The GNR in Vila Real de Santo António have detained a 51-year-old man on suspicion of burglary at a residence in Monte Gordo.

Out on patrol, the GNR officers approached and arrested the individual, a well known local drug supplier and user who habitually steals from properties to boost his personal cash-flow in pursuance of a lifestyle of feckless irresponsibility.

The former Caixa Geral de Depósitos president, António Domingues, has refused to stay on "for another few days" contrary to a statement issued by the Ministry of Finance, published last Friday.

It was essential that Domingues stayed on until the succession of Paulo Macedo has been confirmed by the European Central Bank but he has left the chairman’s office empty and the State-owned bank close to rudderless with just four directors remaining.

In a characteristically gloomy weather forecast, the Portuguese weather service has found it necessary to post warnings of rain, snow, high winds, troubled seas and rain.

After a period of sunny and mostly calm weather over the Christmas and New Year holiday period, despite hopes for a pleasant year ahead, the party is over and from today, "the scene will change."

Employees in France begin 2017 with a new freedom dubbed the “right to disconnect”.

The new legal right will mean that employees will not be obliged to deal with business emails, texts or other messages outside of defined working hours.

The president of Caixa Geral de Depósitos, António Domingues, who technically left his job on the last working day of 2016, sent a message to the bank’s employees saying what a good job he had done.

Domingues said his objectives had been fulfilled and the recapitalisation plan of State-owned bank had been agreed, even though it has been delayed until early 2017 due to the adverse impact it will have on the national accounts.

Three of the Algarve’s decrepit national monuments are to be transferred into private hands under the government's Revive programme.

These three historic monuments have been so neglected by successive governments and councils that they now are to be leased to private enterprise and turned into tourist venues.

The Italian rubbish shipment, held up at the dockside while analysts determine the safety of the contents, can now be carted off and dumped in a Portuguese landfill site.

The rubbish suddenly has become quite safe to be buried in Portugal, (why not in Italy ask many readers?) and represents the first of many shipments of domestic waste from the Naples region that will be buried here.

Tax from house sales in the Loulé area will raise €27 million for the council’s coffers next year.

This is the figure in the 2017 council budget under the heading IMT, the municipal tax on real estate sales.