Hotel occupancy in the Algarve during the New Year festivities should be identical to 2012 as the 1st of January falls on a Wednesday and because the Portuguese continue to suffer from a distinct lack of spending money, according to the regional association of hoteliers’ president.

The often gloomy Elidérico Viegas said today that the year-end numbers are expected to be more or less identical to last year’s, but people will come for shorter stays as New Year’s Eve is on a Tuesday so people will not be staying on over a weeekend.

Subir Lall , head of the IMF mission to Portugal warned today in an interview with the Financial Times that in Portugal the effort must continue but that the IMF-agreed programme of ‘adjustments’ for Portugal’s economy will take another 10 to 15 years to be completed and must be done on its own and without more external help, warned Lall.

The IMF boss said that the distortions in Portugal’s economy have accumulated over decades and that therefore it is unrealistic to expect that they could be sorted out during the three years of the current adjustment programme, or that reforms successfully could be imposed from the outside.

Aljezur council today announced that its budget for 2014 is just over €10 million and highlights as priorities the upgrading and modernisation its schools.

"With the contribution from central government down dramatically year on year, along with the decrease in own revenues, the Aljezur budget for 2014 will be €10,713,781," according to the council, which added that it does not proposed to do any work for which it does not have funds available so as not to jeopardise the financial stability of the municipality.

Desperate to attract Christmas shoppers, most high street shops in the UK appear to have already introduced sales.

The average discount hovers around 46%.

Berlin’s historic Tempelhof airport is destined to become a vast library, a hug of historic learning.

It was one of the first airports in Europe, and was catapulted to fame when it was used by the allies to break the 1948 Soviet blockage of West Berlin.

British Airways is the first European airline to let customers use mobile phones and other gadgets throughout a flight.

Until now, passengers were allowed to use devices, such as mobile phones, iPods and e-readers, only when the aircraft entered its cruise phase, usually about 10,000ft.

The widespread search for the two missing Olhão fishermen has been suspended after 11 days. The decision was taken at noon today but normal sea and land patrols will of course be on the lookout for their bodies and traces of the missing boat, 'Rainha da Brisa.'
 
The two fishermen, 37 and 58, were last sighted near Isla Deserta where the maritime authority has been concentrating  searches in the last four days, with the help of a team form the Hydrographic Institute which has been surveying the seabed with sonar.

It is not the job of the Portuguese Institute of Ocean and Atmosphere (IPMA) to bring cheer by disguising its firm predictions that this Christmas is set to be a wash out.

Christmas Eve will be a day of torrential rain across the country which in this instance includes the Algarve and the Alentejo regions which often avoid these generalised warnings.