Pestana Group is to build its largest 5-star hotel in Portugal as plans advance for the €30 million spend in the Portimão council area.

The 450-bed hotel will be erected at Quinta da Amoreira, next to the group’s Hotel Delfim in Alvor.

Portugal ranks 18th in the 2017 Freedom of the Press Ranking, up five places from last year, according to a report released today by Reporters Without Borders.

According to the document, between January 2005 and January 2017, the European Court of Human Rights has condemned Portugal 21 times for violating Article 10 of the European Declaration of Human Rights, which protects freedom of expression. This is three more times than the EU average.

The most reported and discussed missing person case ever recorded is still not only a highly contentious mystery, but also a personal tragedy that has been turned into a public farce by elements of the media.

In the entirely predictable press frenzy surrounding the imminent 10th anniversary of the disappearance, much of the coverage, particularly in the British tabloids, has been absurd. But it should not be dismissed lightly.

The story so far: there are 'swap' agreements between Santander Totta and nine of Portugal's publically owned transport companies which in 2013, following guidelines issued by the Ministry of Finance, stopped paying interest due on the loans due to the rapidly escalating sums due.

On April 12th this year, the government and Banco Santander Totta announced that they had reached an agreement which halted the lengthy litigation on the swaps contracts, complex financial loan deals where the borrower pays more if interest rates drop.

The owner of a Rottweiler that attacked a four-year-old girl this Tuesday morning, has been interviewed and is to attend court in Matosinhos tomorrow to face charges of negligence and fleeing the scene of the attack.

The dog was off the lead and without a muzzle when it attacked the girl, leaving her with severe injuries to her head and face.

A Portuguese man whose daughter was “wrongfully removed” from Portugal to Scotland by her mother has failed in a legal bid to have the 10-year-old girl returned to the country of her birth, reports Scottish Legal News.

A judge in the Scottish Court of Session refused to grant an order under the Child Abduction and Custody Act 1985 after ruling that the child, who had been living with her Portuguese mother in Hamilton since leaving Portugal more than six years ago, had settled in Scotland within the meaning of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

More than 300,000 cans of canned fish products were seized in Portugal during an Interpol and Europol operation targeting modified and adulterated food and drink, that led also to the seizure of 26 million litres of alcohol.

The global Interpol and Europol operation seized €230 million of counterfeit food and drinks.

A catamaran that was drifting around in the Ria Formosa last Friday had to be rescued and towed to shore by Olhão’s lifeboat crew and members of the Maritime Police.

The Police received a warning that "an English-registered catamaran was drifting off the island of Armona, in the Ria Formosa area."