Barclays has announced that it will axe 19,000 jobs in the next three years, 7,000 of them in its investment bank, as announced by its chief executive Antony Jenkins.

The cuts will include 9,000 in the UK.

Police in France, still struggling to protect tourists from pickpockets, are to draft in Chinese police to help.

The Chinese officers will be posted to key landmarks to prevent Chinese visitors – around 1 million visiting France every year – being targeted by pickpockets and muggers.

Fast-food employees in 33 countries have set a global day of protest and strike action next week in a bid to gain better pay and conditions.

The workers got together for the first time under the aegis of an international trade union, the International Union of Food Workers.

The Algarve’s councils have challenged the proposed privatisation of the region’s waste collection and treatment company Algar on the grounds of ‘public interest.’

The mayors’ group for the Algarve (Amal) has issued an objection to privatisation plans for the company, arguing that it "should only proceed if all municipalities agree" - which they are unlikely to.

The Algarve Tourism Board yesterday launched an essential tool in promoting another niche market, this time to wine lovers. The Algarve Wine Route is in fact four wine tourism itineraries taking in seven wineries.

The President of the Algarve Tourism Board said the agency has been working with the Algarve Wine Commission to get the plan off the ground and the engagement of the wine producers in Lagos, Portimão, Lagoa and Albufeira has amde the new routes possible.

Twelve Blue Flag beaches are in danger of having their awards withdrawn unless the tortuous tendering process for repairs can be speeded up in time for the summer season.
 
The president of the Blue Flag programme says that there could be an 'exceptional extension' of the flag raising date for affected beaches, but the worry is that work will not start at all on some of the country's finest beaches.

CO2 emissions in the EU are believed to have been cut back by 2.5% in 2013 compared to 2012.

And 2012 had already seen a fall of 1.6%.

A British farmer managed to unearth a Korean technique, some 4,000 years old, for curing garlic.

Mark Botwright was seeking ideas for preserving some of the 900,000 bulbs of garlic he grows for year-round consumption. His internet searches eventually threw up a recipe written in Korean for “black garlic”.