believe in modern Western progress and those that do not; or those that see racism and sexism as secondary struggles, and those that do not accept abstract hierarchies among social struggles.

On the threshold of the Tenth WSF, one of the setbacks is the forum’s scant presence in “Fortress Europe,” where conservative governments predominate, pursuing a strong regional integration project, but where the powers-that-be are increasingly distant from their citizens.

Sousa Santos says another disappointment is that WSF’s voice has not been heard on reforming the United Nations, on climate change, and on the danger that an interminable war against terrorism could become a war against everyone who questions the dominant school of thought.

He also warned that since the big media are turning into a huge, frequently anti-democratic conservative party, the WSF must beat the information and communication challenge, by promoting alternative media.

The WSF has generated hope and expectations: some realistic, others surprising. Everyone remembers the Paraguayan bishop who had to travel to the first WSF in Porto Alegre by bus, because he could not afford to go by plane. He was Fernando Lugo, now the Paraguayan president.

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
ESTORIL, Portugal, Dec 1 2009 (IPS)

The hard-line stance taken by Brazil, Argentina and most other Latin American countries has clashed with U.S. efforts to push for international recognition of the elections organised Sunday by the de facto regime in power in Honduras since the Jun. 28 coup.

Costa Rica, Colombia, Panama and Peru, the only countries in the region that called for the results of the elections to be accepted, ran up against Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s emphatic “no, no and no; categorically no.”

Lula was speaking at the 19th edition of the Iberoamerican summit, annual meetings that bring together heads of state and government from 19 Latin American countries along with Spain, Portugal and Andorra.

Leaving Estoril, the beach resort 20 km from Lisbon where the summit was held, a few hours before it ended Tuesday, the Brazilian president said “we must not recognise, or even converse with,” Porfirio Lobo.

Lobo, a conservative rancher, won Sunday’s controversial elections in Honduras with 55 percent of the vote, five months after President Manuel Zelaya was removed from the country at gunpoint.

In the case of Honduras, “we have to be coherent: we cannot reach agreements with a supporter of the coup, pretending that nothing happened, because soon they’ll start to say that everything was Zelaya’s fault,” said Lula.

He added that his country, Latin America’s giant, with a population of 192 million people, “does not compromise with political vandalism.”

In equally harsh terms, Argentine President Cristina Fernández questioned the validity of the elections and complained about “double standards” when it comes to judging leaders in the region, depending on where they stand on the ideological spectrum.

“Respect for freedom is neither of the right nor the left,” said Fernández. Without naming names, she lashed out at leaders who argue that Lobo should be recognised as president-elect as a compromise solution, saying “there is no such thing as a bit more or less of democracy. It’s like being pregnant: either you are, or you aren’t.”

With regard to democracy, “it’s the same thing: either you have democracy, and all rights and guarantees are respected, or you don’t have democracy,” said Fernández, adding that “respect for democracy in our region has a tragic history, which means defence of democracy must be an all-out defence that makes no concessions.”

The nine countries of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas – an alternative bloc led by Venezuela – also reiterated in Estoril that they did not accept the “illegal and illegitimate” elections in Honduras.

ALBA, which is made up of Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Venezuela, also called for those “morally responsible for the military coup in Honduras to be brought to international justice for their crimes” by an ad hoc tribunal.

Former Nicaraguan foreign minister Miguel d’Escoto, who presided over the United Nations General Assembly from September 2008 to September 2009, said the coup set an “appalling precedent” and described Sunday’s elections as “illegitimate.”

“What we are seeing now is that a small group of countries, unconditional allies that are heavily dependent on Washington, decided to initiate a process of recognising the elections, but the immense majority of Iberoamerica is opposed to them,” said d’Escoto, a Catholic priest.

In response to a question from IPS during d’Escoto’s conversation with journalists on the role played by Costa Rican President Óscar Arias, the Nicaraguan diplomat accused the president of being “the main instrument of the United States in blocking the return of full democracy in Honduras.”

Arias unsuccessfully attempted to broker an agreement between Zelaya and the de facto Honduran government of Roberto Micheletti, and his administration has now become one of the few to recognise the election of Lobo.

“Arias is a fraud,” said d’Escoto, “because this Nobel Peace Prize-winner is the biggest obstacle to progress in the region and its emancipation from Washington.”

Spain, meanwhile, the biggest donor to Latin America, said at the summit that it would neither “recognise nor ignore” the elections – a stance shared by Portugal.

Given the lack of agreement, the summit put out a special statement on the situation in Honduras, which condemned the coup and called for the restoration of the constitutional order and the immediate reinstatement of Zelaya until the Jan. 27 end of his term, as “a fundamental step for a return to normality.”

The situation in Honduras ended up virtually monopolising discussion at the summit in Estoril, whose main theme was to be “Innovation and Knowledge” – areas that were hardly touched on.

The 20th Iberoamerican summit, which is to focus on “Education”, will take place next year in the Argentine resort city of Mar del Plata.

As on previous occasions, the Iberoamerican leaders called in their statement for the United States to “immediately” lift the nearly half-century embargo against Cuba, in compliance with 18 successive U.N. General Assembly resolutions.

The leaders also agreed to cooperate with a view to achieving a “wide-ranging, ambitious and balanced” agreement at the Dec. 7-15 15th Conference of Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) in Copenhagen.

The statement says the Iberoamerican countries consider it indispensable for developed countries to step up financial and technological support for developing nations, in the area of climate change.

It also states that the fight against climate change must be completely compatible with sustained economic growth and efforts against poverty, while responding adequately to the need for adaptation, especially in the most vulnerable developing nations.

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Oct 21 2009 (IPS)

After a nearly two-decade truce, Portuguese Nobel literature laureate José Saramago has returned to the charge against the Catholic Church. This time his target is the Bible itself, which he describes as “a manual of bad morals,” and a “catalogue of cruelties and of the worst of human nature.”

“About the holy book, I tend to say: read the Bible and you’ll lose your faith,” said the first, and so far only, Portuguese-language writer to receive the Nobel Literature Prize, which he won in 1998.

In a meeting with the press Wednesday, Saramago repeated the ideas he expressed at an event Sunday in the northern Portuguese town of Penafiel, held to launch his latest book, “Cain”, which retells the story of Adam and Eve’s first-born son in a light-hearted, irreverent tone.

According to Saramago, there is nothing “divine” in the Bible. And although “Cain” has offended the Church, it won’t offend Catholics, he said, because “they don’t read the Bible.”

It took “a thousand years and dozens of generations” to write the Bible, which depicts a “cruel, spiteful, vengeful, jealous and unbearable God,” said the writer, who recommended people not to trust “the God depicted in the Bible.”

He said he would not have to settle accounts with God, because “the human brain is a great creator of absurd notions, and God is the most absurd one of all.”

Catholic Church officials lashed out at the writer’s statements, especially when he said that “without the Bible, we would be different, probably better, people,” and that he could not understand how the Bible became a “spiritual guide, when it’s so full of horrors, incest, betrayals and slaughter.”

“I’m not looking for controversy, but I have a few convictions and I say certain things. None of this is free: Cain has kept me company for many years,” Saramago responded to a question from IPS.

Writing this book “was an exercise in freedom for me,” said the polemical, provocative writer, who at the age of 86 maintains his rebelliousness intact – the same rebelliousness he showed when he joined the Communist Party, which was driven underground by Portugal’s 1926-1974 dictatorship, in 1969.

Saramago has ruffled many feathers over the years. He made Israel furious when he compared the Israeli military campaign in the besieged Palestinian West Bank to Auschwitz, and irritated Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi when he described him as “this thing, this illness, this virus (that) threatens to become the cause of the moral death of the country of Verdi” and could “end up corroding the veins and destroying the heart of one of Europe’s richest cultures.”

He also had a few choice words for Pope Benedict XVI, saying “Ratzinger has the nerve to invoke God to reinforce his universal neo-medievalism.”

In addition, he distanced himself from the Communists when he said Cuba “has lost my confidence, damaged my hopes, cheated my dreams.”

Another of his provocative ideas, expressed in one of his books, is that Portugal and Spain will one day merge into a united Iberia.

The 181-page Cain, which he wrote in four months and which hit the bookshelves simultaneously in Portuguese, Spanish and Catalonian on Monday, is according to Saramago, “an insurrection, an exhortation for everyone to dare to look for what is on the other side of things,” aimed at getting readers to think and reflect, because “we are manipulated all the time. We have to fight against that.”

His latest work also aims subtle barbs at contemporary issues, like the global economic crisis and its effect on unemployment, the rights of gays and lesbians, and the accumulation of wealth “in the name of the Lord.”

In 1991, with the publication of “The Gospel According to Jesus Christ”, Saramago infuriated the Church, which was backed in the row by the conservative government of then prime minister (and current president) Aníbal Cavaco Silva, which ended up vetoing the book’s presentation for the European Literary Prize on the argument that it was offensive to Catholics.

The book portrays Jesus Christ as a fallible, rebellious young man and hints at a more intimate relationship with Mary Magdalene.

At the time, the Portuguese government drew broad criticism from democrats within and outside Portugal for its censorship.

In response to the censorship, Saramago moved in symbolic–self exile to Spain’s Canary Islands, where he still lives today.

In the current controversy, which would appear to be far from over, the spokesman for Portugal’s bishops’ conference, Jesuit priest Manuel Morujão, said the whole thing was a “publicity stunt” mounted by the writer to drive up sales of Cain, which he said he had not read because “it is not one of my priorities.”

Morujão said the “offensive” terms used by Saramago to refer to the Bible “hurt the feelings of millions of Catholics around the world.” He also said the author “does not have sufficient knowledge” of the Bible to write about it.

A higher-level Catholic authority, Bishop Manuel Clemente of Oporto, Portugal’s second-largest city, urged the author to “be more careful and better informed” when writing about Biblical events.

Saramago responded by saying he was surprised by “the superficiality of the gentlemen of the Church, who did not read the book, but with unusual speed began to spread opinions and dismissive insults about it and its author.”

Father Morujão “said reading Cain is not one of his priorities. His frankness is appreciated, but it’s still strange when a spokesman does not know what he is talking about.”

“In terms of a lack of intellectual rigor, you could not ask for worse,” said the writer.

At the same time, Saramago said it is not against God that he is writing, “because he does not exist,” but that his stance is against religions, “because they do not, and have never, helped bring people together.”

In the writer’s view, “God only exists in our minds.”

His book points out that in the Old Testament, Cain killed his younger brother Abel in a fit of jealousy after God preferred his brother’s sacrifice of sheep to his.

“None of that happened, it’s obvious that they’re myths invented by man, just like God, a creation of men. All I do is lift up the stones and show the reality hidden beneath them,” said Saramago.

He said Cain is a book written “against any and all religions,” because throughout history, “all religions, without exception, have done humanity more bad than good.”

Visão magazine’s review of the book describes it is an ironic, provocative and irreverent work which, despite the humour in some parts, points to injustices, cruelties, limitations of free will and incongruities in the book of Genesis.

In Saramago’s book, Cain travels through time, witnessing events like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Great Flood and the construction of Noah’s Ark, the fall of Jericho, and the conflict between God and Satan. He also keeps Abraham from stabbing his son Isaac.

Saramago concludes: “Yes, reader, that’s what it really says. The Lord ordered Abraham to sacrifice his own son, as casually as someone asking for a glass of water when they’re thirsty…The logical, natural or simply human thing would have been for Abraham to tell the Lord to go to hell.”

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Aug 21 2009 (IPS)

Some 200 million people, three percent of the world’s population, have left their country of origin to pursue happiness elsewhere, according to the International Organisation for Migration. But their dreams are often shattered by human trafficking rings and unscrupulous employers.

Violence, extortion, wage “deductions,” working from dawn till dusk, hunger and fear are part of the daily grind for many immigrants in countries with a centuries-long tradition of emigration, like Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal.

In Portugal, which has a population of 10.7 million within its borders and another five million people living abroad, several dramatic cases were reported recently in the Lisbon newspaper Público.

Romanian and Thai workers were brought to the village of Selmes in the southern region of Alentejo by a temporary employment agency that promised them nothing short of an earthly paradise.

But the Privo-Constantin-Daniel agency is a front that hides a Romanian citizen whose identity cannot be revealed because of a judicial gag order, and who kept 11 undocumented workers in slave-like conditions that included frequent physical abuse, according to the testimony of local villagers.

The only information available from the prosecutor’s office is that he has a long criminal record in Romania for trafficking workers to other European countries, and an international arrest warrant has been issued against him.

The 11 workers, all Romanian, were forced to rise between 3:00 and 4:00 AM, work for 12 hours on farms over 50 kilometres away, and return at nightfall to sleep on flattened cardboard boxes in a ramshackle dwelling.

The story came to light early this month when Joaquina Coelho, the owner of the Refugio de Sao Gabriel, the village tavern, told how two “hungry, barefoot and filthy” Romanians made signs asking her to let them eat the leftovers from dishes her customers had been served.

When the police turned up, the 11 occupants of the house fled. Four of them walked to Moura, more than 20 kilometres away, where they reported to the local police station and asked to be sent home to Romania.

Privo-Constantin-Daniel had already made the news in June, as the agency supplying agricultural labour to local farms, when a worker died in an auto accident near the small southern town of Ferreira do Alentejo. Six of the seven other undocumented Romanians travelling in the vehicle were seriously injured.

The driver of the vehicle, Iacob Beleci, who fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into the side of a bridge, killing his nephew, was so upset that he decided to speak out. “We’re so tired from working all day, and we get so little sleep,” he said. Migrant workers keep silent out of desperation and fear, he said.

Beleci said “a greater fear” even than that of reprisals from the human trafficking networks is that migrants without papers will fall into the hands of the Portuguese police.

Migrants would like to have all their documents in order, to be free of extortion from those who force them into jobs without rights, and take a large cut from their wages. They are paid the national minimum wage of 650 dollars a month, for which they work up to 12 hours a day, six or seven days a week.

The economic crisis, which has begun to bite deeper since mid-2008, has coincided with a marked deterioration in Portuguese employers’ attitudes towards immigrants, Ukrainian electronic engineer Yuri Zvozil told IPS.

Since migrating to Portugal in 1997, at the age of 23, Zvozil has only managed to find work on construction sites. “I had to learn the bricklaying trade and start a new life from scratch,” said the engineer, who specialises in high-precision optics.

At that time, major projects were under construction, such as the Lisbon World EXPO ’98, the Vasco da Gama bridge, Europe’s longest at 17.8 kilometres, highways, buildings, and subway stations, “and there weren’t enough Portuguese workers to build them.”

Today things are different, but “I haven’t seen the poor fighting each other over jobs in Portugal, as happens in other EU countries,” he said.

“Knowing the problems, many company owners and building proprietors are taking advantage of the situation and offering miserly wages for hard and difficult work,” Zvovil said.

“Workers should not accept jobs for just a few cents. A few days ago, the owner of a private school in Quinta da Marinha (one of Lisbon’s poshest neighbourhoods) wanted us to restore and paint the buildings for practically nothing, or for a plate of food.”

Many farmers in the agribusiness region of Alentejo want to replace European labour from former socialist countries, and Brazilian workers, with even cheaper Thai and Vietnamese labourers.

An Israeli company, DFRM-International Services, brings the southeast Asian workers to Portugal, and has already placed some 300 workers from the two countries in the horticultural and fruit-growing area around Odemira, 200 kilometres south of Lisbon.

Manuel Candeias, the manager of a temporary employment agency, said large farmers in Alentejo are insistent they “don’t want any more Portuguese, Brazilians or Romanians; they want Thais.”

DFRM spokeswoman Rute Silva said their enthusiasm was because “a Thai worker works as much as two European workers; they work much faster,” and in their own country they “have only two days’ holiday a year,” so they are used to working without interruption, in exchange for very low wages.

In spite of the EU’s increasing demographic and economic need for immigration from abroad, the bloc has gradually built up barriers.

In 2008, the 27-country bloc approved a new pact on immigration that provides for the deportation of foreign nationals regarded as illegal immigrants, and their detention for up to 18 months.

The directive, which may be modified within each country, was criticised by migrants’ rights organisations which have accused the EU of violating human rights.

According to a November 2008 United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report, by 2050 Portugal’s population will have declined by 700,000 people, equivalent to 6.5 percent of the present total. As a matter of national convenience, therefore, Portugal does not take such a hard line on immigration.

In June, Greece approved new laws giving the police powers to arrest undocumented migrants and hold them in custody for up to a year, instead of the previous maximum of three months. In addition, the penalty for trafficking in persons was raised from one year in prison to ten years.

France has opted for a “selective immigration” policy, which hampers applications for political asylum and family reunification by requiring immigrants to speak French and be familiar with the country’s values.

The toughest approach is that of Italy, where illegal immigration is now a crime punishable by heavy fines and detention. Italian citizens who knowingly house undocumented immigrants, or fail to report them, are also liable to imprisonment.

Professor Vital Moreira, one of the authors of the Portuguese constitution, said the Italian decision was “a clear regression in terms of civilisation,” which goes against “everything that is the essence of the EU.”

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Jul 20 2009 (IPS)

Throughout her varied career as a political leader in Portugal, Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and ambassador, Ana Gomes has been a distinguished and tireless fighter for what she defines as “just causes.” The target of her criticism now is the shelving of an investigation in her country into secret CIA rendition flights.

Ana Gomes, socialist MEP for Portugal Credit:

The scandal broke out in November 2005, when the Washington Post revealed that the CIA was secretly transporting terrorism suspects, captured mainly in Pakistan and Afghanistan, to the U.S. military enclave in Cuba and to secret prisons – or “black sites” – elsewhere in the world.

Ana Maria Martins Gomes was born in Lisbon in 1954 and first got involved in political activity at 18 as an activist with the Comités de Luta Anti-Colonial (CLAC – Committees for Anti-Colonial Struggle), at a time when opponents of the 1961-1974 Portuguese colonial war in Africa were branded “traitors to the fatherland” by the 1926-1974 dictatorship.

After two years of intense activism in the CLAC, when an uprising of leftwing military captains overthrew the dictatorship in 1974 in what was dubbed the “Carnation Revolution”, Gomes joined the Maoist Movimento Reorganizativo do Partido do Proletariado (MRPP – Movement for the Reorganisation of the Proletarian Party) until 1976.

In the late 1990s, she earned the nickname “the ‘all terrain’ woman,” in analogy to four-wheel drive off-road vehicles or ATVs.

As Portugal’s ambassador in Jakarta, she distinguished herself for her handling of the complex issue of Timor Leste (East Timor), a former Portuguese colony in Southeast Asia that was subsequently occupied by Indonesia. The occupation ended in 1999 and Timor Leste became independent in May 2002.

That year Gomes joined the Socialist Party (PS), controlled at the time by the left wing of the party, led by then Secretary-General Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, who invited her to take over the international relations desk.

There she remained until the right wing of the PS, self-styled the “esquerda moderna” or “modern left” and controlled by current Prime Minister José Sócrates, took over the party in 2004 and sent leaders in Ferro Rodrigues’ inner circle to prestigious appointments abroad.

IPS: Is this a political decision, taken under pressure from Washington, or is it just another case of Portuguese justice going awry? ANA GOMES: It is either an overt violation of the law, or the result of a politically motivated desire to bury the case, because I don’t think the United States is exerting any pressure. However, I’m not surprised at the outcome, given the difficulties encountered by the prosecutors in charge of the case.

But this matter is far from being closed in Portugal and at the global level, including the United States, where daily battles are being fought to clarify the facts.

From what I understand from the final PGR report, I am sorry to say that the investigation by the Portuguese justice system was full of shortcomings and of leads that were not followed up, and showed an inability to resolve contradictory evidence.

IPS: But if the pressures did not come from the United States, they must have been domestic, arising in Lisbon itself. AG: That’s right, and that’s precisely why I conclude that unless (the PGR’s investigation) was incompetent, there must be a political motive for the justice system to bury this affair. Too many leads were not followed up.

Now I shall ask the head of the PGR’s Central Department of Investigation and Penal Action (DCIAP), Cândida de Almeida, who investigated and has now shelved the case, to undertake further enquiries.

IPS: Among other things, the investigation found that “apparently detained individuals,” seen in the Azores, “may have been U.S. military personnel” and “two Portuguese detainees being deported from Canada.” AG: If that were the case, they wouldn’t have needed to use planes chartered by the CIA. The investigation found that for several suspicious flights, the Portuguese authorities were unable to say how many passengers were carried, who they were, who boarded the plane and who stopped over in Portugal for several days.

It is also rather strange that the PGR did not try to find out why some suspicious private civilian flights requested absurd quantities of ice, which can only be used for preserving organic material, and an excessive number of meals for the much lower number of passengers declared.

IPS: Your denunciations in 2007 caused the investigation of 91 identified flights to be opened. Was there concrete proof about the persons involved, as well? AG: Among the cases we reported that initiated the investigation were prisoners in chains (seen and photographed by local residents) at the (Portuguese-U.S.) base of Lajes Field, in the Azores. In spite of this, the PGR decided there was no evidence to prove that any illegal practices of a criminal nature had taken place on national territory.

If this was not politically motivated, the PGR should reopen the case. I hope they will take my arguments seriously and carry out the inquiries I recommend, which have not been done, in order to get at the truth.

IPS: Is it possible to identify the political components of this case? AG: I don’t want to talk about the pressures, but based on the known facts about the investigation I can say that the heads of Portuguese governments between 2002 and 2006 have not been interviewed (conservative former prime ministers José Manuel Durao Barroso – now president of the European Commission – and Pedro Santana Lopes, and current socialist Prime Minister Sócrates), nor have their diplomatic advisers, or their foreign, interior or defence ministers, among others.

The timing of the announcement of the closure of the investigation by the PGR (in early June) is also questionable. Why, suddenly, two years after starting the investigation, just a few days before the (Jun. 4-7) elections for the European Parliament, and ahead of the (September) vote by the European Council (of heads of state) that could reconfirm Durão Barroso as president of the European Commission, does the Attorney-General (Antonio Pinto Monteiro) appear in public announcing the decision to shelve the investigation?

IPS: How might the PGR react to your request for the investigation to be reopened? AG: If there is no political agenda, the PGR should reopen the investigation and follow up the leads I have given. The only way the PGR could reach its conclusion that “no illegal action of a criminal nature has occurred in national territory” is if the investigation was subordinated to the political goal of burying the issue of Portugal’s role in the CIA flights.

I have already delivered my request to reopen the case, investigate and carry out the procedures that have not been completed, and many others that were overlooked.

IPS: For example? AG: The foreign ministry has not been called to account for its “exceptional” concession, to the United States alone, of blanket authorisation to overfly the national airspace and to use the Lajes Field airbase for “transport of military cargo and of persons.” A clear example of an omission is the “Guantánamo Express,” a plane operated by a phantom company for the CIA, which was declared as a “foreign state flight,” although it did not have the necessary diplomatic credentials.

IPS: You have been active not only in Portugal but also at the European level in investigating the CIA flights. Have things come to a dead end? In the other countries involved, are investigations faring any better? AG: I have done all I can. There are many people, too many, who don’t want the truth to come out. In general the authorities in all these countries are putting up great resistance to prevent the facts from coming to light.

However, some countries have shown courage, particularly Spain, where the government of (socialist Prime Minister) José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero itself asked the prosecution to investigate.

In Italy and Germany, too, things have gone better than in Portugal, with several investigations carried out by the justice systems. And in the United States, the courts have ordered several inquiries into complaints by victims, and these investigations are under way.

Excerpt:

By Miren Gutierrez, Mario Soares, and Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Jun 3 2009 (IPS)

Global house prices are diving further, unemployment in the 16 countries using the euro increased in April to its highest level in almost ten years, and Eurozone Gross Domestic Product is expected to shrink by 1.9 percent during 2009…

Mario Soares Credit: Fundação Mário Soares

Socialist Mario Soares thinks these elections are crucial, and that the socialists of Europe should put up a presidential candidate for the European Commission who can implement their anti-crisis plan.

Soares was the first Premier of democratic Portugal from 1976 to 1978, again from 1983 to 1985, and then President from 1986 to 1996. Even his critics admit that his main accomplishment was to turn public opinion around and to negotiate Portugal's entry into the EU in 1986. Portugal at the time was suspicious of integration into the EU.

Soares wrote recently about the financial crisis and the position of the Socialists of Europe. He responded to IPS in line with some of his analysis.

IPS: What has been the difference of response to the financial crisis between the U.S. and Europe? MARIO SOARES: The current global crisis is the worst since 1929, and will be a prolonged one. But some positive signals are now coming from the U.S., which is focussing its efforts on the real economy.

Barack Obama is saying that we only will overcome this crisis by taking measures that ordinary citizens understand because those measures meet their needs and aspirations, involving social and environmental changes, and also punishment of those who are guilty of greed.

In contrast, the European Union, governed by actors of the past – some of them close to former U.S. president George Bush — has not been able to agree on a coordinated plan to respond to this crisis. This was the final outcome of the London G20 Summit on Apr. 2. It seems most of the European leaders just want to change the minimum possible to keep things as they are.

IPS: The U.N. will soon hold a conference on the world financial and economic crisis. What should the European position be? MS: Europe should present a united front. I always believed in the U.N. for the resolution of major global problems, but without Europe the world will hardly emerge from the global crisis affecting us. Without a concerted anti- crisis strategy, no European country by itself will be capable of overcoming the global crisis, not even the larger one, Germany, and the EU will enter a period of decadence.

The U.S. of Barack Obama has understood this, even though the U.S. has not yet emerged from the crisis. In contrast, the EU, divided, without an assertive leadership and lacking a clear path, is being marginalised, with negative repercussions for all European countries.

IPS: How do you see the Socialists of Europe reacting in the face of the crisis? MS: The Party of European Socialists (PES) has understood the situation, and in a declaration signed by all the 27 (Socialist) European leaders, they pointed out seven priorities to overcome this crisis: stronger and coordinated plans for investment; restoring banks lending to companies and people; safeguarding jobs and creating new ones; fighting poverty and supporting low-income groups who are losing their incomes and houses.

We also need to eliminate bank secrecy and tax havens, where top managers and wealthy people have been hiding their exorbitant profits. We also need to have transparency to avoid speculative financial and commercial transactions.

As the crisis is global and multi-dimensional – not only financial and economic, it also affects energy, the environment and food security – we need to ensure solidarity between countries, paving the way for a Global New Deal and reforming the international financial institutions, which have become obsolete.

These simple ideas were presented in the Declaration of the Party of European Socialists. They concur with the proposals made by the International Trade Unions Confederation to the G20. But although all the European socialist leaders have subscribed to this Declaration, few of them have discussed the ideas with their parties or in the international meetings they attend.

IPS: Why should Europeans care about it? MS: The policies have to change, and the European electors have to understand this clearly. However, European citizens are largely indifferent to the elections in all 27 member states because they have not seen convincing proposals to change and overcome the crisis. In these conditions, why should they vote?

From my viewpoint, only the left is in condition to overcome this crisis, and has concrete and systemic proposals. This is unhappily not the case of the right-wing parties, notably the parties which have abandoned Christian- democracy and have become popular parties, in line with the U.S. Republicans and with Bush, in particular.

IPS: So, if that is the situation, the socialists can present a strong case at the elections… MS: The European Popular Party has appointed Jose Manuel Barroso as candidate to the presidency of the European Commission. Barroso was the host of the Azores Summit, which green-lighted the invasion of Iraq.

However, three leaders and heads of government – Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Gordon Brown and Jose Socrates, heads of government in Spain, the United Kingdom and Portugal – have announced that their parties are ready to vote with the European Popular Party to elect Barroso.

I am asking: how is it possible? Because of national politics reasons, because of personal and political agreements? Does this mean that the ideological reasons do not count? This is a situation that means a kind of political suicide for the PES, and which will likely damage the outcome in the European elections.

As socialist, former member of the European Parliament and honorary President of the Socialist International, I think that I should protest and send a wake-up call. This is about the future of Europe, about a new and effective cooperation with the U.S. of Barack Obama, and about defeating a crisis that is hitting billions of human beings.

We should have the courage to be coherent European and internationalist socialists. We should not let the hope of democratic socialism die, refusing to present a candidate from the PES. These candidates exist.

*Miren Gutierrez is IPS Editor-in-Chief.

(Not for publication in Italy.)

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz and Jose Ramos-Horta
DILI, May 20 2009 (IPS)

Seven years after winning its independence following nearly five centuries of foreign domination, East Timor is firmly and proudly building its future, despite the heavy burden of widespread, deep-rooted poverty.

José Ramos-Horta Credit: Jeffrey Kingston

Between the Nov. 28, 1975 unilateral declaration of independence by Portugal’s most distant and neglected colony and the international recognition of its independence on May 20, 2002, Ramos-Horta was a key figure in East Timor’s resistance movement.

A tireless fighter for East Timor’s independence struggle between 1975 and 1999, Ramos-Horta was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996, jointly with Catholic Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo.

The prize was seen as recognition of their perseverance in denouncing the worst genocide relative to population since the Holocaust: fully one-third of the country’s 660,000 people were killed or starved to death during the 24-year occupation by Indonesia.

Ramos-Horta was born on Dec. 26, 1949 in Dili to a Timorese mother and a sergeant in the Portuguese Navy. Four of his 10 brothers and sisters were killed during the occupation.

The current president’s Portuguese father was banished to East Timor for taking part in a failed 1936 uprising by non-commissioned officers against Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, dictator of Portugal from 1932 to 1968. (The dictatorship stretched from 1926 to 1974, four years after Oliveira Salazar’s death.)

When he was just 25 years old, Ramos-Horta became foreign minister of the short-lived “Democratic Republic of East Timor”, proclaimed on Nov. 28, 1975 and dissolved by the Indonesians when they invaded the former Portuguese colony on Dec. 7 that year.

At the time of the invasion, Ramos-Horta was at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where he was presenting the new country.

During his 24 years in exile, Ramos-Horta was the diplomatic face of the East Timorese independence effort, representing abroad the leader of the resistance movement, former president (2002-2007) and current prime minister José Alexandre “Xanana” Gusmão.

On May 9, 2007 he handily defeated his rival Francisco Guterres in the presidential elections, and succeeded Gusmão, his long-time friend and companion in the struggle.

The challenges faced by Ramos-Horta are daunting in this small South Pacific nation of 1.1 million people that occupies the eastern half of Timor island at the southern tip of the Malay archipelago, 600 kilometres from the north coast of Australia. The other half of the island, West Timor, forms part of Indonesia.

IPS: The economy of your country, which has a per capita income of 600 dollars, has traditionally been based on cacao, coffee, cloves, and coconuts, but vast reserves of oil and natural gas have also been found in the last few years. JOSÉ RAMOS-HORTA: East Timor posted one of the best economic performances in the world in 2008, with 12.5 percent real – not oil-based – growth.

It’s clear that economic growth alone does not mean that the centuries-old problems of extreme poverty have been resolved. But I again want to emphasise that our economic growth last year was based on agriculture, which improved with good rains and an increase in coffee output.

IPS: Will oil play an important role in the process of eradicating, or at least reducing, extreme poverty? JRH: Yes, the oil and natural gas revenues are enabling us to invest more in the poor, something that I always advocated, for example through direct cash transfers of 20 dollars a month…to the elderly and the most vulnerable, veterans of the resistance struggle, widows, orphans and others affected by poverty.

In 2007 we already achieved economic growth of eight percent, only months after the 2006 political crisis that caused our economy to contract to below-zero growth. I think it’s possible to continue posting growth of around 10 percent in 2009.

IPS: Giving help to the poorest of the poor inevitably translates into an increase in public spending. JRH: In this stage of our development it is essential to support the most vulnerable, but yes, it’s true, we will have to be more prudent with public spending in 2010.

IPS: Since the 2006 crisis, there has been virtually a climate of civil war, because of the irreconcilable positions taken by then president Gusmão and Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, who stepped down. In that scenario, you appeared as the only person working towards a consensus. Three years later, do you think you have managed to achieve stability? JRH: On the political front, the government of the five-party Alliance of the Parliamentary Majority (AMP), led by Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão, which will complete two years in office in August, has shown itself to be quite solid, despite the fact that it is a broad, heterogeneous coalition that has faced complex challenges in governing.

FRETILIN (the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor, presided over by Alkatiri) has been a tough, strong opposition force, never giving the AMP a respite. The prime minister, in conversations with me, has praised the way FRETILIN has played that role, which is vital to our democracy and crucial for overseeing government action and avoiding excesses.

IPS: And with respect to security? JRH: In that respect, East Timor is at peace. Things are very calm in the neighbourhoods and streets of all districts. For comparison, according to United Nations crime rates from 2008, the country had 169 cases of simple assault per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to a global average of 250.

This rate is much better than those seen in the United States, with 795 per 100,000, or Australia, with 796. And last year there were three homicides per 100,000 people, compared to six per 100,000 in the United States.

It is not in vain that a recent opinion poll conducted throughout the country by the International Republican Institute found that 79 percent of respondents approved of the prime minister.

In the areas of politics and security, we have managed to stabilise the situation overall, although we admit that our institutions and political culture are still very fragile.

IPS: East Timor was occupied for 24 years by Indonesia, which was forced to pull out by an international military force in August 1999. Australia consistently supported the invasion and Portugal colonised this country for 460 years, doing very little to develop it. How are relations with these three countries today? JRH: Our relations with Indonesia are exemplary. They could not be better. With Australia they are also optimal. We have been able to maintain good relations with these two neighbours – which are different, of course, but are both powerful – based on a realistic, pragmatic policy focused on consolidating our national interests.

Portugal is a chapter apart. Our relations with it are special, founded on centuries of history, but also based on the last 30 years, when it was the country that gave us the most support, while it remains one of our best friends today.

Portugal has a strong presence in East Timor, not only because of the obvious affective ties, but also in the form of important concrete support, as it is one of our biggest partners in the area of development, as well as in defence and security.

IPS: Nevertheless, in Portugal itself, criticism is often voiced about the centuries-old neglect by Lisbon of the most ill-treated of its former colonies. JRH: Timor has not had an easy history, but in spite of everything, it has the best of memories of Portugal.

The thing is, if we look at the overall picture, the little that East Timor has had of spiritual, moral and religious wealth is owed to those missionaries who struck roots in this far-away island. It’s true that the state did little over all those centuries, but a country is not only a state. It is also the common people, who settled here and formed mixed-race families; and it’s the Catholic Church, which built our most beautiful and best schools.

IPS: It has been over a year since the Feb. 11, 2008 attempt on your life. Did the fact that you survived further strengthen your well-known religious convictions? JRH: I survived the assassination attempt because God wants me to live so I could continue serving our long-suffering people. The physical scars (from two bullet wounds in the back) are there, visible, but I bear no ill-feeling towards those who wanted to hurt me.

I could quote Christ when he was dying on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they’ve done.”

IPS: And the reasons for the attack have yet to be clarified. JRH: That’s true. Actually, until now no one has been able to find a coherent explanation for what they did. The man who shot me, Marcelo Caetano, the alleged assassin, broke down crying and confessed that it was his decision, saying he was mentally disturbed.

At any rate, I’m alive, in good health, I walk between five and 10 kilometres nearly every day without getting tired, and I have the same spirit: open to everyone, little and big, with a great joie de vivre.

* Not for publication in Italy.

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Mar 23 2009 (IPS)

Political leaders, activists, scientists and even Catholic bishops all joined in the chorus of criticism against the stance taken by Pope Benedict with respect to the use of condoms to curb the impact of HIV/AIDS in Africa.

AIDS "is a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems," the Pope said on a flight to Cameroon at the start of his first visit to Africa – home to 70 percent of all people living with HIV/AIDS – which ended Monday in Angola.

The governments of Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain were among the first to react vigorously to the pontiff’s words, defending the views of the leaders of the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and civil society groups, who had lashed out at the pope’s remarks.

The Spanish government went so far as to order last Friday a donation of one million condoms to Africa, to underscore its opposition to Pope Benedict’s statement.

UNAIDS, most of the world’s governments, and NGOs defend the use of condoms as an effective measure to curb the spread of the AIDS virus.

The Catholic church, on the other hand, maintains that abstinence and marital fidelity are the only ways to prevent infection – a position held by Pope John Paul II and ratified by his successor Benedict shortly after he became pope in 2005.

NGOs, including groups with ties to the Catholic Church, used terms like "unacceptable" and ''mistaken, irresponsible and dangerous'' when describing the pope’s remark, and said they were "furious" and "in a state of shock."

Jon O'Brien, president of the U.S.-based group Catholics for Choice, issued a statement saying that "For the Catholic hierarchy to deny the role that condoms play in preventing the further spread of HIV is irresponsible and dangerous." Judith Melby, an Africa specialist with Christian Aid, said "The pope's comments are not very helpful. It's sending a confusing message to Africa, in those countries where the Catholic church is very important." Alain Fogué, a spokesman for MOCPAT, a group in Cameroon that facilitates access to antiretroviral drugs for people living with HIV, asked "Is the pope living in the 21st century?"

"The people will not follow what the pope is saying. He lives in heaven and we are on earth," he said.

In an attempt at damage control, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said on Mar. 19 that in his statements, the pontiff "put the emphasis on education and responsibility."

"You mustn't expect that this trip will change the position of the Catholic Church towards the problem of AIDS," because "to develop an ideology of confidence in the condom is not a correct position," Lombardi said.

However, condoms are distributed by many Catholic groups that provide support for those living with HIV. This was acknowledged in May 2008 during a meeting of the heads of Catholic organisations in Rome, when Italian missionary Maria Martinelli said that in many situations, condoms are necessary – a statement that was backed up by many African bishops.

The pope’s six-day Africa tour focused on visits to Cameroon and Angola, areas where the Portuguese began the evangelisation of Africa in the late 15th century.

"Last year alone, another 1.9 million cases were added to the 22 million people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa," Dr. Ana Filgueiras, coordinator of Rede-Sida, an NGO dedicated to fighting the spread of AIDS in the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), told IPS.

Rede-Sida works closely with Brazil, "the most advanced CPLP country in the fight against AIDS and one of the countries in the world that has had the greatest success in the war on the pandemic because civil society has a huge commitment to direct participation in policy-making by those affected by the disease," she said.

Although the group is also active in Portugal itself, the greatest emphasis in the activities led by Filgueiras is on East Timor in Asia and on Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe, the five African members of the CPLP.

The pope’s stance against the use of condoms "is completely criminal, aside from the fact that it contradicts scientific studies by the WHO (World Health Organisation) and UNAIDS, which have been widely reported," said the activist.

"These studies demonstrate that the use of condoms can prevent 90 percent of HIV infections," she stressed.

In many cases, no significant strides have been made in the fight against AIDS because the strategies "have been based on subjective concepts like morality," she said.

The Catholic church, "of all religions, is the only one that has contributed to the spread of the disease, by seeing it simply as a problem that could easily be solved if sex was only practiced within marriage, with strict observance of marital fidelity," she added.

The bishop of the armed forces of Portugal, Januário Torgal Ferreira, told the local press on Mar. 21 that "from a medical point of view, I have no doubt that there are obviously circumstances where prohibiting condoms is to consent to the death of many people."

Asked about the discrepancy between his and the pope’s views, the bishop merely stated that "everyone knows what I think about condom use," and said "the people who are advising the pope, who should be more cultured," are to be blamed for triggering the storm of outrage.

For her part, Left Bloc parliamentary deputy Joana Amaral Dias complained in an op-ed titled "Mortal Sin", published Sunday in the O Correio da Manhã, a Lisbon newspaper, about those who defend the pope by saying he was "merely expressing the position of the church," as if this explanation "reduced his responsibility" for his remarks.

"This position should be immediately modified, and they should accept basic scientific knowledge," because otherwise, "what should we think of the church and its leader when they use their power to spread medieval beliefs that endanger human life?" the legislator asked.

The Catholic church "can continue defending the stance that sex outside of marriage is a sin, but it must avoid turning that sin into homicide, which in the case of Africa becomes genocide," said Amaral Dias.

A Mar. 19 editorial in Spain’s leading daily El País described the pope’s rejection of condom use as "dangerous and irresponsible" because "no one, except the Catholic church, denies today the effectiveness of condoms in preventing HIV transmission."

"Behind such an irresponsible message lurks the Catholic hierarchy’s mixed-up relationship with anything to do with sex," wrote the editorialist. "Rome defends abstinence even within marriage, as the only way to prevent the transmission of AIDS. Is the pope referring to the danger of promiscuity when he says condoms only increase the problem?"

Columnist José Ferreira Fernandes with the Diario de Noticias, a Lisbon paper, wrote that according to the pope’s arguments, "AIDS would stop spreading if sex were only practiced within marriage."

However, "there is extramarital sex, and lots of it, so it is like saying that condoms reduce transmission, but aren’t the solution and actually become a problem. In the fight against AIDS, that is just what the pope is: a problem," according to the analyst.

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Mar 5 2009 (IPS)

Violence was a trademark of João Bernardo Vieira’s life: he survived a coup, four attempts on his life and 13 years fighting the Portuguese colonial army in Guinea-Bissau. But the legend died at the hands of the corruption and violence he himself fed.

In the early hours of Mar. 2, Vieira was killed as a result of a settling of scores by followers of João Baptista Tagme Na Waie, the Army’s chief of staff and his traditional ethnic and political rival, who was killed hours before, allegedly by men close to the President.

When entering the jungle during the war (1961-1974), Portuguese soldiers hoped to dodge the feared commander “Nino,” Vieira’s combat name; he gained legendary status after authoring the most severe defeats against even the elite troops of the Portuguese army.

Vieira “was a very skilled man in the military arena, one of the main exponents of Guinea-Bissau’s liberation war, with great capacity for mobilisation,” former Portuguese President Mario Soares told IPS. Soares was one of the main architects of the Portuguese Empire’s decolonisation in 1974-75 and a staunch opponent of the corporatist regime (1926-1974).

The former President supported an initiative by the Portuguese government, which after an urgent meeting on Monday with the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) decided on Mar. 3 to send an urgent diplomatic mission headed by Portuguese Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs João Gomes Cravinho.

Already on Guinean soil, Cravinho has expressed hope that presidential elections will take place in the next 60 days and has also called international support in restoring constitutional order.

IPS also sought the opinion of lawyer Fernando Ka, president of the Guinean Association for Social Solidarity (AGSS), which provides support for Guinean migrant communities abroad. Ka argued Guinea-Bissau’s chronic violence can be traced back not only to power struggles and ethnic conflicts, but also to “the immense corruption of the political class, which is becoming richer and richer.”

As long as the country lacks a development policy generating wealth to a population impoverished to unimaginable levels, Ka says, “we cannot be surprised at the proliferation of international mafias with local partners and the consequent prolongation of a seemingly endless violence.”

Ever since independence from Portugal, life in this small West African country of 36.125 square kilometers and 1.5 million inhabitants that lies between Senegal and the former French colony of Guinea has been marked by volatility.

One of the few peaceful periods in Guinea’s independent history was between 1973 and 1980 under Luis Cabral (1973-1980), brother of Amilcar Cabral, “the father of the nation” who in 1974 was assassinated in Conakry by Portuguese commandos. However, after almost seven years in power, he was the victim of a coup by one of his closest aides, none other than the legendary commander “Nino” Vieira.

The future “can only bring hope if an appeal is made to Guinea-Bissau’s human capital abroad, in the technical, scientific and cultural fields, to return and create capacity for a true reconstruction of the state,” said Ka.

The President of the AGSS points to the violent events since the beginning of March as indicating “another instability in a country that has totally lost the confidence of the international community and, even worse, of Guineans themselves, who don’t trust the military, the government and the judiciary.”

Regarding the late President, Ka regrets the assassination but recalls that “Nino Vieira governed the country as if he was the only citizen of Guinea Bissau,” whereas on the other hand “the military lives only of blackmailing with coups whenever it needs money.”

The fourth poorest country in terms of purchasing power according to the International Monetary Fund, Guinea-Bissau only performs better than the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia and Burundi.

Although the annual per capita income stands at a mere 856 dollars, large sums of money flow into the country, but this wealth does not benefit the larger population and concentrates around a core of individuals who have turned rich at an almost inexplicable pace.

The only possible explanation can be found in the warnings issued by international organisations, which identify Guinea-Bissau as a country on its way to becoming the first African “narco-state”, where South American traffickers have set up a vast “technical connection” operation to smuggle cocaine into Europe.

A variety of investigative articles published by journalists in Portuguese, Cape Verdean and other media, as well as by activists from African and European non-governmental organisations, have denounced the official veil of silence surrounding drug trafficking.

The panoply of accusations includes threats and pressures on judges aimed at inhibiting their investigation of accused individuals.

Under the initiative of the country’s more courageous judges, a few Guineans and foreign citizens have been detained, only to be released without charges, in spite of large seizures of cocaine in September 2006 and April 2007.

Even though precise data is missing, the International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) estimates some 300 tonnes of cocaine go through Western Africa each year on their way to Portugal, Spain, and from there to other European destinations.

Interpol asserts that this vast operation, which sees the participation of traffickers from Africa, Latin America and Europe, has found in Guinea-Bissau an ideal harbour. Colombian and Brazilian drug lords operate at ease in a Portuguese speaking country with little coastal vigilance and extensive uninhabited areas.

The double assassination at the beginning of March is also connected to an ethnic element, always used by politicians to spice up violence in the country, especially in the chronic confrontation between the majority group Balanta and the influential Papel minority to which Vieira belonged.

In 1986, Joao Baptista Tagme Na Waie – a Balanta – said his destiny and that of the dead president were strongly linked and that the day of his death would also be the last day of life of “Nino” Vieira.

Twenty-three years later, the prophecy has been fulfilled.

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
AMARELEJA, Portugal, Dec 30 2008 (IPS)

The most ambitious and innovative solar power project in the world kicked off Monday in this white-walled village in the southern Portuguese municipality of Moura, one of the most impoverished areas in the European Union.

The Acciona Energy S.A. company has put into service the Amareleja photovoltaic power plant, located 150 km south of Lisbon, which is capable of producing enough energy to supply 30,000 households in the south-central region of Alentejo.

Almost simultaneously, the mayor of Moura, José María Prazeres Pós-de-Mina, was selected as one of the ten finalists for the prestigious 2008 People of the Year award granted by OneWorld, a non-governmental news network that is one of the most highly-respected international organisations devoted to raising environmental awareness and promoting change.

The only requirement for nomination was that the candidates embody the values of OneWorld, which include human rights for all, fair distribution of the world’s natural and economic resources, simple and sustainable ways of life, the right of every individual to inform and be informed, participation and transparency in decision-making, and social, cultural, and linguistic diversity.

Pós-de-Mina, who was born 50 years ago in Pías, another village in the municipality of Moura, keeps a low profile, but has nevertheless become famous throughout Europe as “the mayor of the future” for his pioneering work in renewable energy.

The grandson, son and nephew of prominent anti-fascist activists who were persecuted and incarcerated by Portugal’s 1926-1974 dictatorship, Pós-de-Mina became politically active at an early age when he joined the Union of Communist Students, an organisation that played a major role in the opposition to the dictatorial regime.

But his militant background did not prevent Pós-de-Mina from becoming a skilful businessman, and after earning a BA in business administration he took on the challenge of founding the Amper Solar power company, planting the seed for what is now the world’s largest solar energy plant.

Located in the Baldio da Ferraría, a 250-hectare sun-scorched plain, the plant was built at a cost of 410 million dollars in the sunniest area of Portugal, the European country with the greatest number of sunlight hours per year.

The reputation of this unassuming mayor of a small municipality of Portugal has transcended national borders, as he has come to be known as the architect of the most ambitious renewable energy project in the world. “It all happened without my even realising it,” Pós-de-Mina confessed modestly when he learned that OneWorld described him as “the mayor of the future.”

The Amareleja Power Plant project involves photovoltaic (PV) technology that uses semiconductors to convert the sun’s rays into electric power. Within a year, the plant will have an installed capacity of 46 megawatts (MW).

It is expected to be operating at full capacity by the year 2010, when it will produce 64 MW using 2,520 solar trackers supporting 262 modules with 268,000 PV panels producing 93 gigawatts/hour per year, generating sufficient electricity to power 30,000 homes.

The plant’s solar power production will contribute enormously to helping Portugal meet its greenhouse gas reduction commitments, drastically cutting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 152,000 tons a year.

“This project is important for Moura and for Alentejo, but it is also important because of its contribution to the development of Portugal and its significance in Europe due to its size, as it will convert sunlight into 64 million watts,” making it 12 times bigger than the largest solar power plant that exists today in the EU, which is located in Germany and produces five million watts, Pós-de-Mina told IPS in a recent interview.

At the same time, the municipality of Moura launched the Sunflower project, which involves a network of eight municipalities from eight different countries in Europe (Bulgaria, Britain, the Czech Republic, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain) that seek to transform their towns into what the EU calls “Zero Carbon Communities” under its Intelligent Energy – Europe (IEE) programme for the promotion of alternative energy sources.

Sunflower’s goal is to “convert these EU communities into environments free of CO2 emissions by turning them into areas where only renewable energies are used,” Pós-de-Mina added. The idea is to “conduct campaigns to raise awareness on the use of renewable energies and the benefits for the population,” he said.

Pós-de-Mina’s work in Amareleja and the Sunflower project earned him the nomination for the OneWorld award. Both efforts began as a way of finding solutions to the area’s growing economic problems, but eventually turned into pioneer initiatives that serve as encouraging examples for the entire world.

For this pragmatic communist mayor and businessman, harnessing Alentejo’s abundant sunlight seemed like “the most obvious way” to develop alternative renewable energy sources that would in turn create jobs in a region where unemployment – at 15 percent – is twice the national average.

In 2007, the municipality of Moura sold the 88 percent stake it held in Amper Solar – owner of the plant installation rights – to the Spanish company Acciona, which has since become the sole shareholder in the solar plant, after the minority shareholders decided to follow the municipality’s example.

Portugal’s solar, wind, and wave energy projects have received unconditional backing from the European Commission, the executive body of the EU, which seeks to speed up the continent’s transition to a low-CO2 economy.

Until April 2004, Portugal’s solar and wind power generation was very low, in spite of the fact that the country is extremely sunny and windy.

The wind energy generated in Portugal prior to 2007 was in fact practically marginal. At present, this country of 92,000 square kilometres and 10.6 million inhabitants is one of the top wind power generators in the EU.

From 2004 to 2006, several wind power parks were built in Portugal, producing a total of 500 MW and putting this country in third place in the EU, after Germany (357,000 sq km and 82 million inhabitants), which produces 1,808 MW, and Spain (504,000 sq km and 46 million inhabitants), with a production of 1,764 MW, and ahead of Italy (301,000 sq km and 59 million inhabitants), which has a total production of 452 MW.

The change has been so drastic that Portugal went from being at the bottom of the EU’s renewable energy ranking to becoming one of the continent’s leading generators.

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Dec 23 2008 (IPS)

Angola’s vast, confusing party landscape is about to undergo a major transformation: as of January, 22 parties and coalitions will simply vanish from the political map.

Next month, Angola’s Constitutional Court (CC) will extend the death certificate to all parties that failed to pass the 0.5 percent threshold in last September’s legislative vote. However, the measure does not apply to parties that did not run in the last election.

The country’s highest judicial body is currently questioning the parties concerned, the Jornal de Angola daily reported Monday.

Last November the CC acquiesced to a call from Angola’s Attorney General’s Office, which requested the dismantling of the 22 groups in accordance with the law on political parties.

The list includes parties such as Angola’s Alliance of the Working and Peasant Youth (PAJOCA), the Democratic Renewal Party (PRD), the Liberal Democrats (PLD), the Angolan Party for Democratic Support and Progress (PADEPA) and the Front for Democracy (FdP).

Among the coalitions that will be affected are Democratic Angola (AD), the Electoral Political Platform (PPE) and the Angolan Fraternal Forum (Foafc).

According to Portuguese correspondents in Luanda, Angolans will have a much clearer view of the political landscape a month from now – a view that is shared by the press in Portugal, the former colonial power of the vast 1.3 million square kilometre country in southwest Africa.

Angolan political scientist Eugenio Costa Almeida from the Higher Institute for Political and Social Sciences (ISCSP) in Lisbon told IPS that "legally I cannot question the suspension and possible extinction of political parties under scrutiny, except that not all parties went to the polls."

The law "is seemingly unclear regarding penalties for individual parties included in the coalitions to be punished," he added.

But while he conceded that "the process is legitimate from a legal point of view," he argued that "politically there is excessive pressure to close down parties that have given voice to the popular conscience in face of situations bordering the inadmissible."

In response to a request for examples, Costa Almeida said "I remember the case of the FdP and more recently of the PADEPA, whose presidents were detained under legally unclear conditions."

In his view, "although the law is clear and nothing can be said about the timing, politically I feel common sense is lacking."

Before moving towards the parties’ extinction, "the expected changes in constitutional law, which may contain changes relevant to the law on political parties, should have been taken into account."

Costa Almeida wonders "who should really be punished, the parties that were brave enough to run in an election which substantially changed the political spectrum, or those parties too afraid to participate in the elections and are vegetating at the expanse of public funds?"

Several smaller Angolan parties did not take part in the parliamentary elections but are recognised by law and benefit from state subsidies.

"I personally believe that these should be the first parties to go. We must put an end to political parasitism and then assess the situation of those who submitted to the voters’ verdict and give them conditions to demonstrate their importance."

How is that possible, if they failed to win a minimum of 0.5 percent of the vote? asked IPS.

"While they did not obtain the legal minimum, these parties can mobilise a number of supporters at the regional and national levels. In some cases they represent 100,000 to 150,000 voters," Costa Almeida concluded.

Another tricky legal case to be evaluated in January involves the historical National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) – a case that will prove more complicated than the extinction of small parties, according to the Jornal de Angola report.

Founded in 1962 following the dissolution of the Union of Angolan Peoples by its long-time leader Holden Roberto, the FNLA signed an unfulfilled agreement with the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) to fight Portuguese colonialism.

Subsequent agreements signed in 1962 with Jonas Savimbi, the leader of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) who died in combat in 2002, were only shortly upheld.

Following the April 1974 leftist military coup, Portuguese captains invited the MPLA, FNLA and UNITA to the negotiating table in a year-long effort to end the war and give way to the decolonisation of the so-called Overseas Provinces in Africa.

Since then, the FLNA has been marked by its determined opposition to the MPLA, based on their historical antagonism.

Lately the FNLA’s loss of influence among voters became notable as a result of internal divisions in 1997, 2004 and 2007, the latter following Roberto’s death. The threat of disappearing looms: The party has only three lawmakers now, compared to five in the previous term.

Another split within the FNLA could lead to a drop below the 0.5 percent mark, Angolan and Portuguese analysts speculate.

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Dec 16 2008 (IPS)

"Portugal does not own the European Union’s strategy for Africa, but we do feel a special affection for that continent and recognise that our relationship with them is unlike that with any other region in the world."

These are the words of João Gomes Cravinho, Portugal’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation and one of the main architects of an EU proposal to establish a new kind of relationship between the bloc and the African Union (AU) at the December 2007 summit in Lisbon.

In this interview with IPS, Gomes Cravinho assesses the year that passed since 53 African and 27 European leaders met in the Portuguese capital, and answers questions on the role of women in peace and security operations.

Portugal does not have a monopoly on the role of privileged partner with a continent where it first gained a foothold in 1415 and from which it only withdrew in 1975, but "we are one of the countries with the ability to build bridges with Africans, addressing their various concerns."

IPS: A year on, what’s your assessment? JOÃO GOMES CRAVINHO: Twelve months is too short a time for an evaluation. Due to the long-term nature of what we are trying to do, it’s premature. Even if there are great inequalities between us on many levels, there is something similar about the EU and the AU: We have to deliver on our responsibility to the people we govern.

IPS: In what sense? JGC: In the sense that all governments are responsible towards their citizens. That responsibility was lacking from the logic of development aid and it’s very important that it appeared.

At the Lisbon Summit we decided to build four pillars: good governance, development, peace and security, and finally trade and regional integration. This means going beyond development, beyond donor-beneficiary relations, and into a new political relationship in which we all assume our responsibilities.

IPS: In practice some aspects will have to be stressed… JGC: Yes. We are establishing new prospects in our relations and dialogue with Africa, and it was a point of pride for Portugal that it was in Lisbon (on Dec. 8-9, 2007) that we managed to interpret the ‘spirit of our times’ in the ties between the two continents. It’s only been twelve months, so we are at a very incipient stage.

But we have managed to start up an intense, broad-ranging dialogue that corresponds to the needs of both sides, especially with regard to global governance.

In this sense, the response capacity developed by both continents goes beyond the domain of national or regional administrations.

IPS: Concretely? JGC: The environment is an excellent example. It’s important that we develop some response capacity with respect to problems that go beyond our continents. Africa is the most vulnerable continent to climate change, although it contributes the least to pollution. And while it is the most affected, it is excluded from the clean development mechanisms. The EU wants Africa to have a voice in the next climate change conference, to be held in 2009 in Copenhagen.

Another example can be drawn from the current global financial crisis. Where is Africa? It’s not there, in spite of its extreme vulnerability to the consequences of the crisis.

Beyond the topics of energy and the environment, we are promoting cooperation with Africa in sensitive areas like peace and security. There are relatively less visible but important things happening, such as the harmonisation of the mechanisms for establishing peacekeeping missions with African troops.

IPS: Are there also efforts directed at involving the people, through their various organisations, and not just governments? JGC: Apart from official institutions, the idea is to include the wealth of civil society, from parliaments, the business sector and universities, to foundations and non-governmental organisations working in the field. That is, to go beyond purely inter-governmental activity.

We need to reflect, create test cases and experiment with ideas. We need this sort of initiative.

IPS: In the year that has passed since the summit, has there been any progress in the field? What are the most pressing problems in developing a joint AU-EU strategy? JGC: The main problems derive from Africa’s lack of preparedness to deal with globalisation, unlike in Europe where throughout decades we have set up extremely intense and formalised coordination bodies.

When something internationally relevant occurs, the first thing European officials do is coordinate their actions. In Africa nothing of the kind exists. The EU has the AU as a counterpart for cooperation, but the working spirit that characterises a supranational institution is lacking in Africa.

This is a complicated problem, because since they lack the habit of coordination, they have a reduced capacity for dialogue. By saying this, I only mean that Africa is poorly equipped to tackle globalisation and that what we are doing is making our contribution so that Africa is better prepared.

IPS: National sovereignty seems a very dear concept to Africans… JGC: We have to consider that EU countries have been joined together for decades. The AU has existed for a mere seven years. For decades the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) did not contribute to building a notion of common interests and, on the other hand, the African countries gained independence only a few decades ago, which leads to their very different approach to sharing sovereignty when compared to the EU.

In any case, in seven years, the AU has managed to make more advances in the field than the OAU in 37 years, but this is a process that will take a long time. The case of Zimbabwe reflects the fragility of African institutions, and the consequences are all too visible.

IPS: For many Africans, the stigma of almost seven centuries of European domination persists as an argument when it comes to explaining many of their problems… JGC: The obsession with the legacy of colonialism, especially in Zimbabwe, is a profound distortion of reality. All countries have seen decades pass since decolonisation. When problems appear, you cannot always point the finger outwards. On the other hand, paternalism has always been present in the donor-beneficiary relationship, but it’s inappropriate for 21st century ties.

IPS: On another front, you are known for your engagement with the issue of gender equality, especially with regard to women’s participation in security, defence and peacekeeping missions, a crucial question for Africa. JGC: In spite of some progress in terms of women’s participation in important public posts, of which good examples are Finland, Liberia, Chile and Argentina, these advances are still the exception rather than the rule.

In the field of defence and security, the role of women in conflict prevention and resolution and peace-building is of the utmost importance. The participation of women is absolutely necessary in the spheres of peace negotiations and in understanding the various social roles women play in conflict and post-conflict situations.

IPS: In other words women, who represent a majority of the victims in conflicts, should become part of their solution? JGC: Indeed. Because as victims of armed conflicts, the reality of being a woman is taken to an atrocious dimension, as is the case with the generalised practice of using sexual violence as a weapon of war. We just have to look at the conflict in (the Democratic Republic of) Congo.

It’s crucial to give women a role in both formal and informal negotiations leading to peace, so that a gender perspective gains ground in concrete policies and processes.

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Dec 5 2008 (IPS)

Portuguese European Parliament member Ana Gomes will ask the EU legislative body to restart the debate on stopovers in EU territory by secret CIA flights carrying prisoners captured in Afghanistan.

The Portuguese socialist deputy became known for her active role in the European Parliament’s temporary committee on CIA flights and prisoner renditions (TDIP), set up to report on the use of EU airspace and airport facilities for the transportation of terror suspects to third countries for interrogation (known as “extraordinary renditions”) between 2001 and 2005.

Following two years of investigations which concluded last January, the committee reported that 336 stopovers had taken place in Germany, 170 in the United Kingdom, 147 in Ireland, 91 in Portugal, 68 in Spain, 64 in Greece, 57 in Cyprus and 46 in Italy, and issued recommendations to the EU.

The committee lamented that it was not possible to verify the existence of secret detention centres in Poland, due to the Polish government’s lack of cooperation in the investigation, which according to the chairman of the committee, conservative Portuguese deputy Carlos Coelho, “fuelled suspicions.”

Among the main recommendations was a request to the European Commission, the EU executive body, to launch an “independent investigation” into the possibility that any of its member states violated human rights and fundamental freedoms by cooperating with the CIA.

If found guilty, member states would face possible sanctions outlined in the EU treaty.

Unlike Gomes’ previous requests, the latest one has found echo among politicians of the governing Socialist Party, led by Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates. Socialist officials want to question Foreign Minister Luis Amado on CIA flights authorised to pass through Portugal.

Instead of joining the pro-U.S. voices in the party hostile to Gomes, former justice minister Jose Vera Jardim and former labour minister Paulo Pedroso are pressuring the executive to clarify whether any contacts took place between Lisbon and Washington, with a view to allowing CIA flights to pass through Portuguese territory.

The deputies, both prominent figures within the ranks of the Socialist Party, asked the foreign minister if he had launched, or planned to launch, an inquiry into possible contacts between Portugal and the U.S. similar to those reported by the newspaper El País with regard to Spain.

Citing an official document, the influential Spanish paper once again reported, in its Dec. 1 edition, that former conservative prime minister Jose Maria Aznar (1996-2004) authorised the stopover in Spanish airports of rendition flights headed for Guantanamo.

The daily had previously reported that Portugal gave the go-ahead to CIA flights. Deputy Gomes had made the same accusation, in an interview with IPS.

Amado has been asked by Vera Jardim and Pedroso to shed light on the possibility of Portuguese and U.S. authorities having established contacts similar to those reported by El Pais, and on whether or not such conversations were documented.

The document leaked by El País dates back to January 2002, when Portugal was governed by the now United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres. Later that year Guterres was replaced by Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, the current president of the European Commission, who headed the Portuguese cabinet until June 2004.

Portugal’s foreign minister reacted by denying knowledge of “any official document in Portugal, whether in the Defense or Foreign Affairs ministry archives, that would compromise any previous cabinet on this matter.”

Amado has urged critics to “patiently await results,” pointing to the ongoing “process in the Attorney General’s Office, which is free to investigate and access information.”

The inquiry began in January 2007 when, following an accusation by Gomes, Attorney General Fernando Jose Pinto Monteiro ordered an investigation into alleged illegalities committed by Portuguese governments.

Asked by IPS to comment on the reasons behind her request to spark an investigation affecting a government headed by her own party, Gomes said it was the prime minister’s lack of substantive support in cooperating with the investigation that prompted her to submit “documents with relevant information” to Pinto Monteiro.

She added that CIA flights “not only passed through Portugal, because they came from Spain and Italy, and the European Parliament also investigated Germany, Sweden and Britain,” where, unlike in Portugal, there were no “attempts to obstruct the investigation.”

The European Parliament and human rights groups have accused Portugal of allowing suspicious plane stopovers in the Porto airport in northern Portugal, and in the Azores islands in the Atlantic, where the U.S. air base of Lajes lies halfway between Europe and North America.

Most U.S. military flights were allowed by Portugal in the spirit of the Lajes agreement. However, stopovers by Saudi, Kuwaiti, French and British planes remain shrouded in mystery.

Gomes points a finger at the slow pace of investigations, which she said was caused by an “aim to conceal. Many governments share this approach, centred on Durao Barroso’s attitude to silence it in the name of the alliance with the U.S.

“It’s unacceptable for a state to obstruct the quest for truth in a case involving murder, torture, kidnapping and other human rights violations,” added the European Parliament deputy.

The Attorney General’s Office investigation should clarify whether the Lajes base was used by U.S. forces as an illegal detention centre for terror suspects seized mainly in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks on Washington and New York.

“The team of European deputies engaged in this matter will not give up. We will push for a public debate and we want to know with how many of the European Parliament’s recommendations the 27 member states have complied with,” said Gomes.

El País claimed Washington had duly informed Portugal, Italy and Turkey of the CIA flights, and Gomes said “they were obviously notified.”

Noting recent changes in the world, Gomes called on “EU members, including Portugal, to decide how they will help the next U.S. administration, led by (Barack) Obama, to close Guantanamo.”

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Nov 15 2008 (IPS)

The south-central region of Alentejo, one of Portugal’s most impoverished areas, could turn into a haven for some 30,000 immigrants and unemployed nationals.

At first glance, Portugal’s need to bring foreign labour into an area with a high unemployment rate may seem paradoxical. But a closer study reveals that a number of major works underway in the region are demanding skilled labour, which is sorely lacking in Alentejo.

These were some of the main conclusions reached by Maria Ioannis Baganha, a researcher with the Centre for Social Studies (CES) at the Coimbra University School of Economics.

Traditionally, unemployment in Alentejo has had a female face, typically affecting older, unskilled women.

And these are exactly the opposite characteristics of the workers required by the area’s large construction works – hydroelectric dams, bridges, ports, highways, airports, and solar and wind power plants for renewable energy production – and by the harsh agricultural tasks of the grape, olive and orange harvests.

According to the researcher, the labour needs of this region, located south of the Tagus – a river that flows into the Atlantic in Lisbon – will be covered primarily with foreign workers who have their Portuguese papers in order, but due to the “prolonged economic recession in the construction industry” have been forced to emigrate to Spain in search of work.

As the construction industry’s recession spread to Spain, immigrants from the newest members of the European Union (EU) and other countries of Central and Eastern Europe started to flock back to Portugal. Leading the stream of returning immigrants are Rumanians, who are well-known for moving across the European community in search of jobs.

To a large extent, this return is prompted by socialist Prime Minister José Sócrates’s reassurances that despite the global economic and financial crisis Portugal will continue to move forward with its public works programme.

With respect to the region south of the Tagus, Sócrates has guaranteed that works on a series of mega-projects will begin as planned in 2009. These include construction of the new Lisbon and Beja airports, the high-speed train lines, the expansion of the Sines port and refinery, and the irrigation system supplied by the Alqueva dam, which created Europe’s largest artificial lake.

In the 2008-2017 period, a total of 41 billion dollars will be invested in major public works around the country.

The largest investment will go to the high-speed train project, with close to 9.8 billion dollars, followed by road and highway construction, with 9.0 billion, water and environmental projects, with 7.2 billion, renewable energy sources, with 6.4 billion, and the Alcochete Airport in Lisbon, which will cost an estimated 4.0 billion dollars.

At a mid-October conference on migration in Beja, capital of Baixo Alentejo, participants alerted that the inflow of almost 30,000 immigrants – mostly Rumanian, Ukrainian and Bulgarian – that are expected to arrive within the short term to cover the labour shortage was likely to cause social tension and the emergence of precarious housing.

In September, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released its International Migration Outlook 2008, which contains a comparative overview of recent trends in migration movements and policies based on 2006 data. The report indicates that Portugal has seen the largest proportional increase in immigration, along with Denmark, Ireland and Sweden.

In its annual report, the OECD – whose members include the world’s industrialised nations and several emerging countries – found that in Portugal’s case, like in the other members with the exception of Japan, “family migration continues to dominate among the inflows of permanent-type immigrants,” meaning that most new immigrants are not attracted to Portugal by work-related reasons, but are rather relatives of recent labour migrants, particularly Ukrainians, coming to join their families.

Among the new arrivals looking for work, the largest group is formed by Brazilian nationals (one of every four foreign workers), followed by Ukrainians, Cape Verdeans and Moldavians.

In 2006, according to official records of the Services for Foreigners and Border Control (SEF), 435,000 legal immigrants were officially registered in Portugal, whose population at the time was 10.2 million.

However, immigrant support organisations say that, based on their estimates of undocumented immigrants, the total number of foreign nationals in the country is 620,000, which makes Portugal one of the European countries with the largest number of immigrants, in proportional terms.

The three largest foreign communities in Portugal are the groups formed by nationals from Brazil, Cape Verde and the Ukraine, in that order.

That pattern is replicated in Alentejo, where the majority of foreigners are Brazilians. The experts gathered in Beja forecast that the trend will continue in this sense, accompanied by domestic migration flows of unemployed Portuguese nationals from other regions of the country.

According to SEF figures, after Brazilians, the largest groups of foreign nationals in the district of Alentejo are all communities from Eastern Europe, namely Ukrainian, Romanian and Bulgarian.

SEF figures are based on official data only, as releasing information on illegal immigrants is not standard practice for a law enforcement body that answers to the Interior Ministry.

But in recent statements to the Lisbon newspaper Público, Alberto Matos, an advocate of migrant rights with the Associação Solidariedade Emigrante (ASE), maintained that in order to accurately reflect the region’s immigrant population, the nearly 7,000 documented migrant workers declared officially must be upped by “over a third more who are in Portugal illegally.”

Consulted by IPS, Eduardo Tavares de Lima, president of the executive body of the association for Brazilian immigrants Casa do Brasil in Lisbon, supported Matos’s assessment. This is true “not only in Alentejo, but in all of Portugal, where official numbers speak of some 80,000, when there are actually nearly 120,000 Brazilians living here,” he said.

Tavares de Lima pointed out that “because there is no language barrier, the majority of Brazilians who immigrated to Portugal traditionally had no problem finding work in commerce and services, but gradually they have expanded to jobs in the construction industry and agriculture.”

At the Beja meeting, Ioannis Baganha warned of the consequences of a predictable cultural clash, which according to the researcher could “exacerbate social tensions” between the region’s local population and immigrants, with the risk of turning into a “very serious and difficult to solve problem.”

The construction of the Alqueva dam and hydroelectric power plant, from 1998 to 2005, employed mostly Portuguese-speaking African immigrants from Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé and Principe, but once the projects were completed, these workers migrated to other parts of Portugal.

Antonia Baião, a leader of a migrant support cooperative in Alentejo, said to Público that, unlike the Portuguese-speaking African migrants, many others who have come from the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe, in particular Rumanians, “have chosen to settle here, in rural areas, drawn by the olive and orange groves.”

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Nov 3 2008 (IPS)

Portuguese banks that received transfers of money to Angolan politicians implicated in illegal arms sales have kept mum after the Lisbon paper Público reported their involvement.

The Banco de Portugal, the country’s central bank, has remained silent, and the banks mentioned by the newspaper declined to comment in response to queries from IPS Monday, invoking the law on bank secrecy.

Público Journalist Ana Dias Cordeiro, an expert on African affairs, reported on Oct. 31 that "more than 21 million dollars received by high-level officials of the regime in Luanda as a result of the illicit sales of arms from Russia to Angola passed through Portuguese banks."

The information on which the article was based is contained in a list of bank transfers that form part of the evidence in the trial over the scandal dubbed "Angolagate".

The trial, in which 42 defendants, including former senior French officials and members of that country’s elite, are facing a range of charges related to illegal arms sales, opened in Paris on Oct. 6.

The case, in which no Angolan has been charged, is focusing on 790 million dollars of war materiel sold to Angola despite an arms embargo against that country, including 450 armoured vehicles, six warships, 12 helicopters, 150,000 howitzers and 170,000 land-mines.

But it is estimated that between 1993 and 2000, Russia’s illegal weapons sales to Angola amounted to a total of four billion dollars.

Público cites a document by investigating Judge Philippe Courroye – in the Paris courtroom presided over by Magistrate Jean-Baptiste Parlos – who lists 54 million dollars in bank transfers to the accounts of senior officials and close associates of the Angolan government – allegedly kickbacks for illegal arms sales paid out during that seven-year period.

Of the 70 transfers totaling 54 billion dollars in illegal commissions, 50 of them -involving 21 million dollars – appear to have been deposited in Portuguese banks.

The largest sums went to the state-run Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) and the Banco Comercial Portugués (BCP), the country’s two largest banks.

The Nacional de Crédito, Nacional Ultramarino (since absorbed by the CGD), Comercio e Industria, Totta & Açores, Pinto & Sotto Mayor (which forms part of the BCP) banks and the Portuguese branches of Spain’s Banco Bilbao Vizcaya and Britain’s Barclays are also on the list of financial institutions contained in the indictment.

The beneficiaries of the payments are led by Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos himself, who allegedly received five million dollars, while another 10 million went into the account of former Angolan ambassador to France Elísio de Figueiredo. Other recipients of sums that were not revealed are former cabinet secretary José Leitão, his wife, and his son, according to the list.

Among the Angolan senior armed forces officers implicated in the scandal are generals Fernando Araújo, Salviano Sequeira and Carlos Alberto Hendrick Vaal Neto, who is now in the diamond business, and Fernando Miala, former head of the secret services, who was sacked by dos Santos in February 2006 and has been in prison since last year.

The transfers were allegedly ordered by businessman Pierre Falcone from different bank accounts in his company, Brenco Trading Limited.

The defendants in Angolagate are accused of forming a vast network of middlemen and influence peddlers in the 1990s, when Angola was facing an international arms embargo due to the civil war that broke out in 1975, shortly after Portuguese colonial rule came to an end.

Some of the most prominent French defendants on trial include former interior minister Charles Pasqua (1993-1995), who is now 81, his closest associate, Jean-Charles Marchiani, the son of late French president François Mitterrand (1981-1995), Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, and former presidential adviser Jacques Attali.

Falcone and Russian-born Israeli billionaire Arcadi Gaydamak, who has taken refuge in Israel – which does not extradite its citizens – are also accused of arms trafficking.

The charges of illegal weapons deals, embezzlement, tax evasion and influence peddling are punishable by sentences of between five and 10 years. The verdict is due on Mar. 4, 2009.

The indictment, leaked to the Público newspaper, also states that an unidentified "key witness" said ambassador Figueiredo was the "personal representative of the president" and the person in charge of his secret financial operations in the Banque Internationale à Luxembourg and the Israel Discount Bank in Switzerland.

In the trial, Falcone testified that a "state commission" of more than 40 million dollars was paid to Angola "through completely official channels."

Judge Courroye responded that "cash transfers to the Angolan state were not found in the records of the accounts indicated by Pierre Falcone," although several transfers to members of or persons close to the Angolan government, and to offshore societies created by them, were found.

Falcone had to admit that some 30 Angolans had received funds in accounts overseas "for the defence of national interests," which forced them to purchase weapons to defeat the rebels of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).

The violence in Angola broke out in 1961, with the start of the war for independence from Portugal, which ended in 1974 after 144 leftist Portuguese army captains toppled the dictatorship that had installed itself in 1926 in Portugal. The captains immediately declared a ceasefire in the wars in the country’s overseas provinces.

Civil war then erupted after the last Portuguese governor, Admiral Antonio Alva Rosa Coutinho, left Angola in November 1975. The armed conflict only came to an end in early 2002, after Unita leader Jonas Savimbi was killed in combat.

The country was devastated and one million people were killed in four decades of violence in Angola (which now has a population of around 17 million).

In fact, this was one of the arguments wielded by Falcone’s defence attorneys, who said the weapons helped defeat Savimbi and put an end to decades of violence.

A Portuguese-African businessman who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals told IPS that "the only people prosecuted for the illegal arms sales are Luanda’s protégés, Falcone and Gaydamak, but none of the roughly 30 Angolan leaders who received large sums of money are in the dock, because the trial is French and not international."

"Since states are sovereign, to prosecute them an international trial for violation of the arms embargo would have to be held, or at the very least there would have to be conventions on extraterritorial legal action, which French law does not take into account," he said.

The businessman, who divides his time between Lisbon and Luanda, said the French judiciary has demonstrated a strong degree of independence, by "not yielding to the pressure, given the harsh blow that this trial has represented for French companies that are doing big business in Angola."

"I am especially referring to Total, which would have preferred for the case not to have reached the courts," at a time when major interests in Angola are at stake, he said.

Angola recently overtook Nigeria as Africa’s largest oil producer.

Luanda has continued to pressure Paris, said the source, "sending messages that the investments of Total and other French companies will depend on the sentences handed down on Mar. 4 because for now, everything is bogged down."

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
MOURA, Portugal, Nov 3 2008 (IPS)

This small municipality in the south of Portugal is becoming increasingly well-known for its alternative energy initiatives. The latest is the Sunflower project, which also involves communities in seven other European Union countries.

The aim of the project is to transform communities in Bulgaria, Britain, the Czech Republic, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain into what the EU’s Intelligent Energy – Europe programme (IEE) calls a “Zero Carbon Community.”

The IEE seeks to convert the communities into areas free of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, where only renewable energies are used.

Behind the idea are the mayor of Moura, José María Prazeres Pós-de-Mina – who was also the driving force behind the project of what until early 2008 was the world’s largest solar plant, Amareleja – and environmental engineer Helder Guía.

The architects of the Sunflower project explained to IPS that it will be financed by the EU over a term of 30 months and that its aim is to attract investment for renewable energy initiatives.

The first step is to “determine the role of each of the bodies that participate, in terms of their contribution to the development of their respective regions,” Pós-de-Mina told IPS.

At the meeting that launched the project, held in Moura in early October, the mayors from the eight participating countries identified the needs of each municipality, “towards drafting a working plan from which the various activities envisaged will stem,” Guía put in.

The idea is “to form partnerships between the bodies involved and other institutions, such as political authorities, economic groups, technology parks and universities, to draw investment for the alternative power industry, which would also lead to job creation,” said Guía.

Pós-de Mina placed particular emphasis on what he described as “one of the main goals of the project: conducting campaigns to raise awareness on the use of renewable energies and the benefits to the people and schools in the communities in the eight countries involved.”

Sunflower was developed based on the know-how gained from the creation of the Amareleja solar power plant, which has panels extending over 100 hectares and an expected production capacity for next year of more than 46 megawatts.

When the plant is fully operational in 2010, Amareleja – one of the eight villages that make up the municipality of Moura – will produce 62 MW through systems that follow the sun’s path, supporting 268,000 photovoltaic panels, which will generate 93 gigawatts (GW)/hour/year, or enough electricity to power 30,000 homes.

According to the mayor, the key objective of Sunflower in the eight European communities involved in the Moura-coordinated project “is to promote, disseminate and implement good practices in the field of renewable energy sources.”

The project is being implemented “in localities that are socially disadvantaged and impoverished, where local communities have limited access to information, and economic activity alone is insufficient to drive technological and scientific investment,” he said.

The Moura initiative was first developed three years ago. At that time it applied for financing from the EU under the Intelligent Energy – Europe programme, but it was only granted the funds this year, after its third attempt.

In the meantime “we’ve been perfecting the initiative, while at the same time strengthening partnerships with the entities involved in the project, which, despite being coordinated by Moura as the organising community and source of the idea, engages the municipalities from the other seven countries as fully equal participants.”

Guía, for his part, underlined that “this is not a pilot project, but rather an initiative that was approved to set an example and be replicated both in its methodology and its results throughout the EU, and not just in the countries that are currently participating.”

The idea is for the project to spread throughout Europe, “breeding new plants that will generate any form of renewable energy, either photovoltaic, wind, wave, or any other alternative power source that is locally feasible, depending on the location and the specific conditions,” the environmental engineer said.

Pós-de-Mina stressed that “what we’re talking about are projects that have to do with sustainable development, not just in the field of renewable energies, but also in terms of regional development.”

“That is the reason why Sunflower includes technology parks and natural parks, as it intends to create a network for collaboration and experience and knowledge sharing,” he said.

“It’s not just about creating power plants,” Guía said. “The idea is to make this a launching pad for new collaborative initiatives.”

“When large power plants are constructed, a possibility opens up for other projects to be negotiated. That happened in Moura: as the agreement for the construction of the Amareleja solar plant was being finalised, it was also decided that a photovoltaic panel factory would be built,” he pointed out.

These “power plant construction projects are also meant to serve as a springboard for sustainable development by creating employment, jobs that globalisation cannot easily relocate to other regions, as they will be dependent on that specific location.”

“Not every region has abundant sunlight and strong winds, and these jobs can only be situated in places that have conditions for this type of projects,” Guía added.

Consulted about the possibilities of taking Sunflower outside of Europe, Guía said that at first there was an attempt to expand the scope of action, “but it wasn’t possible, as we are limited to the EU territory.”

Despite this limitation, in terms of relations with the rest of the world, Pós-de-Mina’s reputation as “mayor of the future” because of his ecological initiatives has already made it across the Atlantic, and he has been invited to a Latin American energy meeting in Brazil.

“We have been invited to the Latin American conference on renewable energies, which will be held Nov. 18-21 in (the southern Brazilian city of) Florianópolis, where delegates will learn how Moura came up with and developed the Sunflower project,” he said.

Excerpt:

By Mario Soares and Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Oct 23 2008 (IPS)

Mario Soares, two times president and three times prime minister of Portugal, says he is sorry that the European Union has not yet understood the importance of strengthening relations with Latin America.

Credit: Mario Soares Foundation

Recognised even by his adversaries as the “father” of Portuguese democracy since the end of the country’s decades-long dictatorship in 1974, Mario Alberto Nobre Lopes Soares first became politically active at the age of 17 when he joined the clandestine opposition to the dictatorship of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar (1889-1970).

Carrying his nearly 84 years lightly (his birthday is Dec. 7), the charismatic Soares is an adept politician who has a good rapport with reporters.

For obvious historical, linguistic and cultural reasons, Portugal’s ties with Latin America have traditionally focused on its largest former colony, Brazil, which is currently governed by Soares’s old friend, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

But Soares believes that Portugal must look towards the region’s Spanish-speaking countries as well.

When he recommends deepening political, cultural, diplomatic and economic ties with the countries of Latin America, however, he is not only referring to Portugal, but to the entire European bloc.

IPS: So your suggestion is not limited to your country. MARIO SOARES: Spain and Portugal are obviously closer to the Americas, due to questions of language and culture. But I am referring to the EU as a whole, which must understand the importance to the bloc of relations with those countries. The countries of the Iberian peninsula must convince the rest of Europe that this should be a priority.

Lisbon and Madrid have long been in favour of forging stronger ties between the EU and the Mercosur (Southern Common Market, made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, with Venezuela in the process of joining) trade bloc, which have been modest so far.

Closed in on itself as a result of its own selfish interests, the EU has failed to give Mercosur the response and support that it could have. One notorious example of this is the bloc’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP, which establishes subsidies and other protectionist measures for EU products).

Another bad example is very recent. Two countries, Haiti and Cuba, have been in particularly dire straits since the passage of hurricanes Ike and Gustav. On a strictly humanitarian level, the EU has a duty to help these two countries. Curiously, note where the first aid came from: Russia.

IPS: Politicians in Portugal look almost exclusively to Brazil, and a bit to Venezuela, due to the half million Portuguese who live in that country. But they largely ignore the rest of Latin America. Of course that is not true in your case. MS: It is well known that I am a great admirer and friend of Brazil, our great sister country, which is home to the largest number of Portuguese-speakers in the world: nearly 200 million.

But I am also a friend of Spanish-speaking Latin America, with which I am relatively well-acquainted and where I have many friends, some of whom have high-level positions in their respective governments.

Let me explain. I have been an admirer of Latin America since 1970, when I first visited the region. I admire the great Latin American authors, who differ greatly among themselves: Jorge Luís Borges (Argentina), Octavio Paz (Mexico), Jorge Amado (Brazil), Darcy Ribeiro (Brazil), Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia), Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru) and Carlos Fuentes (Mexico), to cite just a few of those who I have personally met.

They belong to a mosaic of different, extremely original, cultures, which have two common languages, Spanish and Portuguese, whose speakers have the advantage of understanding each other without learning the other language; a more or less shared religion, Christianity; and an extremely rich ethnic and cultural foundation that differs from country to country.

IPS: How do you see the Latin America of today, where a number of innovative political processes are occurring, described by some as ‘change’, and by others as ‘populist’ or ‘leftist’? MS: When I gave a conference on Oct. 6 at the 10th anniversary of the Casa da América Latina (Latin America House) in Lisbon, I spontaneously gave it a title that, in retrospect, I could have taken a bit more care with, as I think it was somewhat inappropriate: “The Peaceful Democratic Revolution in Latin America”.

IPS: Why inappropriate? MS: Because of the ambiguity of the word “revolution”, which has different connotations and meanings, to which I added two adjectives that are also somewhat ambiguous: “democratic” and “peaceful.”

What we are seeing today all over Latin America is a widespread desire for autonomy vis-a-vis the United States. That is one of the essential characteristics of what I was referring to as the “peaceful, democratic revolution.” This is true in the case of the more radical Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua, as well as the more moderate Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay.

Of course there are nuances and different positions in Latin America. Venezuela, with its “Bolivarian socialism” (named for independence hero Simon Bolivar), is more radical than (President) Lula’s Brazil, which is more moderate. But the two leaders get along particularly well, as I was able to see for myself first-hand, talking to them.

IPS: The common view among analysts worldwide is that Latin America is in the midst of a period of virtually unprecedented change. MS: The situation is definitely very different from that of the Latin America that I visited for the first time at the start of the 1970s, with the curiosity of someone from Portugal whose political awakening occurred in the fight against the dictatorship of Oliveira Salazar.

At that time, most of the countries of Latin America were governed by military dictatorships inspired by the “Chicago School” (an economic approach that advocates a totally unregulated market).

But although U.S. dominance was felt all around the region to a greater or lesser degree, the people themselves were manifestly “anti-gringo”, the derogatory term used to refer to them.

Paradoxically, it has been during the two terms of President (George W.) Bush – while the United States has been engrossed in the wars waged in Afghanistan, with the ill-conceived support of NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), and in Iraq, which was based on a unilateral decision, with all of the consequent negative results – that Latin America has stopped being the “backyard” of its big neighbour to the north.

Many Latin American countries have thus acquired effective autonomy with respect to the United States. Perhaps it was for that reason that Washington recently decided to reactivate the Fourth Fleet to patrol Latin American waters from (the U.S. Southern Command) headquarters in Florida.

It is interesting that Brazil reached an agreement with France for the transfer of technology to build Latin America’s first nuclear-powered submarine, for – as it was explained – “the defence of the country’s extensive coastal area,” where huge oil reserves were recently discovered.

IPS: So in your point of view, there is a widespread feeling of autonomy with regard to the United States, in vast areas of South and Central America, to a greater or lesser degree. MS: Yes. For example, Brazil and Argentina have decided to carry out bilateral trade in their national currencies rather than in dollars, which is a symptom of that.

And at their recent (Union of South American Nations – UNASUR) meeting in Santiago, Chile (in September), it was Bolivia’s neighbours that kept that country from falling into civil war, by helping to pave the way for an agreement between (President) Evo Morales and the opposition, without any interference by the United States – another important signal.

The Bank of the South, an idea of (Venezuelan President Hugo) Chávez; turning (the central Brazilian Amazon city of) Manaus into a hub for land and river corridors that will connect the Pacific and Atlantic oceans; and the creation of UNASUR are other notable examples of the region’s growing autonomy.

IPS: And if Barack Obama is elected president, could that guarantee that the United States will not interfere with these changes? MS: Latin America is one of the world’s richest regions in terms of natural and human resources. It is destined to play a prominent and even decisive role, in every respect, during this already troubled 21st century.

You never know with the United States. But Obama, although he is not a leftist politician, will never fall into the errors committed by the administration of Bush, the main protagonist of a black period in the history of the United States. The new president will certainly want to recuperate that country’s lost prestige.

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Oct 15 2008 (IPS)

After a decade’s delay, the defendants on trial for arms trafficking to Angola include figures of the French élite and an Israeli billionaire, but not a single leader from the vast African country has been summonsed by the Paris court judge.

The French court’s task will be to determine the responsibilities and ramifications of a vast illegal arms sales deal with Angola between 1993 and 1998, for an estimated value of 790 million dollars.

The “Angolagate” trial began Oct. 6 and during its first week a long litany of charges, punishable by between five and 10 years in prison, was read out, including illegal weapons deals, embezzlement, misuse of company funds, tax evasion and influence peddling.

Among those on trial are well-known figures such as 81-year-old former French interior minister Charles Pasqua (1993-1995) and his closest aide Jean-Charles Marchiani; the son of late president François Mitterrand (1981-1995), Jean-Christophe Mitterrand; former presidential adviser Jacques Attali; and entrepreneur Pierre Falcone.

A total of 42 people are standing trial, including French politicians and entrepreneurs and Russian-born Israeli billionaire Arkady Gaydamak. A verdict is due on Mar. 4, 2009.

The trial presided by Judge Jean-Baptiste Parlos will hold 58 sessions to analyse the case. Gaydamak, one of the main defendants, is safely away in Israel, which does not extradite Israeli citizens. If necessary he will be sentenced in absentia.

However, the main alleged culprit is Falcone, who in spite of his French nationality was designated by Luanda as Angola’s representative to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 2003.

At the time, articles in the Portuguese press interpreted his appointment to UNESCO, which is based in Paris, as a measure to avoid facing imprisonment by reason of diplomatic immunity.

Although no Angolan citizen has been summoned to testify by Parlos, the indictment alleges that close to three dozen people in high positions in Angola, including President José Eduardo dos Santos himself, received bribes.

In 1993, Luanda needed tanks and munitions to combat the well-disciplined forces of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) led by rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, at a time when Portugal, Luanda’s main military ally, was forced to take a neutral position because of fierce domestic criticism of its support for dos Santos’ Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA).

Accusations that Portugal was pro-MPLA dated back to 1975, when the last Portuguese governor of Angola, appointed by the leftwing military officers who overthrew the Portuguese dictatorship in April 1974, turned over power in Angola to the MPLA.

Governor Antonio Alva Rosa Coutinho, known as “The Red Admiral” because of his leftist sympathies, was greatly criticised at the time for rejecting UNITA, as Savimbi had the support of South Africa and the United States, among other countries. This led to the outbreak of Angola’s first civil war (1975-1992).

Against that backdrop, the government of Angola approached France in 1993, but the French government refused to sell it weapons because of the international arms embargo imposed at the beginning of the second Angolan civil war (1992-2002).

Secret negotiations centred on Falcone, an entrepreneur regarded as very close to Pasqua and an associate of Gaydamak, who used his contacts in Moscow to procure the weaponry required by Luanda.

According to the indictment, the arms purchased were not limited to 420 tanks. The list included six warships, 12 helicopters and 170,000 land-mines.

The contracts were drawn up with a profit margin of 50 percent, and partners in the various firms, some of them merely paper companies, became multimillionaires through illegal weapons of war, which caused close to one million deaths in Angola.

The Angolan money was deposited in the accounts of several French companies in Paris, Geneva and Tel Aviv, and then forwarded to tax havens in the Virgin Islands or Monaco.

The prosecutors also allege that Brenco International, a company owned by Falcone, provided “young ladies” in Paris to entertain high-ranking Angolan military officers.

Falcone’s defence counsel argues that the trial in Paris is illegal because the arms did not pass through French territory, a point taken up with alacrity by the present French Defence Minister, Hervé Morin, according to the Portuguese news agency Lusa.

“This trial has not emerged at the best time for the French government, since the authorities have been attempting to forge closer ties with Luanda, as demonstrated by President Nicolas Sarcozy’s visit in May to Angola, an oil-rich country that is the largest producer in Africa,” says a Lusa commentary signed with the initials JSD.

It is possible that the trial could overshadow the achievements of Sarkozy’s trip to Angola, “obtained God knows how,” Angolan political scientist Eugenio Costa Almeida, who writes columns for several Portuguese papers, told IPS.

Costa Almeida quoted Jacques Marraud des Grottes, Africa regional director for the French oil company Total, who said on the occasion of Sarkozy’s visit: “the African continent is increasingly important in terms of reserves and production.”

The French merely confirm the fact that “Africa represents more than 10 percent of world reserves, and Angola is increasingly important in this context,” Costa Almeida said.

“As for the French company Total, Africa represents 34 percent of its production, and next year Angola, the largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa, will preside over the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC),” said the political scientist.

The “Angolagate” trial may not be convenient to political and economic interests in France, but it is being held in a country with a strong tradition of an independent judiciary.

“This business of countries wanting to keep their judicial branch autonomous from the political and economic powers is crazy,” said Costa Almeida, with irony directed at the MPLA government in Angola.

“In a serious country, where the party is in power, and the party is the people and the people are the party, this would be unimaginable!” he concluded.

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
PÓVOA DE VARZIM, Portugal, Sep 24 2008 (IPS)

The mighty waves rolling in from the Atlantic ocean towards the northern coast of Portugal have been harnessed to produce electricity that will supply the homes of some 6,000 people.

Several countries are experimenting with prototypes for electricity generation using wave power, but as of Tuesday Portugal has become the pioneer of commercial energy generation from the waves for consumers.

At the inauguration of the Aguçadoura Wave Park, located in the waters off the northern town of Póvoa de Varzim, Economy and Innovation Minister Manuel Pinho predicted that in 10 years’ time, wave power would be as important as wind power is today.

Renewable energy sources at present account for “40 percent of electricity production” in Portugal, especially solar and wind power, “which only 15 years ago were nothing but experimental techniques,” the minister said on Tuesday.

Pinho stressed that Portugal and Denmark are presently “the most advanced countries in the world in the technology” of harnessing wave energy.

The importance of this project lies precisely in its pioneering character and its planned expansion, because in terms of investment and electricity production the amounts involved so far are modest.

The 12.5 million dollars invested in the Aguçadoura Wave Park will translate, in the first place, into supplying electricity to the equivalent of a small town of 1,500 family homes with an average of four persons each.

The wave farm is operating with wave energy converters manufactured by a Scottish company specialising in this technology. Three floating tubes with articulated segments move up and down with the waves and use the motion to generate a total of 2.25 megawatts (MW), equivalent to the output of one wind turbine in a wind park.

An insignificant drop in the ocean, perhaps, in a country of 10.5 million people, but its importance lies in its future expansion, according to executives of Spanish renewable energy firm Enersis and its associate, Scottish company Pelamis Wave Power (formerly Ocean Power Delivery).

Electricity from seawater in motion has also been generated in Italy since 2006, by harnessing the power of the strong currents in the straits of Messina which separate the island of Sicily from the mainland. In Portugal, in contrast, it is the large and powerful Atlantic ocean waves that provide the energy.

This is a modest amount, but it is the initial phase of “the first electricity station in the world to use wave power as a renewable energy source,” Rui Barros, an engineer and the director of new projects at Enersis, told IPS during a visit to the Aguçadoura plant two years ago.

Enersis is regarded as the lead company in the renewable energy sector, with extensive experience in the use of hydraulic, photovoltaic, geothermal and biomass energy sources in the Iberian peninsula.

According to estimates by the Economy Ministry, in the next 40 years energy production from wave power could reach a value equivalent to 30 percent of Portugal’s current 188.5 billion-dollar gross domestic product (GDP).

Antonio Sarmento, the head of the Wave Energy Centre, said Portugal could control 10 percent of the world market for this technology and for the equipment to manufacture wave power stations, predicted to be worth 385 billion dollars.

The Pelamis wave energy converters for the Aguçadoura project were assembled at naval dockyards at Peniche, 125 kilometres north of Lisbon, where three enormous tubes, 142 metres long and 3.5 metres in diameter, were constructed.

The tubes float semi-submerged in the ocean, and are divided into three sections linked by hinge joints. When the hinged sections move with the waves, hydraulic rams inside the devices pump high pressure oil through hydraulic motors, which in turn drive electrical generators to produce electricity.

The kinetic energy harvested from the waves is thus converted into electricity, which is transmitted ashore along undersea cables and enters the national power grid.

The Pelamis wave energy converters, dubbed “sea snakes,” were supposed to come onstream by late 2006, but the project, which began five years ago, has suffered a number of delays.

Finally, though, “the wave park is operational,” said Barros, unable to conceal his enthusiasm. He said the second phase of the project would add a further 27 wave energy converters, boosting electrical capacity by 20 MW. Later, more will be anchored off several points of the Portuguese coast, expanding capacity to over 550 MW.

Studies by the Wave Energy Centre have produced estimates indicating that equipment for harvesting 5,000 MW of power from the ocean waves could potentially be installed off the Portuguese coast.

The inauguration of the Aguçadoura wave farm is the climax of 12 years of arduous research. The project was funded by the European Union and backed by two decades of studies by the Higher Technical Institute (IST) in Lisbon.

Maintaining its place at the vanguard of the wave power sector “is one of Enersis’ goals in coming years, and not only in the Portuguese market,” Barros said. He predicted that the association with Pelamis Wave Power would continue, because this company “has operated in the market since 1997 and has reached a level of know-how that is unmatched in the world.”

Installing the other 27 wave energy converters at Aguçadoura will require an investment of 110 million dollars, 15 percent of which will come out of public funds and the rest from bank loans and from the partnership established by Enersis and Pelamis Wave Power.

A major advantage of the projected 27 “sea snakes” is their environmental impact. According to Barros, they will “save the equivalent of 60,000 tonnes a year of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.”

Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas, emissions of which are associated with global warming and climate change.

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Sep 17 2008 (IPS)

Nearly seven years after rebel leader Jonas Savimbi was killed in combat, Angolans are doing such brisk business with Portugal that the southern European country’s largest former colony in Africa has a double-digit economic growth rate.

In the past, it was the former colonial power that was making juicy profits from the immense opportunities offered by the reconstruction of Angola, after four decades of armed conflict: the 1961-1974 fight for independence against Portugal, and the 1975-2002 civil war.

Six and a half years after Savimbi’s early 2002 death ushered in peace in this southwest African country of 17 million, Angola is investing a fair proportion of the earnings from its thriving oil industry in different economic and financial sectors in Portugal.

Angolan investments in Portugal range from oil, banking, telecommunications and diamonds to vineyards producing the world famous port wines from Oporto and the Douro valley, real estate, cement and civil engineering.

In 2007, oil sales alone, which are completely controlled by the state monopoly Sonangol, brought 18.8 billion dollars into the Angolan state coffers. Foreign oil companies in Angola are only allowed to operate in association with Sonangol.

Angola is the world’s eighth largest oil producer, and the top producer in Africa, having overtaken Nigerian output in August.

What is the country doing with the petrodollars, earnings from diamonds, international aid for reconstruction and interest from oil money placed in off-shore tax havens?

Investing in Portugal is one of the strategies that has been successful, primarily for economic and financial reasons, but also because of the strong presence of the Angolan ruling class in Portuguese business circles.

Among them are Isabel dos Santos, the eldest daughter of Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos, and the daughter of General Manuel Hélder Vieira Dias Junior "Kopelipa", the president’s national security adviser and counterintelligence chief.

Large companies in Portugal and the Portuguese state itself see in their former African colony a chance to escape the current economic crisis, not only by investing in Angola but also welcoming investment in the other direction.

Apart from the fact that "we live in a globalised world with open markets, attracting Angolan capital is consistent with Portugal's history: it was a colonial power, but it has accepted 'colonisation' by the territories it had once conquered," Portuguese-Angolan entrepreneur Silvio de Paula told IPS.

"I am increasingly convinced of the truth of (15th century viceroy of Portugal's eastern empire) Afonso de Albuquerque's celebrated phrase: 'the mixing of races is the best dictionary of civilisations,' because in Lisbon, where I now live, I am a pure-bred Portuguese, but when I land in Africa I am completely Angolan, in spite of my light skin," he said.

This was de Paula's reply to IPS asking him about the excessively nationalistic tone taken by some sectors of Portuguese society that are displeased by the strong Angolan presence in key sectors of the economy.

Editorials in some newspapers, most of which were formerly far-left and have reinvented themselves as free-market neoliberal publications, have criticised the Portuguese government of socialist Prime Minister José Sócrates for negotiating energy deals with Angola and Venezuela, countries they describe as "dictatorial."

"I'm not defending dos Santos or (Venezuelan President Hugo) Chávez, but the fact is they have elections in their countries, while the same people who write these inflammatory editorials have never questioned oil deals with the mediaeval monarchical dictatorships in the Arabian peninsula," de Paula said.

The apparent aim is for Angolan investment in Portugal, which dos Santos described as a country of "old friends" during a recent visit by Sócrates, to match Portuguese investments in Angola.

The example was set by Sonangol, described by analysts Cesaltina Pinto, Clara Teixeira and Francisco Galope of the Portuguese weekly Visao as "an energy company with 10,000 workers which operates as a financial instrument of the regime."

With its debilitated economy, Portugal was only too pleased for Sonangol to become a major shareholder last year, when it acquired a 10 percent share in the Portuguese Commercial Bank-Millennium bcp (BCP). This year Sonangol wishes to increase its stake in BCP to 20 percent.

Américo Amorim (dubbed "the king of cork" because he controls 67 percent of the world market in cork oak bark) owns 33.34 percent of shares in Galp, the Portuguese state oil company, through his company Amorim Energia, and has become the richest man in Portugal. Sonangol holds a 45 percent stake in Amorim Energia.

These transactions were approved by Manuel Domingos Vicente, the head of Sonangol, who in February 2007 announced his intentions of listing the company on the Johannesburg and New York stock exchanges by the end of 2010.

Previously, Vicente decided to start globalising Sonangol assets by investing in Portugal, buying shares in BCP and Galp. However, he used his veto against Amorim's idea of allowing Russian natural gas firm Gazprom to acquire a stake in Amorim Energia, and has not denied that his refusal was aimed at preserving Sonangol's influence in the Portuguese company.

In May 2008, Vicente announced that Sonangol and the Atlantic Private Bank (BPA) of Angola had completed negotiations with BCP to acquire 49.9 percent of BCP's bank Millennium Angola. Sonangol also intends to purchase shares in the other Portuguese banks operating in Angola – the Banco do Espirito Santo (BES), the Banco Português de Investimento (BPI) and the state-controlled Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD).

As for the future, Angola has announced its interest in investing in Portugal Telecom, Electricidade de Portugal, and the pulp and paper company Portucel.

Isabel dos Santos, who attended university in Portugal, began her business career on completion of her studies and with her father's support, beginning with agreements negotiated with the Amorim Group, BES and Portugal Telecom.

After less than five years of economic and financial activity, the Angolan president's daughter has her own holding company, Gini, which owns a vast and complicated network of shares in sectors as diverse as telecommunications, cement and real estate.

Her father's chief adviser, Vieira Dias "Kopelipa", has invested in the vineyard regions of the Douro river in northern Portugal, acquiring several vineyards, wineries and olive groves that produce olive oil and vintage wines of excellent quality.

His other activities include an alliance with Portuguese entrepreneur Filipe Vilaça Barreiros Cardoso, with whom he founded the company Vieira Dias & Barreiros Cardoso, specialised in restoration work and tourism.

This powerful Angolan general's investments in Portugal are estimated at 10 billion dollars. In his own country, he also controls the Media-Nova group, in which the jewel in the crown is to be TV Zimbo, intended as the first free private television channel in Angola.

According to the three Visao analysts, "the message is clear: Angola wants to recover sovereignty over its economy."

The former colony is demanding a relationship between equals. For every Portuguese dollar invested in Angola, an Angolan dollar will be invested in Portugal.

Excerpt:

By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Sep 16 2008 (IPS)

Pressure from the president of the European Commission has not succeeded in advancing the cause of transgenic crops. In spite of the power wielded by the executive organ of the European Union, the bloc’s member countries are gradually discontinuing the use of genetically modified seeds.

This is due in large measure to the difficulty of convincing European farmers to adopt the transgenic crop production model, which is being promoted by biotech giants, but also to increasingly vociferous protests from civil society, which is demanding that governments take an active role, according to an expert interviewed by IPS.

Genetically modified (GM) organisms, also called transgenics, are made in laboratories by inserting genes from other species of plants or animals into their original DNA, in order to improve their properties or confer resistance to external factors like pests or insecticides. Vectors, often viruses or bacteria, are used to insert the foreign genes.

In Spain and Portugal, which have the largest areas in the EU devoted to GM maize cultivation, people are beginning to question the benefits of sowing and harvesting transgenic varieties of maize, a crop native to the Americas which was the staple food of a number of indigenous cultures.

Maize was slow to be introduced in Europe, because the Central American areas where it was grown were colonised by the Spanish at the time when the Roman Catholic Church was conducting the Inquisition, and they believed that Europeans should not eat the same food as indigenous peoples because, in their view, the latter were not “children of God.”

Widely used now as feed for animals, maize has been the subject of fierce controversy within the European Commission.

On the one hand, Commission President José Manuel Durão Barroso is in favour of significantly increasing the production of GM maize within the EU. On the other, European Commissioner for the Environment, Stavros Dimas, is dead set against it.

The European Commission works like a cabinet government and is made up of 27 Commissioners, one from each EU member state, although they must represent the interests of the EU as a whole, not just their home country.

In October 2007, Dimas opposed European Commission approval for cultivation in the EU of two GM varieties of maize, Bt-11 and 1507, because “possible long-term risks to the environment and biodiversity are not completely known, and environmental effects resulting from the cultivation of the GM maize lines are unacceptable.”

“However, the majority of the Commissioners are in favour of GM maize, and the final decision has been postponed twice because a consensus could not be reached,” Portuguese biologist Margarida Silva, the national coordinator of Plataforma Transgénicos Fora, comprising 12 Portuguese non-governmental organisations working on agriculture and the environment and networking with likeminded NGOs in the EU, told IPS.

Durão Barroso tried to convince Dimas to withdraw his objections in April, while simultaneously requesting an assessment by the European Food Safety Authority, “with the purpose of undermining the legitimacy of Dimas’ stance,” according to Silva, who is also a university professor.

Silva said that “the movement against transgenics is growing in civil society throughout Europe, and GM crops have already been banned in several countries.”

“There isn’t much that Europeans can do, but the power of numbers is still on our side, and we can use them to back Stavros Dimas,” she said.

EU policies on transgenics are based upon Regulation 1829 on GM food and fodder, adopted in 2003, and 2001 Directive 18 on the deliberate release of transgenics into the environment. According to these rules, cultivation and consumption of GM crops can only be authorised after rigorous assessment of their risks.

Research on risks to human and animal health is the responsibility of the European Food Safety Authority, but authorisation of GM plants and animals is ultimately up to lawmakers in each of the bloc’s member countries.

Maize, the crop at the centre of the transgenics debate, has an annual production of 677 million tonnes, mostly for animal feed. It is one of the four staple foods of humankind along with rice, wheat and potatoes, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Fifty-eight percent of total world maize production is grown in countries in the Americas, mainly in the United States, which is also the cradle of genetic engineering technology and transgenic organisms.

The United States is the world’s largest producer of maize and accounts for nearly half of global production. Large quantities of fertilisers and herbicides are used on its crops, which include hybrid and GM varieties.

Critics like Silva point out that it has been proven that the large amounts of weedkillers used on transgenic crops pollute the soil and endanger biodiversity.

Detractors of transgenics also say that pests affecting GM grains develop resistance to agrochemicals, so that ever higher doses must be applied, with all their negative effects on the environment.

The production of GM seeds for cultivation itself leads to extreme genetic uniformity between seeds, with a corresponding loss of the natural diversity of crop strains.

Environmentalists who oppose transgenics are unmoved by the argument that the higher productivity of these crops could increase food production and end world hunger.

“Feeding the world is not the goal, but rather boosting the export incomes of the big agribusiness companies that are currently involved in the GM industry,” Silva said.

Defenders of GM crops say that there is no other solution. If, as expected, the world’s population doubles over the next 40 years, food production will have to be increased by about 250 percent.

A huge, unified movement of people in favour of declaring a moratorium on the cultivation of GM crops has emerged in Spain and Portugal, following a similar decision taken in March by the French government that invoked the “safeguard clause” allowing an EU member state to bypass a community directive.

Silva said France based its decision “on a set of 25 scientific studies indicating risks to the environment, farming and human health derived from the cultivation of GM maize.”

In the southern Portuguese region of Alentejo, which covers one-third of the country’s 92,000 square kilometres of territory, “half of the farm units have given up growing transgenic crops,” Silva said.

Farmers prefer “more effective technology and practices, that pose fewer risks for the environment, human health, and their own pocketbooks,” she said. Although “in breach of the law, the Agriculture Ministry refuses to release statistics, the scenario in Portugal shows that a significant number of farmers first experiment with GM crops and then stop using them,” she said.

This phenomenon “is consistent with a recently published EU study of three regions in Spain, which found that growing transgenic maize offered no economic advantage over conventional maize to farmers in two of the areas,” Silva said.

The biologist said that GM maize has been experimented with in the Iberian Peninsula since 2005 by Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a seed company belonging to the U.S. DuPont group, and the Swiss corporation Syngenta, both “companies with a long history of agricultural pollution in Europe.”

In addition to Portugal, the products of these corporations “have already affected farmers in Germany, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Spain and Italy,” she said.

“Now that France, Hungary and Poland, Europe’s main cereals producers, have forbidden the use of GM maize in their territories, and Germany is in the process of following suit, the Iberian countries (Spain and Portugal) should take heed and do the same,” she said.

Silva was harshly critical of the Portuguese government for allowing the two corporations, in partnership, to experiment for three years in the municipalities of Monforte and Rio Maior, in the centre of the country, and in Ponte da Barca, in the north.

The green light given to Syngenta and Pioneer “makes no economic sense, is immoral, and jeopardises the green and natural image of those municipalities and their tourism potential. Approval has been granted to apply more herbicide, in a country that already suffers from excessive agrochemical use,” said Silva.

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By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Aug 20 2008 (IPS)

As the only alternative for preventing the disappearance of small-scale farming, farmers’ markets, rural slaughterhouses, taverns and traditional food products, Portugal has decided to interpret the strict European Union regulations on food safety with a domestic slant.

The increasingly stringent EU regulations had begun to pose a serious threat to a sector that is important to the Portuguese economy: gastronomy based on home cooking and artisanal products, for which, along with sun and beaches, this southern European country is famous.

To remain in step with the EU, Lisbon created a special police body, whose agents are the most feared and hated by a populace accustomed to devouring tasty dishes often prepared with food that comes from small producers.

Portugal went from a near total lack of food safety oversight to the other extreme, furnishing the new Agency for Food and Economic Security (ASAE) with exceptional powers.

Armed ASAE officers who would show up wearing masks – to avoid being identified – to carry out their inspections began to shut down markets, small taverns, farms, and small cheese shops and bakeries producing traditional delicacies.

But in the face of the public outcry in a country where laws and regulations are not always so strictly enforced, the government of socialist Prime Minister José Sócrates was forced to backtrack, and decided to adapt EU food safety regulations to the Portuguese reality – and to the need to continue attracting tourists.

Small-scale production will now be less complicated. Selling eggs, honey or fish in small quantities will be simpler, and will face fewer safety and hygiene restrictions. Artisans and cottage industry food producers are now exempt from having to secure special licences, and more flexible rules will apply to the small-scale slaughter of livestock.

“A series of legislative measures, circulars, messages and reports targeting small-scale, traditional producers and artisans have come out in the last few days, with the aim of improving their chances of survival,” economic analyst Carla Aguiar, an expert on the food industry with the Lisbon newspaper Diario de Noticias, told IPS Tuesday.

But the great majority of traditional producers “are unfamiliar with these new regulations and do not know how to defend themselves from the ASAE,” she added.

A joint communiqué issued by the economy and agriculture ministries in late July explained the simplified hygiene conditions that would enable small-scale food producers to continue supplying their customers, which are mainly taverns, restaurants and small shops.

To loosen the restrictions, Portugal invoked provisions of the 2004 and 2005 EU regulations allowing member countries to establish their own rules for small-scale producers in the case of certain foods.

The new Portuguese government rules set upper limits on what classifies as small-scale production for each product, including homegrown eggs, honey, fish and seafood, beef, poultry and wild game. Producers must also register with the national veterinary office.

The nationally adapted EU regulations allow small producers to make their products at home – a provision that especially favours the production of a broad range of traditional cheeses and preserves.

But “the government initiative emerged after several complaints from producers and the break out of the controversy surrounding the ASAE,” said Aguiar.

The modus operandi followed by the ASAE triggered howls of outrage. In the fierce public discussion, respected intellectuals, defending traditional products, pointed out that culinary traditions form part of a country’s culture.

Some writers and filmmakers went to the extreme of comparing the ASAE to the Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado (PIDE), the secret police that operated during Portugal’s 1926-1974 dictatorship.

Aguiar quoted Professor Xavier Malcata, director of the department of biotechnology at the Catholic University of Oporto, who said cases of food poisoning generally do not involve traditional products.

Malcata, who has been studying food safety and protection for two decades and was granted the International Leadership Award by the International Association for Food Protection, “has assumed the role of standard bearer in the defence of traditional Portuguese products,” said the analyst.

She again quoted Malcata, who described ASAE’s performance as “autistic,” and warned that overly ambitious oversight could spell catastrophe for Portugal’s traditional heritage. The professor specifically referred to sausage shops and bakeries, “two gastronomic treasures associated with certain regions, which have to do with centuries of cultural evolution, with our own ethnic identity.”

“Probiotic yoghurt,” a fashionable, innovative product, only offers economic gains to a few big companies, while “the quality of traditional products, a factor that distinguishes Portugal from other countries,” is ignored, and current legislation “favours foreign specialties,” says Malcata.

The professor also laments “ASAE’s excesses with respect to traditional products,” and said that while oversight is necessary, it must be carried out “in dialogue with us and with associations of food producers.”

He said the food safety police, who answer to the Economy Ministry, should understand that “laws are not dogmas, and should act with common sense and not be more papist than the Pope.”

He also recommends reasonable enforcement and oversight that takes into account the fact that “large producers are the main repeat offenders.”

Aguiar agrees with Malcata that eating involves a certain level of risk. “Food cannot be completely risk-free, and eating is a calculated risk. Zero risk? Not even in Norway,” she said.

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