Environmental organisation Quercus has reviewed the best and the worst environmental aspects of 2015 and presents the prospects for the year 2016, while mysteriously avoiding the subject of oil and gas exploration in the Algarve.

The worst environmental aspects for Portugal in 2015 include pollution discharges in the Tagus river, unfeasible municipal waste recycling targets in PERSU2020, the adverse impacts of the new afforestation scheme which increases new eucalyptus plantations at the expense of native forest, laws that enable potential polluters to avoid environmental impact assessments and the general slack standards employed by government to control polluters.

A 74-year-old patient suffered a stroke at Faro hospital and was transferred to Lisbon’s Hospital de S. José which refused to accept him for reasons that remain unclear.

Due to poor weather, the patient, Sr Sebastião Pereira, was taken by ambulance rather than by helicopter, to Coimbra hospital where he died this weekend.

Gold Visas property purchases cleared €21 million of real estate in September despite the procedure being ineffective, according to those running using it.

"Unfortunately, the pressure of the judicial investigation led to the regulations became more bureaucratic, making the procedure ineffective" said Acacio Pereira, the president of the Association of Inspectors of the Foreigners and Borders Service.

The leader of Spain’s Podemos party has refused to talk of forming alliances with any party to form a new government.

Instead Pablo Iglesias said the party’s priority will be to help the poor by proposing an emergency law to stop families being evicted if they cannot meet their mortgage payments and to ensure pensioners can buy medication.

Seven people died in road accidents over the Christmas period, two fewer than in 2014, with the GNR reporting 19 seriously injured and 187 with minor injuries resulting from 589 accidents, 29 down on last year.

The usual array of drugs, hashish and heroin, plus five illegal knives and two firearms were found by officers, along with €781.

French authorities have said that police and ministerial archives related to the Vichy period during WWII will be opened for public scrutiny.

More than 200,000 documents relate to the regime of Marshal Philippe Petain (pictured) from 1940 to 1944 which headed up the Vichy government.

A man in the Münster area of Germany died on Christmas Day by being hit in the head by a piece of flying steel.

The 29-year-old man who has not been named together with two accomplices, aged 27 and 29, had attached a homemade bomb to the dispenser in an apparent attempt to steal the condoms and money inside.

Cross-Channel trade on Eurotunnel continued to grow during 2015, despite disruption from migrants as well as French protestors and striking workers.

Eurotunnel’s Le Shuttle Freight carried nearly 1.5 million lorries between the UK and Europe, making a record for the company.