The Council of Ministers has approved a law to encourage the film industry in Portugal.

The incentive is by way of a tax credit that can be deducted from corporation tax, "of an amount corresponding to 20% of the amount of eligible expenses."

Some products and services will increase in price next year with incomes rising only slowly.

Council rents will go up 0.34% in 2017, the highest increase since 2014 and from February next year, sugary-filled soft drinks will increase in price by up to 30 cents for each 1.5 litre bottle due to the new sugar tax.

Olhão’s local parishes now know which projects have been successful in the council’s first Participatory Budget which will fund the winning suggestions for local improvements.

The council says the projects, one per parish, will be completed during 2017.

The UK’s Daily Mail has followed the example set by the Sun newspaper by issuing a grovelling apology to Robert Murat (pictured) after both publications accused Murat of knowing Clement Freud and sharing drinks with the TV personality in Praia da Luz.

The Daily Mail was up to its usual standard when this summer it printed an article with the headline ‘Clement Freud drank with Maddie suspect Robert Murat in Praia da Luz bar – and his local pub was dubbed the Plough and Paedo,’ a story long since removed from the newspaper’s website.

Depositors at Banco Espírito Santo, whose money was switched into high-risk commercial paper made worthless when the bank collapsed in August 2014, are close to a deal that would see some of them receiving 75% of their money back.

Nuno Vieira, the lawyer working on behalf of a group of those affected, commented, “The solution involves creating a fund that will lump together everyone’s rights and will try and recover all the money through the courts over the coming years. This fund will pay part of the amounts owed to all the groups of non-qualified investors in this commercial paper.”

Overall business income generated in the Algarve showed the highest increase across the country in 2015, driven by booming tourism receipts.

According to the government’s statistics institute, the real increase in trade in the Algarve, North and Central regions "contributed decisively" to the a general increase in the country's Gross Value Added (GVA) from trade, transport, accommodation and catering.

Dozens of people from Afghanistan were expelled from several EU countries this week in the first wave of deportations brought about by a controversial migration deal between the EU and Afghanistan.

On Thursday 34 Afghans were flown to Kabul from Germany.  They join another 13 who had been forcibly removed earlier in the week from Sweden and nine from Norway.

Portugal’s Secretary of State for the Environment sayid that current water charges do not cover the costs of services and that low prices benefits those who need help alongside those that do not.

The Government is preparing the country’s water users for across-the-board price rises “to cover costs,” in particular the cost of fixing the nation’s leaky network.