The Algarve’s tourist board is to support the 5th ‘Algarve Bike Challenge’ due to take place from 3 to 5 March 2017.
The competition brings together amateurs and the elite of the biking world to face the challenge of the hills, mountains and the coast, beginning in Tavira and heading off into the hills.
A big step forward has been taken by Portugal’s parliament in animal rights legislation, led by pressure from the People Animals Nature party’s lone MP, André Silva.
In brief, animals in future legislation will not be treated as ‘things’ and will have their own distinct legal status, somewhere in the legal continuum between a thing and a person.
The figures being produced in the wake of Portugal’s surging tourism boom continue to delight government with €11 billion spent by visitors this year to the end of October.
The data released by the Bank of Portugal shows this October total is an increase of €1 billion compared to the same period last year.
The world’s first solar road was inaugurated on Thursday in a small village in sun-starved northern France.
Tourouvre in Orne, Normandy now boasts one kilometre of road consisting of 2,800 square metres of rugged solar panels strong enough to support heavy duty goods vehicles.
Authorities in the state of California have revoked the registrations of Uber’s 16 self-driving vehicles, putting an end, at least for now, to Uber’s pilot initiative in San Francisco, one of the world’s hilliest cities.
Uber has been testing Volvo XC90 cars which drive by computer but have a human in the front who can intervene when needed.
Errors, unbudgeted expenses, illegal payments and revenues at the very margin of the law are part and parcel of the 2015 accounts under Finance Minister Maria Luís Albuquerque in the Passos Coelho government.
The Court of Auditors found material errors in last year’s accounts and has listed its "reservations on the legality, accounting, internal control and financial correction" of the General State Accounts for 2015, noting that there are a number of shortcomings that have been identified in the past, some of them repeatedly, but which remained uncorrected.
Lalanda e Castro, until recently the head of Octapharma and accused of corruption in a plasma supply monopoly to Portugal's health service, has been released by a German judge.
His lawyer says the ex-director of Octapharma, arrested a week ago in Germany, will be in Portugal whenever he is needed and hence there was no reason to keep him in detention prior to his deportation.
More than 3,500 companies have shared awards totaling €461 from the Portugal 2020 scheme. The infrastructure minister announced his intention that support will reach "at least" €1 billion in 2017.
"These investments will allow us to create another 10,000 jobs, when the projects reach cruising speed, and another €2 billion in exports," said Minister Pedro Marques today, full of optimism that his sterling efforts would be widely reported.
