In a major advancement for anti-oil and gas drilling protestors, the Executive Presidente of Galp Energia announced on Friday July 29th that the company has suspended its plans to drill for oil and gas in the Alentejo basin "without a recommencement date."
The decision is blamed by Galp on the extension of the public consultation process to August 3rd which somehow has disrupted Galp’s planning to the extent that it can not start drilling.
Portugal’s Finance Minister today confirmed that there is a "deviation" of €3 billion in the accounts of Caixa Geral de Depósitos.
This discrepancy is "in the operating results originally planned and expected for the end of the restructuring plan" which ends in 2017.
A full meeting of Silves council has given the go-ahead to Mayor Rosa Palma, to take all "appropriate measures to evaluate, within 120 days, the possibility of legal action against the former Mayors of Silves, Isabel Soares and Rogério Pinto."
The council statement, municipal speak for "sue them", reads that council members want to take the mayors to court for wasting council money in the Viga d’Ouro case as the public interest was ignored when administering public funds.
At least a dozen court cases later, the rules over paying rates for properties in officially designated historic areas are still not clear with home owners claiming exemption and the State saying that private owners should pay up.
The Greens this week asked the Minister of Finance to explain why, since 2010, the rules are still subject to different interpretations.
A EuroMillions ticket in Portugal will cost more from September 1st as a new game, Totosorteio, is being tagged on.
The Council of Ministers statement states that the imposition Totosorteio is intended to combat illegal games not run by Portugal’s official lottery franchisee, Santa Casa da Misericordia.
Galp Energia, one of Portugal’s best known and biggest companies, has seen its profits fall nearly 30% in a quarter.
Galp, whose partnership with corrupt Italian state oil company ENI has triggered alarm bells in Lisbon and anger from anti-oil protestors, has the exploration and extraction rights for a block off the Alentejo coast.
Ryanair is to compel adults travelling with children younger than 12 to pay for an allocated seat.
The policy change comes into effect from 1 September.
The International Monetary Fund has been criticised by its own watchdog.
That independent body, the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO), said that the Fund failed to see the scale of the eurozone crisis, was guilty of overly optimistic forecasts while giving the impression that it was treating Europe differently.
