The Portuguese government and Brussels are to fund the long-awaited redevelopment of Portimão’s quayside area and the dredging of the Arade in the dock area, to enable larger cruise ships to enter, turn and dock in safety.
An investment of €17.5 million has been set aside to carry out the work and boost the city’s cruise passenger tourist inflow from the current 15,000 per year, to 180,000 per year by 2030.
Belmiro de Azevedo has died in Oporto at the age of 79 after a long illness. His name has long been associated with the Sonae Group of companies as he led the diverse business from 1974 to his retirement in 2015, making him one of the richest men in Portugual.
Born in 1938, Belmiro de Azevedo, became the country’s largest employer with Sonae brands including Continente, Worten, Sport Zone, Zippy, Salsa hypermarkets as well as the Público newspaper.
Portugal’s Communist Party has stated that the 2018 State Budget has "limitations and insufficiencies in the response to the problems of the Algarve," mainly due to the lack of investment in infrastructure and public services.
During the debate on the State Budget, approved yesterday, the Communist Party says that its MPs battled for improvements and increased staffing levels at the Algarve region’s health centres and schools as well as investment in equipment for the University Hospital of the Algarve, to no avail.
The Public Ministry has listed the bribes accepted by Luís Cunha Ribeiro, the former head of the Instituto Nacional de Emergência Médica (INEM) which comes to the aid of the victims of accidents and sudden illness.
The supplier of an apartment in Oporto, another in an upmarket area of Lisbon, cash, an Audi A5, a mobile phone, an iPad and more than €8,000 in travel and accommodation, all were supplied by the head of Octapharma, the supplier of blood plasma to the ambulance and hospital services whcih won tender after tender, despite competition.
The Algarve accounts for about 70% of the national golf market, an essential part of the region’s tourism offer with year-to-date figures nearly 5% up on last year’s record performance.
The number of rounds played in the region in 2016 was 10% up on the year before and the indicators for 2017 show continued growth.
The tricky business of attributing a value to a lost human life begins, as the government sets a €70,000 base amount to compensate the families of those who died in Portugal's deadly fires this summer.
It will be up to the justice system to establish the precise value to be attributed to each of the deaths resulting from the June and October infernos that swept through countryside in the central region, killing 110 people, with two still unaccounted for.
João Matos Fernandes has met his Spanish counterpart to discuss the flow of water from the Spanish rivers that flow into Portugal’s Guadiana, Douro and Tejo rovers and, in a statement that will be viewed with deep suspicion from environmental organisations, assured everyone that Spain has been fulfilling its part of the Albufeira Convention, which sets minimum flow rates.
Fernandes admitted that there had been "a very few exceptions" to the agreed water supply deal and said that from now on there will be daily flow monitoring, not weekly, and information soon will be easily accessible, rather than hidden from public view.
An offshore company, controlled by the wife of disgraced banker Ricardo Salgado, purchased diamonds in 2012, worth a cool €3.25 million.
A second offshore company, this one controlled by Ricardo Salgado himself, purchased gold worth €3.5 million in November 2011.
