Portugal’s Prime Minister has been spooked by his own covert policy of issuing positive messages about the economy through his ministers.

Passos Coelho now says that there is “not much room to relax fiscal consolidation,” putting paid to hopes that at last there might be some reduction of Portugal’s penal tax rates that have enabled the State to collect record amounts while continuing to waste it in sufficient quantities to negate any positive affect it would have had on the national debt.

Britain’s high street appears to be still in decline, suffering from the recession and the increase in shopping online.

Building societies, pawnbrokers, and clothing shops for men and for women are vanishing from the nation’s high streets.

Zeinal Bava joins a growing list of Chief Executives who have been fired from Oi, the Brazilian telecoms operator which recently merged with Portugal Telecom.

Bava used to run PT but left to focus on Oi as the heat was turned up in Lisbon under allegations surrounding PT’s authorisation and management of inexplicable and monstrously large loans to Espirito Santo subsidiary Rioforte.

Fernando Ulrich, the Chief Executive of Banco Português de Investimento (BPI) is looking closely at buying Novo Banco, the BES ‘good bank’ financed with taxpayers’ money and a massive contribution from the banking rescue fund.

Ulrich at last has admitted that BPI is studying a possible purchase, "It is mandatory for those in the market to study what this opportunity could mean."

Global food prices have fallen to their lowest point in four years.

Drops were recorded in September for all categories of food except meat, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Association (FAO).

In April this year, the court in Faro issued a final decision in the long-running case of kidnap victim Ellie Silva whose safety and future had been jeopardised by her biological father’s actions in kidnapping her for 7 months.

The judge found 100% in favour of Candice Gannon, Ellie’s mother, in a detailed decision and awarded her full custody of Ellie while confirming that Candice has done nothing wrong, that the kidnapping of Ellie was totally unjustifiable and ordered that Ellie should be raised by her mother in Ireland.

There now is a shortage of €500,000+ properties to sell to non-European residents so they can qualify for Golden Visa status.

The head of Portugal’s Association of Professionals and Real Estate Companies (APEMIP) says there are fewer and fewer properties at this value or above to sell and that someone ought to invest in urban regeneration, and fast.

Portugal’s Finance Minister, Maria Luís Albuquerque, has ended months of fantasy land pronouncements by acknowledging finally that the participants in the Resolution Fund that bailed out BES are likely to take a hit, including Caixa Geral de Depósitos, i.e. ultimately the taxpayer.

"Caixa Geral de Depósitos, like all other banks, is subject to losses. Much depends on the price that Novo Banco is sold at," said the Minister today at a hearing of the Committee on Budget and Finance.