TAP lost €143 million in the first half of 2015, €60 million more than the appalling result from the same period the year before. The increased loss can be put down to the lack of bookings and the refunds resulting from the May pilots' strike.
The state owned airline's results severely dented the half-yearly results of Parpública, the company that owns state assets on behalf of the Portuguese public.
As the final Troika representative Albert Jaeger leaves Portugal, quietly closing the door behind him, his parting comments addressed the failure of the bailout process to reduce the country’s debt, mainly because much of it was skillfully hidden and only came to light after the money had been advanced.
Jaeger, adopting the eurospeak beloved of his cadre, said rather delicately that there had been a ‘weaker adjustment than expected’ and that he was disappointed at Portugal’s economic growth.
In a long overdue and delayed reflection of the huge drop in the international oil price, the cost of petrol and diesel at Portugal’s pumps falls today by 5 and 3 cents a litre.
This is the biggest adjustment of the year in the price of petrol and the seventh consecutive week in which costs has crept lower, according to the Directorate General for Energy and Geology.
Two French journalists have been accused of trying to blackmail the king of Morocco. The journalists claim it was entrapment.
Eric Laurent and Catherine Graciet are accused of demanding €2 million from King Mohammed VI (pictured) in exchange for not publishing a book which allegedly made damaging claims about the monarchy and its financial affairs.
In September 2014, the launch of the new CITIUS court case processing system failed spectacularly on take-off and remained inoperable for 44 days, while the media reported on recrimination, back-biting and zero progress in clearing the backlog of cases built up from years of inefficiency and official indifference.
The judicial reform programme, far from reforming anything, turned a poor system into a showcase of what was wrong with Portugal’s antiquated justice delivery system noted already for understaffed courts and slow justice, but now with a computer software that had failed to work and was making things worse, not better.
Non-melting ice cream is the next thing that could be given to the world by scientists.
A protein has been identified which would bind the ingredients together and inhibit the ice cream from melting quickly.
Spanish authorities have arrested an American-Belgian businessman who is suspected of enslavement and dealing in “blood diamonds”.
The arrest was welcomed as a “landmark” by the legal aid group Civitas Maxima as it is the first time anyone has been held on international charges related to exploiting the civil war in Sierra Leone by selling blood diamonds.
The Bank of Portugal has until Monday night to decide whether to accept the proposal made by Anbang Insurance to buy Novo Banco.
Negotiations are said to be at a standstill with the Chinese offer lying on the table to the horror of the Bank of Portugal which needed €4.9 billion, not the €3.5 billion on offer with concerning conditions attached.
