Two hours of torrential rain brought Faro to a standstill this afternoon with the Citizen’s Shop and market shut down due to water pouring in and endangering electrical systems.
The worst downpour was at around 2pm that caused traffic to halt as streets flooded, especially between the downtown area and the market.
Portugal’s Communist Party MPs have accused the socialist government of going back on electoral promises about demolitions on the Ria Formosa islands: there are now just three days to go before the bulldozers are back.
The communists simply want to know whether Prime Minister António Costa will or will not stop the demolitions as he promised to do before he was elected.
The month of October so far has witnessed this year’s fastest pace of business activity in the eurozone.
Events were cheered on by consumer spending, despite prices rising at their sharpest rate in more than five years, according to the respected Markit survey.
Two most foul robberies over the weekend left one old lady dead and another in hospital.
The assaults took place at properties in Olhão and Faro and almost certainly were carried out by the same person as both of the elderly residents lived on the ground floor and were assaulted most violently.
Newly built houses in the UK have been found to be the smallest in Europe.
A newbuild in the UK measures an average of 76m2 whereas in Italy the space allocated in 81m2. The Japanese, perhaps surprisingly, enjoy 95m2 while the Chinese are condensed into 60m2.
Portugal’s defence minister, José Azeredo Lopes, today tried to play down the presence of ships from Russia’s Northern and Baltic fleets off the Portuguese coast even though the assembly includes a nuclear submarine and an aircraft carrier destined to participate in air operations in Syria.
"I have, and no else to my knowledge has, any evidence to conclude that this is a particularly serious situation. It can be treated as a form of naval demonstration like we have seen in the past," said the minister as the Russian ships sailed through Portugal’s exclusive economic zone 200 nautical miles off the Portuguese coast.
The Canadian ratings agency DBRS has kept Portugal’s financial system on life support by maintaining its rating at one point over ‘junk’ status at 'BBB(Low) Stable', to the relief of the socialist government and Portugal’s international creditors.
The rating with a “stable” outlook was enough to keep Portugal out of trouble and safely in the European Central Bank’s bond buying programme, despite the country’s soaring borrowings and a lack of any real effort over reforms, relying instead on tax increases.
The sale process for Novo Banco is dragging on with the bidders for the loss-making business now having until November 4th to submit their absolutely final offers.
Novo Banco was created in 2014 as part of the Banco Espírito Santo ‘rescue’ package that saw the Resolution Fund and the taxpayer contribute €5 billion to save the bank that had been brought to its knees under Ricardo Salgado's particular brand of management.
