Friday, August 15, 2008
Normal service will be resumed on Monday
There'll be no bank robberies today – but only because the banks are closed for a holiday. Instead today is a feriado, a Bank holiday, in this case for the Catholic holiday of Assumption, when the Virgin Mary was transported into Heaven with her body and soul united. However, for many Portuguese it'll just be another long weekend and they'll be turning to their other great passion: killing each other on the roads.
Portuguese driving is notoriously bad, so much so that even French drivers have a good reputation. Since the holiday season started in the middle of July there have been over 2.000 accidents, 60 deaths and over 300 serious injuries. In the weekend of 1st August there were 16 deaths, and last weekend alone 20 people were killed in a 24h period.
For a London driver, rarely able to get above 30mph most of the time, this need for speed is baffling. Portuguese drivers, mainly in black or silver Seat's or in expensive Audi’s or Mercede’s, will rocket past our little Modus, sometimes forcing cars coming in the other direction to move to the side of the road. Often speeding drivers will be in commercial vehicles, easy to spot as all company vehicles are two seater's with a metal grill behind the front seats, or in company vans. Because the drivers don't own these cars, they'll drive like Tiago Monteiro around the Portuguese roads. In the Aveiro/Oiã area there are vehicles from two companies that we are always wary of: Würth (who co-incidentally sponsor Formula 1) and Centroauto. When we see these on the road we always get ready to move out of the way.
The GNR do what they can, of course. There is a road safety campaign operating at the moment, to get people to drive slower, and the TV news reports the statistics each day as they show images of crushed and mangled cars. The worst thing is to see images of the bombeiros hosing down big pools of blood on the road, but it hardly seems to have any effect.
Mind you, bad driving is not limited to the daytime. Since today is a holiday, last night the bars will have been full of people drinking and getting in the mood for their long weekend. After necking umpteen beers, or whiskies, they'll think nothing of getting in their car and driving home - or to a club. At night the police set up checkpoints and give people random breath tests. Over the holiday season they adopt a zero tolerance policy to drink-driving, in an attempt to demonstrate it's a stupid thing to do, but driving while intoxicated seems a difficult habit to break in Portugal.
So if you’re going away this weekend, take care on the roads, enjoy the beach, and bom fim-de-semana.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Another day, another hold up
A day can't go by without mentioning a bank robbery in Portugal. After last weeks hostage situation, and yesterday's attempted robbery of a Millennium in Loures comes news of yet another bank hold-up in Lisbon.
This time, a branch of the Banco Popular was the target, when a 50 year-old man wearing a wig held up the staff with a gun. The man fled the bank on foot, and the police have yet to reveal how much was stolen.
This robbery comes on the same day that the Diário Económico reported that in the first SIX MONTHS of 2008 there has been a bank robbery, or an attempted robbery, once every 40 hours in Portugal, with a haul of approximately 439.000€.
Topping the list of banks targetted was Millennium bcp, with 15 robberies, followed by the Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) with 13 and Montepio with 12. Santander, which was fourth on the list, with 8 robberies, actually lost the most money, with a total of 86.000€, while CGD lost 66.000€ the banks Funchal and BANIF lost 48.000€. Aside from the hostage situation last week, BES actually had the least number of branches robbed.
With aprroximately four robberies per week, the survey identified, unsurprisingly, that Lisbon was the city most at risk, followed by Porto in the north and Sétubal in the south. On average, the haul from each robbery was 4.400€.
One thief that won't be contributing to the figures for the rest of the year was Jaime Jímenez Arbe, 51, the robber known as ‘El solitário’, who was caught by police last week after robbing 26 banks.
The daily free sheet Destak compared the figures in Portugal with those in Brazil and the US. With a population of about 10million, if the numbers of robberies continue at their present rate, there will be 100 robberies by the end of the year. By contrast, with a population of 180million there were 529 robberies in 2007, and in the US over 10,000 robberies. On the other hand, Portugal can't compare with Baghdad, officially the bank robbery capital of the world, where approximately $1million a month is stolen.
While the police are chasing bank robbers, the funeral of Paulo Salazar, the 13 year-old killed in the foiled warehouse robbery on Monday, will take place tomorrow. Although family will be there, and no doubt a completment of GNR keeping an eye on the service, one person who won't be is the father of the boy, who hasn't been seen since being driven away from court yesterday. Odds are he won't turn up for his court date, either.
Justice, the Portuguese way
Remember the story about the thieves who broke into a warehouse and when they were confronted by the police a 13 year-old boy was killed? Well this one is just going to run and run… literally.
OK, let's summarise: We have two criminals, caught red-handed on Monday evening in the act of stealing from a warehouse by the police, In the altercation that follows, a 13 year-old boy, the son of one of the men that they took along with them, is killed. They went to court in Loures yesterday (which coincidentally, recently lost its ATM from the courthouse lobby in a robbery) and are freed on bail. All they have to do is report on a weekly basis to the police until their trial.
Now it turns out that the father of the boy, Paulo Salazar, presented a false ID and address to the police when they were caught, and that in February 2007 he had previously escaped from prison, which the judge wasn't aware of when they were released. As they were driven away from the courthouse by a relative, in a very expensive looking Mercedes, Portuguese TV were reporting that the father was a fugitive. That was the last anyone has seen of him, and the police are now on the hunt. The father, Sandro Salazar, was in prison for his part in an armed robbery in the Algarve.
In the meantime, the family of the boy who was killed has accused the police of racism - they were ciganos (gypsies) and of having a ‘shoot to kill’ policy. The fact that they were ciganos has left the family with little sympathy in Portugal. While there is sadness that a 13 year-old was killed, many people have condemned the family for taking the boy along on a criminal act in the first place. One cruel comment in the daily newspaper Correio da Manhã was that it was one less cigano that will commit crimes in the future.
In the meantime, while the Portuguese news were reporting the latest developments in this case, there was another bank robbery in Loures. A Millennium BCP bank was the target this time. The robbers burst into the bank and robbed the staff and customers of their possessions. Of the four robbers, three were caught, with a total of around 3.000€ on them. One unlucky customer was in the process of depositing a cheque for 2.000€, which is presently being held by the police. The fourth robber escaped in a Honda Civic, and is presently being hunted.
This sudden surge in robberies seems to be a part of the increasing effects of the crisis presently affecting the country. Earlier in the year, a business owner attempted to rob a bank to pay his debts, the number of carjackings increased 55% in the first six months of 2008, and robberies of ATM's were reported once every other day (this is robberies OF cash machines, not FROM cash machines.)
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
A Wedding, in a galaxy not so far away
It’s not often that the news brings a little joy, but congratulations to Rebecca D’Madeiros and Bill Duda, who were married on 21 June with a Star Wars themed wedding.
The bride and groom were dressed as Mon Mothma (she was the head of the Rebel Alliance), and Admiral Ackbar (in charge of the Rebel fleet in The Empire Strikes Back). Yoda presided over the ceremony, of course, and the ring-bearer was Princess Leia, in her gold bikini from Return of the Jedi.
The bride and groom were dressed as Mon Mothma (she was the head of the Rebel Alliance), and Admiral Ackbar (in charge of the Rebel fleet in The Empire Strikes Back). Yoda presided over the ceremony, of course, and the ring-bearer was Princess Leia, in her gold bikini from Return of the Jedi.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Robbery, murder, theft. Just a typical day
After yesterday's upbeat posting, normal service is resumed in Portugal. Like most of the western world, Portugal is in recession, it even has a name: the 'Crise' (crisis). Suffering from fuel high prices, ever increasing taxation and higher unemployment, people are becoming more desperate.
ATM machines have always been a target, first from shopping centres, and increasingly from local court buildings, where security has been lax. Now there is a new phenomenon: a resurgence of armed robbery. In the past week, we have seen three robberies, two of which have ended in tragedy.
- Last week there was a 7h stand-off between police and two Brazilian immigrants in a branch of Banco Espirito Santo (BES) in Lisbon. This ended with the death of one of the robbers and the wounding of the other. Relatives of the wounded Brazilian cannot understand why he committed the robbery, since he was in the middle of completing his application for Portuguese residency.
- A 13 year-old boy was taken along on a warehouse robbery in Lisbon. When the robbery was foiled by police, the boy was killed in the crossfire. The lawyers of the boy's family are saying that the police overreacted, and could have shot in the air.
- Yesterday, two Brazilians robbed a butcher in Sétubal (pronounced 'Stubal', where José Mourinho comes from). All 8 staff, and four customers, were locked in the basement and by the time the police arrived, the thieves were long gone.
Thieves are also concentrating on robbing elderly Portuguese from small villages. In the north of the country there has been a spate of people knocking on pensioners doors and saying they are from the Segurança Social (the equivalent of social security). They have been saying that people owe them money and taking cash. Mostly this has been in 500€ lots, but last week, one pensioner was robbed of over 5000€.
...and the Crise has had casualties. A bar owner in Silveiro, not far from where we are living, committed suicide at the weekend when he couldn't cope with his debts any longer. Like many bars, takings fell after the changes in the law on Jan 1st. Together with the effects of the Crise, as people just don't go out as often as they did, many businesses have found themselves in trouble. Faced with increasing debts, the owner couldn't take any more pressure and took what he saw as the only option remaining.
Other businesses have suffered because of the Crise, and while one aspect of the government is to look forward, to cheap laptops and electric cars, on the other hand they are adding to the problems of the country. Many people don't pay their Segurança Social payments on time, or at all (in one instance last year, a company closed only to have the employees find they couldn't claim unemployment benefits because the owner hadn't paid their Segurança Social). The owner had taken deductions from the employees' salary, but hadn't paid these, or the contributions he should make, to the Finanças. So now, the tax office, the Finanças, have decided that if people don't make their payments, they'll send agents into their homes to repossess their property.
A Country in Crisis
Portugal is officially a company in crisis. The opposition says so, the economists say so, the media say so, even the government says so. It even has a name, "o Crise" (the crisis.) The government, of course, blames the Crise on the international scene: high petrol prices, poor financial markets, but the International Monetary Fund (IMF) swiftly retorted that this Crise was all the fault of the government.
To a degree, both are right, the Portuguese government has created an economy, with over taxation and little support, that is increasingly like the Brazilian one. There is a huge wealth gap, people either have money or they don't, the middle class is disappearing. This has been made worse by international pressures such as the high oil price and the credit crunch, which has put pressure on the financial markets. Mind you, they are trying to be progressive, which is a part of the problem. For example, today it was reported that every new school child will receive a small computer. The idea is that Portugal will be a technological leader, in 10 years time, when these kids are
In a country where the average wage is 800€ per month, and the price of petrol at the pumps is similar to that in London, with a minimum wage of 1.300€, people are suffering. Businesses such as cafés, restaurants, and of course bars, in fact all service industries, are suffering because people just can't afford to go out any more. A recent article on SIC news said that 25.000 construction companies have failed since the beginning of the year, and a survey on RTP2 news reported that 75% of people thought things were getting worse over the previous year (0% thought things were better). Only today, the Jornal de Notícias reported that in June and July, over 5.000 people lost their jobs due to factory closures in Braga alone.
One of the unusual customs in Portuguese employment is that although they work for 12 months, Portuguese are paid for 14 months, receiving an additional monthly salary in July and December, called the subsídio. However, in the current climate some companies are even finding it difficult to pay the subsídio for July to their employees. For example, the University of Aveiro caused a furore when they announced that money for research was to be withdrawn from some departments to pay the subsídio, an amount of approximately 10€ million.
The government said that the Crise began about 1 year ago, and will most likely continue for some time to come. Public confidence in the country remains low, businesses continue to struggle. Even traditional businesses are suffering, since the actions of ASAE, the equivalent of Home Office inspectors (but the paramilitary wing, ASAE officers can be armed) have closed many traditional sweet and cheese businesses for poor working practices. Many of these regulations were brought in to bring Portugal in line with the EU, which is a good thing, but rather than being a gradual change and applying common sense, as in many European countries, the Portuguese government has been over enthusiastic in introducing new laws.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Who Killed The Electric Car?
With the high price of oil, the cost of a litre of gásoleo or gasolina in Portugal went through the roof. Drivers near the border with Spain were flocking to petrol stations (bombas) in Spain, leaving the stations in Portugal deserted. Now the price of a barrel of oil has come down, and although the major retailers Galp and Repsol have reduced their prices, it still costs a lot more to fill a tank with petrol than it did just a few months ago.
With the holiday season in Portugal in full swing, Portuguese who work outside the country have returned home for the summer. A lot of them have had a shock, with basic essentials far more expensive than they remembered. One emigrant (as they are called), commented that the price of petrol was over 120 times more expensive than was paid when they were last in the country in 2004.
So it was interesting to find an article which seems to have been missed by much of the Portuguese media:
When fuel was at it's most expensive, in around the middle of July, José Socrates, the Portuguese Prime Minister, signed an Article of Understanding with a Nissan-Renault alliance to produce an infrastructure for the production and charging of electric cars. Socrates is reported as saying that the government wants Portugal to be:
"a laboratory for future electric cars... So that we are not at the mercy of others."
After a four-month discussion phase, the intention is that Portugal will develop a national network of recharging stations, and the cars will be available in 2001. No details were readily available of the cars themselves, aside from it being a five-seater vehicle with a top speed of 90km/h and a capacity of 160km on a full charge.
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