It was a demonstration born on Facebook, on Saturday, September 8 - 24 hours after Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho announced a new tax on all workers. Exactly a week later it was reality - never since the revolution of 1974 had so many taken the streets to express their anger at the government. More than 1.5 million people hit the streets, according to state news agency LUSA. The hub of the protest was Lisbon, where 350,000 people walked two miles from Praça Jose Fontana Square to Praça de Espanha Square. In Porto, the same: more than 100,000 came out to Praça da Liberdade for more than four hours, to show their anger at the conditions resulting from the country's bailout … [Read more...] about Portuguese take to streets against austerity
security
Naked but (probably) no safer
Ever since Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to blow up a plane on Christmas Day with explosives hidden in his underwear authorities in the United States and Europe have been touting the benefits of installing body scanners at airports. It may be a new technology, but it is just the latest embodiment of an old debate pitting security against privacy - one in which Spain, as the current EU term president, has chosen to sit on the fence. The privacy concerns raised by these machines are understandable: if they can be used to spot a bomb in someone’s boxer shorts they can also detect prostheses, the results of plastic surgery and evidence of transgender. But while the thought of … [Read more...] about Naked but (probably) no safer