Spain’s government and its municipalities within 10 kilometres of the country’s nuclear power station network, including the ageing Almaraz plant, have signed an agreement to improve safety protocols "in case of a nuclear emergency."

The agreement provides, among other measures, for technical support to councils, information programmes for local populations, and theoretical and practical training for technicians in emergency plans and drills.

Britain’s sports good retailer, JD Sports, has announced a potential merger with Sport Zone which operated across Spain and Portugal.

The partnership would create an Iberian sports retail group which would include the JD Group as a major shareholder (50%) along with Sonae (30%) and the family shareholders of JD Sprinter, the Spanish business in which JD Sports bought a stake in 2011 (20%).

The area around the Alqueva reservoir in the Alentejo is an ideal place to grow cannabis on an industrial scale, so apt is the land that multinationals already are eyeing up the area in preparation for the legalisation of the drug in key European markets.

Portugal’s Left Bloc is pushing for the legalisation of cannabis plantations to supply already legal overseas markets and says the legalisation of cannabis cultivation is unstoppable.

According to a report in the journal Scientific Reports, a new strain of ranavirus* is wreaking havoc in Portugal's amphibian populations.

The infectious agent that causes the epidemic is highly virulent and in addition to amphibians, it now is affecting fish and reptiles.

In a bid to entice rich foreigners to its shores, Italy has introduced a preferential tax rate for them.

The new flat tax rate of €100,000 per annum will cover all income received worldwide for foreigners who make Italy their tax residence. To be eligible, a person must live in Italy for more than 183 days a year.

The Via do Infante Users Committee again has met to look at the damage that the tolls system on the A22 motorway already has caused and to schedule new actions to get them scrapped.
 
For the Committee, in addition to the damage to the regional economy, the tolls indirectly are causing an increasing number of accidents and deaths on the EN125 ‘alternative’ road which is not even close to being upgraded, as promised when the tolls were imposed in 2011.

The Government is set to strip the Bank of Portugal of its role in sorting out the ‘rescue’ of troubled banks, a task at which it has hardly excelled.

This show of strength by the prime minister, who has supported the Bank of Portugal's governor Carlos Costa with increasing difficulty, is as far as he can go to punish the lame duck governor for a lackluster performance that has cost the country billions.

Ricardo Salgado spoke to reporters outside the courthouse in Santarém today, refusing to take any blame at all in the collapse of Banco Espírito Santo.

The former banker made it clear that the person primarily responsible for the collapse of BES was Carlos Costa, the banking supervisor and governor of the Bank of Portugal.