Judge Neto de Moura, whose judicial decisions have widely been criticised for devaluing and downplaying assaults on women because they committed adultery or were not visibly bruised, also did not consider an assault on a four year old child as 'serious.'

According to Correio da Manhã, in 2010, when Neto de Moura was operating at the Lisbon Court of Appeal, he considered as ‘excessive’ the four-year and six-month sentence imposed on a man who had assaulted his wife and his four-year-old daughter.

Thirty objects, some of which are at least 2,000 years old, have been lent by a Chinese museum to the Museu de Évora (Museu Nacional Frei Manuel do Cenáculo) in an unprecedented cultural agreement.

This is the first time the Museum of Guangzhou has lent anything to a Portuguese museum but authorisation was granted for a temporary export license for the priceless collection to leave China for Portugal, as long as it comes back again.

Minister of the Sea, Ana Paula Vitorino, and the European Commission are at the opposite end of the scale when it comes to next year’s sardine catch with the minister going for 14,000 tonnes and the EC’s advisory body opting for total sardine fishing ban.

On October 20, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) recommended the complete suspension of sardine fishing off Portugal and Spain for the 2018 season, causing widespread upset within the offshore fishing industry.

The European Parliament voted on Tuesday, 24th October, in support of phasing out the sale and use of glyphosate herbcides over the next five years and immediately banning the use of Roundup by domestic consumers.

"The European Parliament has correctly acknowledged the magnitude of glyphosate's risks," reports Nathan Donley at the Center (sic) for Biological Diversity, adding that "Now European regulators charged with protecting human health and the environment must follow the parliament's brave leadership and phase out the gross overuse of glyphosate."

With the exception of the Lagoa and Vila Real de Santo António council areas, the Algarve is at high, very high or maximum fire risk.

The classifications issued by the Portuguese weather service (IPMA) reports that the Loulé and São Brás de Alportel areas are at the 'red alert' maximum risk level.

The explorer David Mearns discovered the astrolabe in 2014, one of the almost three thousand artifacts recovered from the Esmeralda that had spent more than 500 years at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, lost to a storm in the Arabian Sea.

Marine archaeologists recovered the artifact from what they believed to be the wreck of the Esmeralda, a ship in the Vasco da Gama fleet.

The motion of censure, "for the failure of the Government in the tragic fires of 2017" tabled by the opposition CDS-PP party, today was voted down in parliament.

Tactical voting from the government’s left wing support group was, never-the-less, grudging with the refusal of left wing parties to praise the conduct of the government displayed before, during or after the summer fires that resulted in over 110 people losing their lives.

Lagos is having the day off on Friday with celebrations in honour of São Gonçalo de Lagos, a local who was made a Saint by Pope Pius VI.

After a ceremony at 9.30 in the Plaza Gil Eanes, there will be an outdoor Mass in the Jardim da Constituição at 10.30, which also is the starting point for the São Gonçalo procession at 11:30.