Back-to-work measures tightened in Lisbon and Porto as COVID-19 cases rise

115tightened measuresStricter measures will be adopted in Portugal’s two biggest cities to contain a worrying rise in coronavirus cases as workers slowly return to offices and pupils gear up to go back to schools, Prime Minister Antonio Costa said this Thursday.

Costa seeks to resuscitate Portugal’s economy by using EU cash to ‘invest fairly in everything’

114resusciate economySix years ago, when José Manuel Durão Barroso was president of the European Commission, he called the 26 billion that Portugal could access from EU community funds a “mass bandage”. Since then a new threat has shaken up the country’s economy, and a new “mass bandage” is on the horizon, in fact a much bigger one than in 2014,

Portugal reports 646 new coronavirus cases, record daily jump since April 20

114virus recordPortugal has reported 646 new coronavirus cases this Wednesday, the highest daily toll since April 20, with transmission primarily occurring in family households, health secretary Jamila Madeira told a news conference today.

Epidemiological situation in Portugal among the most unfavourable in Europe

113virus situationThe Minister of Health, Marta Temido, made a speech yesterday following a meeting on COVID-19 between Portuguese experts and policy makers, which took place at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto, hammering home that “Portugal is well prepared to face the a phase”.

Two thousand bird boxes installed throughout Algarve to encourage repopulation of rare species

113bird boxThe Algarve will receive about two thousand bird nesting boxes, which will be supervised by the Institute for Nature and Forest Conservation (ICNF). The initiative won the 2018 National Participatory Budget and results from a collaboration between the Vita Nativa Association, based in Olhão, and the Institute for Nature and Forest Conservation (ICNF).

UK government ‘travel-corridor roulette’ devastates Portuguese tourist industry prospects

112travel rouletteTwo weeks ago when the UK government added Portugal to the travel corridor list, the chairman of Sunvil, Noel Josephides, issued a statement saying he was delighted to start selling holidays to Portugal again, “just in time for the last couple of weeks of the peak summer season, but also in time for the glorious autumnal months of September and October, right into November”.

Quarantine 'confusion' for UK as Wales and Scotland put Portugal on no-go list

112quarantine confusionTravellers from Portugal to the United Kingdom faced what the UK’s transport minister said was wild confusion this Friday as Wales and Scotland slapped a quarantine on arrivals from Portugal but, England and Northern Ireland held back from restrictions.

Portuguese activists take 33 countries to European Court over climate change

111climate changeYoung activists from Portugal have filed the first climate change case at the European court of human rights in Strasbourg, demanding 33 countries make more ambitious emissions cuts to safeguard their future physical and mental wellbeing.