Someone at the Algarve’s Regional Development Commission sat on the case of ‘the fake ruin of Estoi’ for four years - only now has the commission passed the file to the public prosecutor.
A neighbouring landowner watched with increasing incredulity as a ruin was constructed on ecological land which later was fiddled through the paperwork system to show that it has been there before 1951 and hence was suddenly worth around €200,000, far in excess of its value as scrubland.
The good councillors of Castro Marim council are a thoughtful lot and have decided to suspend the use of fireworks at two of the council’s main cultural events and instead donate the money saved to Madeira, in solidarity with those affected by the recent devastating fires in Funchal.
"The Municipal Council of Castro Marim today cancelled the fire firework programme at two of its largest cultural events - Festas em Honra de N. Sra. dos Mártires and Dias Medievais.
Judge Carlos Alexandre has considered a request from Ricardo Salgado’s legal team that the disgraced banker be allowed to have a holiday away from his luxury Cascais home.
Alexandre has ruled that the bust businessman still may not leave the country but was planning to travel to the 12,500 hectare Herdade da Comporta estate near Alcacer do Sal for a maximum of 30 days for a family break and during this period will not have to report to police.
Monday's suspicions that he is in the Algarve are swirling across the media.
First the Galp-ENI oil company consortium postponed indefinitely its drilling programme off the coast of Aljezur, and now the Repsol and Partex consortium has said it too is not going to be pressing ahead with its October plan to start drilling to the south of Faro.
Spain’s Repsol said today that its planned search for gas in the Algarve sea had been “postponed with no new date."
Environmental organisation ZERO said today that the government now has all the reasons it needs to call a halt to the oil and gas exploration contracts on Portugal’s land and in her offshore oil exploration areas.
After the postponement of drilling announced by the Galp-ENI consortium at the end of July, ZERO, the Sustainable Land Association, welcomed today’s announcement that the Repsol-Partex consortium also has postponed its drilling plans for the oil exploration block about 40 km to the south of Tavira/Faro.
Olhão’s mayor, António Pina, has announced a record-breaking amount that can be spent on local projects suggested by those resident in the municipality.
The €400,000 'Participatory Budget' will be distributed among the area’s parishes in a municipal give-away that has been made possible, according to the mayor, due to the council’s accounts being in good order.
Spain has taken on the challenge of producing increasing numbers of red berries, and no place more so than the area around Huelva.
The area had been a leader in the production of strawberries, many of them for foreign consumption, but now 95% of Spain’s berries are being raised in the district while strawberry growing is beginning to diminish.
Plans have been laid for refugees to pick the grapes used for one of Italy’s most noted wines.
Sciaccheta wine, sweet and white, is produced from grapes which are grown on the rocky slopes along the Cinque Terre coastline, a World Heritage site. The wine is unique to the region.
