Credit: Israel em Portugal
Israel's Ambassador to Portugal, Oren Rozenblat, visited the historic archives of Diário de Notícias at the invitation of Marco Galinha, founder and Chairman of the BEL Group. During the visit, the ambassador had the opportunity to examine historic editions of the newspaper, including its May 1948 front page announcing the proclamation of the State of Israel.
In addition to that landmark edition, Ambassador Rozenblat reviewed several publications dedicated to the history of Israel, as well as a special edition honoring Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese diplomat recognized as one of the "Righteous Among the Nations" for issuing visas that enabled thousands of Jews to escape persecution during the Second World War.
In recent years, businessman Marco Galinha has also been the subject of extensive media coverage and public debate concerning his business activities. In some media reports and public commentary, he was described as a "Russian oligarch", a characterization that Galinha has consistently and publicly rejected.
The controversy arose following political statements and media reports that linked Galinha to the term "Russian oligarch" because of his family relationship with his Russian father-in-law, businessman Markos Leivikov, and allegations regarding business connections between the two. Marco Galinha has firmly denied these claims, arguing that the references amounted to an unfair attempt to draw conclusions from his family ties and did not reflect the reality of his business activities.
