Portugal Safety and Security Report Wednesday 26^th February

Good morning everyone. We start the day with some good news that the Algarve’s reservoirs are at 54% of their total water storage capacity after the recent rains, 20% more than a year ago. However the recovery is asymmetrical, with those in the west region still at low levels, according to the APA. While the reservoirs in the eastern Algarve have greatly increased their storage and are at a capacity above 70%, those in the western Algarve continue to have difficulty filling, probably due to less abundant rainfall.

On the east side, the Odeleite reservoir is now at 79% of its capacity and the Beliche reservoir at 72% together with a total of 137.65hm3 of water stored. In the west the percentages are Odelouca registering 43% of its capacity, Arade 18%, Bravura 17% and Funcho 50% totalling 101.89hm3 of water stored in the west.

On Monday there was a traffic accident involving several vehicles on the A22 east bound between Loule service station and the exit to Quarteira resulting in a tail back of over 4 kms. Both lanes were cut in the Loulé/Faro direction with reports of people waiting 30 minutes without traffic movement. Regretfully, however, some irresponsible drivers were seen reversing their vehicles BETWEEN LANES against direction of traffic towards the Boliqueime exit, a dangerous manoeuvre provoking arguments between drivers. Such actions could have resulted in further accidents, with a risk to other drivers who were waiting in the queue. Enough said!

We often come across various scams the latest being emails claiming to come from ANSR. These emails notify recipients of the existence of fines and include a link for the supposed payment. These are “Phishing” emails, that is, attempts to obtain personal information by scammers using the name of an official entity. We emphasize “Not to click on the links contained in these emails or make any payment. If you do and have lost money as a result report to police. Please remember that notifications from ANSR are always sent by Post.

March 1st is International Civil Protection Day, established worldwide by the International Civil Protection Organization (ICOP) and nationally by Order of the Minister of Internal Affairs. In Portugal and around the world, the celebration of this date aims to raise awareness of the importance of civil protection in safeguarding life, property, cultural and environmental heritage in the face of serious accidents and catastrophes; to pay tribute to all civil protection agents and to promote reflection and dialogue around the risks to which populations and territories are subject, and the role that each of us, citizens, plays in the collective effort to create resilient communities.

And if Civil Protection has always been an essential partner for people as a way of staying safe or recovering their safety, never before has it become so essential as it is today, as it assumes the preponderance of a crucial element for the safety of communities. Understanding its importance involves recognizing the need to adopt and promote a culture of safety and understanding which risk factors can affect us.

In this approach of viewing Civil Protection as a system that involves everyone, it is essential that each person understands their importance for collective well-being. And to do this, we must all work on processes that aim to raise awareness among people about appropriate behaviours and attitudes in situations of collective risk, serious accidents and catastrophes. This includes educating the population on how to protect themselves and act safely in the event of an emergency. This is part of the remit of Safe Communities in terms of creating risk awareness and preparedness.

Lastly GNR Operation Carnival 2025 has begun! The festivities associated with Carnival celebrations, is a time of leisure and fun, but cause a significant increase in road traffic, resulting from those travelling to and returning from Carnival locations. In this context, the GNR will carry out, until March 5, 2025, an intensive operation which includes: the festival venues, commercial establishments where fireworks are sold and on the access roads to the main areas where festivities associated with Carnival take place, providing to all citizens that the festivities and travel take place safely, throughout the continental territory. Ewe advise if you are attend to arrive early to allow adequate time for parking as the demand will be heavy on those days.

We hope you have a great week ahead and enjoy the carnivals.

News

Meta exposes users to “giant wave” of misinformation. End of fact check could lead to an era of hate

The new moderation policy of Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, risks increasing “misinformation and dangerous content” on these two networks, an NGO that combats online misinformation warned today.

According to a study by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), Meta’s announced abandonment of its fact-checking program and hate speech detection systems could result in the cessation of 97% of its current moderation work and, therefore, a “tidal wave” of harmful content for Internet users.

The NGO made this estimate by analysing the main changes announced by Meta on January 7, including the replacement of fact-checking with community notes, or the abandonment of its rules on “immigration, gender identity and gender”.

“Meta must explain to its users why it is abandoning an approach that it presented as effective against disinformation and polarization” of opinion, the CCDH points out in its report.

On January 7, on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that he would “get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community ratings,” believing that the election marked a “cultural turning point” that “prioritizes free speech.”

The Californian group added that it intends to “simplify” its rules and “abolish a certain number of limits on issues such as immigration and gender, which are no longer in the dominant discourse”.

This turnaround was recently followed by the announcement of a change in policy at Elon Musk’s social network X.

Donald Trump’s close adviser promised on Thursday to “fix” a feature of X allowing users to deny or qualify potentially false posts, accusing “governments and traditional media” of having seized on them, amid dissent over Ukraine.

Backsliding on fact-checking and content moderation on social media paves the way for more hate, UN chief António Guterres warned on Monday.

The UN Secretary-General said that in this context, people are increasingly afraid to participate in social media, which in turn leads to a reduction in freedom of expression.

“As new technologies permeate every aspect of our lives, I am deeply concerned that human rights are being undermined,” he told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Guterres said that at best, social media is a place for people to exchange ideas in a respectful environment, but at worst it can be a place for arguments and “blatant ignorance.”

“A place where the poisons of misinformation, racism, misogyny and hate speech are not only tolerated, but often encouraged,” he said.

Graça Freitas’ warning: the next pandemic “will be much more complex, much faster, and much noisier”

Former Director-General of Health Graça Freitas predicts that the next pandemic will be “much more complex”, fast, noisy and with a significant increase in “social fractures” on issues such as confinement and vaccination.

With experience in public health emergencies since 1997, Graça Freitas spoke, in an interview with the Lusa news agency, about the challenges of a “next major epidemic or pandemic” in a more complex world, with many more sources of true, but also false, information.

Five years after the first cases of Covid-19 appeared in Portugal, on March 2, 2020, the public health specialist believes that a lot has been learned during this period and that the health system and authorities are better prepared to face a new pandemic, but warned that “the next one will be at another level”.

“I don’t think it will be perfect [the fight]. It’s impossible, especially because the world is much more complex and there are many more sources of true and false information,” he said, recalling that when he began working on epidemics and pandemics, such as the swine flu in 2009, “the world was much less complex.”

There were sources of scientific information, experts advised politicians and traditional media outlets dominated.

“It was a world with fewer connections, interactions, less fast and more secure”, while in the current scenario, “things are increasingly faster and more complex”, she commented.

Therefore, she warned: “The next major epidemic or pandemic — which we will certainly have — will be much more complex, much faster, much noisier and with many more social fractures.”

According to the expert, there will be “more social friction and divergent opinions between movements in society” in relation to lockdowns, vaccines and medicines.

“I don’t know if we’ll ever have such an orderly lockdown again as we had”

“Unless the next pandemic is so serious, so serious, so serious that it brings us all together again,” he stressed, considering that the population’s adherence to the authorities’ guidelines during the Covid-19 pandemic “was absolutely exemplary,” which is unlikely to happen in such an orderly manner in the next pandemic.

“I don’t know if we will ever have such an orderly lockdown again as we had in Portugal and in the vast majority of countries in the world,” said Graça Freitas, one of the faces of the fight against Covid-19 in Portugal.

Graça Freitas argued that the population’s adherence to the authorities’ guidelines was “an absolutely unique act of civic spirit and social participation”, also praising the role of those who remained working to ensure that essential goods, such as water, electricity, gas and food, were not lacking for those who were confined at home.

Asked whether she ever thought she would go down in history as one of the faces of the fight against the pandemic, she said no: “And even if I thought there could be an epidemic (…), I never, ever thought that I could be identified as a face of the pandemic”.

During the pandemic, Graça Freitas faced several challenges, such as threats, criticism, and breast cancer, but giving up “was never an option”.

She said that sometimes, minutes before falling asleep, she would think: “I can’t take this anymore, I’ll leave tomorrow (..) I’m so tired, this is so difficult”. However, “it was an instant discouragement, the next day it was no longer there”.