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1 world political and economic scene
Politics english-russian dictionary > world political and economic scene
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2 scene
n1) место действия; арена2) разг. скандал, сцена•to pass from the scene — перен. уходить со сцены
- developments on the international sceneto retire smb from the political scene — убирать кого-л. с политической сцены, отправив его на пенсию
- domestic political scene
- on the domestic scene
- political scene
- world political and economic scene -
3 World War II
(1939-1945)In the European phase of the war, neutral Portugal contributed more to the Allied victory than historians have acknowledged. Portugal experienced severe pressures to compromise her neutrality from both the Axis and Allied powers and, on several occasions, there were efforts to force Portugal to enter the war as a belligerent. Several factors lent Portugal importance as a neutral. This was especially the case during the period from the fall of France in June 1940 to the Allied invasion and reconquest of France from June to August 1944.In four respects, Portugal became briefly a modest strategic asset for the Allies and a war materiel supplier for both sides: the country's location in the southwesternmost corner of the largely German-occupied European continent; being a transport and communication terminus, observation post for spies, and crossroads between Europe, the Atlantic, the Americas, and Africa; Portugal's strategically located Atlantic islands, the Azores, Madeira, and Cape Verde archipelagos; and having important mines of wolfram or tungsten ore, crucial for the war industry for hardening steel.To maintain strict neutrality, the Estado Novo regime dominated by Antônio de Oliveira Salazar performed a delicate balancing act. Lisbon attempted to please and cater to the interests of both sets of belligerents, but only to the extent that the concessions granted would not threaten Portugal's security or its status as a neutral. On at least two occasions, Portugal's neutrality status was threatened. First, Germany briefly considered invading Portugal and Spain during 1940-41. A second occasion came in 1943 and 1944 as Great Britain, backed by the United States, pressured Portugal to grant war-related concessions that threatened Portugal's status of strict neutrality and would possibly bring Portugal into the war on the Allied side. Nazi Germany's plan ("Operation Felix") to invade the Iberian Peninsula from late 1940 into 1941 was never executed, but the Allies occupied and used several air and naval bases in Portugal's Azores Islands.The second major crisis for Portugal's neutrality came with increasing Allied pressures for concessions from the summer of 1943 to the summer of 1944. Led by Britain, Portugal's oldest ally, Portugal was pressured to grant access to air and naval bases in the Azores Islands. Such bases were necessary to assist the Allies in winning the Battle of the Atlantic, the naval war in which German U-boats continued to destroy Allied shipping. In October 1943, following tedious negotiations, British forces began to operate such bases and, in November 1944, American forces were allowed to enter the islands. Germany protested and made threats, but there was no German attack.Tensions rose again in the spring of 1944, when the Allies demanded that Lisbon cease exporting wolfram to Germany. Salazar grew agitated, considered resigning, and argued that Portugal had made a solemn promise to Germany that wolfram exports would be continued and that Portugal could not break its pledge. The Portuguese ambassador in London concluded that the shipping of wolfram to Germany was "the price of neutrality." Fearing that a still-dangerous Germany could still attack Portugal, Salazar ordered the banning of the mining, sale, and exports of wolfram not only to Germany but to the Allies as of 6 June 1944.Portugal did not enter the war as a belligerent, and its forces did not engage in combat, but some Portuguese experienced directly or indirectly the impact of fighting. Off Portugal or near her Atlantic islands, Portuguese naval personnel or commercial fishermen rescued at sea hundreds of victims of U-boat sinkings of Allied shipping in the Atlantic. German U-boats sank four or five Portuguese merchant vessels as well and, in 1944, a U-boat stopped, boarded, searched, and forced the evacuation of a Portuguese ocean liner, the Serpa Pinto, in mid-Atlantic. Filled with refugees, the liner was not sunk but several passengers lost their lives and the U-boat kidnapped two of the ship's passengers, Portuguese Americans of military age, and interned them in a prison camp. As for involvement in a theater of war, hundreds of inhabitants were killed and wounded in remote East Timor, a Portuguese colony near Indonesia, which was invaded, annexed, and ruled by Japanese forces between February 1942 and August 1945. In other incidents, scores of Allied military planes, out of fuel or damaged in air combat, crashed or were forced to land in neutral Portugal. Air personnel who did not survive such crashes were buried in Portuguese cemeteries or in the English Cemetery, Lisbon.Portugal's peripheral involvement in largely nonbelligerent aspects of the war accelerated social, economic, and political change in Portugal's urban society. It strengthened political opposition to the dictatorship among intellectual and working classes, and it obliged the regime to bolster political repression. The general economic and financial status of Portugal, too, underwent improvements since creditor Britain, in order to purchase wolfram, foods, and other materials needed during the war, became indebted to Portugal. When Britain repaid this debt after the war, Portugal was able to restore and expand its merchant fleet. Unlike most of Europe, ravaged by the worst war in human history, Portugal did not suffer heavy losses of human life, infrastructure, and property. Unlike even her neighbor Spain, badly shaken by its terrible Civil War (1936-39), Portugal's immediate postwar condition was more favorable, especially in urban areas, although deep-seated poverty remained.Portugal experienced other effects, especially during 1939-42, as there was an influx of about a million war refugees, an infestation of foreign spies and other secret agents from 60 secret intelligence services, and the residence of scores of international journalists who came to report the war from Lisbon. There was also the growth of war-related mining (especially wolfram and tin). Portugal's media eagerly reported the war and, by and large, despite government censorship, the Portuguese print media favored the Allied cause. Portugal's standard of living underwent some improvement, although price increases were unpopular.The silent invasion of several thousand foreign spies, in addition to the hiring of many Portuguese as informants and spies, had fascinating outcomes. "Spyland" Portugal, especially when Portugal was a key point for communicating with occupied Europe (1940-44), witnessed some unusual events, and spying for foreigners at least briefly became a national industry. Until mid-1944, when Allied forces invaded France, Portugal was the only secure entry point from across the Atlantic to Europe or to the British Isles, as well as the escape hatch for refugees, spies, defectors, and others fleeing occupied Europe or Vichy-controlled Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria. Through Portugal by car, ship, train, or scheduled civil airliner one could travel to and from Spain or to Britain, or one could leave through Portugal, the westernmost continental country of Europe, to seek refuge across the Atlantic in the Americas.The wartime Portuguese scene was a colorful melange of illegal activities, including espionage, the black market, war propaganda, gambling, speculation, currency counterfeiting, diamond and wolfram smuggling, prostitution, and the drug and arms trade, and they were conducted by an unusual cast of characters. These included refugees, some of whom were spies, smugglers, diplomats, and business people, many from foreign countries seeking things they could find only in Portugal: information, affordable food, shelter, and security. German agents who contacted Allied sailors in the port of Lisbon sought to corrupt and neutralize these men and, if possible, recruit them as spies, and British intelligence countered this effort. Britain's MI-6 established a new kind of "safe house" to protect such Allied crews from German espionage and venereal disease infection, an approved and controlled house of prostitution in Lisbon's bairro alto district.Foreign observers and writers were impressed with the exotic, spy-ridden scene in Lisbon, as well as in Estoril on the Sun Coast (Costa do Sol), west of Lisbon harbor. What they observed appeared in noted autobiographical works and novels, some written during and some after the war. Among notable writers and journalists who visited or resided in wartime Portugal were Hungarian writer and former communist Arthur Koestler, on the run from the Nazi's Gestapo; American radio broadcaster-journalist Eric Sevareid; novelist and Hollywood script-writer Frederick Prokosch; American diplomat George Kennan; Rumanian cultural attache and later scholar of mythology Mircea Eliade; and British naval intelligence officer and novelist-to-be Ian Fleming. Other notable visiting British intelligence officers included novelist Graham Greene; secret Soviet agent in MI-6 and future defector to the Soviet Union Harold "Kim" Philby; and writer Malcolm Muggeridge. French letters were represented by French writer and airman, Antoine Saint-Exupery and French playwright, Jean Giroudoux. Finally, Aquilino Ribeiro, one of Portugal's premier contemporary novelists, wrote about wartime Portugal, including one sensational novel, Volframio, which portrayed the profound impact of the exploitation of the mineral wolfram on Portugal's poor, still backward society.In Estoril, Portugal, the idea for the world's most celebrated fictitious spy, James Bond, was probably first conceived by Ian Fleming. Fleming visited Portugal several times after 1939 on Naval Intelligence missions, and later he dreamed up the James Bond character and stories. Background for the early novels in the James Bond series was based in part on people and places Fleming observed in Portugal. A key location in Fleming's first James Bond novel, Casino Royale (1953) is the gambling Casino of Estoril. In addition, one aspect of the main plot, the notion that a spy could invent "secret" intelligence for personal profit, was observed as well by the British novelist and former MI-6 officer, while engaged in operations in wartime Portugal. Greene later used this information in his 1958 spy novel, Our Man in Havana, as he observed enemy agents who fabricated "secrets" for money.Thus, Portugal's World War II experiences introduced the country and her people to a host of new peoples, ideas, products, and influences that altered attitudes and quickened the pace of change in this quiet, largely tradition-bound, isolated country. The 1943-45 connections established during the Allied use of air and naval bases in Portugal's Azores Islands were a prelude to Portugal's postwar membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). -
4 activity
n1) часто pl активность, деятельность; действия, операции ( в определенной области)2) хозяйственная деятельность, производственная деятельность3) pl показатели ( в экономических исследованиях)•to be engaged in an activities — заниматься какой-л. деятельностью
to be involved in an activities — участвовать в какой-л. деятельности
to break off an activities — прекращать какую-л. деятельность
to carry out activities — осуществлять какую-л. деятельность
to coordinate smb's activities — координировать чью-л. деятельность / чьи-л. действия
to combine smb's activities — объединять чьи-л. действия
to conceal one's activities — скрывать свою деятельность
to conduct an activities — заниматься какой-л. деятельностью
to cover up smb's war time activities — прикрывать чью-л. деятельность во время войны
to cut down on one's spying activities — сокращать свою разведывательную деятельность
to engage in an activities — заниматься какой-л. деятельностью
to examine activities — изучать / исследовать деятельность
to expel smb for activities incompatible with his diplomatic status — выдворять кого-л. за деятельность, несовместимую с его дипломатическим статусом
to facilitate operational activities — способствовать / помогать оперативной деятельности
to focus activities on / upon smth — сосредоточить деятельность на чем-л.
to intensify activities — усиливать / повышать активность
to make a contribution to smb's activities — вносить вклад в чью-л. деятельность
to monitor smb's activities — следить за чьей-л. деятельностью
to paralyze smb's activities — парализовать чью-л. деятельность
to participate in an activities — участвовать в какой-л. деятельности
to put a stop to smb's criminal activities — пресекать чью-л. преступную деятельность, положить конец чьим-л. преступным действиям
to restrain / to restrict smb's activities — ограничивать чью-л. деятельность
to set off a flurry of intense negotiation activity — давать толчок лихорадочной переговорной деятельности
to step up one's activities — повышать свою активность; активизировать / усиливать свою деятельность
to take part in an activity — принимать участие в какой-л. деятельности
to terminate an activities — прекращать какую-л. деятельность
to undertake activities — осуществлять деятельность, предпринимать действия
- activity in the marketto widen the range of activities — расширять масштаб / поле деятельности
- activity incompatible with one's diplomatic status
- activity inconsistent with one's diplomatic status
- activity on the international scene
- activities against smb / smth
- advisory activity
- aggregate activities
- aggressive activity
- ancillary activities
- anti-democratic activities
- anti-government activities
- anti-militarist activities
- anti-national activities
- anti-popular activities
- anti-state activities
- area of activity
- backstage activities
- back-stairs activities
- banned activities
- basic activities
- behind-the-scenes activities
- black market activities
- business activity
- civil activity
- clandestine activities
- commercial activities
- competitive activity
- conspiratorial activity
- constant activity
- continuing activity
- continuous activity
- coordination of activities
- counterespionage activities
- covert activities
- criminal activities
- cultural activities
- current activities
- curtailing of military activities
- day-to-day activity
- decline in business activity
- defense activity
- defense industry activity
- defense-generated economic activity
- detraction and pollution of nature through the activities of man
- development activities
- diplomatic activity
- domestic activity
- dominant activity
- duplication of activities
- economic activity
- environmental activity
- escalation of terrorist activities
- espionage activities
- exposure of unlawful activities
- extension of IRA activity to Europe
- factional activities
- family planning activities
- field activities - flurry of diplomatic activities
- follow-up activity
- forecasting activity
- foreign economic activities
- foreign policy activities
- fruitful activity
- full activity
- generalization of the activities
- global activities
- government activities
- government research activities
- growing activity
- guerilla activity
- heightened activity
- high priority activities
- hostile activities
- human rights activity
- humanitarian activities
- ideological activities
- illegal activities
- illicit activity
- industrial activity
- ineffective activities
- information activities
- intellectual activities
- intelligence activities
- intensification of activity
- intensive activity
- interconnected activities
- international activities
- investment activities
- involvement in espionage activities for a country
- know-how activity
- labor activities
- legislative activity
- leisure activity
- leisure-time activity
- level of activities
- long-term activity
- manifestation of activities
- mass communication activities
- military activities
- multifaceted activity
- nationalist activities
- nonmarket activities
- nonprofit activities
- nuclear related activities
- operational activities
- opposition activity
- organizational activities
- parliamentary activities
- peaceful activities
- permitted activities
- political activity
- practical activity
- primary activity
- priority activities
- pro-American activities
- production activity
- productive activity
- professional activity
- profit-making activity
- profit-seeking activity
- program activities
- prohibited activities
- project activities
- promotional activities
- propaganda activities
- provocative activities
- public activities
- public relations activities
- R & D activities
- range of activity
- rebel activities
- recurring activities
- regular government activities
- relaxation of political activities
- renewed activity
- research activities
- research and development activities
- Resistance activities
- revival of activities
- revolutionary activities
- sabotage activities
- scientific activities
- scope of activities
- seat of activities
- secessionist activities
- secondary activities
- service activities
- set of activities
- social and political activity
- space activities
- spate of terrorist activity
- special activities
- speculative activities - statistical data processing activities
- subsequent activity
- subversive activities
- subversive and terrorist activities
- supporting activity
- tactical activities
- take-over activity
- technical assistance activities
- terrorist activities
- time-limited activity
- trading activities
- treatment of economic activity
- undercover activities
- underground activities
- underhand activities
- uninterrupted activity
- union activities
- verification activities
- vigorous activity
- volume of activity
- wartime activities
- work activities
- world business activities -
5 Theater, Portuguese
There are two types of theater in Portugal: classical or "serious" theater and light theater, or the Theater of Review, largely the Revistas de Lisboa (Lisbon Reviews). Modern theater, mostly but not exclusively centered in Lisbon, experienced an unfortunate impact from official censorship during the Estado Novo (1926-74). Following laws passed in 1927, the government decreed that, as a cultural activity, any theatrical presentations that were judged "offensive in law, in morality and in decent customs" were prohibited. One consequence that derived from the risk of prohibition was that directors and playwrights began to practice self-censorship. This discouraged liberal and experimental theatrical work, weakened commercial investment in theater, and made employment in much theater a risky business, with indifferent public support.Despite these political obstacles and the usual risks and difficulties of producing live theater in competition first with emerging cinema and then with television (which began in any case only after 1957), some good theatrical work flourished. Two of the century's greatest repertory actresses, Amélia Rey-Colaço (1898-1990) and Maria Matos (1890-1962), put together talented acting companies and performed well-received classical theater. Two periods witnessed a brief diminution of censorship: following World War II (1945-47) and during Prime Minister Marcello Caetano's government (1968-74). Although Portuguese playwrights also produced comedies and dramas, some of the best productions reached the stage under the authorship of foreign playwrights: Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, Arthur Miller, and others.A major new phase of Portuguese serious theater began in the 1960s, with the staging of challenging plays by playwrights José Cardoso Pires, Luis Sttau Monteiro, and Bernardo Santareno. Since the Revolution of 25 April 1974, more funds for experimental theater have become available, and government censorship ceased. As in so much of Western European theater, however, the general public tended to favor not plays with serious content but techno-hits that featured foreign imports, including musicals, or homegrown musicals on familiar themes. Nevertheless, after 1974, the theater scene was enlivened, not only in Lisbon, but also in Oporto, Coimbra, and other cities.The Theater of Review, or light theater, was introduced to Portugal in the 19th century and was based largely on French models. Adapted to the Portuguese scene, the Lisbon reviews featured pageantry, costume, comic skits, music (including the ever popular fado), dance, and slapstick humor and satire. Despite censorship, its heyday occurred actually during the Estado Novo, before 1968. Of all the performing arts, the Lisbon reviews enjoyed the greatest freedom from official political censorship. Certain periods featured more limited censorship, as cited earlier (1945-47 and 1968-74). The main venue of the Theater of Review was located in central Lisbon's Parque Mayer, an amusement park that featured four review theaters: Maria Vitória, Variedades, Capitólio, and ABC.Many actors and stage designers, as well as some musicians, served their apprenticeship in the Lisbon reviews before they moved into film and television. Noted fado singers, the fadistas, and composers plied their trade in Parque Mayer and built popular followings. The subjects of the reviews, often with provocative titles, varied greatly and followed contemporary social, economic, and even political fashion and trends, but audiences especially liked satire directed against convention and custom. If political satire was not passed by the censor in the press or on television, sometimes the Lisbon reviews, by the use of indirection and allegory, could get by with subtle critiques of some personalities in politics and society. A humorous stereotyping of customs of "the people," usually conceived of as Lisbon street people or naive "country bumpkins," was also popular. To a much greater degree than in classical, serious theater, the Lisbon review audiences steadily supported this form of public presentation. But the zenith of this form of theater had been passed by the late 1960s as audiences dwindled, production expenses rose, and film and television offered competition.The hopes that governance under Prime Minister Marcello Caetano would bring a new season of freedom of expression in the light theater or serious theater were dashed by 1970-71, as censorship again bore down. With revolution in the offing, change was in the air, and could be observed in a change of review show title. A Lisbon review show title on the eve of the Revolution of 25 April 1974, was altered from: 'To See, to Hear... and Be Quiet" to the suggestive, "To See, to Hear... and to Talk." The review theater experienced several difficult years after 1980, and virtually ceased to exist in Parque Mayer. In the late 1990s, nevertheless, this traditional form of entertainment underwent a gradual revival. Audiences again began to troop to renovated theater space in the amusement park to enjoy once again new lively and humorous reviews, cast for a new century and applied to Portugal today.
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