Two of the three children who reported apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Fátima one hundred years ago are to be declared saints when the Pope visits on May 13th.
Pope Francis announced the canonisation of Jacinta and Francisco Marto which will take place during his visit to a Catholic shrine.
Ratings agency DBRS has kept Portugal's credit category in the 'junk' category, saying that there have been improvements but these need to be long term and sustainable indicators before the Canadian agency will change its opinion.
The company's analyst, Nichola James, told Lusa today that the agency recognises Portugal's progress but is sticking with the current rating of BBB until the Government is seen to have committed itself to European budgetary rules and has resolved persisting vulnerabilities in the banking sector - notably Novo Banco and Caixa Geral.
The Spanish credit card specialist Wizink, which last November acquired the Barclaycard business from Barclays in Portugal, is to scrap the Barclaycard brand and is sending a new Wizink credit card to each of its 500,000 customers in Portugal.
These new, curiously named credit cards will start to reach customers from next week, with current Barclaycards remaining active until October 10th, 2017, according to the Spanish bank which is owned by Banco Popular and US fund, Varde Partners.
A grain of intelligence has inserted itself into the government's plans for the short-term lettings market as booking sites such as Airbnb and Booking.com soon will be obliged only to list properties that are 'Alojamento Local' licensed.
This simple move will wipe out a major part of the illegal lettings economy, to which the government has pretended to object but in fact has encouraged by allowing illegal lettings to operate with only token State interference.
An article today in postal.pt questions what has gone wrong at Faro airport and who is responsible for the delays in completing the refurbishment that leaves tourists weaving their way through the mess as the peak season looms.
The ambitious and long overdue airport refit aims to cater for a maximum of 12 million passengers a year with the 2017 target of 8 million already well on the way to being met.
The Assistant Secretary of State for Finance, Mourinho Félix, has been strutting his stuff in the US and persuading CNBC television viewers that Portugal is doing well and the rating agencies are having an increasingly hard time justifying their 'junk' ratings for Portugal.
"I would say that the three credit rating agencies (who attribute a junk rating to Portugal) will find it increasingly difficult to explain how and why they maintained this rating for an extended period of time, when Portugal in 2017 is very different to Portugal in 2014," said Mourinho Félix.
Revenue from tourism in Portugal increased in February this year to €677.5 million, a 13% increase over the same month in 2016, according to a statement issued by the Office of the Secretary of State for Tourism.
The Bank of Portugal data for the first two months of 2017 show total revenue at €1.362 billion, 15.2% above January and February last year.
Notaries and Conservatórios soon will have to include bank account and cheque numbers used in property purchases, if Portugal adopts new EU regulations, according to a report in Jornal de Negócios.
The Tax Authority will be keen to thwart money laundering by making it easier to identify the money trail used to buy property. The move is part of a package of new regulations under the catch-all excuse attributing the rules to ‘new European guidelines to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.’
