Portugal has its “third hottest Spring since 1931,” according to the IPMA which also notes low rainfall, heatwaves and heavy snowfall.
Spring, March, April and May, was very hot and very dry in mainland Portugal this year, with an average temperature of 15.64 ° C making it the third hottest spring for 86 years, says the weather service.
The fire in Madeira last August in which three people died, several were injured and thousands were evacuated, also racked up material losses of €157 million as homes and hotels were consumed.
This was all due to one 24-year-old man’s culpable negligence that has been proved in court and results in a conviction for setting a forest fire and gross negligence that caused a homicide.
PT has been strike-free for ten years but that is coming to an end as irate staff and fully supportive unions are organising protests in the coming weeks in reaction to what they consider to be "the biggest attack ever seen" on workers’ rights.
Billionaire Patrick Drahi’s company, Altice, bought the Portugal Telecom Group in January 2015 for €7.4 billion and it now is run as a subsidiary of Altice NV in the Netherlands.
The national railway company, Comboios de Portugal, is running a new tourist train service on the narrow-gauge Vouga line.
Three wooden carriages from the early 1900s have been refurbished by a specialist maintenance company in the Comboios de Portugal Group, and they will travel every Saturday until September 30th, 2017.
The committee of inquiry into Caixa Geral de Depósitos has issued a near-final report that blames the crisis for the bank’s acute problems and does not blame those running the bank for the long list of failed loans, vanished clients and illegal kick-backs.
This is what happens when a committee only has access to those working at the bank rather than being allowed to peruse the actual loan records which have been kept secret - apparently, to reveal them would ‘compromise customer confidentiality.’
Portugal's deputy finance minister today assured non-believers that the sale of loss-making Novo Banco will go ahead in November this year.
The vulture fund, Lone Star, is waiting for the completion of a €500 million debt swap that Ricardo Mourinho Felix said, “will be launched soon.”
Algarve-based adult film producer, Viv Thomas, organised a tournament at Benamor Golf in Tavira on 4 July, at which the players have raised an impressive €18,451 to help those struggling with cancer.
At the end of the ‘ChilliBoy Charity Golf Challenge,’ Mr Thomas handed over the cheque to the Algarve Oncological Association’s president, Maria de Lurdes Santos Pereira.
The Communist Party in the Algarve has questioned the Environment Ministry on the loss of up to 6 million cubic metres of drinking water a year.
On June 26th this year, a delegation from the Communist Party, including the omnipresent MP, Paulo Sá, visited the Águas do Algarve water treatment plants in Alcantarilha and Tavira.
