Bank measures can only limit damage from ‘digital arrest’ scams

Social security concerns of unorganised sector workers remain

Zohran Mamdani disse: “Substituam a frieza do individualismo feroz pelo calor de uma visão coletiva.”

O individualismo feroz pode ser uma referência a uma visão narcísica de uma comunidade que pressupõe que, enquanto operar de acordo com um autodiagnóstico que sugere “quem me vai salvar senão eu mesmo?”, mais ninguém importa.

O mundo não pode funcionar com sentimentos autocráticos que apenas servem o individualismo. A sociedade precisa de mentes abertas que vejam aqueles ao seu redor como embaixadores capazes de trazer harmonia a um mundo fraturado, onde retribuir não seja uma obrigação, mas sim uma experiência de harmonização das nossas mentes e da nossa existência.

Hoje, faço um apelo à minha comunidade e a outras: a Magellan Charities precisa da vossa ajuda. Durante demasiado tempo, demasiados de vós permaneceram à margem, assumindo que a construção da comunidade deve ser feita por outros, esquecendo a propagação cultural e substituindo-a por reconhecimento político e medalhas, enquanto outros sugerem que aqueles que tiveram a coragem de dar um passo à frente e se tornar focos de mudança não passam de colonizadores de interesse próprio no meio de uma população que nunca teve a coragem de assumir riscos. É chegada a hora de ser um obstáculo à cobardia que abunda nas comunidades.

Há algo de profundamente errado numa sociedade que consegue falar sem fim sobre progresso e salvação cultural, compaixão e direitos humanos, mas que volta as costas aos idosos que precisam de cuidados, dignidade e compreensão. Vivemos num mundo que celebra o sucesso, o dinheiro e as realizações pessoais, mas que frequentemente se esquece daqueles que passaram a vida a trabalhar para criar famílias e a construir as próprias comunidades de que hoje desfrutamos.

A diáspora portuguesa no Canadá está a atravessar um momento histórico, após 73 anos de introspecção sem sequer o perceber. Aqueles que viram e se preocupam com a mudança da comunidade começaram a fazer um exame de consciência e uma reflexão sobre a atual liderança e sobre a forma como está a ser administrada, para garantir a sobrevivência das alianças que nos trouxeram até aqui. A minha conclusão pessoal é que nos tornamos preguiçosos em relação às nossas obrigações para com os nossos jovens e precisamos de indivíduos corajosos, com ideologias originais, para nos levarem até à próxima geração. A Magellan pode ser um ponto de partida para implementar uma ideologia de mudança, adotando uma responsabilidade moral de cuidado, respeito, ensino e humildade que possa ser bordada no manto que protegerá a nossa identidade como um povo que se importa. O hiperbolismo não tem lugar numa sociedade baseada no cuidado, e o patronato de lideranças falsamente poderosas morrerá como um momento lascivo e temporário, porque o desejo morre com as secreções líquidas.

Não estou zangado com a minha comunidade, apenas desanimado por ver que as pessoas não reconhecem o que é importante na construção comunitária e não contribuem em conformidade. Os nossos idosos não são um fardo; são pessoas com histórias para contar, lições para partilhar e memórias que unem gerações. No entanto, quando ficam frágeis ou dependentes, alguns veem-se sozinhos, esquecidos e tratados como um inconveniente. Esta é uma forma vergonhosa de julgar o valor humano. Se esquecermos aqueles que ajudaram a construir o nosso mundo, que tipo de mundo estamos a deixar para as gerações que se seguem?

No dia 7 de novembro, a Magellan vai realizar um evento maravilhoso para angariar fundos. Precisamos que a comunidade se una e patrocine o evento através da compra de bilhetes. Lembrem-se de que a Magellan é um projeto da comunidade. Não é verdade?

Manuel DaCosta/MS

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A Community that Gives, Thrives

Zohran Mamdani said, “Replace the frigidity of rugged individuals with the warmth of a collective vision.”

Rugged individualism can be a reference to a narcissistic view of a community which assumes that as long as it operates in accordance with self-prognosis that suggests “who’s gonna save me but myself?,” than no one else matters.

The world cannot operate with autocratic sentiments that only serve individualism.  Society needs open minds that view those around each other as ambassadors that can bring harmony to a broken world and where giving back is not an obligation but an experience about harmonizing our minds and our existence.  Today, I’m appealing to my community and others that Magellan Charities needs your help.  For too long, too many of you have stayed on the sidelines assuming that community building is to be done by others forgetting cultural propagation and substituting with political recognition and medals while others suggest that those who had the courage to step up and become hamlets for change at self-serving colonizers within a population who never had the courage to become risk takers.  It is now time to become a liability to the cowardice which abound in communities.  There is something deeply wrong with a society that can speak endlessly about progress and cultural salvation, compassion and human rights, yet turns its back on elderly people who need care, dignity and understanding.  We live in a world that celebrates success, money and personal achievement, but too often forgets those who spent their lives working to raise families and building the very communities we enjoy today.  The Portuguese diaspora within Canada is traversing an historical moment in time after 73 years of introspection without even realizing it.  Those of us who have seen and care about the community change have begun to undertake self-examination and reflection on the current leadership and how it’s being administered to ensure survival of the covenants  which have brought us here.  My personal conclusion is that we have become lazy about our obligations to our youth and we need courageous individuals with original ideologies to carry us  to our next generation. ⁷ Magellan can be a stepping stone, which implements an ideology for change, adopting a morality based responsibility of care, respect, teaching and humbleness which can be embroidered into the mantle that will protect our identity as a people that care.  Hyperbolism has no place in a society based on care and patronage by faux powerful leaderships will die as a temporary lascivious moment because lust dies with liquid secretions. I’m not angry with my community, only discouraged that people don’t recognize what’s important in community building and contribute accordingly.  Our elderly are not a burden, they are people with stories to tell, lessons to share and memories that connect generations.  Yet, when they become frail or dependent, some find themselves alone, forgotten and treated as an inconvenience.  This is a shameful way to judge human value.  If we forget those who help build our world, what kind of world are we leaving for the generations to follow?

On November 7^th, Magellan is holding a wonderful event to raise funds.  We need the community to come together and sponsor the event by buying tickets.  Remember that Magellan is a community project.  Isn’t it?

Manuel DaCosta/MS

La presidenta del Banco Central Europeo (BCE), Christine Lagarde, confirmó este jueves lo que era un secreto a voces: su marcha anticipada de la institución el próximo mes de febrero, en vez de octubre de 2027, como estaba previsto. Lo que ha precipitado la decisión ha sido la complicada situación política que atraviesa su país, Francia, en vísperas de unas elecciones presidenciales la próxima primavera que pueden llevar por primera vez a la extrema derecha al Elíseo. Lagarde asegura “no poder permanecer neutral” en esta campaña, como le exigiría su cargo, aunque ha dado a entender que ella no es candidata. La salida de Lagarde activa una remodelación de la cúpula del BCE. Y permite que las capitales pacten los nombramientos de la principal institución financiera de la eurozona al inicio de un ciclo electoral que marcará el rumbo del continente.

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© Heiko Becker (REUTERS)

Durante várias décadas, a indústria automóvel – e, sobretudo, a indústria automóvel europeia ocidental – vendeu um ideal de superioridade e uma sensação de inevitabilidade. Essa era morreu. Editorial dePedro Candeias

Benjamín Netanyahu se ha lanzado a deslegitimar el proceso electoral israelí, es decir, la democracia que él mismo lidera, con una acusación de injerencia que no solo refleja su ya conocida tendencia a cuestionar las instituciones cuando estas no le benefician, sino su desprecio hacia el 20% de la población israelí que es de origen árabe y que en esta ocasión ha votado en masa. Lo hace después de perder la mayoría parlamentaria en las elecciones celebradas el martes y ante un escenario en el que los partidos árabes israelíes, con un resultado histórico, se han convertido en el potencial árbitro político del país.

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© Erik Marmor (Getty Images)

A pressão sobre os partidos é clara e espera-se que não acabe tão cedo.

Public functionaries must not use privacy to seek exemption from scrutiny

The Supreme Court has pointed to the SIR’s flaws by design

Paulo Núncio faz o papel de uma cópia fraquinha de Ventura.

Para além de uma crise na habitação, o momento pode ser também o de uma crise na coabitação entre Montenegro e Seguro. Editorial deHelena Pereira

Por segunda vez en nueve meses, España entera está sobrecogida ante las imágenes de dos trenes de alta velocidad destrozados sobre una vía en medio del campo, las pavorosas cifras de muertos y los impactantes relatos de los supervivientes de un accidente ferroviario que tendrá su propia página en la historia. Casi 400 personas viajaban en el tren AVE que, a las 8.53 de este miércoles, chocó con un tren Iryo parado en la vía Madrid-Andalucía a la altura de Urda (Toledo) con otras 146 personas a bordo. El balance de 69 muertos es aún provisional. El número de heridos supera el centenar. En estas horas críticas, es necesario transmitir a quienes han perdido a un ser querido la empatía y solidaridad de toda la sociedad española. Los testimonios de las familias y de los supervivientes serán el ancla para no olvidar en ningún momento las dimensiones de este drama humano.

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Diplomacy offers an easy way to peace. But if the West insists on the hard way, then Russia will deliver that way too.

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Diplomacy, as the saying goes, is the art of the possible. A peaceful settlement to the war in Ukraine is possible if all sides were to engage in genuine diplomacy. That’s the easy, more civilized way.

If not, Russia will achieve peace the hard way through complete military victory.

Diplomacy is being prevented because European politicians, in particular, are held hostage by their own twisted ideology and false propaganda.

Ironically, the NATO proxy war in Ukraine was intended to “strategically defeat” Russia. It turns out, however, that it is the NATO axis that is staring at a historic defeat. The chaos surging across Europe is a manifestation of that failure, driven by higher energy prices and reckless, unsustainable militarism.

Thus, peace in Ukraine is concomitant with peace in Europe, and diplomacy would expedite that to obviate more instability and suffering.

But diplomacy is incompatible with parties who possess a diseased mentality of Russophobia.

Diplomatic engagement involves putting pragmatic interests first, ahead of ideological bias. The pragmatic interest of everyone surely should be to find an end to this nearly five-year war that has caused millions of casualties and runs the risk of escalating to a general war in Europe.

The Trump administration appears to be renewing peace efforts by dispatching a presidential envoy to Russia this week. Russian President Vladimir Putin cordially greeted American envoy Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg. It is unimaginable that any European politician or envoy would be capable of that rudimentary courtesy. Putin reiterated that Russia’s door is open for negotiations.

Diplomacy can create a path to peace sooner, as internationally renowned Professor Jeffrey Sachs advocated in an eminently reasonable presentation this week.

Key issues for a peace agreement include: 1) indivisible security for all; 2) permanent neutrality status for Ukraine; 3) an armistice, not a temporary ceasefire, based on current lines of conflict; and 4) a declaration by NATO to halt its eastward expansion.

The framework for peace proposed by Sachs is similar to Russia’s position. It addresses the causes of conflict rather than only its symptoms.

Professor Sachs points out that these are not new principles. They were recognized and agreed upon in the past by the United States, its European allies, and Ukraine. In the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, the U.S., Soviet Union, and European states accepted the principle that security is not a zero-sum game. All states must have a mutual right to security.

On the issue of permanent neutrality of Ukraine, that was declared in its constitution when it established independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The seeking of NATO membership for Ukraine overturns that principle. It was the United States under President GW Bush that initiated the drive for NATO membership with the Bucharest Declaration in 2008, which was repudiated by Russia with the warning that it would inevitably lead to conflict, as history proves.

Sachs also points out that the United States and its NATO allies must return to the pledge made to the Soviet Union in 1989 that there would be no eastward expansion of the military bloc. It is basic common sense that the encroachment of NATO forces on Russia’s borders is destabilizing and a source of confrontation. The relentless expansion is a violation of the principle of indivisible security. Would the United States accept a situation where Mexico was installing Russian or Chinese military forces?

As for the cessation of hostilities and the drawing of territorial lines, that is a thorny issue. Moscow claims that it has a historical right to the territories east and south of the Dniper River, including Sumy, Kharkov, Kherson and Odessa, in addition to the Donbass and, of course, Crimea.

What is unrealistic is for Ukraine to claim the total return of territories that Russia has taken since 2022 (and 2014 in the case of Crimea). From Russia’s point of view, and many international historians would concur, the post-1991 composition of Ukraine was an artifice. It arbitrarily incorporated lands that were historically always part of Russia. These lands were donated to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic by Soviet leaders in dubious schemes of demographic manipulation that did not respect the antecedent cultural Russian ties.

In any case, a framework for a permanent peaceful settlement is feasible if all sides engage in honest discussions that recognize the historical background.

When U.S. President Donald Trump met Russia’s Putin in Anchorage back in August 2025, there seemed to be an acceptance by the American side of Russia’s perspective on addressing “root causes”. Subsequently, Trump failed to follow through on what appeared to be a breakthrough meeting in Anchorage. Part of the problem was the Europeans and the Kiev regime thwarting Trump’s initiative and throwing obstacles in the way of negotiations. European leaders insisted on a temporary ceasefire and NATO peacekeepers, and have persisted in treating Russia like a pariah.

The international context has shifted in a way that makes Trump more amenable. His disastrous war with Iran has blown fuel prices sky-high for American consumers. With the mid-term elections only weeks away, the White House needs some good news to prevent a political wipeout for the Republicans.

Trump made a deal with Putin two weeks ago for diesel supplies from Russia to ease the pain at the pump for American voters. Essential to that is for Ukraine to stop air strikes on Russian oil facilities. The corrupt puppet president in Kiev, Vladimir Zelensky, is defying Trump with churlish remarks and threats to keep striking Russian oil refineries and depots.

One positive thing from the rift with Zelensky is Trump viewing him as the obstacle to a peace deal. Trump is now openly castigating the Ukrainian former comedian and calling for a new president in that country.

The cocaine addict Zelensky, with his loathsome war racketeering, is hanging on to power by a thread, and only because of continuing support from European leaders. These elitist European politicians are driven by anti-Russian ideology and servility to the futile geopolitical agenda of strategically defeating Russia. Europe is witnessing a social upheaval bordering on revolution over the fallout from the soaring cost of living, which is, in turn, a consequence of the NATO proxy war in Ukraine. But the elites have no way to address the chaos because they are the problem.

For all his flaws, and there are many, at least Trump is willing to engage in diplomacy. He is not encumbered with hatred of Russia. His understanding of the root causes of the war may be limited. But at least his administration has the basic quality of respecting Russia as an equal and listening to Russia’s perspective. That is a modicum for negotiations and the art of the possible.

By contrast, the European elites and their pet regime in Kiev are incapable of engaging in any diplomacy. They are obsessed with unattainable and sinister ideological prejudices that hark back to Nazi Germany and the belief that Russians are “subhumans” to be conquered. They have no respect for Russia, nor are they capable of any intelligent, honest discussion about the causes of conflict.

Jeffrey Sachs contends that Trump could promptly end the war and create peace if he were to make a clear policy announcement that the United States is returning to a position whereby it respects indivisible security for all, including Russia, accepts permanent neutrality of Ukraine with no future as a NATO member, and declares that NATO ends its eastward expansion. A rational path to peace is possible.

There will be howls of condemnation from the Kiev regime and its European sponsors. There will be howls too from within the U.S. establishment who share the European ideology of demonizing and belligerence towards Russia. Trump may be so weakened by the mid-term elections that it is not politically possible for him to make such a policy announcement.

So be it. Russia will continue to win its military objectives and demand its rightful terms of peace. Diplomacy offers an easy way to peace. But if the West insists on the hard way, then Russia will deliver that way too. The Europeans and Kiev regime will pay an even higher price with their own implosion.

The war in Ukraine has always been about fomenting a proxy war to defeat Russia.

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The contradictions are absurd but instructive of the criminal proxy war that the U.S. and European powers have perpetrated against Russia under the guise of “defending Ukraine”.

Western sanctions on Russia – the most heavily sanctioned nation on Earth – were meant to supposedly punish Moscow for its alleged unprovoked aggression against Ukraine.

The United States recently signed into law a “sanctions bill from hell” in honor of the late war hawk Senator Lindsey Graham, aimed at crushing the Russian economy, principally by shutting down its energy exports.

Likewise, the European Union has implemented more than 20 rounds of sanctions imposed on Russia over the past four years, again purportedly to block Russian exports of oil and gas. The EU has vowed to terminate all Russian energy imports by the end of this year.

The official rationale out of Washington and European capitals is to exact retribution on Russia for its alleged invasion and violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty. Western embargoes on Russia’s economy were immediately announced after Moscow launched its Special Military Operation in February 2022. (The real background to the SMO – unreported by Western media – was the NATO-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, and the arming of NeoNazis to conduct a proxy war against Russia.)

The U.S. and European Union, as well as Britain of course, presented the attempted economic blockade of Russia as a demonstration of the West enforcing international law and supporting Ukraine. The latter is portrayed in Western media as a fair maiden of democracy assailed by a drooling Russian tyrant.

In a nutshell, the sanctions are sold to the Western public as a plausible way of neutralizing “Russia’s war machine.” If Moscow’s oil and gas exports could be cut off, then, the dubious logic goes, Russia would not be able to continue its war effort in Ukraine.

However, laughably, the supposedly noble Western rationale is in tatters this week after the U.S. Treasury lifted sanctions off Russian diesel exports for the next six months in order to boost global oil supplies and curb soaring energy prices.

Another shattering blow to the facade of Western “principles” was the disclosure by Russia’s energy minister, Alexander Novak, that the European Union has continued to buy Russian energy exports at nearly pre-war levels. (Cue Western media silence on that!)

Since 2022, the EU has bought a total of $320 billion worth of Russian hydrocarbons. To put the expenditure in perspective, that far exceeds what the European governments have donated to Ukraine, some $226 bn, according to EU data.

How’s that for a contradiction? The European governments are throwing hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ money at Ukraine supposedly to defend itself against Russia, yet these same governments are giving Russia much, much more by buying its energy resources. In other words, to use their own rhetoric, Brussels and other European capitals are “fuelling the Russian war machine.”

As for the United States, it is equally duplicitous. The Americans blew up the Nord Stream pipeline in 2022 so that Europe would not be at the mercy of Russian oil dependency. Washington also imposed sanctions on Russian energy while increasing its more expensive gas exports to Europe. Yet last Friday, October 9, President Donald Trump announced, to the dismay and alarm of the Europeans and Ukraine, that he had made a deal with Vladimir Putin to release 3.5 million tonnes of Russian diesel onto the world market to ease pressure on crippling pump prices.

Whatever happened to American laws against “trading with the enemy”?

Of course, Trump is desperate for relief over record-high fuel prices as a result of his criminal aggression against Iran and Iran’s closure of the Persian Gulf oil route in retaliation. With the mid-term Congressional elections only three weeks away, Trump is seeking to assuage angry American consumers and spare his Republican Party from an electoral drubbing that will tarnish his presidency.

Out of sheer expedience, Trump wants Russian diesel exports to save his political neck. Some observers may question whether Moscow should oblige Trump considering that Washington is arming the NeoNazi Kiev regime with missiles and intelligence. Perhaps the Kremlin is calculating that Trump could finally pull off a peace deal in Ukraine.

Another smart move by Moscow, perhaps, is that the diesel deal with Trump has managed to unleash a storm of recriminations from Europe and Ukraine, which is severely undermining the transatlantic axis. Is this political judo by Putin?

The European NATO partners and the Kiev puppet president Vladimir Zelensky reacted with unprecedented insults and defiance of Trump. They accused the American leader of treachery and of siding with Russia. Within Washington, Trump has also been lambasted for “betrayal”.

Trump and his aides hit back furiously, dismissing the Europeans as “hypocrites” over their own record purchases of Russian energy exports. Trump even called for Zelensky to be replaced by someone who he can work with.

For his part, Zelensky doubled down with truculence, badmouthing Trump for being “weak” and accusing him of putting Ukrainian lives at risk. He refused to stop Ukrainian air strikes on Russia’s oil refineries, as requested by the White House. And the little money-grabbing, narco-Führer also attempted blackmail by suggesting to Trump that he would halt air attacks on Russian energy infrastructure “if” the Pentagon supplied more Patriot missiles.

Trump’s anger has exploded over Zelensky and his European patrons. He sees their obstruction of his diesel deal with Russia as not only hypocritical but a political attack on his presidency ahead of the crucial November polls.

The debacle is a rich farce. American and European posturing is seen for what it is, without any principle or genuine motives. It is a plague on all their houses.

Both the U.S. and its European partners are buying Russian energy like never before to sustain their struggling economies. The sanctions they imposed on Russia never had anything to do with “upholding international law” or “defending Ukraine”.

Using their own disingenuous logic, the NATO nations are fuelling the Russian war machine with their continuing business-as-usual purchase of Russia’s oil and gas.

That contradiction, in turn, exposes the fraud of the war in Ukraine. It was never about defending democratic Ukraine – a corrupt NeoNazi dictatorship – or European security from Russian “threat”.

The whole murderous episode has always been about fomenting a proxy war to defeat Russia. That covert policy is a gargantuan crime of aggression that has cost millions of lives and bankrupted Western societies. What’s more, it is an utterly failed policy which Western governments are covering up to avoid accountability. The destruction and deception go hand in hand.

What is all the more damning is that this travesty could have been easily exposed years ago if the Western news media had actually reported on facts instead of being the propaganda service they so evidently are to enable criminal aggression by their imperialist masters.

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Emmanuel Macron leaves the Élysée in eight months. And, in keeping with the political journalism tradition whereby last-minute criticism apparently makes up for a decade of deference, the brickbats are coming thick and fast. The Economist, having once regarded him as the ‘saviour of Europe', now mocks a ‘lame duck' president. Two Parisian courtiers have devoted a book to ‘the story of an exceptional man … who screwed things up in an exceptional way'. Alain Minc, mouthpiece of the liberal (…)

- 2026/09 / editorial

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Hoje assinala-se o Dia Mundial do Teatro. Em teoria, é um dia para celebrar a arte, os
atores, os textos que nos fazem pensar e sentir. O teatro, quando é sério, não é só
entretenimento, é um espelho desconfortável daquilo que somos. Expõe, provoca,
obriga a encarar verdades que muitas vezes preferíamos evitar.
Talvez por isso seja impossível não fazer um paralelismo com aquilo em que se
transformou a nossa vida política.
Há qualquer coisa de profundamente teatral — no pior sentido da palavra — na forma
como hoje se faz política. Não no sentido nobre da representação, mas na encenação
vazia. Nos discursos cuidadosamente ensaiados. Nas indignações seletivas. Nas
conferências de imprensa onde já se sabe, à partida, o que vai ser dito e como vai ser
dito.
Tudo parece coreografado. Nada parece espontâneo.
Os políticos falam, mas raramente dizem. Prometem, mas quase nunca se
comprometem. E, acima de tudo, representam proximidade, representam convicção,
representam firmeza. É uma sucessão de papéis, ajustados ao momento, ao público e
às sondagens.
O problema é que isto já não engana muita gente.
Ao contrário do teatro a sério, onde há talento, trabalho e respeito por quem está a
ver, esta versão política da representação vive de clichés e de frases feitas. É uma peça
repetida vezes sem conta, com pequenas variações, mas sempre com o mesmo fundo:
pouco conteúdo e muita aparência.
E depois há o público — nós. Durante muito tempo, aceitámos este papel de
espectadores. Uns aplaudem, outros assobiam, mas no fundo continuamos sentados, à
espera que a peça melhore.
O mais grave é que, enquanto se representa, o essencial vai ficando por fazer. Os
problemas acumulam-se, as decisões adiam-se, e a realidade — essa, que não se deixa
encenar — acaba sempre por impor-se.
Talvez este Dia Mundial do Teatro sirva, pelo menos, para isto: para nos lembrar que
há uma diferença enorme entre representar bem e fingir mal.
A política não precisa de mais atores. Precisa de menos teatro.

(Aqui tem uma gravação com o texto lido pela autora)

The post Governar ou representar? appeared first on Jornal O DIABO.

There are regular warnings that France risks succumbing to fascism. But Mussolini's Italy may not be the model that attracts the far right; it could be Binyamin Netanyahu's de facto apartheid state.

- 2026/08 / editorial