Mediatec

ECO 123 follows the money. Where does the money come from and where does it go?

Saturday, 17th february 2024. The European Investment Bank (ElB) is the European Union’s long-term lending institution, owned by its 27 Member States. It finances sound investments that contribute to EU policy objectives. EIB’s projects strengthen competitiveness, drive innovation, promote sustainable development, enhance social and territorial cohesion, and support a fair and swift transition to climate neutrality. ECO123 took a closer look at the bank’s activities. The EIB Group, which also includes the European Investment Fund (EIF), underwrote a total of €88 billion in new financing for over 900 projects in 2023. These commitments are expected to mobilise around €320 billion in investment, …

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The Global Economy in 358 Pages.
From Antiquity to the Present Day

Saturday 3rd February 2024. The small publishing house “Haupt”, based in Bern, Switzerland, has published an interesting and important book. Telling the story of the spice trade over 5,000 years, it was written by Norwegian journalist Thomas Reinertsen Berg and translated from Norwegian into German. Why isn’t this book also available in Portuguese and English translations? And why does a Norwegian have to write a book about the history of spices when Portugal played such an important role in their trade, alongside the Netherlands, England, China, India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Sri Lanka? Wouldn’t this also have been a suitable topic …

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Where, in God’s good name, are we headed?

Saturday 13th January 2023. Right now, in wintertime, is a good moment to start thinking about the coming summer and to take some decisions on how we citizens in Monchique and elsewhere in Portugal should prepare for the coming drought and forest fires. Personally, I’m someone who likes to combine my experiences from yesterday and the day before with a perspective for the future. Monchique is a case in point here. It is ourselves who have provoked the high number of forest fires, because some large-scale landowners have planted monocultures nearly everywhere, thus destroying the traditional, long-established, organically grown forest, …

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The drip-drip principle

Saturday 6th January 2024. Bom dia to you in this New Year. Business as usual? Or can we look forward to something new after all? Well, on 10 March we will be electing a new government (in Portugal) – and between 6 and 9 June a new European Parliament.There will also be elections in Russia, as well as in the USA. The Donald Trump horror show shows no signs of abating. Some hold on to the belief that everything will remain the same. Others have not yet given up hope that something new, something better is just around the corner. Politics is …

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So here’s the good news.

Protecting existing forests and reforesting suitable areas could fix some 226 billion tons of carbon dioxide, representing an active contribution to climate protection. This is the conclusion reached by a 200-strong group of researchers headed by scientist Lidong Mo of ETH Zurich (Switzerland) in the renowned journal Nature. As long as forests remain intact, they are able to absorb carbon dioxide from the air and compensate greenhouse gas emissions. This is not about “planting trees on a massive scale”, emphasises ETH professor Thomas Crowther. Rather, this is about supporting communities and farmers on the ground, in order to increase biodiversity …

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Freedom of speech

Saturday 4th November 2023. Did you know that we’re currently celebrating our anniversary? It was in 2013 that we published the first edition, and right now we are working on the printed edition, at the same time as appearing online, too, on a weekly basis, every Saturday. In the autumn of 2023, we are doing all this without so-called SOCIAL media. You might well ask why ECO123 has not been using, nor felt the need to use, so-called „SOCIAL Media“ over the past ten years. Dear Readers What and who would you say is truly SOCIAL? We really should take …

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In an area threatened by forest fires…

Saturday 26th August 2023. For a good while now, since the major forest fire of 2003 in Monchique, our ECO123 team has been looking at minimizing the risk of forest fires. You see, we live and work in a burnt-down forest near Monchique. In a way, we are also doing the job of a reinsurance company. As we speak, forests are burning in all southern countries of Europe on a daily basis. However, a country that has been particularly hard hit this year is a large country that normally doesn’t feature on the map as a high-risk area, namely the …

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Why ECO123 is published in three languages…
and how the firefighters could improve their disaster management.

Saturday 19th August 2023. Communication between two people can only work well if they speak a common language. Isn’t that right? So, if a British guy strikes up a conversation in English with a Portuguese lady, without being able to speak Portuguese or any other language himself (as is usually the case), and the Portuguese lady doesn’t want to speak English, then the conversation will hit a dead end. End of story? Far from it. This story is only just starting. Communication is a fascinating topic. As a reader of ECO123, you are free to choose the language you prefer. …

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THE CHILD INSIDE.

Saturday the 29 July 2023. Young people are our societyꞌs most valuable resource. Is that true? If young people choose to glue themselves to the tarmac it is always for a deeper reason. It is something we adults have to face and not belittle their actions as just a pubescent or even terrorist act of violence. Reason is always connected to stages in development. Reason has to mature. Sometimes young people in groups will do things they would never do on their own. And sometimes these things are simply necessary. Cognitive control only develops in puberty. For us as adults …

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Fever.
A commentary by Uwe Heitkamp

Saturday the 15th of July 2023. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the use of fossil fuels has released enormous quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This is a gas that reduces heat reflection from the Earth, leading to the rise in temperatures on our planet. Every year sees the addition of several billions of tons of carbon dioxide. Today we know that these will remain for centuries in the earth’s atmosphere. The speed of the earth heating up has long been underestimated. Its consequences are dramatic: ice melting, rising sea levels, devastating forest fires and ever worse …

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Restaurant “Grumpy Mamas”

Saturday 10th June 2023. So I take a 10 euro note out of the newspaper’s petty cash and try my luck in Monchique, and why not? I’ve heard about the opening of a new restaurant going by the name of Grumpy Mamas. This is where I’ll try and see whether ten euros will buy me a healthy lunch including pud. Will I succeed? The small restaurant is open Wednesday to Friday, between 10am and 3pm. The mamas, you see, have kids … On the way to Rua Engenheiro Duarte Pacheco, the bottleneck of Monchique, I am struck by the mirror …

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Eating out is a challenge.
A review by Uwe Heitkamp, photos by Graciete João

Saturday May 6th, 2023. Let’s grab a bite to eat? It’s Friday, 2pm, and we’re on our way to Monchique to sample a Pizza Margherita in the recently re-opened Miradouro restaurant just above Caldas de Monchique. Very early on in my life, the Italian head chef Carlo Padulo, who taught me how to make pizza a long time ago advised me to always start with a Pizza Margherita. Tomato sauce and cheese are unlikely to upset your stomach. Today’s dough however is very odd and hardly cooked. The same thing happens with a second pizza by the name of „Quatro …

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Open Tuesday to Sunday

Restaurant review by Uwe Heitkamp and Fotos by Graciete João

Saturday the 29th of April 2023. Standing outside the entrance to Restaurant Camilo high above Lagos Bay, we are waiting to be admitted inside by the doorman. If he knew our identities he might not lift the ribbon for us. What he says then is a bit odd: only if we have come to eat and drink will he give us one of the few available inside tables. To be clear: we are not standing at the entrance to a nightclub. And it’s midday, not midnight. Should we however only want to order a drink, we can grab one of the …

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What do we see when we look to the future?

A Restaurant Review from Theobald Tiger and Graciete Joâo

Saturday 22nd April 2023. What can the customer visiting a restaurant expect? Food and service that are at least as good if not better in fact than what you’d find at home when one of you is staffing the stove. Or is that maybe asking too much? What we definitely don’t want is to go home with an upset tummy. In our capacity as test eaters we take our seat anonymously in Mosaiko, a Moroccan restaurant in Silves (Rua Elias Garcia, 17). It’s a Saturday evening, shortly before 8pm. There are two of us, and studying the menu already has …

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La grande buffe?

Saturday the 15th of April 2023. The oceans are overfished. And in places where fish is rare it becomes expensive. Which is why an increasing number of restaurants are turning towards farmed fish. This then leads to a kilo of freshly caught summer sardine from the sea already costing as much as farmed sea bass. And it’s always about sheer mass. The approach of summer brings the approach of the tourists. A region which in normal times counts not even half a million residents is artificially inflated to form a community of sun worshippers taking in huge numbers of residents …

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