Comboios de Portugal today highlighted the advantages of train travel over the complications and annoyance of making the same journey by air in response to today’s news that Ryanair is to run a new low-cost service between Lisbon and Oporto.

CP could in theory be hit hard by the new air option but does not appear to be concerned, instead highlighting the ease of rail over air travel between Oporto and Lisbon and the Algarve.

The 40th 'Volta ao Algarve' cycling race began today, and continues until Sunday, February 23rd with a top class field, especially from Portugal.

The 1st stage started today from Faro and 160 kilometres later will end in Albufeira.

The business end of an ancient Roman anchor discovered off the Algarve’s coast in 2009 is soon to be on display in Albufeira.

The 2,400-year old artifact’s final resting place will be the Municipal Museum of Archaeology as it now has been restored and prepared for the 21st century and put on display for the public.

The president of TAP, Fernando Pinto, said today that Portugal’s national airline is totally ready for the privatisation process but that he had no idea of when it might happen.

Pinto was at the The Economist conference in Cascais and said of the failure of the 2012 sale of TAP to the Synergy Group, owned by Colombian entrepreneur Germán Efromovich, that lessons have been learned and that the second attempt will undoubtedly be faster than the first.

The British economy has been bolstered of late by individuals spending their windfall money from insurance mis-selling.

Thousands of people in the UK have been getting compensation for Payment Protection Insurance sold to them inappropriately.

Recent research indicates that most of the compensation money has been used for buying holidays and cars.

Italy has fined Ryanair and easyJet a total of more than €1m for mis-selling travel insurance on their websites.

The Italian competition watchdog said that they had infringed its consumer code by withholding information and misleading customers, as well as charging them excessive fees, and putting obstacles in their way when trying to make a claim.

The legendary Pinewood film company is to create a new studio in Cardiff.

The Welsh government hopes it will promote the region as a world-class location for film and TV production and anticipates the centre will generate something in the region of £90m for the economy.

Portugal’s government pledged that the number of fixed-term contract employees on the state payroll would be cut by 50%, but has failed to meet even half of that target.

The number of workers with fixed-term contract that left the comfort of the State’s employment in 2013 was 10,330, which compared to total employees with this type of contract at the end 2012, the reduction was 14%. The government had pledged in the 2013 State Budget that it would decrease the number of state employees by 50%.