Stephen Hammond, the Secretary of State for Transport in David Cameron’s coalition government, bought a holiday home in Vale de Lobo through an offshore company based in Gibraltar back in 2002.
The UK press has pounced on the 'story' and, sensing blood, has demanded that the minister explain himself and his comment that this type of purchase through an offshore company is "usual in this part of Portugal."
Passengers turning to British Airways have kicked the airline into profit.
For the first nine months of the year, pre-tax profits have reached €103 million, according to its owner, International Airlines Group.
President Francois Hollande and his government have been hit by another credit rating downgrade by Standard & Poor’s, the second in less than two years.
The country lost its AAA rating in January 2012. Shortly after that, President Sarkozy lost the general election.
Bus and underground managers in Rome have been accused to selling fake tickets and using the proceeds to fund the political parties which appointed them.
The city’s new mayor has said the managers were “worse than the mafia”.
They stand accused of selling €70 million work of tickets for the bus and metro systems.
The Parliamentary Group of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) has reminded the Minister of Agriculture Assunçao Cristas of the various initiatives that she championed from 2011 and which seem to have evaporated as soon as she became a minister.
For example she "recommended that the Government urgently provide the investment to open a regional slaughterhouse in the Algarve, in the face of seriousness of the situation and the unbearable financial costs entailed for Algarve producers and the significant increase in the consumer price also resulting from this situation." Now that she is in the government it would seem she is ideally placed to fulfil her promise.
The company that has been developing the infrastructure in and around the Alqueva dam (EDIA) has objected strongly to the League for the Protection of Nature’s (LPN) allegations that it had run riot around the lake area, felling trees needlessly and breaking all sorts of eco-guidelines as determined by various environmental laws.
In a statement the company repudiates the unfounded allegations from LPN, which it considers is for the sole purpose of denigrating the company’s image.
In 40 years Portugal has managed to go from the most fecund country in Europe to the one with the lowest birth rate.
This dire situation was outlined and discussed at a conference held by the National Council of Ethics for the Life Sciences (CNECV) entitled "Demographics, Birth and Public Policy" using statistical data from Pordata.
The Portuguese population increased by 1.7 million between 1960 and 2010 but "last year hit a record of low for births with 89,841” a number significantly lower than the 107,598 recorded in 2011 which itself was a poor year, according to demographics expert Maria João Valente Rosa.
The european director of ratings agency Standard & Poor's argues that Portugal should apply for a second bailout to help ‘facilitate the work of the government.’
Frank Gill said today there are strong reasons why Portugal is likely to ask for more financial help when the current Troika funding arrangement ends next Spring.
