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Portugal

Find that calm point in yourself

Erika Dux (65), a doctor of medicine from the University of Düsseldorf and trained in a wide range of additional disciplines, such as Chinese-Japanese Bo-Meridian Shiatsu therapy, has been living in Portugal for 35 years and works privately as a doctor. She has three grown–up daughters. Why do people become ill? I’m afraid I really can’t answer that question for you. What are the causes of illness? For different reasons: people get an infection, have a genetic illness or a metabolic disorder, or are affected by exhaustion and intoxication caused by pollution, environmental degradation, or precarious housing. How do you …

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Nature is alive!

Indigenous forest A current website recently attracted my journalistic attention. Here I must point out that I only recommend websites these days where the creators identify themselves with their name and address. I no longer look at anonymous rubbish as a matter of principle. I do the same with telephone calls. I do not waste valuable time or my attention on people who call me from hidden numbers. As the creators of this website worked in a transparent way, I simply rang them up and asked them for an interview on the topic that had led them to put this …

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Think global. Act local.

Think global. Act local.

ECO123 met Vítor Aleixo (aged 64), the Mayor of Loulé, in the corridor of the Town Hall at 8:45 am. He approaches us and takes a bunch of keys from his pocket. He finds the right key, opens the large door and invites us to go into his office. We want to know how he manages the political balance between the tourism economy and climate change. Good morning, Mayor. What does a politician need to bring to his role, in order to strengthen trust in the democratic system? A politician has to uphold ethical principles and values ​​of respect for …

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No strong democracy is based on losers

The year is 2030. There’s no one sleeping in the streets in Portugal any more. No one has to stand queuing at the soup kitchens of the charitable associations. The beggars have disappeared. The universal basic income in the social state of the 21st century arrived in southern Europe during Covid-19. Portugal, the smallest of the five southern EU countries, decided ten years ago to provide each of its citizens with a basic income. The EU’s pilot scheme began in 2021. Prime Minister António Costa and his government, which had had a stable majority in a coalition in parliament with …

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António Vieira da Silva

António Vieira da Silva
A citizen has the right to live with the minimum

The former Minister of Labour (68) considers the unconditional basic income (BGE) to be an exciting and challenging topic, but it is more a utopia than a reality. José António Vieira da Silva, supports a social model governed by the right to work and the entitlement to the corresponding retirement subsidy, and he fears that the introduction of the UBI model, which has been widely disseminated, could create a ‘bipolar’ society divided into two classes. ECO123: Last year, the one hundredth anniversary of the creation of this ministry was celebrated. Would the introduction of the UBI be a good way …

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to be or to have

TO BE or TO HAVE

Do you look for solutions at Karuna? Yes, yes. That’s why we built it in 1992. It can give us solutions, it can receive solutions. This is not a closed space. It can receive too. What will be happening here this year? We organise silent retreats. If people feel that they haven’t changed internally, Karuna will help to look inside, to be certain about what we are doing, to be correct. Would you like to tell us a story from your childhood? Yes, I would. It’s a story that I guard closely, a story between me and my father. My …

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The Trigger of Happiness?

Can culture change our habits? I believe in the transformative power of art. Why? Because the arts have the capacity to divert people from the norm, from normality, and, by going through a different experience they might want to repeat it. An artistic project also provides intuition, sensibility, the capacity to escape from this more materialistic way of seeing things. My intention is to offer artistic objects of great quality to people who have other cultures and who approach this artistic culture in order to draw incredible dividends from it for their everyday lives and for their inner selves. That …

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Introduction – We can be heroes, just for one year…

The protection of the climate is a question of education, knowledge and resulting attitudes Our story starts with practical information about how we can now begin to abandon energy obtained from coal, gas and petrol and use renewable energy instead, powered by the sun, wind, and water. We present solutions instead of provoking panic! It is also a question of using fewer resources and reusing those which we are already using. In 2011, before the launch of the first edition, we invested in two 40-panel photovoltaic systems. Follow our example! With this investment, we started to produce clean energy for …

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Ribeira de Quarteira resists luxury tourism

It’s called ‘Cidade Lacustre’ or ‘Vilamoura Lakes’ and was dreamed up by André Jordan. The millionaire, who has just published his memoirs, was the owner of the largest resort in the country – two thousand hectares and five golf courses around Vilamoura Marina – and he wanted to extend it to Ribeira de Quarteira by building a luxury city on the water. The project included a yacht, lift so that millionaires from all over the world could moor outside the doors of their villas. In 2008, the ‘Cidade Lacustre’ received a favourable report from the Portuguese Environment Agency and was …

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Unsung Heroes

If the entire population of Lisbon was wiped out within nine years, how would we react? We are all aware of the war in Syria, which has been tearing the country apart since 2010, causing the death of an estimated 500,000 people and forcing millions of others to flee their homes and become refugees. In this age of mass social media, we can sometimes become desensitised to the suffering of nameless citizens who live in faraway countries, but at Aljezur International School the students, teachers and parents have a special interest in the news from Syria.  Since 2015, they have …

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