Thousands of protesters gathered outside Portugal’s parliament in Lisbon yesterday to denounce what Reuters has described as one of the most acute home affordability crises in Europe. Lawmakers are debating the 2027 draft budget while protesters are facing stiff police presence in the streets of the capital. The deepening crisis is because home prices have nearly doubled since 2017. Many citizens simply cannot afford to rent let alone buy homes as wages have not kept up. The housing crisis is particularly acute in the cities, but it is being severely felt in towns across the country. It is currently Portugal’s number one concern that does not look like going away anytime soon. It may, however, be pressing more residents to move abroad.

HOUSING PROTESTS

 

Demonstrations have been taken place and are expected to continue in Lisbon and Porto over the soaring price and availability of housing.

 

Thousands of protesters have been demanding more affordable housing to buy or to rent. Their demonstrations led dozens of police officers to move in with batons or police dogs on Sunday morning and break up tented protest camps in central Lisbon. This resulted in 25 arrests and several injuries.

 

As confrontations with the police turned violent, protesters chanted, “it smells like a dictatorship.”

 

Other major protests are taking place in France, Albania, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Greece and Serbia. 

 

HOUSING PROTESTS

 

 

Demonstrations have been taken place and are expected to continue in Lisbon and Porto over the soaring price and availability of housing.

 

Thousands of protesters have been demanding more affordable housing to buy or to rent. Their demonstrations led dozens of police officers to move in with batons or police dogs on Sunday morning and break up tented protest camps in central Lisbon. This resulted in 25 arrests and several injuries.

 

As confrontations with the police turned violent, protesters chanted, “it smells like a dictatorship.”

 

Other major protests are taking place in France, Albania, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Greece and Serbia.  

 

The Portuguese government has launched

a 35 million euro fast-track fund to encourage more young people into leaving urban areas and going into the countryside to take up farming.

 

Disillusionment with the shortage of well-paid jobs in urban areas and the spiralling costs of living are making farming a more attractive option.

 

The nation’s farming workforce is heavily aging. More than 50% are over the age of 65.  Thus, the increasing need for youthful replacements. 

 

The shortage of quality employment especially in the major cities of Lisbon and Porto are pushing young professionals aged between 18 and 40 back to the countryside.

More are being urged to do likewise as the new emergency fund aims to set up at least 200 new young farmers with a minimum of beau racy and little delay.

 

However, there are serious difficulties. The biggest obstacle for young newcomers is that land prices are extremely high with limited availability.  Farmland in Portugal has always been fragmented compared with more northerly countries in Europe.

 

Funding help for hopeful young farmers is crucial if they are to economically survive on the land.  

PORTUGAL’s TIES WITH THE U.S.

 

Portugal’s strong ties with the United States have been emphasised by yesterday’s visit to Lisbon by the American Secretary of States Marco Rubio.

 

He thanked Portuguese officials for supporting the U.S conflict against Iran by allowing American warplanes to use the strategic airbase in Lajes Field in the mid-Atlantic Portuguese Azores which is ideally located for long-range flight refuelling.

 

Rubio’s European visit started in Iceland.  More importantly in the Greek capital Athens he urged European countries to save Western civilisation by upholding the values and traditions of ancient Greece.  

 

Portugal was the last stop on Rubio’s tour of NATO countries. He described Portugal as “a great ally,” and said he wanted to build ever deeper ties.

GUTERRES LAST UN SPEECH

 

 

 In his last speech as Secretary-General of the United Nations, the former Portugues Prime Minister Antonio Guterres said that the world has entered “an era of deep uncertainty.” He passionately called on world leaders to “unite for peace, international cooperation and human dignity”.

 

His speech today (Sunday) was his last before he steps down as the UN Secretary-General at the end of this year.

 

He named what he regards as the three worst existential threats to humanity as rapidly developing Artificial Intelligence, the global warming crisis, and deepening inequalities among people.

 

He  has served two terms in office, the first from 2017t0 2021, the second from 2021 to the last day of 2026.

 

He emphasised in his last speech his condemnation of the civilian killings in Gaza, warning that Israel’s settlement expansion in the West Bank was “raising the spectre of ethnic cleansing.”

 

He also called for an end to Russi’s invasion of Ukraine, and said that military superpower cannot alone secure lasting peace.

MORE ROBOT WORRIES

 

 

More AI specialists have come forward this weekend emphasising the belief that robots may indeed destroy all of humanity in the coming years.

 

An artificial intelligence researcher told the BBC’s top interviewer, Loura Kinsberj, that he had quit the AI firm, Anthropic, because people working on the technology were genuinely frightened about the speed of AI’s development and what it could mean for humanity.

 

He said that if humans do not slow AI’s current rate of progress, “We could all die in the immediate future.”  

ARE ROBOTS A PROBLEM FOR US?

 

 

The latest reports about AI robots wiping out the human species are almost certainly false.

Stories in the mainstream and social media say that high-tech anthropic researchers believe there is more than an10% chance robots will annihilate humans in the next few months, if not weeks. Many other experts believe this is completely wrong.

 

The truth is that AI robots depend on humans for their existence, not the other way round. Robots are fascination but humans are in charge, so robots need not be feared.

 

Unemotional AI robots have obviously no reason to seek food and other commodities, or energy supplies etc. They are fine on their own looked after by humans.

 

Unfortunately, AI robots may not yet be able to help change the human’s fixation with stupidity, greed and war.