Such gestures are the most that Luz has mustered by way of resistance

Such gestures are the most that Luz has mustered by way of resistance. “We tried to negotiate a smaller dam, but we lack the strength,” said Horacio Guerra, after handing his accordion to a neighbour. Mr Guerra, who was parish leader 10 years ago, quit when he knew his village was doomed.Villagers have insisted, however, on taking their graveyard with them when they move – and that, says the present parish leader, Francisco Oliveira, is his biggest headache. “Moving the cemetery touches people’s deepest private feelings, which we must respect. It’s a specialist operation, and we’ve recruited anthropologists and psychologists to handle it. We’ll probably take the soil because it’s consecrated ground.

To be honest I’m not sure how we’ll do it.”A ruined Roman fortress guards the once-bustling Guadiana river trading route outside Luz The slack waterway meanders round tussocky islets. A fisherman sat by his line and a goatherd in a long sheepskin cape watched seven goats scratching at leathery herb bushes. “My house is decrepit,” the goatherd said, “but I want to stay. I spent 50 years building it, bit by bit.”All Portugal’s parties supported Salazar’s project, even after the 1974 Carnation Revolution, although doubts halted work in the Eighties. Socialists and Conservatives wanted to boost a region where poor farmers had seized big estates and demanded expropriation. Communists thought it would provide jobs.But Vitaly, 25, a Ukrainian working on the new village, says he has no Portuguese workmates “Brazilians, Ukrainians, Angolans, yes But no Portuguese wants this work I earn $3 an hour and send $600 a month to my parents.

It’s a fortune for them.”At Alqueva, 12 miles downstream, a wall of concrete rears into the luminous sky Locals strolled by on a Sunday outing “It’s big and ugly, but I suppose we need it,” one reckoned “But it’s too late, the Alentejo’s dead Everybody’s gone. Farmers are fined if they exceed European tomato or wheat quotas. They’re subsidised to produce nothing, so what’s the point of irrigating farmland?”Tourism rather than farming is seen as the region’s salvation. The authorities talk of small-scale rural tourism, but no plans or infrastructure exist. Rather, speculators with fortunes from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao are developing eight golf courses in the Alentejo, some in protected areas. With the Algarve overdeveloped, businessmen expect Alqueva water to supply new tourist ventures that will produce cascades of riches.”People think irrigation will create Scotland here,” scoffs the influential commentator Miguel Sousa Tavares, who lives locally.

“But this won’t become Scotland any more than Portuguese cork trees would flourish in the Highlands.” The dam reflects a “Texas syndrome”, he reckons: the belief that concrete is good and biggest is best. “It’s a national disease.”In Luz, which means Light, a poster taped to a bus shelter announces a forthcoming bullfighting festival. “We will do everything to make this another happy memory of this beautiful village, condemned to the waters of progress,” the poster proclaims bravely.”We’re quite afraid of the future,” Mr Oliveira says “I’ve been handed this baby and I have to bring it up But our hands are tied, our voice is ignored We haven’t the power to change the smallest thing. When the village is flooded we should plant a flag to mark the spot and remember the sacrifice that was made.”. A police officer at a Halloween costume party shot and killed an actor after the man pointed a fake gun at him, police said. A police officer at a Halloween costume party shot and killed an actor after the man pointed a fake gun at him, police said.
It wasn’t clear if the actor knew the officer was responding to a noise complaint or if he thought he was just another partygoer in costume, a Los Angeles Police Department spokeswoman said.Anthony Dwain Lee, 39, died at the West Los Angeles mansion where he was shot early Saturday.