Algarve anti-oil groups are watching with inreasing concern as Italian authorites 'monitor' a two-kilometre-long oil spill off Itay's prized Riviera coastline.

The 500 metre wide slick has been moving slowly westwards from waters off Genoa, and threatens to pollute holiday beaches just as the tourist season begins. The risk of a new spill into the Mediterranean is said by authorities to be "under control" - a statement few believe as the oil slick threatens the premier Itailan Riviera and smaller areas of oil pollution are being reported by fishermen. 

Sol newspaper carries an exclusive this weekend on its front page entitled “New evidence implicates mother in Portimão crime”.

Alongside the banner headline is a photograph of the woman whose vacillating testimony on the killing of her son has left thousands wondering why she is not already behind bars.

French newspaper Le Figaro has accused Portuguese pharmaceutical company Bial of having omitted crucial information to volunteers who took part in the Phase 1 drug trial in France that killed one previously healthy person in January, and left four others with “life changing disabilities”.

Months after it was revealed that three dogs had died in preliminary testing of Bial’s molecule BIA 10-2474 (click here), it now emerges that rats, mice and primates also suffered irreversible consequences.

But nowhere in the 13-pages of documentation that volunteers were asked to sign was any of this explained.

Barclays is, ending its physical presence in Gibraltar after 127 years and leaving its last 16 locally-resident employees out of a job.

The decision had been widely anticipated and will have little practical impact on local consumers, as the bank had already wound down the parts of its business that dealt with the Gibraltar market, but it deals a heavy blow to a skeleton staff that had committed to help Barclays retain a small presence on the Rock, and who now face an uncertain future.

The High Court has reserved judgment on whether British citizens living in other European countries are legally entitled to vote in the European Union referendum.

Two judges sitting in London heard urgent legal challenges brought by 94-year-old Second World War veteran Harry Shindler, who lives in Italy, and lawyer and Belgian resident Jacquelyn MacLennan.

They are seeking a declaration that Section 2 of the EU Referendum Act 2015, which denies them a vote because they have lived abroad for more than 15 years, is incompatible with their EU law rights.

Of the 25 billion euros that the government seeks to spend on reforming (and improving) the country, 85% is dependent on European funding - either in the form of community funds or the so-called Juncker Plan. And some of the money (2.2 billion euros) depends on Portugal coming in under 3% deficit - which is the plan for this year (click here).

As stories emerge of all the investments to come if Brussels gives the green light to the National Reform Programme, one involves €149 million, to be ploughed into help for the country’s inhabitants considered “most in need”.

Attempts to lure Portugal’s better-qualified doctors and specialists out of city centre comfort zones and into problem areas like the Algarve, Castelo Branco and the northern Alentejo have this far fallen flat - with only 20 being placed since August last year.

Reacting to news that the scheme put into place by former health minister Paulo Macedo last August did not yield results, his Socialist replacement has said that this is all set to change.

But as is the ‘flavour of the week’ right now, details are not exactly forthcoming.

With all kinds of forecasts and promises emerging from yesterday’s Council of Ministers, the bottom line is that yet again the government has kicked thoughts of a Brussels-led ‘Plan B’ into the long grass.

All kinds of ideas and reforms have now been ‘approved’ and it remains to see whether European moneymen will share the optimism echoed by president Marcelo, who has called the government’s Stability Programme “very sensible, very prudent and very realistic”.

The programme, along with the national reforms plan, were passed unanimously in an upbeat mood, with national and international media concentrating on different aspects.