HEALTH-ANGOLA: Cholera Killing 25 People a Day

Health authorities have been unable to contain the cholera outbreak sweeping through Angola, a country considered to have some of the greatest potential for wealth and economic growth in Africa.

INT’L LABOUR DAY: Portugal Opens Doors to East European Workers

Along with Spain and Finland, Portugal will open up its borders on May 1 to workers from the eight central and East European countries that joined the European Union (EU) two years ago.

ENVIRONMENT-PORTUGAL: Nearly Half of All Species Under Threat

The fragmentation and destruction of rural habitats due to the construction of motorways, dams and urban centres, the modernisation of agriculture, depredation by human beings and diseases are the main threats to biodiversity in Portugal.

PORTUGAL: Green Light to Mistreatment of Disabled Children

In a verdict that shocked human rights and child advocacy organisations, the bar association and the country's leading analysts, Portugal's Supreme Court ruled that corporal punishment of children with mental disabilities in a children's institution is not illegal.

RIGHTS-PORTUGAL: State Ordered to Pay Damages to Child Sex Abuse Victims

In a legal decision that has no precedent in Portugal, the state was found guilty of failing to protect wards of the state who were victims of sexual abuse for at least two decades.

INTERVIEW WITH JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: WHERE DID THE MILLIONS IN EAST TIMOR AID END UP?

His name is mentioned with increasing frequency in predictions of who will succeed Kofi Annan as Secretary-General of the United Nations, but Jose Ramos-Horta, foreign minister for East Timor, denies it, though not emphatically: \'\'I continue to say that I\'m not a candidate for Secretary-General, at least for now,\'\' he stated during a visit to Lisbon. Ramos-Horta is the chief diplomat of the youngest country in the world, born on May 22, 2002, after almost five centuries of Portuguese colonisation and twenty-two years of occupation by Indonesia, which ended with the genocide of a third of the territory\'s population, which was 660,000 in 1975. His indefatigable international activity against the occupation by Indonesia brought him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996, together with the bishop of Timor, Jose Ximenes Belo.

AFRICA: Casamance, Bloody Legacy of the Colonial Division of the Continent

The fighting that has been going on for four days between army troops in Guinea-Bissau and Senegalese separatists from the Movement of the Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC) reopened an almost century-old wound.

ECONOMY-ANGOLA: Fast Growth Opens Up Vast Opportunities

With government forecasts of 27.9 percent economic growth for 2006, Angola is looking more and more attractive to foreign investors, especially from Portugal, who are flocking to the former Portuguese colony.

PORTUGAL: Nationality Extended to Second and Third-Generation Immigrants

A new law approved Thursday by the Portuguese parliament which extends the right of nationality to second- and third-generation immigrants is a key step in fighting the social exclusion suffered by many of the roughly 600,000 immigrants and their descendants living in this southern European nation, according to parties along the political spectrum as well as non-governmental organisations.

ENVIRONMENT-PORTUGAL: Dismal Outlook Despite Recent Innovations

There is little good news on the environmental front in Portugal, which has been afflicted by severe drought and forest fires for nearly three years, and is making poor progress towards climate change goals.

PORTUGAL: Asylum for African Refugees Stranded in the Desert

For 12 African refugees who finally found shelter in Portugal, the violence, persecution and abuses that they thought they had left behind in their home countries were still present during their long journeys, when they were abandoned to their fate in the middle of the Sahara desert.

ECONOMY-EU: Portugal – Still Lagging

Two decades after the two Iberian Peninsula nations joined the European community, Portugal's economy has remained at a virtual standstill for the last five consecutive years, while Spain has surged forward to become the world's eighth largest economic power, overtaking Canada.

POPULATION-PORTUGAL: Getting Older and Older

The Portuguese population is getting older and older, people are marrying less frequently and later, and the net birth rate is close to zero, according to the latest figures published by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

HUMAN RIGHTS: Slavery Not Just a Thing of the Past

African, Latin American or eastern European women searching for a better life in the European Union, children labouring in clothing and footwear factories in southeast Asia, young single men who lack skills and training or even the ability to read and write: these are the faces of slavery in the early 21st century.

/ARTS WEEKLY/LITERATURE: Will the Real Bond Please Stand Up?

Was there ever a real superspy like James Bond, Her Majesty's secret agent with a licence to kill? A resounding "No" was the answer given by Dusan "Dusko" Popov, himself the real character who inspired writer Ian Fleming to create agent 007.

AFRICA-PORTUGAL: Three Decades After Last Colonial Empire Came to an End

The 30th anniversary of Angola's independence, commemorated this month, also marked the same period of time since nearly six centuries of European colonialism in Africa came to an end.

PORTUGAL: EU Membership Has Not Spelled Wealth for All

Nearly two decades after Portugal joined the wealthy European Union, poverty and social exclusion continue to plague a full 20 percent of the population.

POLITICS: European Right Divided Over Islam, Enlargement

Three days did not suffice for a consensus to be reached among the right and centre-right forces in the European Union (EU), which are divided over the future composition of the bloc, and even more so over relations with the Muslim world.

PORTUGAL: Second and Third Generation Foreigners

The growing influx of immigrants from former Portuguese colonies over the last half century has led to the emergence of a new status in Portugal: that of the eternal foreigner.

PORTUGAL: Controversy Burns Over Sensationalist TV Coverage of Fires

The heavy live television coverage of the forest fires that have swept Portugal this summer has sparked critics' complaints of sensationalism and warnings of the danger of encouraging arsonists.

GUINEA-BISSAU: Low-Cost Treatment in Cholera Epidemic Could Save Many Lives

Guinea Bissau is about to run out of intravenous fluids and equipment essential to the low-cost life-saving treatment for cholera, which has claimed 112 lives in this tiny West African nation since June. An additional 6,420 patients are still at risk.