The Sagres bird festival is to go ahead later this year with an agreement already signed between Vila do Bispo council, nature organisation Almargem and Portugal’s birding association SPEA.
 
The presentation session of the 7th edition of the Festival de Observação de Aves & Atividades de Natureza de Sagres took place on the 14th of March at the council offices.

As the decades old argument over who owns the city walls of Silves drags on, some sections already have started to collapse.
 
The council says it has some money to fix the worst affected areas but needs financial help to secure all the sections that have been left to crumble. Some parts have started to collapse and have had to be cordoned off.

The Minister for the Sea seems to have wasted no time in pushing through a series of funding and development initiatives during her visit to the Algarve last week, not least the sharing of the management and responsibility of Vila Real’s riverside areas with the local council.

Ana Paula Vitorino wants to start sharing the management of Portugal’s coastal areas so that both government and councils are involved in making the most of areas that often are transfixed by out-of-date laws, zoning issues, land use restrictions and bureaucratic lethargy.

The rate of job vacancies for all occupations in the euro area rose by 1.6% by the close of 2015.

This was the same place it had been at the start of last year, but it dipped through to the middle of 2015 before rising again.

A new expat radio went live on Monday specifically for the 200,000 British expats in France but available online in the Algarve as well.

Expat Radio aims to provide music, news, sports, interviews and chat entirely in English. Listeners are encouraged to call or email their views.

The director of the Emergency Departments within the Algarve Central Hospital (CHA) group resigned on Thursday just a week after a new director was appointed.

Dr Luís Pereira, who has run the Algarve's Emergency Departments since 2012, said he wants to "release the new Board of Directors from any difficulty," as he does not agree with new plans for his department and considers that it is only possible to work if both share "the same ideas and goals."

Olhãopesca, the Algarve Fishing Producers Organisation, is incensed that surveillance by the Portuguese maritime authorities is at "almost zero" when dealing with Spanish fishing boats operating in Portuguese waters.

There is the Guadiana Border Agreement in place which should keep Spanish boats away from Portuguese waters but this is being ignored.

Portugal’s Communist Party wants the Government to ensure the road works on the EN125 are completed quickly and recommends it "take the necessary measures” to get the job done.

The Communists also want the executive "instruct Infraestruturas de Portugal, which should be provided with appropriate means, to oversee the rapid completion of all the works originally planned for the EN125, including bypasses, access roads and connections which are not covered in the current work schedule of the concession holder Algarve Litoral."