Free Republic

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Portugal’s caretaker government plans to expel some 18,000 foreigners living in the country without authorization, a minister said Saturday in the buildup to a national election.Minister of the Presidency António Leitão Amaro said the center-right government will issue approximately 18,000 notifications to people in the country illegally to leave. The minister said officials will begin next week by asking some 4,500 foreigners to leave voluntarily within 20 days.Portugal will hold an early general election on May 18. Prime Minister Luis Montenegro called the snap ballot in March after his minority government led by his conservative Social...

Spain and Portugal achieved net zero on Monday, but not the way anyone would want to achieve net zero: By going back to the cavepeople times with no electricity. According to the New York Times:A major power outage hit Spain and Portugal on Monday afternoon, abruptly shutting down daily activities, halting trains and subways, cutting off traffic lights, closing stores and canceling or delaying some flights.Hours after the power shut off around 12:30 p.m. Central European time, stranding tens of millions of people across the Iberian Peninsula, officials remained at a loss as to the cause, though several denied any...

Cardinal Bertone Presides at FuneralVATICAN CITY, FEB. 15, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, John Paul II's special envoy to the funeral of Sister Lucia, recalled the last of the Fatima visionaries as "an exceptional woman, but simple." The cardinal archbishop of Genoa, Italy, presided over the funeral this afternoon in the cathedral of Coimbra, the Portuguese town where the witness of the 1917 apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima died last Sunday. She was 97. Portugal officially observed a day of mourning. "All the country's agencies have paused to render homage to the great figure of a 'little shepherdess' who...

LISBON: A boat built of 160,000 wine corks has completed a 17-day voyage up one of Portugal’s most famous rivers, fulfilling a lifelong dream of its American builder. John Pollack, a one-time speechwriter for former President Bill Clinton, spent 30 years collecting corks for his project. He was delighted even though the voyage up the Douro river took twice as long as he had expected. “This proves the idea that if you have a dream you can achieve it and you don’t have to worry about looking silly,” Pollack, 36, said.He had expected the 265-km (165-mile) trip to take a...