Tumbling rapidly, gold prices fell nearly 28% during 2013, making it the worst collapse in 30 years.

The precious metal was priced at $1,200 an ounce close to the end of the month.

The demand for engineers is at a record high in the UK, but business is struggling with a lack of specialists to fill the jobs.

The engineering sector has but half the qualified candidates it needs, according to an engineering recruitment agency.

The NSA and CIA, two of the USA’s spy agencies, have a cell operating in Portugal.

The information was provided by a Dutch newspaper which cites a document published by whistle-blower Edward Snowden.

This information exposed contained 79 other similar offices in other parts of the world. In Europe there are 19 such units operating as a cooperative venture between the NSA and CIA, called the Special Collection Service (SCS), including one in Portugal.

Portugal has granted 471 'golden visas' representing sales of €306 million, according to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Paulo Portas. The share of this figure that goes to the treasury is a proportion of the property purchase tax.

Most visas were granted as the applicants purchased residential property, €272 million worth, with the Chinese continuing to lead the list of foreigners receiving the golden tax free key to Europe, followed by Russians, Brazilians, Angolans and South Africans.

The closure rate of hotels in the Algarve during the low season is growing and the measures taken by the Government to combat seasonality have fallen short of target.

The president of the Association of Hotels and Resorts in the Algarve (AHETA), Elidérico Viegas, said that that the closure of hotels during the winter "is a trend that has been observed to be on the increase in recent years, this year too."

The use of Facebook as a social networking tool has been shown to be in such mortal decline that it has been pronounced “dead and buried”.

The prognosis comes from a study on how older teenagers use social media.

Facebook’s baton appears to have passed to older relatives, among whom it remains popular.

The hot summer enjoyed in Britain this year gave a clear boost to the nation’s wildlife.

Butterflies, moths, and grasshoppers all benefitted, according to the National Trust which proclaimed it “one of the most remarkable wildlife years in living memory”. Bees and crickets also thrived in the warm sunny spell.

An international study has placed Portugal among 18 countries in the world with a high risk of social unrest in the coming year.

The study, devised and undertaken by a group of researchers from the influential Economist magazine, concluded that Portugal will be ‘more vulnerable’ to episodes of social unrest in 2014. In 2009 Portugal was in the group that had only a ‘moderate risk’ of political and social instability.