Ten years after the decriminalisation of abortion in Portugal, each year around 500 Portuguese women have been travelling to Spain to end their pregnancy. The two reasons given are privacy and 'having passed the legal deadline.'

According to the Spain’s abortion clinic association, ACAIVE, the majority of Portuguese women who choose to have an abortion in their neighboring country do so because they have been pregnant for more than ten weeks, the deadline under the Portuguese law which came into force on July 15, 2017.

Because of the idiocy of drone owners flying their machines illegally in the flight path of commercial aircraft, all drones over 250 grammes soon will have to be licensed and insured.

The government is to "advance by the end of this month" with the submission of regulations for the mandatory registration of drones over 250 grammes, said the Minister of Planning and Infrastructures, today, admitting that “there is much to do."

Legislation to reimburse BES customers who were ripped off in the ‘commercial paper’ scandal, initiated by banking boss Ricardo Salgado, was passed by a parliamentary committee on Friday, July 14th, and next week goes to parliament for a full vote.

The proposal is to create a credit recovery fund to compensate the 2,000 customers who lost €400 million between them when they were duped into switching their safe deposit accounts into risky investments in Grupo Espírito Santo companies such as Espírito Santo Financial and Rioforte.

The visit by Pope Francis to Fátima in May this year ploughed an extra €20 million into local businesses.

The head of the regional tourist board, Pedro Machado, said that cash withdrawals between May 9th and 15th at ATMs in the Fatima and Ourém reached a total of €2.3 million.

Not content with buying Portugal Telecom two years ago, French-owned technology company Altice has entered the local media sector with the purchase of Media Capital, owner of TVI, TVI24, audiovisual content producer, Plural Entertainment, radio stations including Rádio Comercial, and Media Capital Digital, which owns the IOL portal and The TVI Player platform.

The French group says it has "pride" in this "unique opportunity" and is to pay €440 million to pursue it.

French-owned electrical and book retailer, FNAC Portugal, is opening its 25th store in the country and the third for the Algarve.

The new Lagos store is a franchising deal with the Intermarché-Mosqueteiros supermarket group.

Portugal's Prime Minister, António Costa, is booked to inaugurate the expansion of Faro airport this coming Monday, July 17th.

The new-style airport has been designed to handle 12 million passengers a year and will have cost Vinci Airports just over €35 million.

The Polis Litoral Ria Formosa company, in charge of the Ria Formosa islands and environs, has authorised the dredging of sand from Armona and dumped it on Cavacos beach on the mainland some 3 kilometres away.

This has had two effects. Firstly, the residents of Armona island that live near to the dredging works are now even more likely to be categorised as ‘at risk’ as the sea is even closer to their island homes. This ‘too close to the sea’ argument is one of the arsenal used by the government to try and get rid of properties and people to return the island to their natural state.