Portugal’s pro-oil Environment Minister, João Pedro Matos Fernandes, is concerned about rising water levels and their effect on the national coastline but the €150 million set aside to bolster coastal defences is not yet spent and he is keen to approve more work.
At a Lisbon seminar, ‘The Coastal Zone of Portugal - how can we defend it?’ the minister said that the programme already has seen the approval of 50 kilometres of coastal work but the work needs to be accelerated.
Portugal’s Green party asked the Ministry of Economy if it knew what was going on with the feldspar mining application that has Monchique residents and ecological groups on red alert as to further activities by mining company Sifucel.
The Greens wanted to know whether the Ministry of Economy would be paying any attention at all to the local council when considering authorising mining feldspar in Monchique, especially in registered ecological, Natura 2000 and Monchique Special Protection Zone areas.
The increase the Algarve’s current ‘feel good’ factor, the Silves Beer Festival is back on June 15th to 18th.
Once hugely popular, the beer festival was ditched in 2007 after 30 years, due to dwindling numbers but with the resurgence of craft beers, of which there will be at least 50, Silves Football club is to host a new version at a new venue - the downtown Al-Mutamid square.
Dwarfing the June 6th announcement that Portugal’s Army was to get €32 million’s worth of new missile systems, (here) the Council of Ministers today announced the start of purchasing negotiations for six Brazilian aeroplanes at a total cost of €420 million.
The Government has approved the beginning of negotiations with Embraer to buy five of its KC-390 aircraft, with an option on a sixth, plus the government also wants to buy a CAT-D flight simulator "for installation and operation in national territory."
The head of Portugal’s Securities Market Commission admits that she does not know the whereabouts of crucial documents that could prove Banif’s customers were missold financial products and open the way for compensation.
Unless these documents are found, the chances of compensating up to 3,500 people who lost €265 million, remains slim despite Prime Minister, António Costa, stating that this is “a very difficult matter" and that some people clearly "were manifestly deceived."
The hot weather has started with temperatures in the high 30s across the Algarve region.
The forecast from the often prescient Portuguese weather service suggests the following maximum temperatures this week in the various municipalities of the region:
Albufeira’s mayor, Carlos Silva e Sousa, is delighted, as will be the local population, that the city's abandoned courthouse is to be turned into an arts and crafts centre.
The building was constructed in the late 1800s and served as a courthouse until 1992 when Albufeira's Palace of Justice opened next to the Town Hall.
The Angolan Justice Minister says he is stunned over the disrespect shown to by Portugal’s Public Prosecutor's Office - in fact he is ‘astonished’ that the Portuguese Public Prosecutor's Office had moved on in its investigation involving the Angolan Vice President, Manuel Vicente, (pictured left) without hanging around for Angola to decide whether to help or not.
"I am astonished and even disbelieving in this situation that demonstrates a certain disrespect for our judicial authorities, and in particular for the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Angola," said Rui Mangueira, the Minister of Justice and Human Rights of a country that demonstrates little of either.
