The Berlin Wall farce continues with Olhão’s famous railway crossing once again in the news with attempts to put a positive spin on the continuing story that so far has defied common sense but has provided amusement to thousands.

The solution as to 'how to cross the railway track' was announced in July 2015 when €150,000 of totally unnecessary work was announced by Infraestruturas de Portugal to widen the road underpass so that (unwilling) pedestrians could cross from one side of the city to the other without using the old pedestrian crossing over the tracks.

Portugal’s courts convicted 379 sex offenders last year with 311 of them successfully prosecuted for the sexual abuse of children and dependent minors, 60 convicted of child pornography charges, five for child prostitution and three for the pimping and trafficking of minors

According to data from the Ministry of Justice 82% of those accused were convicted, as in 2015 there were 462 defendants.

Nine months after the murder of a schoolboy, whose body was dumped on wasteland just 80 metres from his Portimão home, the Judicial Police has confirmed that officers are to travel to Brazil to question the prime suspect, Joaquim Lara Pinto.

The 15-year-old victim, Rodrigo Lapa, disappeared on February 22nd this year, but his uncovered body was discovered only on March 2nd near his home in Malheiro - he had been beaten and strangled.  

The Secretary of State for Tourism, Ana Mendes Godinho, has confirmed a sharply increased demand from Italians for property in Portugal.

Confirming that overall tourist revenue for September this year has increased by 10.8% over September 2015, Godinho added that Italians are buying up property in increasing numbers, a trend that already has been noted in the Algarve.

Experts agree that resistance among Europeans to antibiotics has continued to rise despite warnings about the danger of overuse.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) reports that resistance continued to increase between 2012 and 2015 across EU countries for most of the bacteria and drugs that they monitored.

The deplorable state of many of the Algarve’s railway stations at last is being addressed with a cleaning, repair and painting programme.

Olhão’s tawdry offering is getting a lick of paint with Faro, Conceição de Tavira, Mexilhoeira Grande, Silves, Estômbar-Lagoa, Algoz, Poço Barreto and Fuzeta already tarted up.

As the November shopping bonanza Black Friday looms, consumers have been warned that some of the deals on offer may not be as robust as they appear.

UK consumer group Which? issued a report this week of its investigations into “on sale” items offered last year.  The report says that many of them had been less expensive before or after Black Friday.

Portimão council has approved a proposal by Mayor Isilda Gomes to reduce the local Municipal Property Tax (IMI) from 0.50% to 0.45% for urban buildings in 2017.
 
As the municipality is in the government lending scheme to switch short-term debt to long-term, successfully having borrowed €130 million to ease the pain, it should be charging an obligatory 0.5% but as the council has demonstrated that it is able to repay the long-term debt interest, there now is some flexibility in IMI rates.