International body, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has drawn up a list of the worst countries in Europe in which to work - Portugal lies in fourth place due to high unemployment rates and low wages.

The OECD looked at wages, occupational safety and unemployment rates in showing that Portugal was marginally better than Greece, Spain and Turkey in a list of 36 countries led by Norway, Switzerland and Iceland.

French legislation has come into effect making it illegal for supermarkets to destroy any food which is approaching its best-before date.

Instead, the supermarkets will have to give it away to charities and action groups.

With the numbers of mafia-related murders on the rise, Italy’s interior minister has called for the army to be sent in.

Clans within the Camorra crime syndicate are involved in an upsurge of violence as they fight over drug dealing territory.

For the first time since its reunification in 1990, more people are moving to former East Germany than are leaving it.

Since the Berlin wall came down and East Germany as a country disappeared, some 1.8 million people left the east in search of jobs and better housing in the west.

The GNR so afr has logged 463 accidents and one death on Portugal’s roads during Operation Carnival 2016 which ends on Tuesday.

Between midnight on Friday and 2pm on Sunday, the rash of road traffic accidents left one dead and eight seriously injured.

The operation fielded more police patrols and many more road inspections than usual on most major routes, especially on those roads that lead to carnival venues.

Spain may yet recognise one of its heroes, a doctor who saved thousands of European Jews who were attempting to flee from the Nazis by crossing treacherous mountain passes in the Pyrenees.

Dr Eduardo Martínez Alonso also rescued Britons who were held prisoner in Spain.

The number of births registered last year in the Algarve’s hospitals has led to a welcome reversal the downward trend that started in 2010.

There were 4,083 babies born in the Algarve last year, 314 more than in the year before.

Portugal’s Minister for the Environment João Matos Fernandes has assured the public that the Almaraz nuclear power station, situated 100kms over the Portuguese-Spanish border, is totally safe.

The minister said on Friday that the Almaraz nuclear power station will be one of the first issues to be addressed with the future government of Spain, but in the meantime assured the Portuguese public that the station's equipment is operating in "total safety."