Mobile boarding passes are now available on Ryanair on its new mobile app.

The app lets people download their boarding pass onto their smartphone. Still in the planning is an app for iPads.

Industrial output in the eurozone has continued to drop, down 1.1% in May 2014 compared to the April, but the consolation prize may be that the rate is up by 0.5% compared to May 2013.

The decline, however, was much worse in Portugal. A fall of -3.6% took place during May this year compared to April, although April had an significant rally of 6.8%.

The International Monetary Fund says there are some cases in the Portuguese banking system that require "corrective action."

A brief statement was issued in which the IMF acknowledged current problems in the banking sector in Portugal, mentioning no names but referring to Portugal’s second largest bank, BES and it parent the Espírito Santo Group.

The public-private partnership for the Via do Infante A22 toll road across the Algarve has been re-negotiated, as has the deal for the A28 in the north of the country.

According to estimates from the Secretary of State for Transport, Sérgio Lemos, the savings will be €178 million over the life of these two contracts, for the Algarve's motorway this is until 2023.

The First World War started 100 years ago and Portugal’s little-known role in the conflict is being celebrated in an exhibition in Silves where locals who went to the front are remembered with many of their records and photographs on display.

This exhibition has been organised by the municipal archivists and heroic names such as Coronel João Ortigão Peres from Alcantarilha are given due prominence.

The population of Spain at the end of last year numbered 46.5 million, down, for a variety of reasons, some 220,000 since the year before.

The country’s Institute for National Statistics reported that the trend of Spanish residents migrating abroad gathered pace during 2013, with 548,000 people leaving. While nearly 80,000 were Spanish, the remaining 468,500 were foreign nationals, including 4,588 Brits.

The restaurant chain Pizza Express has been sold to a Chinese company.

Hony Capital, a private equity firm, is believed to have paid some £900m for the chain in an auction in which interest was shown by other Chinese and European investment firms.

Over a hundred protestors gathered at the Barlavento Hospital to voice their opinions against the probable closure of the maternity unit and to call for the resignation of the entire board of directors of the Hospitals of the Algarve Group.

A on-the-spot vote was taken at the protest and it was unanimously decided that the maternity unit should stay open, and that the board, headed by the controversial Dr Pedro Nunes, should all be sacked.