Germany and the UK are in the midst of a quarrel over spying.

With the publication of the leaked Snowden documents last year, which suggested that the UK and the US had been spying on Germany, the German parliament set up a parliamentary enquiry.

Pousadas de Portugal performed better last year than its management expected.

Miguel Velez, the man at Pousadas de Portugal which is managed by the Pestana Group, said the results were "very encouraging,” with national and foreign client numbers up showing results that were "better than initial expectations."

Cash in running out of favour in the UK as “contactless” cards rise in popularity.

These ‘tap and go’ payments are made by swiping debit or credit cards on a terminal.   By 2014 some 58m such cards were in use in the UK, with transactions more than trebled during the year worth £2.3bn.

A man and a woman in their 30s were found with severe head injuries by a GNR officer on Thursday morning on the access road between the Lake Resort Hotel and the popular Falésia Beach in Vilamoura.

Each had been shot in the head but were still alive when they were attended to by GNR personnel at around 10.30am.

The Safe Residence Programme was created in 2010 for the Loulé area after a wave of violent robberies affected owners of many high value properties.

The scheme now is being rolled out across the region and each registered resident will have their properties geo-referenced and numbered to enable the security forces to respond quickly without getting confused as to which house has been targeted.

The Algarve’s official unemployment rate rocketed in the last quarter of 2014, from 11.2% to 14.9%, making the tourism-dependent region the worst performer in the country.

The national unemployment rate grew from 13.1% to 13.5% in quarter 4, but only four regions recorded increases, led by the Algarve.

Retail sales in the eurozone overall rose at their greatest rate in nearly eight years in December.

Sales of goods went up on average by 0.3% in the 19-nation bloc, according to Eurostat data. The rise in December was the third month in a row.

Two out of three Algarve residents use a car or other private transport for necessary trips, although most of these journeys are local ones.

According to the Challenges and Opportunities for the Disabled in the Algarve report, 68% of the Algarve population make mandatory trips (between home and work, or between home and school) in their own vehicles, 22% walk and only 10% use public transport, mostly bus (60%) or school transport (30%).