Madeira News Blog

TODAYS PHOTO : Thanks to Wil … another great underwater picture off the coast of Madeira … Can anyone name the species? (Ginga … bet you can’t get two on the trot!)

Talking of fishing, the 200,000 escaped Dourado fish from the week of the storm have now cleared the locality of their original imprisonment (Campanário), and the fishing has now ‘dried up’ in Rib. Bra. Reports are that there a now huge numbers of fishermen as far west as Calheta, and in Funchal also.

Source : Diário de Notícias 26/4/2008

In a week already marred by stories of violence and bullying in schools, today’s Diário frontpage reports on children and the drink and drugs problems. 22% of students use drugs. Cannabis and wine are becoming less popular, whilst the use of inhalants and solvent abuse, such as glue or petrol, are on the increase. In a study promoted by the Department of Health here (which rather unhelpfully includes the Azores as well as Madeira), these are some of the preliminary findings, with the final report due for release on Monday. 19% of students have admitted smoking a ‘charro’ (cannabis), and 7% to solvent abuse.

88% of students (2nd stage education) have admitted drinking alcohol … 80% to drinking beer, 75% for wine, and 55% have admitted to smoking tobacco (a decrease from 70% in 2001).

If these are the figures ‘admitted’ by students, god only knows the real extent of the problem, but there again perhaps they are allin the Azores.

Bullying is on the up, with both psychological and physical violence affecting more younger pupils than before. Teachers are losing authority … 9 were victims of crimes inside their schools in 2007. 201 school crimes were reported to the police, including 34 assaults, 29 thefts, 23 vandalism, and 9 robberies. Of the victims identified, two thirds are male. 129 (80%) of the cases involving the police were in Funchal, followed by Ribeira Brava (9%), Câmara de Lobos (6%), and Machico (4%).

Despite the huge rainfall earlier this month, some farmers are now without water.

SATA (Azores airline) has announced it’s prices for the new route to Las Palmas (Gran Canaria), being on average €55 per journey, plus taxes. In the low winter season this will €41. SATA is now the second largest operator on Madeira, with 20% of the aircraft movements. With its ambitions to serve Lisbon, Azores, Madeira, and Las Palmas, I don’t know why it doesn’t move its operation from the Azores to Madeira. Logistically it makes a lot of sense. In a week full of airline and flight news, I hope the last story is the one about the direct flights between London Gatwick and Porto Santo Island. It starts on the 5th May, and is run by Atlantic Holidays. The secretary for tourism was in London on Friday to introduce the island to the travel industry.

With the last deadline for internet tax submissions approaching fast, I was somewhat relieved to get my own tax return finished yesterday. Always a difficult and onerous task, and that’s even for fluent Portuguese speakers, but I had to break new ground this time with the first accounts for madeira4u. I have made mistakes I am sure, but it’s impossible to know until they tell you, unless you are prepared to pay a small fortune for an accountant. For anyone else with difficulties, you might want to try what I do, and email with your queries and possible errors to the IRS. They never reply, but at least if you do get called to account, you can say you made an effort to get it right … whether that will save you from a fine or not … who knows.

www.madeira4u.com

Aside from your valued blog responses, please send any unreported Madeira news, photos, events information, or snippets for the madeira4u blog to blog@madeira4u.com – thank you!

TODAYS PHOTO : Thanks to Alan … Hanglider shot from Madelena do Mar (there is a hangliding club up there somewhere if anyone is interested?)

Source : Diário de Notícias 25/4/2008

As expected, lots about the revolution, democracy (or lack of) and freedom, to mark 25th April. Also a special mention for decolonization, for those poor people who have to leave Madeira because they cannot earn a living here. I generally nod-off when I get to the politics section, so excuse me for not saying any more.

If you fancy visiting the airspace of Porto Santo this weekend, get yourself off to Porto Santo airport for a flight around the island. The Flying Club of Madeira is offering trips for €30 in a Piper Cherokee 180C, or in a Zlin 142 for €80 … choose carefully though, as the latter will be doing some acrobatics, including flying upside down. The trips will continue until sunset on Sunday, and you need to sign up near the xray machine at the airport, near passenger embarkation.

After yesterday’s blog about the TAP ‘€1′ flights to Portugal, the Diário reports that 3,000 of the 20,000 seats were sold within the first 12 hours of the new offer being available. (did you read the response to yesterday’s blog from TAP’s greatest critic?)

When you are out buying your next laptop computer paying through the nose, think of the 4,000 lucky children here who have subscribed to buy one for just €150. Probably lacks bells and whistles, but for most daily and school needs it’s just the job.

A grandmother from Venezuela was on Thursday sentenced to 6 years in prison for smuggling in over 6 kilos of cocaine to Madeira airport last October. Her ‘defence’ was that she needed the money to pay for cancer treatment, and that she was smuggling the drugs for someone else. The court took this into account and it seems that the sentence was lighter than it normally would have been. I expect as a prisoner, she will probably get the cancer treatment free now.

In another drug story, a man in Amparo was arrested with nearly 4,000 doses of heroin and cocaine stashed in his vacuum cleaner sack. It doesn’t actually say that the sack was in the hoover at the time, but if it was, then surely when the police knocked on the door he would have switched the hoover on to ‘blow’ so he could have got rid of all the evidence, and made the neighbourhood and the police very happy, all at the same time.

In national news, the government announced changes in the law regarding driving licences. The licence can in future be suspended following 3 very serious offences, or 5 serious offences, and I think the last one was ‘a lot of not so serious offences’. Surely there must be something a little more specific than this? Imagine going before a judge with 2 very serious and 3 serious, and several not so serious offences and trying to work out whether the driving licence was suspended or not … I know! … they need a points system!

A shocking story in today’s Diário … don’t miss it on blog 201!

Our football teams are in action on Sunday:

Nacional v Academica, 16:00

Sporting v Maritimo, 20:30 (SportTV)

Have a good weekend!

www.madeira4u.com

Aside from your valued blog responses, please send any unreported Madeira news, photos, events information, or snippets for the madeira4u blog to blog@madeira4u.com – thank you!

TODAYS PHOTO : Thanks to Tobi … a great photo and a final reminder of this month’s flower festival

Source : Diário de Notícias 24/4/2008

Having typed it out and got it all ready, I lost everything for todays blog … so I am having to do it again from memory, but only two top stories.

The first one is about the new labour laws which were announced on Tuesday by the Portuguese Government. Seemingly designed to improve the lot of employees, it in fact in places works the other way, making it easier to fire people who do not adapt to change / technology. It also gives more support to working parents, and allows for more flexibility in the schedule of a worker. Social security payments will rise for companies employing staff on term contracts, holidays stay at a minimum of 22 days but can be increased to 25 for the reliable workers. Anyway, it’s all causing a lot of controversy.

TAP (Portuguese airline) surprised the travel industry by anouncing ‘budget prices’ on it’s Madeira routes, well for 20,000 passengers anyway. For those who are residents, it’s theoretically possible to travel for €1 plus all the taxes and extras, taking into account the Madeira residents subsidy. In reality, all the added charges mean you will more likely pay €90 net if you qualify. This is all in aid of the ‘clear skies’ agreement which is now in effect, and effectively disables TAPs 50+ year monopoly on the Madeira route. TAP have pledged to maintain the services currently operated despite the threat of increased competition, and have set themselves a target of a 36% increase in passengers from last years 700,000+

Also mention of a Porto to Madeira route, and confirmation of the flights already known about to Paris (shared code), London (7 flights a weeks), and Madrid (weekly). They will be operating 218 Madeira connections a week over the coming months.

SATA (the Azores based airline) not to be outdone, also announced a not quite so stunning deal (no details given), but gave details of a scheduled flight planned from Madeira to the Canary Islands (Gran Canaria, Las Palmas) starting this July.

All offers are available through the internet and travel agents for both TAP and SATA. Links on the ‘Travel / Flights’ page on the madeira4u website.

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We now have an advertising taxi driver on the main website now, so please give ‘Rafael Taxi’ a go, and mention madeira4u when booking (if he knows where the bookings originate, he is more likely to look after you, and renew his advertisement next year) – many thanks!

I am sure you will all be waking up this morning thinking ‘ah! Revolution Day!’ ‘cos we have a feriado here today (public holiday) to celebrate, though blog writers work as normal of course. Portugal lost it’s monarchy nearly 100 years ago and became a republic before falling into dictatorship in 1926. That situation lasted until 34 years ago exactly, when the army overthrew the dictatorship. Last night I asked a local dignatory whether life was better or worse on Madeira since 1974, and she replied it was much better until about 10 years ago, and now it’s got worse.

She also let me have a look at her budget book, so a quick flick to the Rib. Bra. section revealed that for 2008 a staggering €3.8 million! has been allocated to the existing sport stadium here … which she was very quick to point out came from the regional government, not from local taxpayers. Funny thing football here, it’s practically all funded through government (tax payers money) and all the league clubs get generous handouts and all make huge financial losses. Of course Nacional and Marítimo get the most, but it’s rumoured that Marítimo get even more because that’s President Jardim’s favourite team.

Anyway, I strayed a little … so what goes on on Revolution day now you ask? Aside from the previously mentioned biggest ever ski jet event in Funchal bay which starts today and lasts until Sunday, it’s also a big musical weekend. Tomorrow night in São Martinho is a big music dance festival with internationally recognised DJs, so I won’t be doing that one.

More interesting is the ‘Antena 3 on tour’ event on Calheta beach tomorrow night (Antena Três being a nacional radio station). This event will only have Madeiran DJs, but the Madeiran group ‘On Mute’ will also be playing, and that’s just a warm up for the main attraction BLASTED MECHANISM, one of the best known groups in Portugal.

If you are over that way go and have a look, as they are very visual (they all dress up as aliens on their video’s). It’s a sort of middle rock genre so it’s not too heavy … and don’t forget to send me a picture.

www.madeira4u.com

Aside from your valued blog responses, please send any unreported Madeira news, photos, events information, or snippets for the madeira4u blog to blog@madeira4u.com – thank you!