A Spanish judge has issued a European arrest warrant against the sacked president of Catalonia and his four advisers that travelled to Belgium to avoid inflaming the delicate political situation back home.
The Belgian authorities confirm that they have received the court order and promise to study the Madrid request.
Huge numbers of dead fish have been found in the Tagus, asphyxiated by pulp bleaching effluent which a factory dumps into the river.
Pitiful scenes are captured in a video taken of a branch of the river near Vila Velha de Ródão which has been posted on social media.
The Public Prosecutor's Office clarified today that it has foiled the Herdade da Comporta deal, the estate's controlling compaines were due to be sold to Pedro Almeida’s company, Ardmar Imobiliária, due to blatant insider dealing, or more politely put, it considered that the conditions of "transparency and objectivity" were not assured.
"The Public Prosecutor's Office analysed the way the sale process was conducted, and detected, during its various phases, procedures involving several participants that indicated that the conditions of exemption, transparency and objectivity were disregarded," reads the public prosecutor’s statement.
EDP Renewables has received the government go-ahead to construct two new wind farms next year, applied for back in 2008.
The chairman of EDP Renováveis, João Manso Neto, said "the investment is a bit more than expected, to around €60 million. The two parks will together produce about 50 megawatts."
Zalando, the huge German online fashion business, will open a technology centre in Lisbon next year. This will be the third centre the online company will have outside Germany, the others being in Dublin and Helsinki.
The expansion to Portugal will start in 2018 and will create 50 jobs in the first year - this is exactly the sort of maturing tekkie business that Lisbon is starting to attract.
The American investment specialist Armory Merchant Holdings may soon be back in the game for Herdade da Comporta, long considered the 'jewel in the crown' of the extended Espírito Santo family where successive generations have soaked up the sun in what has been their private playground.
Owned in part by Rioforte, a Grupo Espírito Santo’s property subsidiary, the estate was shovelled into the bulging file being handled by an administrator appointed by the Luxembourg court after the company collapsed along with the rest of group.
The judge in the National Court in Spain dealing with the Catalan policial and constitutional crisis, Carmen Lamela, has accepted a request from the Spanish prosecutor's office to order the 'arrest without bail' for eight of the nine former members of the Catalan regional government.
Only Santi Vila, who resigned a day before the unilateral declaration of independence of Catalonia was made, has avoided jail if he pays €50,000 in bail money.
Neto de Moura, the judge from the Oporto Court of Appeal who has been severely criticised for playing down a violent assault with a weapon on a woman who had an affair, is said by his lawyer, to be “serene awaiting the outcome.”
Ricardo Serrano Vieira, a lawyer for the judge who will be heard on Friday at the Supreme Court of Justice, said that "the judgment in question is irreproachable from a legal point of view."
