José Manuel Durão Barroso, former Portuguese prime minister and current president of the EC, stopped short of criticising Portugal’s Constitutional Court, but warned of the ‘consequences of its decisions,’ and by describing those consequences, has attempted to discredit the court's role in the Portuguese political and legal system.

Barroso said that he never criticised Portugal’s Constitutional Court but warned that its decisions over unconstitutional parts of Portugal’s financial aid program may have negative consequences in terms of economic growth and employment, and may hinder the return of Portugal to the international finance markets.

The Secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs, Paul Nuncio, claims that more than 140,000 taxpayers have made payments under the recently announced tax amnesty.

There has been "significant interest" from debtors keen to pay outstanding demands before getting into further trouble with court processes and interest charged.

A week after the ‘extraordinary settlement of debts’ scheme came into force, the Secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs said that "the results achieved in the first week clearly exceed the initial expectations of the Government."

A Portuguese court had slammed Santander and its treatment of a business customer who was pushed into a complicated Swaps contract when all the management wanted was a loan.

The civil court in Lisbon said the €1.5 million fine reflected the 'speculative and illegal’ nature of the financial arrangement.

Pedro Marinho Falcão, the lawyer for the company that had complained said that this was the first time to his knowledge that any bank has been fined such a high amount.

The sturgeon are still juvenile but in good health, growing fast and when old enough will be able to produce high value caviar destined for the Algarve’s top level restaurants.

Ten top chefs recently visited Caviar Portugal which is well on the way to producing caviar, certainly an Algarve first.

"Chefs from renowned restaurants were on tour through the Algarve to visit different producers. They decided to come here to see what we were doing with our sturgeons,' according to one of the promoters of Caviar Portugal, Paulo Pedro.

GNR front line personnel are being taught English and German so they can interact with visitors and residents who lack skills in the portuguese language. Training sessions are taking place or scheduled in Portimão, Albufeira and Tavira.

Altogether about a hundred members of the Algarve GNR will take the language course.

In Portimão 20 officers already have started the 50 hour course in English and in Tavira the German course will start in early 2014 with 30 GNR students.

Stephen Hammond, the Secretary of State for Transport in David Cameron’s coalition government, bought a holiday home in Vale de Lobo through an offshore company based in Gibraltar back in 2002.

The UK press has pounced on the 'story' and, sensing blood, has demanded that the minister explain himself and his comment that this type of purchase through an offshore company is "usual in this part of Portugal."

Passengers turning to British Airways have kicked the airline into profit.

For the first nine months of the year, pre-tax profits have reached €103 million, according to its owner, International Airlines Group.

President Francois Hollande and his government have been hit by another credit rating downgrade by Standard & Poor’s, the second in less than two years.

The country lost its AAA rating in January 2012. Shortly after that, President Sarkozy lost the general election.