Portugal’s environmental association, Zero, is aghast at the government’s plan to dump sludge, to be dredged from the polluted river bed of the Tagus, onto registered ecological land in a protected area.
The World Health Organisation’s danger limit of 10 micrograms of particles per cubic meter of air has been exceeded in around fifteen of the 60 council locations that have been tested in Portugal.
Portimão council is to resolve the planning issues surrounding the land at Barranco do Rodrigo, where a sports complex was to be built.
With many boats already on the high seas, heading for traditional sardine fishing grounds, the government shocked an already fragile industry by announcing an extension to the current ban that was meant to end at midnight on Tuesday.
According to Lagoa Council, the supermarket superpower Continente has no intention at all of backing down over its plans to build a new retail unit covering much of the Alagoas Brancas wetland site which has become the focus of a campaign to preserve this iconic part of the city’s natural heritage.
The government has announces some relaxation in the complex laws covering the private installation of video surveillance cameras and broadly is following the new European data protection legislation which comes into effect on May 25th.
The new rules mean that any person or company can install a video surveillance system without prior authorisation from the National Commission for Data Protection, as long as cameras don’t point at a public road.
The United Nations has dispatched members of its Prevention of Torture committee to make their first ever inspection of Portugal’s prisons and check if inmates have any protection against torture and ill-treatment.
The inspectors are due to visit prisons, police stations, correctional facilities for women and juveniles, and some of Portugal’s psychiatric institutions.
A holidaymaker from Ireland was rushed to hospital with severe head injuries caused by his plunge from a balcony at an Albufeira hotel.
Emergency services were called at 05:00 on Monday morning after Leonard Gargan had fallen from the third floor of the Hotel Brisa Sol and became sandwiched between a wall and an air conditioning unit.
