The Portuguese Government would like to see Spain abandon nuclear power. However, the Minister of Foreign Affairs admits that Spain’s "energy transition" is the responsibility of the Spanish Government and that Portugal is powerless to intervene.

Augusto Santos Silva stated to parliament that the Portuguese State cannot interfere in Spain's decision to close or maintain the Almaraz nuclear power plant, despite the fact that Portugal already has and has every right so to do under existing Europen legislation. It is not clear why the minister dismissed a swathe of EU cross-border legistlation in this manner but the options of stupidity and guile can not be ruled out at this stage.

The problem with relying on the State docks authority, Docapesca, is that it's management says it will do things - but then doesn’t do them.

Faro mayor, Rogério Bacalhau, is at his wit’s end over the failure of Docapsca to carry out urgent repairs to the harbour walls before the surrounding street area collapses into the void being created below the pavement.

The government is to change the archaic laws covering the use of video surveillance so that law enforcement can use equipment to fight crime and use recordings as evidence.

Isabel Oneto, Deputy Secretary of State and Home Affairs, announced today that "We are working on the amendment of the law of video surveillance, precisely in order to allow security forces and services to have access to video surveillance in a broader way and will change the law that regulates video surveillance to increase the access of security forces to this means of crime prevention.”

A quarter of Portugal’s Population is poor, despite a €79 increase in the average monthly household income last year.

The figures from the Income and Living Conditions from the National Statistics Institute showed 2,595 million people, including 487,000 under 18s and 468,000 over 65s, were barely scraping by and were classified as poor, or close to poverty and social exclusion.

The Minister of Finance, Mário Centeno, has awarded the maximum bonus possible to his tax office staff due to their achievement of high ‘coercive collection’ figures last year.

Centeno again is to transfer 5% of the money collected from debtors under the harsh ‘coercive collection’ system to a special Tax Stabilisation Fund which then pays out productivity bonuses to Finanças managers and staff.

The head of the regional tourism board, Desidério Silva, wants the Algarve’s beaches monitored by lifeguards from the start of Spring onwards, not just from the start of the summer season.

Yesterday, the official bathing season opened for Albufeira’s beaches but Silva pointed out that there is 100% coverage across the region’s bathing beaches only from June 1st.

As parliament today waits to question the Foreign Affairs and Environment ministers about Portugal’s climb-down on the threat from Spain’s Almaraz nuclear power station development, news has been released that a Portuguese Army team under NATO reported back in 2010 that 800,000 people in Portugal would be affected by a radioactive cloud if there was an accident on the scale of Chernobyl in the Ukraine.

The military simulation was carried out seven years ago, yet only now has been revealed on Radio Renascença, showing that the north of Portugal would be the region most affected if the Almaraz plant, 100kms from the Portuguese border, caught fire and blew up.

Animal breeding and feed producers Euroinveste is branching out into the agri-tourism hotel business with the announcement today that Hotel Riverade is to be built on an old farm leading to the banks of the Arade near Estômbar, Lagoa.

The 50 hectare livestock farm was abandoned years ago and is to be converted into a 31-room, five-star hotel at a cost of around €5 million.