The Economy Minister, António Pires de Lima, said today that "tirades" from the opposition make it appear that they are "angry about the economic recovery."
Pires de Lima was in parliament today involved in the discussions over the 2014 State Budget which went on for 5 hours, not quite a full working day despite politicians' referring to the session as a marathon.
The Portuguese government is likely to register a revenue shortfall of an estimated €74 million if it does not alter the section in the 2014 State Budget that increases the price of rolling tobacco, according to THIS – the European Association of Producers, Distributors and Importers of Tobacco.
"The Government's proposal could cause a 70% drop in sales of rolling tobacco and an increase in tobacco smuggling and counterfeiting," read today’s statement issued by the association.
Corruption has been condemned in no uncertain terms by Pope Francis.
He said that the corrupt should be tied to a rock and thrown into the sea.
In this, he quoted “Jesus says: It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea.” The passage is from the New Testament’s Gospel of St Luke.
The funeral of a Dambusters hero has been attended by hundreds of people who never knew the WWII veteran.
Harold Jellicoe Percival was part of Bomber Command and served as ground crew for the Dambusters raids which took place in May 1943.
Mr Percival never married or had children. When he died at the age of 99, the funeral home in Lancanshire organising the service put an advert in a newspaper appealing for people to attend. The advert made its way onto social media sites.
A sex trafficking gang has been apprehended in Spain.
Twenty-five people were arrested for allegedly bringing in women from Nigeria and forcing them into prostitution.
The women, assigned fake identity documents, were flown to various destinations, such as Mexico and Brazil, before flying to Paris and then smuggled into Spain, according to the police.
Burglaries from properties in the Algarve have showed a disturbing "growth trend" over the last three years with 43 cases reported to authorities in 2010 and 73 already in the first half of 2013, according to the Internal Security System (SSI).
In 2011 there were 52 reported cases of burglaries and in 2012 the number rose to 66.
These figures seem low but have been issued by the SSI which gathers information from the PSP, the GNR, the Judicial Police and the Security Information Service. It is not explained whether these crimes were violent crimes as the information refers only to ‘theft.’
Portugal’s president sent a message to the Angolan president Eduardo dos Santos on the occassion of Angola’s independence day, fondly recalling the ‘special relationship’ that he imagines still exists between the two countries despite this relationship being founded on centuries of occupation of the land by Portugal, the slave trade and the extraction of mineral wealth, ending up with a messy colonial war.
Undeterred by Portugal's history in Angola, the Portuguese head of state highlighted the common desire to "actively defend the bilateral relationship" and reaffirmed his "personal commitment to a continued deepening of the relationship."
Chinese tourists on shopping trips to Portugal are now averaging €1,242 for each luxury purchase they make.
In the last nine months Chinese big spenders visiting Portugal have roared ahead of the Angolans, Brazilians and Russians and now can claim the highest average spend.
Angolan tourists as a group still spend the most, but the Chinese are catching up both the Brazilians and the Angolans soon to become the most important tourist group for Portugal’s luxury goods sector.
