PORTUGAL: Legal Abortion After Decades of Struggle

It took more than three decades of struggle by activists for Portugal to give the green light, via referendum, to parliament to make the country's strict anti-abortion law more flexible.

PORTUGAL: Graphic Leaflets Backfire on Anti-Abortionists

Just when those in favour of legalising abortion in Portugal were faltering in the polls, a hair-raising campaign against voluntary termination of pregnancy could backfire against the anti-abortion cause, instead of winning over more supporters.

PORTUGAL-BRAZIL: Cod Reigns over the Christmas Banquet

In early December, large advertising hoardings went up in Portuguese cities, depicting a group of turkeys saying "Thank you, Norwegian cod! You saved our lives again this year!"

MIGRATION-PORTUGAL: Government Tables Ambitious Integration Goals

Immigrant associations, human rights organisations and groups against racism are discreetly applauding the measures announced this week by the Portuguese government to encourage fuller integration of immigrants who are in the country legally. But what the activists really want are results.

AFRICA: A Continent of Orphans

War, AIDS, malaria, cholera and famine have gradually turned Africa into a continent full of orphaned children and teenagers.

MIGRATION-PORTUGAL: Starting a New Life With Microcredit

Starting one's own business on borrowed money is no easy task in Portugal for an unemployed or retired person, or one lacking advanced professional qualifications, even if the loan is small and payable in instalments.

ENERGY-SAO TOMe AND PRiNCIPE: ‘Promised Land’ Beckons, Under the Sea

The small West African island nation of Sao Tomé and Príncipe is one of the poorest countries in the world, but there are grounds for hope that conditions there may soon improve considerably.

ENERGY: Portugal Cedes Control of Major Dam to Mozambique

With the handover of control of the Cahora Bassa dam to Mozambique Tuesday, the governments of that southeast African nation and Portugal brought more than 30 years of negotiations to a close and guaranteed the energy independence of one of Africa's poorest countries.

EAST TIMOR: Worst Violence in Months

After centuries of Portuguese colonialism and more than two decades of military occupation by Indonesia, instability and violence continue to plague East Timor, one of the world's newest and poorest nations.

PORTUGAL: Voters to Decide on Legal Abortion in Referendum

With Thursday's approval of a motion by the governing Socialist Party to hold a referendum on the decriminalisation of abortion, the Portuguese parliament gave a green light to the battle to remove the country from the list of European nations with the strictest laws against abortion.

PORTUGAL-BRAZIL: Human Trafficking and Marriages – Another Link

Brazil’s influence in Portugal is not limited to music, television programming, football, cuisine and tropical beach vacations.

MIGRATION-EUROPE: Young Foreign Workers Shore Up Pension Systems

The contributions of young immigrants from the developing South hold out a solution for pension systems in the European Union, where rapid population ageing is placing heavy pressure on social security.

ENERGY-PORTUGAL: Riding the Wave of the Future

Atlantic Ocean waves are to light up 1,500 homes in the north of Portugal. The first 2.25 megawatts of electricity produced from wave power will be brought ashore at Aguçadoura, on the northern coast, as of October.

ENVIRONMENT-PORTUGAL: Lack of Waste Treatment Mortgages the Future

Portugal recycles less of its chemical waste than any of the other 15 countries that were members of the European Union (EU) prior to April 2004, according to a recent report by the British Institute for Public Policy Research.

ENVIRONMENT-PORTUGAL: Summer Heat and Forest Fire Hell

In just two weeks of the northern hemisphere's hottest month, fires raged through 36,000 hectares of forest in Portugal and 89,000 in the northwestern Spanish region of Galicia. And history keeps on repeating itself every August in these two lands with similar languages, customs and geography.

IMMIGRATION: Portugal Opens Doors, Bucks EU Trend

A decision reached Thursday by Portugal's Council of Ministers to facilitate the legalisation of undocumented migrants is a significant step towards integrating more than half a million foreign workers into society at large, and at the same time runs counter to the European trend of ever tighter border controls.

ANGOLA: Peace in Cabinda, the Enclave Between the Two Congos

Tuesday's signing of a Memorandum of Understanding for Peace and Reconciliation in Cabinda marks the end of 45 years of violence afflicting this Angolan province, the richest in the country because of its oil, gold, diamonds, phosphate, uranium, potassium and exotic woods.

EAST TIMOR: Arrest, Weapons Handover Move Crisis Management Forward

Few would have predicted that April's protests in East Timor would spiral into a deadly spree of ethnic and personal settling of scores in yet another blow to the world's youngest country.

ENVIRONMENT DAY-PORTUGAL: One-Way Trip to Disaster

Portugal is facing catastrophe as it heads down a path marked by rising emissions of greenhouse gases, wasteful use of water, unbridled construction activity and coastal erosion, environmentalists warn.

RIGHTS-EUROPE: Cracking Down on Corporal Punishment of Children

Zero tolerance for the use of physical punishment against children and all forms of domestic violence was the policy consensus reached when the Council of Europe (CE) turned its attention to family matters in Lisbon this week.

PORTUGAL: Brazilian Families Resettle the Heartland

Four Brazilian families came to live in Portugal this month, as the advance party of another 250 families intent on fulfilling their European dream, and at the same time to stem the depopulation of rural areas in this country.