Faro Airport’s French-owned operator, the Algarve Tourism Association and easyJet today inaugurated new routes to Nice and Lille with the baptism of an Airbus A320 from Lille and a special welcome for all passengers on the inaugural fight.

With the inauguration of the new service for Nice and Lille, the Algarve is connected to 10 French airports with the number of available seats showing a 30% increase this summer over last.

Banco Santander has announced that with its purchase of Banco Popular for €1, it has become the largest bank in Spain and Banco Santander Totta now is the largest private bank in Portugal in terms of assets.

In today's statement, the institution said that Banco Santander Totta will incorporate Banco Popular Portugal, "creating the conditions to further develop its activity to support Portuguese families and companies," and admitted that 3,000 people will lose their jobs.

The Municipality of Lagos has signed a financing agreement with Turismo de Portugal for the creation of city WI-FI zones.

In addition to some existing zones, Lagos will have five more areas of WiFi coverage, namely in Largo de la Iglesia de Santo António, Praça Infante D. Henrique, Praça de Gil Eanes, Largo do Marquês de Pombal and the area near the municipal market.

Excessive payments to EDP were discussed in parliament today, the veteran communist leader, Jerónimo de Sousa, calling on the Socialist Government to end EDP’s "excessive revenues" and use the money to invest in better public transport.

In the fortnightly parliamentary debate with the Prime Minister, the secretary general of the Communist Party said "why must consumers pay these millions of profits for the big energy companies by paying for the most expensive electricity in Europe," referring to the latest row over the hideously complex Power Acquisition Contracts and Costs to Maintain Contractual Equilibrium (CMEC) which electricity consumers have been paying for since market deregulation.

Two years ago, the court ruled that stories published about one of José Sócrates’ ex-girlfriends were in the public interest and that claim for €200,000 for each news item was dismissed.

Journalist, Fernanda Câncio, has lost in court again and Sábado again has the right to publish news about her, her relationship with Sócrates and Operation Marquês.

Portugal’s pro-oil Environment Minister, João Pedro Matos Fernandes, is concerned about rising water levels and their effect on the national coastline but the €150 million set aside to bolster coastal defences is not yet spent and he is keen to approve more work.

At a Lisbon seminar, ‘The Coastal Zone of Portugal - how can we defend it?’ the minister said that the programme already has seen the approval of 50 kilometres of coastal work but the work needs to be accelerated.

Portugal’s Green party asked the Ministry of Economy if it knew what was going on with the feldspar mining application that has Monchique residents and ecological groups on red alert as to further activities by mining company Sifucel.

The Greens wanted to know whether the Ministry of Economy would be paying any attention at all to the local council when considering authorising mining feldspar in Monchique, especially in registered ecological, Natura 2000 and Monchique Special Protection Zone areas.

The increase the Algarve’s current ‘feel good’ factor, the Silves Beer Festival is back on June 15th to 18th.

Once hugely popular, the beer festival was ditched in 2007 after 30 years, due to dwindling numbers but with the resurgence of craft beers, of which there will be at least 50, Silves Football club is to host a new version at a new venue - the downtown Al-Mutamid square.