The poorly thought out seizure of goods identified by ‘goods in transit’ documents continues to amuse and baffle in equal measure as a lunch delivery from a restaurant to a business customer has been targeted by the taxman.

A corporate lunch of 'breaded prawns with orange sauce, green salad, cod gratin with spinach and cheesecake with red fruit coulis, plus complimentary bread rolls' has been listed by the taxman, along with the waiter as there was a ‘delivery charge within the Lisbon area.’

Lagos council has decided to dissolve the municipal company Futurlagos and adsorb its workers into the council’s existing workforce.

The remaining municipal company Lagos-em-Forma will remain primarily to run the council’s car parks.

The normal business of the Municipal Assembly of Vila Real de Santo António last night had to be postponed until after the weekend due to the number of locals who turned up to protest against the city’s new parking meter scheme.

The meeting, which was scheduled to start at 21:30 was delayed for 15 minutes to see if the angry crowd would calm down, which it did not.

The residents said the cat that was burned in a container at the top of a flaming pole was only singed. This latest example of Portugal’s attitude to animal welfare was claimed by locals to be ‘traditional.’

The GNR has opened an investigation in Mourão concerning a filmed incident at which a crowd of onlookers stood watching flames rise up a pole until a container in which a cat was held crashed to the ground in a burst of sparks, releasing the animal which they ran around in circles.

The director of Spain’s Alhambra palace is under investigation for alleged embezzlement of public funds.

Along with Maria del Mar Villafranca are four other members of the board of trustees.

China has sounded off about the planned appearance of the Dalai Lama at the Glastonbury Festival.

The Tibetan spiritual leader’s office has confirmed that the Dalai Lama would speak at the festival during his trip to the UK next week.

The first black vulture to be born in the Alentejo for decades has been announced by the League for the Protection of Nature.

There are two nesting pairs in the Moura area in Beja which arrived in March and have been monitored ever since to see if they successfully will breed.

The pharmaceutical division of multinational F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, which currently is engaged in more than 50 clinical trials in Portugal, today announced it will invest in a further €20 million over two years.

The company stated today that the current 50 clinical trials are taking place in 30 hospitals and 143 test centers involving 400 patients and over 500 health professionals.