Kind-hearted Algarve shoppers donated a staggering 140 tonnes of food last weekend in the ‘Banco Alimentar Contra a Fome’ promotion that saw thousands of volunteers collecting outside the region’s supermarkets.

For the whole of Portugal the total was pretty much the same as last year and food bank president Isabel Jonet thanked the Portuguese people and volunteers for their generosity.

The Angolan media company Newshold is closing the ‘i’ and ‘Sol’ newspapers and then reopening them with many of the same staff.

The company, run by former BES Angola chief Álvaro Sobrinho for the Madeleno family, is sacking around 120 workers and re-employing 66 of them to produce identically named publications.

Portuguese cuisine is said to have influenced British diners to lap up chilli, corn on the cob and sweet potatoes.

Nandos, the fast-growing piri-piri chicken restaurant chain, has tickled the British palate and is said to be behind the soaring demand for spicy food.

Five hundred years after they were expelled, a Spanish king tells the Sephardic Jewish community they have been missed.

King Felipe VI addressed representatives of Sephardic Jews from different countries, at the royal palace.

The Portuguese Association of Insurers has reported that insurance policy pay-outs of €15.5 million have been agreed as a result of the storm that flooded downtown Albufeira and other areas on the Algarve coastline on November 1st.

This figure, according to the Association, "confirms the previously observed trend of increasing support from the insurance business to the victims."

The long talked about ferry route between the Algarve and Morocco has a ferry company interested and financial support promised by the Tangier region tourist boss.

There is one catch, equivalent support funds need to be provided by the Portuguese, most likely Faro council or the Algarve's regional tourism board.

Oyster producers in the western Algarve are up in arms over a government plan that they now must pay 60 cents a kilo to have their devastated stock incinerated.

The Portuguese Association of Aquaculture has demanded an "urgent response" over the question of what happens next to the tons of dead oysters at the Alvor Estuary and Sagres oyster farms after a killer virus from France swept through the nurseries in October.

There is now a global glut of oil, resulting from continued production despite falling demand.

The surplus is at its highest level since 2009, according to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec).