Despite campaigns against large cruise ships reaching the tip of the Grand Canal in Venice, the city’s recent mayoral election may result in more massive ships penetrating the World Heritage Site.
The election victory went to Luigi Brugnaro, a businessman who supports the cruise industry.
Portugal soon must adopt new EC rules on bank transfers which intrude further into citizen’s lives.
The current €10,000 limit below which citizen’s bank account movements remain of no concern to the Bank of Portugal, is to be lowered to €1,000 in an EC rule that has used the twin excuses of ‘HSBC money laundering’ and ‘funding terrorism.’
A survey of nearly 700 government services and departments has revealed that in most cases measures that were designed to prevent corruption have not been adopted.
The excuse given has been ‘a lack of resources.’ The conclusion of the survey of 643 organisations in the public sector, including municipalities, public institutions, and regional and national directorates representing a total of about 400,000 civil servants, is that there is a lack of staff to deal with anti-corruption measures, although such measures are of course a good idea.
Jorge Moreia is determined to thwart those Ria Formosa islanders who are fighting for their homes and way of life, and is to appeal against the Loulé court judgement that the demolition crews must cease their work.
Moreia has instructed the Polis Ria Formosa Society to come up with a new study on the 'positive environmental impacts for nature' that will be achieved after 800 houses have been demolished and the land cleared of inconvenient humans.
Italy has again appealed for help in dealing with the ever increasing numbers of migrants reaching its shores.
It has called for a change in the asylum rules. The Dublin regulations stipulate that most asylum seekers must stay in the first country they reach.
Two time loser Germán Efromovich, who last week failed in his bid for control of Portugal’s state airline TAP, is to demand access to all the documentation related to the winning proposal.
Efromovich, whose Synergy bid vehicle failed to secure the TAP shares on offer, wants to assess whether he has grounds to take action against the government in time to prevent the sale of TAP to David Neeleman’s Gateway partnership.
Finland, long a critic of its fellow eurozone members in the south, now finds itself is a “grave” state of health, according to its central bank governor.
Its economy is struggling in a recession which has been going on for three years and unemployment is predicted by the OECD to rise further this year. Prices in the 5.5 million strong nation have been going up at a much quicker rate than the rest of the eurozone.
A royal decree in Spain has stripped an heir to the throne of her royal title.
Cristina de Borbón, 49, is no longer the Duchess of Palma de Majorca, despite the fact that her trial for two counts of tax fraud has not yet taken place. It is not expected to begin until later this year.
