Halloween promotion was not intended to be ‘insensitive reference’ to historical events
McDonald’s in Portugal has apologised for using the slogan “Sundae Bloody Sundae” in a Halloween campaign for its ice-cream puddings.
It appears the chain decided to celebrate the spooky season with a two-for-one offer on the strawberry dessert and a nod to the early U2 song Sunday Bloody Sunday.
Continue reading...Socialists now have incentive to govern alone rather than seeking formal alliance
Portugal’s Socialists won Sunday’s general elections but fell short of an absolute majority, leaving the prime minister, António Costa, needing to negotiate a delicate new alliance with the far-left parties that backed him last time around.
Cementing a modest and partial recovery for Europe’s centre-left after a disastrous few years of fallout from the 2008 financial crisis, the Socialists won 106 seats, up from 86 in the previous parliament, against 77 for the opposition centre-right Social Democrats (PSD), their worst result since 1983.
Continue reading...António Costa bucks the trend of declining fortunes for Europe’s left, but remains short of an outright majority
Portuguese prime minister António Costa’s Socialist party has won the country’s general election but has fallen short of an outright majority, according to exit polls.
The Socialists (PS) took 36.65% of the vote, followed by the centre-right Social Democrats (PSD) with 27.9%, according to near total results released by the interior ministry early on Monday.
Continue reading...A small but growing number of investors are hoping to reverse the slow-motion decline of rural areas
The decade has not been kind to Manteigas. Nestled in the mountains in the Portuguese interior, this pretty town has suffered a familiar kind of slow-motion decline.
“Once the factories started closing, then the schools closed, the shops closed, even the chapel closed,” says Maria José Santos Salvado, a wizard with needle and thread who was laid off as a textile patcher when her factory shut in 2011. “All the young people left. Manteigas became a town of old people.”
Continue reading...UK police have updated family of 29-year-old Joel Eldridge about the development
Portuguese police investigating the disappearance of a man from East Sussex have discovered a body.
Joel Eldridge, 29, from Bexhill, was living in Macieira, near Serta in Portugal, when his family last heard from him in mid-July last year.
Continue reading...Prosecutors in Las Vegas say that Juventus star Cristiano Ronaldo will not face criminal charges over allegations he raped a woman at a Las Vegas hotel in 2009.
After reviewing a police investigation into the claims, Clark County district attorney Steve Wolfson said on Monday there is not enough evidence to prove the allegations beyond reasonable doubt, and no charges will be filed.
Continue reading...About 1,800 firefighters struggle to contain blazes that have injured at least 20 people
About 1,800 firefighters have been struggling to contain wildfires in central Portugal that have injured 20 people, including eight firefighters.
The fires broke out on Saturday across three fronts in the district of Castelo Branco, about 125 miles (200km) north-east of Lisbon, Portugal’s civil protection agency said.
Continue reading...In 2001, a smugglers’ yacht washed up in the Azores and disgorged its contents. The island of São Miguel was quickly flooded with high-grade cocaine – and nearly 20 years on, it is still feeling the effects.
By Matthew Bremner
Around midday on 6 June 2001, locals from Pilar da Bretanha, a parish on the northwestern tip of the Atlantic island São Miguel, saw a white yacht, about 40 feet long, drifting aimlessly near the area’s sheer cliffs. None of the villagers had ever seen a boat of this size floating so close to that part of the coast, where the sea was shallow, the tides strong and the rocks razor-sharp. They supposed it was an amateur sailor who had got lost.
In fact, the man sailing the boat was a skilled seaman. Two Italian passports, a Spanish passport and a Spanish national ID card were later found in his possession, all of which showed the same 44-year-old with weathered skin and dark curly hair. But each of the four documents listed a different name. In the previous three months, he had crossed the Atlantic twice, sailing more than 3,000 miles from the Canary Islands, just west of Morocco, to north-east Venezuela, and then back again, to São Miguel, 1,000 miles west of Portugal.
Continue reading...Bus was reportedly carrying 55 passengers, most of them German, when it veered off a road on a bend before rolling down a hill
At least twenty-nine people, mostly German tourists, have died and a further 28 have been injured after a tourist bus overturned on the Portuguese island of Madeira, local media have reported.
A battered white bus on its side surrounded by firefighters could be seen in photos published by Portuguese media, while SIC Television said there were 19 ambulances at the scene following the accident, which occurred around 5.30pm GMT.
Continue reading...A viral video of police violence has brought national attention to the long-ghettoised community in Bairro da Jamaica
From time to time, cars of curious people drive slowly though Bairro da Jamaica, craning their necks for a peek at the neighbourhood that’s been in the headlines across Portugal for several days now. None of them step out of their vehicles.
They’re here to look at the broken glass, the smashed roof tiles and the evidence of last week’s violence. The tallest of the bairro’s self-built housing towers is now derelict, fenced off with yellow tape and awaiting demolition; the others are also scheduled to be torn down, but are still occupied for now.
Continue reading...With the tourism explosion affecting even smaller cities such as Porto, visitors and locals alike are looking for more ‘authentic’ days out. But is that possible?
“From this point on, we’re going to be trespassing,” announces Margarida Castro casually. “Everyone comfortable with that, right?”
Our group of eight follow her across the threshold of an abandoned house in central Porto, Portugal’s second city. This once-sleepy, cobble-paved place is turning into one of Europe’s hottest tourist destinations, thanks in no small part to sweetener deals with low-cost airlines and a sophisticated government marketing drive.
Continue reading...