With Aethel Partners standing by with an offer for Novo Banco worth €3 billion, Correio da Manhã today has stated that the sale already has been agreed between the Bank of Portugal and the US Lone Star fund whose offer is €750 million plus the same again for refinancing.

The ‘close to zero euros,’ price from the US, as suggested by Correio da Manhã, comes as two more bidders have appeared, attracted by the knock-down price that the Bank of Portugal has either agreed, or is still weighing up, from Lone Star with which it is in exclusive negotiations.

Monchique locals have lived for year under the ever-present threat of extensive mining in the surrounding hillsides and, despite years of licence applications, followed by complaint and uproar, an announcement in Diário da República opens up the distinct possibility of feldspar mining operations commencing in the Corte Grande area.

Monchique mayor, the popular Rui André, will fight to preserve the beautiful south facing hillsides that make the unspoiled Monchique countryside ideal for ‘nature tourism’ - the growing sector that this low-activity council area increasingly has been taking advantage of.

Caixa Geral de Depósitos has €2.3 billion in risky debt. Who owes the most? Friends of corrupt creditors without giving guarantees?

See the list of those who live at the Portuguese taxpayers’ expense and do not pay what they owe. This is part of the extensive list of debtors that the committee of inquiry has been tasked with analysing before Caixa Geral is handed any more taxpayer funds for a refinancing excercise that will aim to cover the losses and impairments shown below.

The unwelcome spectre of disgraced politician Miguel Relvas has appeared in the miasma surrounding the sale process for Novo Banco.

The former minister is one of the shareholders of Pivot SGPS, which appeared alongside the UK based Aethel Partners which has put in a last minute offer for the loss-making bank.

Portugal’s public prosecution service has filed charges against the Quinta do Lago barman who allegedly started several fires which consumed large sections of the Monchique countryside last summer, stopping just short of the International Autodrome in the neighbouring council area of Portimão.

The prosecution charged the 49-year-old on seven counts of deliberately starting fires which caused the most extensive blaze of 2016 in the Algarve region.

Inflation in the eurozone is expected to reach an average of 2% in February, up from 1.8% the month before.

The flash forecast from Eurostat noted that this was as a result of higher energy and food prices. Energy costs jumped by 9.2% and food by 5.2% in February compared with the year before.

Bank of Portugal officials said Ricardo Salgado should go, nine months before the collapse of Banco Espírito Santo.

It now seems clear that the governor of the Bank of Portugal, Carlos Costa,(pictured) kept information from the committee of inquiry into the BES collapse.

The Secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs, Rocha Andrade, informed Parliament today that there had been a failure to transfer data between the Finance Portal and the central system that caused 14,000 offshore transfers amounting to €10 billion, to avoid inspection.

The software used has already been discontinued and another technology in place that ensured the 2015 values ​​were accurate, he added, but the 2011 to 2014 offshore transfer details had not been reported, or inspected by the taxman.