Chairman of Portuguese bank BIC, Mira Amaral, said today that there was no excuse for the actions of the men who robbed him while he was enjoying a holiday in the Algarve.
The men entered Portugal with false identities and went on a three day spree of robberies in Lisbon, Faro and at beaches and luxury hotels in Quinta do Lago.
Leaders of the EU have agreed to review its agenda after the “strong message” delivered by the EU-wide vote, according to the president of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy.
He noted that they had agreed to focus primarily on the economy, believing that growth will ease growing anti-Europe sentiment.
The European Central Bank said it fears that greed could reverse economic recovery in the eurozone, throwing it back into crisis.
The ECB said that investors seeking higher profits in a time of low interest rates are the biggest threat to financial stability.
Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo had been named the “world’s most marketable footballer”, according to sports marketing experts, Repucom.
Repucom called him the most well-known and “trend-setting” in football today.
A drug boat manned by two Brits suffered engine failure in mid-ocean. The crew had to send a distress signal to the cheery delight the police who had been tracking its progress.
The plan was to sail the boat from northern Africa, loaded with hashish, to the Algarve where it would be unloaded at Vilamoura marina and the cargo shipped to northern Europe.
The Government announced today that it is to invest €8 million in its Strategy for Restructuring Support Services in Public Administration and create a Citizens' Shop in each and every municipality in the country, according to the Deputy Minister of Regional Development.
Poiares Maduro said that this plan, when executed, will enable that citizens will have greater access to public services while saving the government money by centralising services on a council-wide basis thus reducing staff and property costs.
Portuguese Commercial Bank (Millennium BCP) has repaid €400 million of public money, around 13.3% of the total €3 billion that the bank received to stop it closing in 2012.
The CEO, Nuno Amado, says the bank will keep repayments coming, in line with an agreed plan which predicted that repayments would begin this year.
Environmental association Quercus and the Algarve Trade and Commerce Association both have strongly opposed the inadequate environmental impact study presented by Swedish multinational IKEA in support of its planning application for a retail park near Loulé.
Today sees the end of the public consultation period, and the two associations have expressed “outrage and disgust" and propose that the impact study should be rejected for many reasons, the main one being that the study, unsurprisingly, only looks at the economic benefits of the scheme and does not dwell on the impact to the environment.
