More shoppers than ever before are buying entertainment products, such as CDs, DVDs and games, from online sources.

One in every three pounds spent on these items goes to an online retailer.

Portuguese Commercial Bank, operating in Portugal's high streets as BCP Millennium, finally has authorisation to cut wages in a long overdue bid to reduce staffing costs by €135 million by 2017.

The pay cuts will be imposed from July 2014.

Google, Delta and Nestlé are the companies and brands with the best reputation in Portugal.

The ranking comes from the RepTrak Pulse 2014 study which annually assesses the level of trust, esteem, admiration and respect from the public for the country’s brand leaders.

Only 23.38% of registered voters in the Algarve bothered to vote in Sunday’s European Election, but the majority of those who did, voted for the socialists.

The Partido Socialista received 28% of the Algarve’s vote, while the ruling parties’ 'Alliance Portugal’ came in second with 24%.

The Socialist Party has won the European elections in Portugal, marked by a record low in Sunday’s turnout at the polls with 37% of those eligible bothering to vote.

With the Vila Real result still to come in, the Partido Socialista (PS) party led by António José Seguro, has secured a share of around 31.46% of the vote, ahead of 27.7% received by the ruling coaltion Alliance, and will return 8 or 9 Socialist MEPs to the European Parliament.

The Faro District Command of the Polícia de Segurança Pública (PSP) has issued vocational training certificates to 12 police officers who have attended a new sign language course.

The course in Portuguese took place between February 12th and May 8th under the "Algarve - Safe Destination" programme in cooperation with the Deaf Association.

Rating agency Dominion Bond Rating Service (DBRS) today raised its outlook on Portuguese government debt in a welcome move that sees it join the other three key agencies in a positive assessment for the country.

The Canadian agency raised its outlook from negative to stable, keeping it at BBB, indicating that the agency now has a more favorable opinion of government debt and may encourage a rise in the rankings by one or more of the other agencies.

The UK government appears to be intent on using fracking to liberate oil deep beneath the surface of the land.

New rules have been proposed concerning access to land to speed up the introduction of fracking.