The dismissed Catalonian leader, Carles Puigdemont, has been vague as to whether or not he accepts his removal from office by the national government in Madrid which has started to use provisions under Article 155 to seize control of the break-away state.
A motion to declare Catalonia a ‘republic’ was passed in the regional parliament on Friday, October 27th. This has unleashed a range of opportunities for Madrid to exert its power and take control.
Portugal’s insurance industry is bracing itself for further financial damage as claims resulting from the mid-October fires already have hit €200 million.
Damage caused by the fires on October 15 and 16 have seen claims flooding in, over 2,000 so far, with more arriving every day.
Slamming the latest Institute of Nature and Forestry report on the Lagoa wetland as “inadequate and misleading," campaigner Anabela Blofeld, from the Alagoas Brancas Group, questions the use of Portugal's organisations that are set up to support and protect nature and the Algarve's varied environment, while in reality they condone and support councils, greedy for rates income - and supermarket chains who view environmental impact assessments as a mild inconvenience.
The wetland that gave Lagoa its name is to be filled-in to make way for yet another supermarket in this town that has become the region's supermarket capital, each vying with its neighbour for business from a council population that does not justify the investment.
Olhão council is entering the private property market, as the mayor announces a €1 million spend on buying houses in the old part of the city, doing them up and renting or selling them to young couples.
The typical Levant and Barreta areas of the city, for decades ignored totally by successive administrations, have become the favourite zones for what the council describes as ‘foreign investors.’
The Catalonian parliament has voted for independence from Spain, ahead of an expected vote in the Madrid's senate which is expected to result in Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, authorising the seizure of the region’s autonomous powers.
The Catalan vote came at the end of a fraught week of negotiations between Madrid and Barecelona with no accord reached.
A new bill from the Left Bloc, already submitted to parliament, foresees quotas for Alojamento Local housing for tourist rentals and wants to set a limit of 90 days a year
The intention of the Left Bloc is to limit the local rental of apartments and houses so as to mark a difference between this sort of tourism rental and other forms covered by other, existing rules.
Far from reacting with good sense, sensitivity and compassion in the case of the woman beaten with a nail-spiked club for having an affair, the President of the Supreme Court, António Henriques Gaspar, today warned that the public outcry against the suspended sentences given on appeal to her two aggressors, does not help her defence.
While referring directly to the case that has marked a part of Portugal’s judicial system as little more than a bigoted Star Chamber, Gaspar clearly warned the public to stay out of things that it does not understand.
As the government has decided that the Portuguese Air Force will be coordinating aerial fire fighting operations in the future, using military machines and overseeing private contracts for aircraft and helicopter assistance, the service will have to be provided with more helicopters – five more than those already on order.
The cost estimate for the additional hardware is €20.5 million and Air Force chiefs are dropping a note to this effect to the Minister of Defence ‘for his most kind consideration.’
