US President Barack Obama has been accused of doing Downing Street's bidding

Backlash after Barack Obama EU referendum intervention

• 2 hours ago
 
• From the sectionEU Referendum

US President Barack Obama has been accused of doing Downing Street's bidding - after he said the UK would be at "the back of the queue" for American trade deals if it left the EU.

Mr Obama was criticised by pro-Brexit campaigners after he warned of the consequences of the UK leaving the EU.

UKIP's Nigel Farage said Mr Obama was "talking down Britain", while Tory Liam Fox said his views were "irrelevant".#

Mr Obama, on a three-day UK visit, will meet Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn later.

In a speech in London, the US president urged young people to "reject pessimism and cynicism" and to "know that progress is possible and our problems can be solved".

"Progress is not inevitable," he said and must be fought for. "Take a longer, more optimistic view of history."

Mr Obama's intervention on the EU issue came on his first full day in the UK and comes just weeks ahead of the 23 June in-out referendum.

• 'Queen is my favourite person' - Obama
• Johnson accused of Obama ancestry slur
• In pictures: Barack Obama in the UK

Speaking at a joint news conference with Prime Minister David Cameron on Friday, Mr Obama said the US "wants Britain's influence to grow - including within Europe".

"The UK is at its best when it's helping to lead a strong European Union. It leverages UK power to be part of the EU.

"I don't think the EU moderates British influence in the world, it magnifies it."

Europa League qualification.

Down to the wire

Benfica and Sporting won their weekend matches by the narrowest of margins to leave it ‘as you were’ at the top of the Primeira Liga.

With FC Porto and SC Braga contesting the Portuguese Cup final, a sixth place finish will guarantee Europa League qualification.
Four teams are in contention to finish fifth and sixth with Rio Ave and new boys Arouca looking favourites.

Benfica were a goal down in just fourteen seconds at home to Vitória de Setúbal thanks to a André Claro strike. Top scorer Jonas and former Olhanense centre-back Jardel scored within five minutes of each other midway through the first-half to turn around the result.
Benfica dominated the first-half and should have put the game to bed, but some wayward finishing combined with excellent goalkeeping from Luís Nunes kept the score at 2-1 at the interval.
It appeared that the Eagles would be picking up the three points until stoppage time when Pizzi played an awful back pass straight into the path of Vitória forward Arnold but the alert Benfica keeper Ederson rushed out of his box to prevent a dramatic equaliser.
The reigning champions have now won twenty-one and lost just one of their last twenty-three league games. Sporting Lisbon stay two points behind the leaders after a disjointed 1-0 victory at Moreirense.
Hot shot Slimani tapped in a Schelotto cross after fifteen minutes although replays showed the Algerian marksman benefited from an offside position. Just before the interval Sporting had the ball in the net again, but this time Téo Gutierrez’s strike was ruled out for offside but TV replays suggested the linesman got it wrong again.
On the day that FC Porto president Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa was re-elected club president, continuing his 34-year reign at the helm of the club, the Dragons put recent poor results behind them with a commanding 4-0 home victory over Nacional. Silvestre Varela netted after just two minutes and Mexican midfielder Hector Herrera soon added a second.
Danilo and Aboubakar increased the tally in the second-half. Paços de Ferreira and Estoril are still in with a shout of playing European football next season. Paços moved into seventh following a thrilling 4-3 win at União da Madeira, teenage sensation Diogo Jota scoring the winner in the final minute.
The 19-year-old, who has been sold to Atletico Madrid, has now notched thirteen goals in all competitions this season. Estoril edged past Boavista thanks to a late Paulo Vinicius own goal.

Around 400 people are arrested by GNR police

Police make hundreds of arrests

IN NEWS · 21-04-2016 14:23:00 · 0 COMMENTS

GNR police have, over the course of this past week, arrested 395 people as part of a nationwide crackdown on road offences.

In a statement on the week’s activity, the force said 145 people were detained for drunk-driving, 62 for driving without a licence, 29 for drug trafficking, 12 for theft and two for being in possession of an illegal weapon.  

The operation took place between 8 and 14 April and a large amount of drugs were also removed from the country’s cars.
This was followed by news that PSP police had arrested 61 people this past weekend in Lisbon, the majority of them for driving while under the influence of alcohol.
In just 24 hours officers arrested 25 people for drunk-driving, 12 for drug trafficking, three for robbery and four for theft.
People were also detained for driving without a licence and carrying illegal weapons.
The arrests took place during operations staged between 9am on Saturday morning and 9am Sunday morning, in Lisbon, Oeiras, Sintra and Loures.

Portugal’s new cars among EU’s ‘cleanest’

New cars in Portugal among EU’s ‘cleanest’

BY TPN/ LUSA, IN NEWS · 21-04-2016 14:31:00 · 0 COMMENTS

Portugal is the second best European country in average CO2 emissions per kilometre for new cars sold last year, the European Environment Agency said.

An EEA report out late last week said that 178,686 new passenger cars were sold in Portugal last year, with an average emission of 105.7 grams of CO2 per kilometre.
Out of that number, 123,100 were diesel driven, or some 69 percent of the total, 53,700 used petrol and 672 were electric, a few more than the 641 gas-driven vehicles.
Only Holland had a better result than Portugal, with average emissions of 101.2 grams of CO2.
In the European Union (EU) as a whole, new cars bought last year emitted an average of 119.6 grams of CO2 per kilometre, eight percent less than the target set for 2015. The objective for 2021 is to get to 95 grams. 

Algarve is the safest destination of world

Algarve chases safest destination title

The Portuguese Government has this week unveiled plans to make the Algarve into “Europe’s safest tourist destination.” The objective was laid out by Home Affairs Secretary Jorge Gomes during a visit to Albufeira, the Algarve’s most popular tourist destination.

According to Jorge Gomes, the project, known as ‘Algarve – A Safe Destination’ is based on implementing measures such as the creation of “efficient coordination and fiscalisation instruments”, especially in terms of border controls, which has become increasingly topical in the European context of fighting the growing terror threat.

In comments to Diário de Notícias, the State Secretary added that other target areas will be the combatting of illegal immigration, of human, arms and drug trafficking and the seizing of contraband and counterfeit goods.
Jorge Gomes further revealed that the campaign will be focused on creating a “sense of safety and security among foreign and national tourists alike.”
In order to assist the government in this move, a permanent safety analysis will be conducted through the use of statistical information.
The project, according to the State Secretary, is to have five focal points of interaction: Tourism offices, a smartphone app to deal with tourists’ needs and queries, visible ‘tourism teams’, teams to deal with tourists after they have been the victim of a crime and a mixed police force that will include officers from across the border.
The Government has also called on the Civil Protection Unit to work at reducing risks.
This, explained Jorge Gomes, will be achieved by improving warning alert systems and keeping people better informed in order to “create communities which are more resilient to serious accidents and catastrophes.”
He also revealed that in order to enhance contact between authorities and local populations, a process of decentralisation will be encouraged, whereby decisions are made by people on the ground as opposed to central government.
This news comes as the hotels and resorts in the Algarve are once again preparing for all existing tourism records to be broken.
While domestic tourism recorded a slight fall last year in the Algarve in numbers from 1.1 million in 2014 to just over a million, foreign tourists have been boosting levels in recent years and reached 2.5 million in 2015.
Both the PSP and GNR police forces are currently finalising their plans for the annual summer boost in officers in the region and will once again pay particular attention to Albufeira, Portimão, Tavira, Lagos, Vilamoura and Faro, and will be taking into consideration what is expected to be the largest influx of tourists the region has ever seen over the summer months.
Algarve Tourism President Desidério Silva has meanwhile come out in support of the government’s initiative, telling Diário de Notícias that bearing in mind that there are a number of traditional tourist destination in the midst of conflicts, markets are looking for safer destinations.
“We want the Algarve to be the safest destination in Europe because this will bring the right results”, the RTA chief said.

Portugal ,Algarve – world’s best place to retire and live

Portugal ,Algarve – world’s best place to retire

I

The Huffington Post has on Thursday listed 11 reasons why it believes the Algarve is the world’s best place to retire or live right now.

Among the reasons listed by the publication, that Portugal’s Algarve qualifies not only as a top lifestyle option in Europe, but as the world’s best place to live or retire, include the usual arguments of great weather, great beaches and golf.
But it also mentions safety, international standard healthcare, affordable cost of living and healthy living as more reasons to live in the region.

EU Parliament approves handing over passenger data to non-EU states

The new directive regulating the use of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data in the EU for the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of terrorist offences and serious crime has been approved by the European Parliament.

The new regulation will now oblige airlines to hand national authorities passengers’ data for all flights from third countries to the EU and vice versa.
“We have adopted an important new tool for fighting terrorists and traffickers. By collecting, sharing and analysing PNR information, our intelligence agencies can detect patterns of suspicious behaviour to be followed up.

“PNR is not a silver bullet, but countries that have national PNR systems have shown time and again that it is highly effective”, said Parliament’s rapporteur for the proposal, and British MEP Timothy Kirkhope.
“There were understandable concerns about the collection and storage of people’s data, but I believe that the directive puts in place data safeguards, as well as proving that the law is proportionate to the risks we face. EU governments must now get on with implementing this agreement”, Mr Kirkhope added.
The text was approved by 461 votes to 179, with 9 abstentions.
Member states will have to set up “Passenger Information Units” (PIUs) to manage the PNR data collected by air carriers. This information will have to be retained for a period of five years, but after six months, the data will be “masked out”, i.e., stripped of the elements, such as name, address and contact details that may lead to the identification of individuals.
PIUs will be responsible for collecting, storing and processing PNR data, for transferring them to the competent authorities and for exchanging them with the PIUs of other member states and with Europol.
The directive states that such transfers shall only be made “on a case-by-case basis” and exclusively for the specific purposes of “preventing, detecting, investigating or prosecuting terrorist offences or serious crime”.
The directive is to apply to “extra-EU flights”, but member states could also extend it to “intra-EU” ones (i.e. from an EU country to one or more other EU countries), provided that they notify the EU Commission.
EU countries may also choose to collect and process PNR data from travel agencies and tour operators (non-carrier economic operators), since they also manage flight bookings.
National PIUs will have to appoint a data protection officer responsible for monitoring the processing of PNR data and implementing the related safeguards.
Access to the full PNR data set, which enables users to immediately identify the data subject, should be granted only under very strict and limited conditions after the initial retention period.
All processing of PNR data should be logged or documented.
There is explicit prohibition of processing personal data revealing a person´s race or ethnic origin, political opinions, religion or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, health, sexual life or sexual orientation.
Review clause:

The EU Commission will have to carry out a revision of the EU PNR directive two years after its transposition into national laws. It must pay special attention to compliance with personal data protection standards, the necessity and proportionality of collecting and processing PNR data for each of the stated purposes, the length of the data retention period, and also “the effectiveness of the sharing of data between the member states”.

Following Parliament´s approval, the proposal needs now to be formally approved by the Council. Once published in the EU Official Journal of the EU, member states will have two years to transpose it into their national laws.