A resplendent Ricardo Salgado today faced his inquisitors in parliament and appeared truly to believe that the collapse of BES and the suspicious submarine money transfers were nothing to do with him, others were to blame and that he is guilty of nothing.

Using the schoolboy excuse of ‘a big boy did it and ran away’ Salgado, the former doyenne of the Espírito Santo Group, appeared calm and collected as he trotted out a well-prepared list of counter arguments when faced with examples of his alleged failures.

Facebook and other social media are being used by people smugglers to lure customers trying to reach Europe.

So far this year a record 150,000 refugees were sent by traffickers to Italy, with the growing trade now worth millions.

A deal on the EU’s budget for 2015 has been reached among the European Parliament and EU governments.

The spending total has been set at €141.2bn (£111.2bn).

Novo Banco today announced the successful €379 million sale of Banco Espírito Santo de Investimento (BESI) to Haitong, a Chinese company specialising in financial services.

In a statement sent to the Portuguese Securities Market Commission (CMVM), Novo Banco said that the sale is of course "dependent on the necessary approval from the Bank of Portugal, the European Commission, the competition authorities and a number of other authorities exercising direct supervision over buyer."

A proposed new EU tax on financial transactions is now unlikely to come into effect by its 2016 deadline.

Finance ministers from the 11 countries, including Portugal, which had been keen to introduce the tax were to agree the basics of the tax this week, but were unable because the talks broke down in disagreement.

People in the UK believe that immigration is a more pressing concern than people in Germany.

Forty per cent of the British public view immigration as the most pressing issue facing the country. In Germany, this was just over 20%, according to a poll conducted by Ipsos Mori.

A new airless tyre is coming into production which is promised never to go flat.

Michelin research engineers have created a tyre which, instead of being pneumatic, is a combination of a wheel and a tyre which forms one solid unit.

Portugal’s Tourist Board, through state company Empresa Nacional de Turismo (Enatur), currently controls the Pousadas de Portugal hotel business with the Pestana Group holding a minority shareholding of 49% through Grupo Pestana Pousadas.

The groundwork for a sale of the state’s 51% ownership of Pousadas de Portugal to Pestana Group is to be completed by the end of this year.