A ‘mega police operation’ mounted by the PJ’s counter-terrorism unit has finally rounded up the men responsible for the mayhem unleashed on a Sunday in February 2016 in which a father of two was fatally shot as he drove his family to a birthday party (click here).

The six men, all from the Sintra area near Lisbon, are due to appear in court on Tuesday.

Initially reported to have numbered seven, the six are all known for violent crimes, reports Correio da Manhã.

Group Lena - the company cited in Portugal’s long-running Operation Marquês involving former prime minister José Sócrates - has failed in a bid to see university professor and former presidential candidate Paulo Morais prosecuted for defamation. Morais labelled the company “the Portuguese State’s largest supplier” on air last year, and talked about “exchange of favours”. Judges agreed his comments were impolite but nonetheless “tolerated in a democratic plural State”.

Lena had been asking for damages of €100,000.

In the latest shock to hit the world’s meat industry, Portugal is believed to have imported 524 tons of Brazil’s ‘suspect meat’, highlighted in the “Carne Fraca” scandal that hit the South American country last Friday.

Público broke the story today, admitting nonetheless that Portugal’s imports are negligible compared to Brazil’s 150 other markets.

Since the Resident (and algarvedailynews) highlighted the case of two British theatre VIPs caught up in the Ria Formosa demolitions debacle, major news services in Portugal have started covering the story.

SIC, Público, Expresso have all featured the plight of Paul Roseby and James Tod who are both working hard “behind the scenes” to save their dream home on the island of Armona from government-backed bulldozers.

Minister of the Sea Ana Paula Vitorino will be riding into a sea of troubles when she alights in the Algarve on Friday morning - ostensibly to present ‘brave new plans’ behind the government’s bid to extend Portuguese territory over four million square kilometres of sea.

Anti-oil groups already threatening a collective hunger strike have agreed to converge outside the gates of this year’s super-sized “Feira do Mar”, opening in Portimão Arena on Thursday (click here) to confront Vitorino over what they see as ‘collective lies’ behind government plans for Portugal’s bid for the sea.

Albufeira laboratory Gnóstica has been condemned to pay €272,000 to a family whose lives it turned upside down due to what judges have dubbed a “censurable error”.

The technician responsible for the error, however, has been acquitted, reports national tabloid Correio da Manhã - stressing that a reaction from Gnóstica, which had been appealing a condemnation from an earlier court, has not been forthcoming.

The story goes back almost eight years and involves a child, aged three at the time, who was being tested for a throat infection.

President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa did his best on Saturday when he was received by various groups of protestors in Faro campaigning to ‘save’ the Algarve from the effects of gas and oil exploration and save islanders’ homes from demolition in Ria Formosa.

But what he showed to everyone who knows about any of the subjects, was that at best he does not understand the oil and gas issue (and is therefore being badly advised), or at worst “he is playing silly buggers with people”.

This is the view of activists who heard him repeating his oblique message of last year: that there is more likelihood of us all flying to the moon than of finding oil in the Algarve.

Already under investigation for qualified fraud, abuse of confidence, money-laundering, fiscal fraud and “eventual corruption”, Montepio ‘boss’ Tomás Correia has a whole new headache to deal with this week: the Bank of Portugal has cited him and eight former Montepio directors for “grave illegalities”.

Now only in charge of Montepio’s owning company, the ‘Associação Mutualista, Correia is putting on a brave front - telling journalists there is no chance of his resignation until concrete charges are levelled against him in a court of law.