Portugal’s President today said that the Iraqi ambassador to Portugal could not remain in office and agreed with the government that the Ponte de Sor case now will have to go to Baghdad.

"From the information I have, I cannot help but agree with the words of the Minister of Foreign Affairs," said Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.

The C&A clothing chain is closing four underperforming stores in Portugal but plans to open two new outlets this year.

The closures will relieve 25 workers of their jobs with the business claiming that the move will strengthen its position in the market.

The Secretary of State for Tourism, Ana Mendes Godinho, is off to China in February to kick-start an international tourism roadshow designed to attract serious investors to Portugal.

The roadshow then switches to India where the ground had been prepared by Portugal’s prime minister who has just returned from a successful State visit.

The Attorney General's Office today has insisted that justice be done in the ‘Ponte de Sor’ case and is not interested that the Iraqi ambassador has agreed a compensation payment with Rúben Cavaco’s lawyers to cover the lad’s injuries.

The State prosecution service insists on the need to lift the diplomatic immunity of the ambassador’s twin boys who already have accepted responsibility for the beating given to Cavaco in Ponte de Sor last August.

Five former bank executives have been sentenced to prison by a high court in Spain after getting millions in severance payments.

Nova Caixa Galicia (NCG) was known by the executives to be in severe financial difficulty, but they nevertheless took nearly €19 million in compensation when they left their posts in 2010.

Deutsche Bank is to pay $7.2 billion to the US for misconduct which contributed to the 2008 financial meltdown.

The settlement was announced on Tuesday by the US Department of Justice which said that it was the largest settlement reached so far concerning the conduct of a single entity contributing to the crisis.

A sensible follow-on from the Strategy for Intelligent Specialisation in local agriculture is the launch of the Agrotur project, which aims to connect rural famers with their local hotel, restaurant and tourism providers to encourage direct trade.

Focusing on low density rural areas of the Algarve, the local university is starting the study to look into the commercial and practical realities of this trade between food producers and buyers.

Although not exposed to the perils that press freedom encounters in places such as Turkey or Hungary, experts in Portugal tell Mapping Media Freedom that journalists in the country live under a “subliminal” type of pressure that can lead to the deterioration of their work and their fundamental rights as media workers.

Most of this pressure, they say, is caused by low wages and endemic job insecurity.