Lagos council finally has accepted that the Fort de São Roque, at Meia Praia, is managed by the State which is opening bids to private enterprise to fix up and run the building as a tourist related business.
Lagos councillors have agreed that the government’s ‘Revive’ programme is the best way forward and voted unanimously at the last council meeting of the year to stop any opposition and claim that the fort should be managed by the council.
From east to west, the Algarve is back in business this New Year’s Eve with fireworks and music to welcome in 2017 with the fervent hope that it will be markedly better than the current one.
In Lagos, the venue is the Praça do Infante where Portugal’s Xutos & Pontapés will be banging out the hits from 22:30, followed by fireworks and straight into DJ Monchike’ dance music for those with any energy left.
Former Prime Minister, José Sócrates, will have to be charged before a deadline of March 17th next year, or the case will be have to be dropped.
Portugal's public prosecutor said the current 180 day extension to the deadline for the conclusion of Operation Marquês will have to be adhered to. Sócrates and 17 other suspects are caught up in a money-laundering, corruption and tax fraud investigation that has been going on for so long that many have forgotten what it was all about.
Mário Soares, a towering figures in Portuguese politics, lies in critical condition in hospital in Lisbon with a poor prognosis.
The former Prime Minister’s medical team says his unconscious state is very significant and worrying," with the 92-year-old politician failing to respond to some external stimuli, “which places strong reservations about the future prognosis.”
The Queen missed the Christmas morning church service at Sandringham for the first time in almost 30 years due to a heavy cold. She has attended the traditional service at St Mary Magdalene, near the royal estate, every year since 1988.
Buckingham Palace issued a brief statement, “The Queen continues to recover from a heavy cold and will stay indoors to assist with her recovery,” adding, “Her Majesty will participate in the royal family Christmas celebrations during the day.”
Over 50,000 residents of Augsburg, Barvaria have been evacuated and the city’s medieval centre closed while the Army defuse a 1.8-tonne bomb dropped by the Allies over 70 years ago.
The Christmas Day evacuation involves 32,000 households and 4,000 police and firefighters.
The raucous chugging sound of Status Quo has been a constant presence for almost half a century of rock’n’roll, ever since the band gave up on the idea of playing psychedelic music at the end of the 1960s in favour of a grittier approach.
The singer and rhythm guitarist Rick Parfitt, who has died aged 68 from an infection, had been a pivotal member of the band even before it became known as Status Quo. He and his fellow singer/guitarist Francis Rossi constituted the group’s creative core, and between them set the band’s matey, wisecracking tone.
A study by two German researchers concludes that of the 216 billion euros of the redemptions of the last six years, only 9.7 billion went to the Greek budget. That is, less than 5% of the total served the population, while 95% went to the coffers of European banks.
The study published by the German economic newspaper Handelsblatt is written by Jan Hildebrand and Thomas Sigmund, researchers at the European School of Technology and Management in Berlin. And concludes that the priority of bailouts designed by the ECB, European Commission and IMF was to save the banks and private creditors, not the Greek people.
