Paulo Núncio, the former Secretary of State for tax affairs, said that he took "political responsibility" for not publishing details of the €10 billion in transfers to offshore tax havens between 2011 and 2014.

The socialist party said Núncio’s admission proves neglect by the former PSD CDS-PP coalition government in not following up this significant financial outflow and in not allowing Tax Authority inspectors to check that the sources of the money were legitimate and that the account holders were fully tax compliant.

The international row between Portugal and its former-colony, Angola, is continuing with the African State media stating that the indictment of its Vice-President, Manuel Vincente, on fraud, bribery and money laundering charges just goes to show that 'there is international campaign especially orchestrated to denigrate the image of Angola and its main leaders in election year.'

Vincente has been charged in Portugal for bribing State prosecutor Orlando Figueir with €750,000 to drop a money laundering inquiry.

A young man was found dead in the river Arade at Portimão on Sunday after a two hour search.

Authorities were called to the scene after a witness said he had seen a young man fall into the river just after 07:00 this morning.

British exports of gin reached record levels last year, amounting to nearly £500 million.

The result represents a surge of 12% in one year, up from £474 million the year before, according to figures from HM Revenue & Customs, and a staggering leap of 32% in the last five years.

There are more than 2.3 million Portuguese living outside the country. According to data gathered in the most recent report from the Emigration Observatory, Portugal has the second highest emigrated population in the EU, behind Malta.

The loss of Portuguese from their homeland in the past three years finds an equivalent only in the exodus in the 1960s and 1970s as around 110,000 people have been leaving each year to 2015, as the recession continued.

The secrecy surrounding Caixa Geral de Depósitos is to be lifted as a court decided today that, despite a legal appeal by the bank, the details of the larger loans made by the bank since 2000 will have to be revealed.
 
In a separate petition, the Constitutional Court has rejected the request for confidentiality made by the former short-lived president of Caixa Geral, António Domingues, who wanted his income and asset statements kept from public view.

Another outbreak of deadly flu virus, this time in Spain, is to take the lives of more than 17,000 ducks.

The H5N8 virus was found in a farm near Girona in Catalonia and authorities announced on Thursday that the ducks would be culled.

The opposition Social Democratic Party wants to call in all those responsible for running the country’s finances from 2011 to 2014, to uncover what really happened when €10 billion was transferred offshore from Portugal’s high street banks, without the taxman lifting a finger.

The left wing now wants to hear from Paulo Núncio, the Secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs during the former government - and Fernando Rocha Andrade who currently hold this position to see if the government of the time deliberately allowed the transfers to leave the country without scrutiny.