Operation 'New Year' saw fewer deaths and accidents than last year but the number of drunk-drivers is still unacceptable.
The GNR so far have registered fewer accidents, deaths and serious injuries over the four day operation, which ends tonight, according to Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Amado. In the four days of Operation New Year, 639 road accidents were registered, 303 fewer than last time.
The body of a woman has been found by walkers at the base of a cliff in Sagres.
The dead woman, said to be of Asian appearance, may have been on Beliche beach for as long as 24 hours with Correio da Manhã saying that everything points to her having slipped at the cliff-top and fallen to her death.
Letícia is the first baby born in Portugal this year. The second daughter of a couple from Vizela, Braga, was born at midnight in Oporto.
The baby weighs only 860 grammes and was born prematurely, at 27 weeks in the Centro Materno Infantil do Porto.
Between January and September last year, 1,300 bank workers in Portugal were ‘let go’, many of them from Novo Banco.
The largest number of branch closures was at Caixa Geral de Depósitos which shut 129 outlets and now has 588.
An initiative to put Portugal "at the top of the list for business development and innovation" takes effect on January 2nd.
The StartUp Portugal programme is a medium to long-term initiative to "captivate investments that identify Portugal as the best platform" for business development, claims the minister of the economy.
The Tax on Petroleum and Energy Products goes up today, January 1st, according to an ordinance published by the Government in Diário da República.
"The 2018 State Budget was followed by a stabilisation policy for indirect taxation, with a simple updating of excise duty rates, which was made with reference to the inflation forecast. It is therefore necessary to update, at the level of inflation, the value of the fuel tax to be applied in 2018 in line with the State Budget," reads the announcement.
There are 800,000 workers in Portugal on the National Minimum Wage which rises today to €580 a month and is planned to go up again in 2019, to €600.
The president signed off the December 22nd government decree that increases the National Minimum Wage for 2018.
A shortage of Portuguese ham, normally shipped to Venezuela, has deprived families of an essential ingredient of a perfect Christmas and New Year meal.
Locals in Caracas and elsewhere in the troubled country have been protesting about shortages, despite President Nicolas Maduro’s promise before Christmas that supplies from Portugal would be forthcoming.
