| Smoking and over-zealous health officials |
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| Thursday, 15 January 2009 01:13 | |||||
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{mosimage}10/1/2009 The year started positively for most (judging by opinion polls) with news that most of Portuguese cafés, bars and restaurants had become smoke-free. However, the man given the task to implement new laws, was himself caught smoking in a casino, but no charges were laid as the chief inspector said he was unclear of the laws. Finally, Portuguese were told that the looming crisis in the US would not affect Portugal or Europe due to the “strong economic foundations” this side of the Atlantic… Under the headline, ‘Light Out’, The Portugal News revealed that the country had fallen into line with most Western European countries after new anti-smoking laws to clamp down on smoking in public places came into effect. The groundbreaking legislation followed two previous botched attempts at outlawing smoking in public spaces the past three years. The law has generally been well accepted by smokers. However, the man whose task it is to uphold anti-smoking legislation was one of the first smokers to break smoking laws, but he was adamant that he was within the law when he lit within a casino despite indications to the contrary from the Health Ministry.The following week, we wrote that a former American intelligence officer had been refused asylum in Portugal, the first American citizen to file such an application in Portugal. Local authorities said they were not convinced by the arguments of this US national who says worked for both the National Security Agency (NSA) and the CIA and claims his government turned on him and want him dead. Five lawyers had taken on the case, but later rejected the opportunity to defend their client arguing their English was insufficient to provide an adequate defence. The American Embassy in Lisbon at the time declined to comment on the case. “The Embassy of the United States of America hereby informs that it will not comment on the referred case”, it said in an e-mail. The next week, the chief of the ASAE health and safety inspection unit admitted that members of his organisation were receiving training from officers of the specialised US SWAT unit. As it emerged that ASAE inspectors were being trained to perform dangerous operations such as armed interventions and engaging heavily-armed criminals, the former Minister of Defence and leader of the CDS-PP Party launched a site to report, among other issues, “abuses of the interpretation of laws” by ASAE inspectors and has called its chief, António Nunes for a parliamentary hearing. While ASAE inspectors gained fame for their actions when seizing counterfeit material at street markets, the organisation is fast gaining notoriety for its actions against unsuspecting citizens. Last year, The Portugal News reported how 150 ASAE investigators from across Portugal had attended a briefing meeting at the Tivoli Hotel in Vilamoura Marina aimed at directing them to specific areas of the Algarve to inspect restaurants, bars, bistros and cafés. Last summer, a 70-year-old lady had suffered a heart attack after the ASAE had raided her café west of Tavira three times in as many days and closed it down after levying a 30,000 euro fine. One of the biggest complaints made by the restaurateurs and café owners has been that even though ASAE inspectors are levying substantial fines they refuse to handover official documentation detailing precisely what food hygiene laws are being broken. Faro’s charitable Santa Casa da Misericórdia institution, which distributes meals amongst the region’s poor, has also been targeted by inspectors. Just before last Christmas, it was told by health and safety inspectors to replace its homemade meals that are based on a fresh Mediterranean diet, with frozen pre-prepared meals supplied by a private company, to comply with ASAE rules and regulations. Meals were previously made in a municipal kitchen, prepared by the institution’s own cooks. Frozen products have now replaced fresh fish from the Formosa River, which are heated and cooked in the Misericórdia kitchens. And in the final week of January, with signs of possible economic slowdown emerging, The Portugal News told readers that the “Government maintains growth targets”. With a staggering loss of 12 billion euros in daily trading in the final week of January, falls in the Lisbon Stock Exchange was bigger than that recorded in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the worst since the mini-crash on October 1st, 1998. But despite the market turmoil experienced the past week with fears of recession in the United States, the Minister of Finance expressed confidence that Portugal and Europe were well-equipped to handle the current crisis on the international markets and that growth targets were not in need of revision. Teixeira dos Santos also rejected the notion that the “problem initiated in the United States” will necessarily imply a reduction in the growth of the national economy. “We are not being overly optimistic. Instead, we are basing our position on an objective analysis of the situation”, he said at the end of meeting with fellow European Union finance ministers held this week to discuss the situation of international markets. He also expressed the view that Europe “has more robust economic foundations” than the U.S., arguing that there is no need for Portugal to be “constantly revising economic growth forecasts”. Pity he was wrong.
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