A fire that ripped through scrubland and fields near Budens, Vila do Bispo, was finally put out last night.

The fire, which began on Monday afternoon, had three main areas and at one point threatened the woodland at Barão de S. João.

Loulé council are to support three local animal charities with as yet unspecified amounts of money, but with publicity and educational outreach.

Vítor Aleixo, Loulé’s mayor, commented that he and his colleagues are willing to help but this depends on the money being available.

The confirmed case of Ebola in Spain has been blamed on substandard equipment and a failure to follow protocol.

Staff at the Carlos III hospital in Madrid claim that the protective suits used did not meet World Health Organisation (WHO) standards.

The European Commission announced it will make a formal investigation of online retail giant Amazon and its European corporate tax affairs.

The Commission said it will examine the tax deal struck in 2003 between Luxembourg and Amazon’s European business section.

Thousands of pupils in Portugal’s schools have no teachers in many subjects as the chaotic allocation of teaching staff continues to disrupt the education system.

This year’s mishandling of the allocation already has seen one head roll, that of Mário Agostinho Alves Pereira, whose ‘resignation’ was accepted by an increasingly vulnerable Education Minister, Nuno Crato.

Portugal’s Finance Minister Maria Luís Albuquerque has created her own, rather wonderful fairytale around the collapse of BES and the failure of the regulators.

Believing every word of her carefull prepared version of events, the minister informed representatives from the Central Banks of the world's Portuguese speaking countries that the BES case showed that the financial system in Portugal is "more robust and ready."

A nurse in Spain has tested positive for the Ebola virus after treating a patient with the virus.

The nurse was part of the medical team which cared for a Spanish missionary who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone and was then repatriated to Spain two weeks ago for medical attention.

More good news from the Algarve hoteliers as their association reports an occupancy rate of 81% in September, 1.7% up on last year.

The main rise was from the Germans, up 1.8% and from the Portuguese, up nearly 1% despite the deep recession cutting into family holiday budgets.