News stories by Mario de Queiroz, page 2

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.'

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.

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...

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.