Rosário Teixeira is quite certain that the money José Sócrates was splashing around Pairs was the proceeds of corruption as even the credit card used to go on a shopping spree the day before his arrest was in the name of Sócrates' friend, Carlos Santos Silva.

Operation Marquis involves the state prosecutor delving into the links between former PM José Sócrates and his very rich friend Carlos Santos Silva whose bank accounts, it is claimed, harboured millions owed to Sócrates in bent payments for favours extended when he was Portugal’s prime minister.

TAP is to suspend seven medium-haul routes. The measure is part of the company's adjustment plan to reduce costs on under-performing winter routes.
   
The service to Oviedo (Spain), Gothenburg (Sweden), Helsinki (Finland), Warsaw (Poland) and Zagreb (Croatia) will be suspended as will links to Tallinn (Estonia) and St. Petersburg (Russia).

The Central Court in Lisbon sentenced two men each to ten years in prison for trying to import 660 kilos of cocaine hidden on a yacht.

The pair had started their doomed voyage from the Caribbean where one of them bought the 13 metre yacht from a Spaniard living in the Dominican Republic: they also bought a shipment of cocaine.

The cheapest prices for in the European Union family of nations were in Poland for food and consumer items and in Bulgaria for alcohol, restaurants and hotels last year.

Prices for clothing were lowest in Hungary while the Czech Republic offered the lowest cost for consumer electronics and cars.

Conservation efforts to save Portugal and Spain’s iconic lynx have been outlined in the Guardian today which has highlighted the number of the rare animals that are being run over and killed on Spain’s roads.

The lynx breeding centre in Silves successfully is producing lynx for later release into the mountainous regions of central Spain and the lower Alentejo in Portugal but the main killer is not hunters or poison, it is road users.

One of the Dutch tourists, seriously injured in Wednesday night’s horrific coach crash on the A22 near the Paderne turnoff, today died in Faro hospital bringing the death toll to four.

The 64-year-old woman’s death was confirmed today by a hospital spokesman.

TAP employees will hold a protest on 24 June, the day of the signing of the sale agreement between the government and the successful bidder, Gateway.

The demonstration is in protest at the airline’s privatisation and was decided today by the workers’ unions and Groundforce.

Three Dutch tourists died last night as their transfer coach plunged from the Via do Infante motorway onto the road below near the Paderne exit.

Two women and one man were confirmed dead as emergency services arrived to help the 31 passengers who were wounded, eight of them seriously.