"Portugal: Waiting it outl"

The café was the last to close. By March, Marina Oliveira, the owner, was selling only a few cups of coffee a day and had fallen three months behind with the rent. Before her small restaurant finally closed, a mini-market, a builder’s office and other neighbouring businesses had shut down. Now every store window in the row of a dozen shops on a north Lisbon housing estate is covered with cardboard and old newspapers.