The planned Saturday protest against shortages of staff, doctors, materials and sensible management at the Hospitals of the Algarve saw over five hundred people gather and form a human chain near Portimão Hospital. The protestors called for the resignation of the hospitals director, Pedro Nunes.

"Pedro Nunes the Hospitals of the Algarve director should go, and Paulo Macedo the Minister of Health should go too," was the general feeling voiced by the crowd who carried various forthright banners, some reading "Pedro Nunes - leave the Algarve in peace and go back to Lisbon," which indeed is where he lives and where he was spending the weekend, rather than in the Algarve making an effort and addressing the crowd.

Thieves in the UK are reported to be using metal detectors to find jewellery in houses they are robbing.

Research also revealed that houses being targeted are marked with stickers.

The number of people in Britain who live in rented property has reached 10 million, one-sixth of the population.

The figure has doubled since the year 2000.

The British coalition government has underlined its commitment to electric vehicles by launching a campaign and announcing an investment of £9 million in more charging points.

Go Ultra Low is a £2.5 million campaign promoting the benefits of electric and plug-in hybrid cars.

The Portuguese Communist Party in the Algarve said it is wholly against the transfer of the management of the Algarve’s commercial ports to Sines and is to present an alternative proposal to government for the creation of a Port Authority of the Algarve.

"This was a decision that is contrary to the interests of the people of the Algarve due the specific nature of the ports business in the region, the prospects for the development of our fisheries, our industry and our tourism," said the Communists who have rather missed the boat as the time to submit complaints was before the management of the Algarve’s ports was stripped from local hands and given, for reasons best known to Lisbon, to a port authority in Sines, 200 kilometres up the coast.

The deadline for small-scale farmers to register their activities with Finanças and social security which ended last Friday has been extended for the fourth time, this time to April 30th 2014.

"The judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union, March 2012, judged the VAT licensing scheme for small farmers in Portugal contrary to the VAT Directive. Portugal then withdrew the proposed scheme, replacing it with its general VAT regime applicable to all economic agents,' according to a statement from the Ministry of Finance.

The bodies of a was discovered at the bottom of a well in the parish of Azinhal, Castro Marim.

The remains were concealed in a bag in the dry well of about 10 metres depth and have been removed by Vila Real de San António firefighters to be taken to the office of Medicina Legal de Faro for investigations.

Expat UK citizens should be given the right to vote in perpetuity. 

That is the view expressed this morning by Sir Roger Gale, MP (North Thanet) following a statement by the European Commission in support of the proposal.