Year: 2022

The social network Instagram has been fined 405 million euros for breaching the processing of data on minors, announced this Monday the Irish regulator, which acts on behalf of the European Union (EU).

“We adopted our decision last Friday and it includes a fine of €405 million. The details will be published next week,” a representative of the Irish Data Protection Commission told AFP. (DPC).

It is the toughest decision imposed by that authority since 2018, when the General Data Protection Regulation (GDRP) gave more power to regulators to protect consumers against the dominance of Facebook, Google, Apple and Twitter.

The DPC oversees on behalf of the EU Meta, which owns Instagram, as it has its regional headquarters in Ireland.

The regulator opened an investigation at the end of 2020, to determine whether the social network has put in place the necessary security to protect user data, especially in minors – to obtain an account you must be at least 13 years old.

The DPC expressed concern that users under the age of 18 could easily switch to a professional account. This type of account requires users to make their contact details public, making them visible to everyone on Instagram.

Monitoring the epidemiological situation of COVID-19 Report 25.

The Directorate-General for Health (DGS) and the National Institute of Health Doutor Ricardo Jorge (INSA) release report No. 25 dated 31st August 2022 on monitoring the epidemiological situation of COVID-19. The document includes several indicators, namely the seven-day incidence and the transmissibility index (R(t)), nationally and by health region, among others.

High transmission with a stable trend Severity and impact with a stable trend The COVID-19 epidemic maintained a high incidence, with a possible inversion of the decreasing trend presented in previous weeks. The number of COVID-19 hospitalisation and the specific mortality show a stable trend. Surveillance of the epidemiological situation of COVID-19 should be maintained, and it is recommended to maintain the individual protection measures and booster vaccination, as well as a frequent communication of these measures to the population.

• The cumulative number of new SARS-CoV-2 infection / COVID-19 cases per 100 000 inhabitants over the last 7 days was 179 cases, reflecting a national stable trend. Most of the health regions present an inversion of the downward trend seen on the last weeks.
• The effective reproduction number (R(t)) was above 1 at national level and in most regions, indicating an increasing trend of new cases.
• The number of COVID-19 cases admitted to Intensive Care Units (ICU) in mainland Portugal showed a decreasing trend, corresponding to 14.1% (15.3% in the previous analysis period) of the defined critical value of 255 occupied beds.
• The ratio between the number of hospitalized cases and notified infections was 0.31, presenting an increasing trend.
• The BA.5 lineage of Omicron variant continues to be clearly dominant in Portugal, with an estimated relative frequency of 94% on week 33 (15/08/2022 to 21/08/2022). This lineage has shown an enhanced transmissibility, which is likely mediated by additional mutations associated with human cell binding and/or immune evasion.
• The COVID-19 specific mortality (8.1 deaths per 1 000 000 inhabitants over the last 14 days) has stabilized. All-cause mortality is within the expected range for the time of year, which indicates the end of the period of excess mortality that was taking place.

SPAIN DECLARED THIS TUESDAY DISASTER ZONES IN 15 OF THE COUNTRY’S 17 AUTONOMOUS REGIONS, DUE TO THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE FIRES.

Only in the regions of Cantabria and Asturias (northern Spain) there was no declaration of “areas severely affected by a civil protection emergency”, commonly known as “disaster zones”, said the Minister Spokesperson for the Government, Isabel Rodríguez.

In the 15 regions affected by the fires, there have been 120 fires since June, some of them considered “big fires”, those that burn more than 500 hectares, which forced the temporary displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, said Minister Isabel Rodríguez.

The minister said that this year’s fires, due to their intensity and size, are “different fires”, the result of climate change and the high temperatures that have been recorded since June. Fires have also burned in 2022 more than the total for the previous five years, according to Spanish government data updated as of August 14.

Unfortunately, another confirmation of the previously announced trend across Europe.

Drought: Municipalities reduce garden watering and launch awareness campaigns

Measures being takenaround the country

Lisbon, Aug 21, 2022 (Lusa) – Municipalities across the country have adopted measures to minimize the general situation of drought, which include reducing garden watering, using recycled water in washing, reducing flows and more campaigns to awareness.

Since October of last year, it has rained practically half of what would be a normal hydrological year, according to the Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA) on August 9.

At least around eight thousand people from 50 localities in Trás-os-Montes are being supplied this summer with the help of auto-tanks due to the lack of water in the supply systems, namely in the municipalities of Carrazeda de Ansiães, Bragança, Macedo de Cavaleiros, Alfândega da Fé, Mogadouro and Vimioso, in the district of Bragança, and Alijó, in the district of Vila Real.

In Beja, public water supply is also being provided by auto-tanks in locations in six municipalities served by the Águas Públicas do Alentejo (AgdA) system, in villages of Aljustrel, Mértola and Moura (in the district of Beja), Alcácer do Sal and Santiago do Cacém (Setúbal) and Montemor-o-Novo (Évora).

Among the measures already adopted by the councils to reduce water consumption from public supply networks is the control of irrigation and the use of non-potable water from natural courses in public spaces and gardens and the alteration of the flora to native species that are more resistant to the climate. , as in the municipalities of Amarante, Penafiel and Paredes, in the district of Porto.

The deactivation and reprogramming of automatic irrigation systems or the creation of boreholes in urban parks to save water from the network are some of the measures implemented by other municipalities in Greater Porto, such as Gondomar, Matosinhos, Gaia and Santo Tirso, which also turned off the fountains and reduced the water available at public drinking fountains and fountains.

In addition to reducing irrigation, the Municipality of Reguengos de Monsaraz, Évora, announced the installation of high water efficiency equipment in municipal buildings, as well as campaigns with the population with tips to reduce consumption in the water bill itself.

In Beja, the Almodôvar Chamber informed the population about which public wells and boreholes are not used for human consumption, but which can be used for animal watering or irrigation.

In the district of Leiria, this municipality and the municipality of Nazaré opted to invest in new deposits to increase water storage capacity, while the Porto de Mós Chamber is reinforcing supervision to prevent fraudulent use of water, especially connections metering and misuse of public fire hydrants and fountains, especially in areas where “a consumption higher than usual” was detected.

In the Algarve, several municipalities decided to close municipal swimming pools and ornamental fountains or install flow reducers and the Algarve Tourism Region also proposed to tourist developments to reduce water in ornamental fountains, in the irrigation of green spaces and in the renewal of water in swimming pools as contingency measures to respond to the drought situation.

The Câmara de Loulé, for example, will keep the indoor swimming pools and in Quarteira closed until September, in addition to closing the outdoor swimming pools in Loulé and Salir on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, starting next Monday. .

In Castro Marim, the water tank in the village of Corte do Gago is supplied daily by a tanker truck since the wells that supplied the town dried up. This situation has already led the mayor, Francisco Amaral, to criticize political decision-makers for the “delay” in the construction of the water desalination plant, and, like the neighboring mayor of Alcoutim, Osvaldo Gonçalves, to defend the construction of a dam on the Foupana stream, a tributary of the Guadiana river.

The 19 chambers of the Intermunicipal Community (CIM) of the Douro also decided to survey the springs, boreholes and abstractions.

In Abrantes, Santarém, the Chamber will move forward with a global project to capture water from alternative sources and implement smart meters that allow the automatic reading of water consumption and identify leaks.

In Lisbon, a recommendation for sustainable water management in the city was approved and green spaces began to be irrigated with reused water, while Sabugal (Guarda) and Torres Vedras (Lisbon) reviewed their respective Contingency Plans for Drought Situations.

Awareness campaigns on the misuse of water and means of combating waste have also been carried out from north to south of the country, such as in Tondela, Alcácer do Sal and Guarda, where the Chamber appealed to residents and emigrants who spend their holidays in the municipality to who have “regulated consumption”.

In Alijó, a municipality in the district of Vila Real also affected by extreme drought, four young people exchanged their vacations for volunteering and this summer they are raising awareness among the population of about 50 villages in the municipality to save water.

The company Águas Públicas da Serra da Estrela (APdSE), based in Seia, appealed to consumers to reuse water whenever possible, take quick showers, wash their teeth or hands with the tap turned off, half flush the toilet, use washing machines and dishwashers at full load, fix leaks in the plumbing, don’t waste water during irrigation and don’t wash cars with the hose (opting to use a bucket).

Due to the drought, the Government decreed a minimum quota beyond which the dams cannot turbine, so the drought also affects the production of electricity.

The lowering of the water level was used to clean the dams and in the Alto Rabagão reservoir, in Montalegre, it was possible to remove a crashed seaplane submerged since 2007.

The drought situation does not only cover Portugal, but it is transversal to Europe and an analysis by the “World Wide Fund for Nature” (WWF) organization, released on Wednesday, indicates that about 17% of the European population is at great risk of drought, water scarcity by 2050, which could affect 13% of Europe’s GDP.

CYCLIST IÚRI LEITÃO GOLD MEDAL AT EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS IN SCRATCH

Portuguese cyclist Iúri Leitão won the gold medal in scratch – a track cycling modality – for men at the European Championships in Munich.

A scratch race is a track cycling race in which all riders start together and the objective is simply to be first over the finish line after a certain number of laps.

The young Portuguese rider, 24 years old, has put two laps ahead of the rest of the peloton and then managed the advantage to secure the European title.

Yuri Leitão repeats the title achieved in 2020 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria

CONGRATULATIONS