Angola’s president of 100 days, João Lourenço, continues to clear away the remnants of the corrupt regime of José dos Santos while continuing his less than cooperative attitude towards Portugal, the country’s old ‘colonial master.’

The current point of conflict with Lisbon is Operation Fizz in which Angola’s former vice-president, Manuel Vicente, is wanted back in Portugal to face charges that he handed §800,000 to former Portuguese prosecutor, Orlando Figueira, in exchange dropping an investigation into the origin of funds which Vicente used to buy a luxury apartment in a Lisbon suburb.

The star of Portugal’s improving finances, Finance Minister Mário Centeno, said on Wednesday that the resolution for the collapsed Banco Espírito Santo, devised and agreed by Carlos Costa at the Bank of Portugal, already has cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of euros, and it’s not over yet.

Centeno said that the Banco Espírito Santo 'resolution' created an incalculable risk for the financial system, which only recently has been quantified with the sale of Novo Banco to Lone Star.

LIDL Portugal has warned that special offers on social media, including one for a special €250 card, are fraudulent and nothing to do with its own marketing.

A message that has been circulating on WhatsApp, promises users a €250 LIDL card but the company confirmed this is a phishing scam.

An 18-year-old man has been arrested in Loulé on child pornography charges.

The Judicial Police stated that, "the defendant shared computer files on the internet containing photographs and videos of minors."

The Madeiran regional government’s plan, to establish a regular ferry service between the island and the mainland, lies in tatters with a seasonal service the most likely outcome.

In December 2017, some 13 applications were said to have been received with the government guaranteeing the service "would start in the summer of 2018." What the government did not add was that the service will stop a couple of months later when tourist traffic drops off.

A third Olhão council employee has been detained on suspicion of passive corruption by receiving money from property owners for incorrectly licensing building project specialities, such as water and sanitation systems.

The Public Prosecutor's Office announced that a 'senior technician in the private works section of Olhão council' has been arrested, and a lawyer and a British citizen, involved in the licensing of a swimming pool, have been registered as official suspects.

The western section of the EN125 upgrade will be finished this coming Friday, January 12th 2018. Thus spake Rui Sousa, the man in charge of Rotas do Algarve Litoral.

Claiming that everything will be ready, signage in place, sidewalks completed, roundabouts in action and new road surfaces laid, Sousa is convinced that all will be completed in the next three days, come rain or shine, 100% definite.

Vila Real de Santo António’s municipal market is to have a €425,000 make-over which includes turning part of the building into a restaurant and leisure zone.

The four month job includes replacing the old roof, remodeling the sales spaces and the toilets, painting inside and out and the improvement of the drainage.