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This year is expected to be one of the three hottest ever since there are records, ranking second, above 2015 but below 2016, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced Monday.

The year 2017 is the hottest ever without the El Niño phenomenon, which affects temperatures, sea currents and precipitation, according to WMO.

The year 2016, when there was a strong El Niño, is the hottest year at all, followed by 2017 and 2015, since there are records, said the organization at the 23rd United Nations Climate Conference, which takes place in Bonn, Germany.

“The three most recent years are the hottest ever recorded and are included in the long-term warming trend of the planet,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.

The year 2017 was marked by extreme weather events of unprecedented intensity, such as hurricanes in the Caribbean and the Atlantic, temperatures of 50º in Asia and drought in southern Africa. “Several of these phenomena – scientific studies will reveal just how many – have the hallmark of global warming brought on by the concentrations of greenhouse gases released by human activity,” he said.

The Minister of Internal Administration has appointed Lieutenant General Carlos Manuel Mourato Nunes to lead the National Civil Protection Authority.

In a statement, it is stated that the “procedures for his appointment, namely the hearing of the National Commission of Civil Protection, will be held tomorrow, November 6, at 12:00 noon”

With a degree in Military Sciences and Geographical Engineering, Lieutenant General Mourato Nunes also passed the Institute of High Military Studies, where he completed the General Officer Course and the General Course of Command and General Staff.

He was Director of the Geographic Institute of the Army between 1993 and 1999 and President of the Portuguese Geographic Institute between 2002 and 2003, at which time he was promoted to Lieutenant General and assumed the functions of General Commander of the Republican National Guard until 2008.

From 2008 to 2010 he was Secretary General of the Secretariat for Cooperation among Portuguese Speaking Countries in Public Security matters. From 2010 to 2012 he was President of the Coordinating Council of Cartography and Director General of the Portuguese Geographical Institute. He is currently a Security and Defence Consultant.

The indictment follows the resignation in mid-October of the then president of the National Authority of Civil Protection, Joaquim Leitão who had served just under a year in office, having been sworn in in October 2016.

The ANSR road statistics also indicate an increase in light injuries, with 34,254 recorded since the beginning of this year and 32,468 in the same period of 2016.

Lisbon is the district with the most accidents recorded (21,887), down from the previous year (22,216), followed by Porto (19,313), Faro (9,313), Braga (8,959), Aveiro (8,480) and Setúbal (8,405).

The district of Oporto has the highest number of fatalities recorded, with 60, almost double the 35 registered in the same period, followed by Setúbal (46 this year and 32 in 2016), Lisbon (42 this year and 48 in 2016) and Santarém (40 this year and 21 in the same period of 2016).

Lisbon is also the district with the most serious injuries registered (250 this year and 260 in 2016), followed by Faro (161 this year and 1,414 in 2016), Santarém (159 this year and 114 last year) and Porto (146 this year and 144 in 2016).

The National Civil Protection Authority (ANPC) and the Portuguese Institute of the Sea and the Atmosphere (IPMA) will hold the NEAMWAVE’17 exercise tomorrow, November 3, from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

PLEASE NOTE THIS IS AN INTERNAL CPX Exercise so no alarms will be sounded in public areas.

NEAMWAVE’17 aims to test the effectiveness and readiness of the Tsunami alert system implemented in the North-East Atlantic, Mediterranean and Related Seas region.

This is a communication exercise during which the various national and international players will exchange technical-operational notifications related to the eventuality of an earthquake responsible for the generation of a Tsunami with an impact on the Portuguese coast.

In the edition of NEAMWAVE’17 all the coastal counties included between Vila Real de Santo António and Lourinhã, that is to say, the districts of Faro, Beja, Setúbal and Lisboa districts whose riverside fronts are susceptible of being affected by a Tsunami.

Portugal participated in the different phases of the exercise through ANPC and IPMA.

The exercise involves the various levels of the structure of the national civil protection system, namely the ANPC, through the National Relief Operations Command and the district disaster relief commands of those districts, and the municipal civil protection services of the mentioned municipalities.

The IPMA is involved in the exercise as a focal point responsible for the detection and dissemination of the Tsunami alert to the ANPC, Directorate-General of the Maritime Authority (DGAM) and the Maritime Rescue Coordination Center (MRCC), as well as emergency management entities from several countries in the Northeast Atlantic, such as Morocco, Spain, England, Denmark and Ireland, among others.

NEAMTWS is the designation of the warning and warning system for the North-East Atlantic, Mediterranean and Related Oceans (Tsunami Early Warning and Mitigation System for the North-Eastern Atlantic, Mediterranean and Connected Seas), implemented and coordinated by the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission after the Indian Ocean Tsunami of December 26, 2004.

The NEAMTWS warning and warning system focuses its action in three main areas:

1. Tsunami risk assessment;
2. Preparation and sensitization of the population;
3. Implementation of warning and warning systems in case of emergency.

Four service providers (based in France, Greece, Italy and Turkey) are currently operating in this region of the globe, which warns NEAM Member States authorities in the event of a Tsunami event or occurrence. In an operational phase, also integrating the network of service providers in the Northeast Atlantic region.

In the operation that took place 800 kms from Portugal, the Judicial Police have detained the 17 crew. Drug was hidden in a tank

The action was in the style of a Hollywood movie. At the request of the Judicial Police, a Navy Corvette went to the south of Morocco, in the Atlantic Ocean, between Casablanca and Agadir, 800 kms from Portugal, carrying a group of special operatives.

The Marines boarded a speedboat, approached the freighter, climbing on board. With the Marines on board, the 17 crew members – Indians and Pakistanis – did not offer any resistance, which allowed the anti-narcotics team of the Judicial Police to enter the freighter and make the arrests. None of the alleged traffickers were armed.

The intervention took place the night of Thursday to Friday (26^th/27^th October 2017) and the ship is now in the custody of the PJ. The only cargo on board the 115-meter freighter with the Comoros flag, was 1130 kg of cocaine with the packages bearing the Hugo Boss logo. The drug was hidden in the underside of the ship, in an empty ballast tank (they usually receive ballast water to maintain vessel stability).

“This was also the result of an exchange of information within the framework of the MAOC-N – Maritime Analysis and Operations Center-Narcotics, which is based in Lisbon,” said DN Joaquim Pereira, director of the Unit for Combating Trafficking in Narcotic Drugs (UNCTE) of the PJ, who yesterday explained to the press the operation, flanked by commanders Carvalho Pinto, director of the naval operations center of the Navy and Bernardo da Costa, Air Force spokesman FA). The monitoring of the ship was undertaken by the Air Force.

The drugs would be worth around 50 million euros (bills made at 45 euros a gram of cocaine) but after treating the cocaine would be worth three times more than that, said those responsible.

Bosnia, Timor, Haiti, Central African Republic and now New York. Luís Carrilho is the new UN police adviser

As a special adviser to the United Nations Police, he takes a goals of the organization very seriously: “We need to increase the number of women police in United Nations missions.” It is an important objective for operational reasons: “On the ground – the insecurity that justifies the presence of the UN in many conflict countries – there are many victims and vulnerable groups who need support and women police have a better ability to protect civilians, particularly children, women, the elderly and those mutilated.

While still in command of the United Nations police corps at the RCA peace mission, Luís Carrilho was honoured with Outstanding Role Model, becoming the first Portuguese official to receive such a UN distinction. Now, as a police adviser, Luís Carrilho will continue with his eyes on the world map, but this time as a strategist.. “The division where I am is strategically coordinating police actions on the ground both in peacekeeping missions such as the Central African Republic and in political missions such as the Guinea Bissau.”

The official recalls that, currently, there are 18 international missions where the UN police force is located. “It is important that there are people with technical skills and an adequate profile for these missions and that coordination between the mission and the member countries is done in an integrated way through the Police Division in New York,” he said.

Luís Carrilho praises the role that the various Portuguese security forces have had in missions abroad, “including the GNR and the Foreigners and Borders Service, but also civilian technicians who in Timor made a huge contribution.”

October was the hottest October for 87 years according to the Portuguese Institute of Ocean and Atmosphere (IPMA). Since 1931 there was no such a hot October, with the average air temperature about 3 ° C above the normal value.

The difference is more noticeable if we look at the average value of the maximum temperature, which was the highest since 1931, about 5 ° C above the normal value.

The IPMA highlights the occurrence of new highs and highs for the month of October, with special emphasis on the 15th, which was the hottest day of the month.

There were two heat waves, from 1 to 16 and from 23 to 30 October, which covered a large part of the continent, with the exception of the coastal regions. The first heat wave had a maximum duration of 15/16 days and is among the longest for the month of October.

Regarding rainfall, October was classified as extremely dry – the driest of the last 20 years, which contributed to leaving the entire continent of the continent in severe drought (24.8%) or extreme (75.2%) drought,

It has a difficult name to pronounce, it is rare, but it may have been registered twice this year in Portugal

The deadly fires of Pedrógão Grande, on June 17, and the central zone, on October 15, may be related to a rare phenomenon, with a difficult name to pronounce: pyro-cumulonimbus.  Two members of the Independent Technical Commission that investigated the fires of early summer that killed 64 people believe that this is what happened, they told TSF.

“Pyro-cumulonimbus is a storm created by a fire,” says Paulo Fernandes, Ph.D. in Forestry and Environmental Sciences at the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (UTAD). Among the images he saw and the reports he heard about the fires, highlights the cloud of the fire, which describes as “very developed, very high that at a certain point began to produce lightning and thunder.” “This is one of the signs of pyro-cumulonimbus,” he concludes.

This phenomenon had already been described by the Independent Technical Commission regarding the fire of Pedrógão. “It is a cloud of smoke that rises very high, 10 kilometres.

When this cloud rises so high, in addition to condensation, ice is formed and is the friction between the ice crystals that can cause lightning, caused by the fires themselves, and that sometimes give rise to new ignitions, “describes Paulo Fernandes, for whom the existence of a pyro-cumulonimbus” would explain, at least in part, the devastation that was observed in these two great fires of the interior. “According to what the researcher told TSF, “a typical forest fire does not cause that destruction,” and it is necessary for that to happen “strong wind, with projections at a great distance from incandescent materials.”

Prison guards are not subject to mandatory checks to ensure that prohibited objects, such as mobile phones or drugs, are transported to prisons, constituting a “serious security breach”, according to a report from the prisons’ inspection services.

The report of the Audit and Inspection Service of the Directorate General for Reintegration and Prison Services (DGRSP), which evaluates the control procedures at the entrance of the prisons, was the subject of a hearing held on 26^th October by the Justice Minister, Francisca Van Dunem, at the request of the PSD party.

The document, dated May and signed by the coordinating inspector, states that the control of visitors in prisons is carried out through “detection devices, by palpation and by review of clothing, footwear, personal luggage or similar objects”, competing with the guards prisons “to ensure the control of the entry and exit of persons” from prisons.

“The law does not exclude any citizen from such control,” he says, specifying that the visitors, lawyers and prison guards who work within prisons are subject to these mandatory measures.

According to the inspection report, these procedures are applied to visitors, but in relation to the prison corps there is an “intolerable relaxation of such procedures, not thorough verification of the belongings that each worker carries with him into the prison establishment, as well as not making their belongings pass through x-rays”.

The DGRSP Audit and Inspection Service reports on numerous police investigations and cases involving the introduction of mobile phones and drugs into prisons by prison guards.

The document concluded that the scheme for the introduction into prisons of these objects prohibited by DGRSP workers “does not pre-suppose a structured criminal organization nor an elaborate plan”, resulting in a “serious failure to comply with mandatory procedures”, a situation that occurs throughout the country.

The increased pollution in Portugal began on October 6, with high levels of nitrogen dioxide and ozone. On the 15th, with the winds came the dust from North Africa, and with the fires, an excess of inhalable particles

The worst forest fires ever in Portugal, which on the 15th and 16th of this month burned at once an absolute record of more than 220 thousand hectares, causing 44 deaths, more than 70 injured, also led to a severe episode of air pollution.

Fumes and particles travelled to northern France and southern England, where they were enough to cloud the sun, and they also reached northern Germany and the Baltic states (see map below). In the country, the air measurement stations registered, on days 15 and 16, throughout the territory, levels of inhalable particles well above the legal limits.

The pollution, however, had already affected Portugal since 6^th October because of the weather conditions, with intense heat and lack of wind, which caused high concentrations of pollutants (nitrogen dioxide and ozone) in the air. With the fires and atmospheric circulation, determined by Hurricane Ophelia, which brought a strong south wind, and together with it the dust of the desert from North Africa.

In those two days of fires, “there were air quality measurement stations that registered values ​​four times the daily limit”, says Francisco Ferreira, professor and researcher at the New University of Lisbon in the area of ​​air quality and president of environmental association Zero.

On 15^th and 16^th October stations throughout the territory reported inhalable particulate values ​​above the limit of 50 micrograms per cubic meter (mg / m 3). “There were stations in the country that reached 300, and in Galicia, where there were also fires, reached 600 mg / m3, in Vigo and Santiago de Compostela, in these days,” Francisco Ferreira said.

In the Air Quality Index, the classification was in these days of “bad”, the worst of the scale, which remained on the morning of 17, but which later improved throughout the day with rain and the west wind that contributed to clean the atmosphere. On the 18th, the classification of air quality was already “very good” and “good” in all seasons of the country.