Madeira News Blog

(28th June). Today’s main news headline : ‘Gold Pays Debts And Medicines – The crisis obliges the sale of objects of value. This business brings foreign companies to Madeira’. The few jewellers who buy second hand gold have registered an increase in demand for their services in recent months. The customers are usually older people, affected by financial problems, that are forced to dispose of valuables to pay debts and even for medicines. On the other hand, these same jewellers are selling less and less items to the public, and what they do sell is more silver, and smaller items, and they rely more on repair work to generate their income. The law prevents them buying gold from those aged under 18 years, and what they do buy has to be recorded and reported to the police, along with the identification details of the seller. The gold items by law cannot be resold, and they have to be sent away where they are used to create new pieces. Recently the Madeira market has been attracting attention from businesses in London, who come here especially to buy valuable jewellery items, paying cash on the spot. Jewellers here have suspicions about these dealers, and whether they report their purchases to the police, pay their taxes, and there are fears expressed about whether these companies are buying stolen jewellery.

In a related news story : ‘Police Catch Jewellery Thief’. Police enquiries after a burglary in Camacha led to the interception of an individual, who eventually admitted to stealing items of gold. He confessed to selling some to one such British company ‘Road Show EU’. The police visited the hotel where the company had set up, and managed to identify and retrieve the stolen jewellery. The recovered items are now with the court whilst ownership is being confirmed. The burglar, as well as facing charges for the break in and theft, is also now subject to a criminal complaint by the British company for selling them the items for €4,000.

It was on the front page, but I am surprised that this one didn’t get the the lead story : ‘Government And Bank Cover-up Bankruptcy of JM – Despite of the subsidies and loans, the Jornal has negative equity of €32.6 million’. Talking about the government owned newspaper Journal da Madeira of course, under the spotlight recently for receiving subsidies from public money and government favours. Anyway the government owned company is bankrupt. It reports losses every year, and in 2008 reported another €3.9 million loss. A company is technically insolvent when the equity is worth equal to or less than half of the company capital, to put it in breach of article 35 of the Code of Commercial Companies, but it needs a creditor to take action to progress this, something the lending bank didn’t do. I have mixed feelings on the matter, as two newspapers are better than one for sure, whatever the circumstances of its ownership and management, and I don’t think the other freebie newspaper offers very much. It is not clear whether the JM is still trading, I will see if there is a newspaper published tomorrow. The website is still there with today’s news, but funnily enough I didn’t see this story amongst the headlines.

Germany won the Atlantic Festival fireworks display, that finished last night. This photo comes from the JM website, the first time I have ever used one. So, if this photo disappears from this blog page, we will know the JM website is no more.

"The folks try everything to flee from the weight of the hoe" – The youngsters in Faial run off to avoid unemployment and agriculture. The Diário’s featured village this week. A familiar story, in an agricultural location, with hardly any young people left. Many people have moved out, either to Funchal, or emigrated. However, unlike other parts of Madeira, Faial has no need to debate issues such as drug abuse and insecurity, with peace and long seasons. Full of untapped potential, the items of discussion at the moment are the construction of a cable car to connect the river and Penha d’Águia, and the construction of a fishing port.

‘Works Of 40 Artists In The Fort Of São Tiago’. The exhibition in Funchal called ‘Preâmbulo’ opens on the 10th of July. It brings together works of sculpture, painting, drawing, engraving, and photography.

(27th June). ‘Pregnancy As A Means Of Escape – In the first 3 months of this year 39 youngsters gave birth in the hospital’. Social and economic difficulties, disinformation, unstructured families and abandonment. These are some of the problems that affect many young women who become pregnant. Madeira continues to have the highest rate of adolescent parents in Portugal. In Funchal hospital, from 2006 to 2007 the increase was around 100%, levelling off in 2008 (85,168,156) in young mothers aged between 13 and 19. Reports of the professionals suggest that in some cases ‘accidents’ happen, where the mother doesn’t take precautions, wanting to become pregnant to obtain government handouts and get away from other commitments.

Also front page yesterday but in the entertainment section : ‘Myths : The dead that bring business to life’. With a picture showing James Dean, John Lennon, and yes you’ve already guessed … Michael Jackson … looking very pale I must point out. I can’t be bothered to even check, but for sure there has been a massive surge in purchases of all things Michael Jackson in the last days or so. Poor old Farrah Fawcett hardly gets a mention these days.

If you are a customer of the restaurant ‘Summertime’ on the Estrada Monumental in Funchal, next time you go there  be sure to leave a nice tip. According to one employee who works there, the 15 staff have not been paid properly for a year.

(27th June). ‘Drug Addiction Prevention Service (SPT) banks On Municipal Plans – Calheta and Porto Santo are the locations selected for pilot projects’. The way of thinking and working is set to change, with the director of the SPT looking to cooperate on a regional basis to create plans to control drug addiction. “We train the councils and local communities and they themselves respond by cascading the information amongst their staff”. While addiction prevention is a key objective, the effort will not be relaxed in treating and rehabilitating existing addicts.

A lot of good initiatives and announcements coming through from our leaders at the moment: measures to tackle child poverty and behavioural issues, more facilities to feed the poor, new initiatives for drug problems, tourism showing an upturn. All great news. By the way, anyone heard when the elections are? 

Airport access and exit roads will be closed / diverted whilst works are done to improve pavements(?). The dates given are 2 to 7th July for airport passengers, and 11th to 15th July for cargo / freight routes. I guess that means leave a bit earlier if you are planning to fly off somewhere.

Lucky university students that travel between Madeira, the Azores, and the continent during September will be allowed to carry an extra 10kg of luggage on TAP flights, free of charge.

I guess by now most people know that tonight is the final night of the Atlantic Festival fireworks competition. Macedo from Portugal provide the final display, accompanied by the Classical Orchestra of Madeira, in what is called ‘Concert of Stars’. That will see the last of €500,000 of public money literally go up in smoke.

‘Police Recover €45,000 from Robbery’. Thanks to a tip off, an investigation led to police recovering nearly all the money stolen from a residence in Câmara de Lobos. €50,000 was stolen. 2 arrests have been made. I am wondering, and perhaps the police are also wondering, why a resident in Câmara de Lobos had such a large amount of cash at home.

This was in the Welsh press today : Cardiff City and Blackburn Rovers had agreed to compete in a tournament in Madeira along with Portuguese League teams Nacional and Marítimo. But organisers made a shock decision this week not to go ahead with the four-team event and the Cardiff manager is now hurriedly arranging a trip to Portugal, which will include two pre-season matches against Vitoria Setubal and one of Benfica or Belenenses. City officials had spent months arranging their trip to Madeira and a spokesman said: “The decision not to go ahead with the tournament was out of the blue for both Blackburn Rovers and ourselves. We have talked through a number of options and the decision is that the team will be going to Portugal.” Cardiff had in-depth talks with Blackburn Rovers about going ahead with the trip to Madeira anyway with the two clubs covering costs for the tournament. I haven’t seen this in the Madeira press yet, but I found confirmation elsewhere. On another website it mentions the blow for many fans of both clubs who have booked at high season prices to come to Madeira for the tournament.

(27th June). ‘Government Sets Local Elections For 11th October – The decision has already been given to the President of the Republic’. The date was that preferred by all the political parties, that according to law, were consulted on the preferred date. So what happened to the last preferred option reported a week or so ago, that they will probably be held on the same date as the national ones? That means we have to put up with all the political garbage for another two or three weeks!

(6th June). ‘Italy Start The Atlantic Festival – Jetty Of Funchal Port Hosts Saturday Night The First Of Four Piromusicals’, and a second article ‘Italian Fire Opens Atlantic Festival In The Bay’. The 20 minute show of music and fireworks from Parente Fireworks (last year’s competition winners) at 10.30pm followed street entertainment and the municipal band of Funchal. Italy’s offering was titled ‘Dreams of Movies on a Spring Night’, and through it’s effects was supposed to represent the history of Italian cinema in its various spaces and eras, a mixture of elegance and style, design and innovation, melody and rhythm. The show was greatly applauded by the huge crowd that filled the Avenida do Mar, the harbour, marina, and beach. It’s the turn of Russia next week.

So what would be the main front page story today, elections for sure, or last nights fireworks at least, but no it’s a half page photo of Bruno Alves after scoring a last minute goal to scrape a win in Albania, and save Portugal from almost certain World Cup elimination. ‘Bruno Alves Saves Us From The Interference Of Queiroz – The manager returns to making changes that nobody understands and only a last minute goal avoids World Cup elimination’.

The other main news headline today is ’32 Insolvencies Already This year – The number of actions started to close companies rises. In the first 5 months of 2009, almost already the number has hit the number of 36 for the whole of 2008′. Over the last 6 or 7 weeks, it works out at 2 insolvencies a week. The requests for insolvency come for either unpaid creditors, or from the struggling company itself. The crisis does not spare anyone or any activity : from traditional commerce and restaurants, to ‘heavyweights’ of the Madeira economy in construction and tourism, and lesser known estate agents and businesses in industry and transport. The Diário looks a bit closer at some of the cases to see what the impacts were. One, HNS, is a metal company in Caniçal (free Zone) that employed 60 people and owes €290,000 in unpaid taxes, another, C.J. Sousa Andrada, was founded in 1937 and employed 45 people. Apparently you can find details on this website, but I have put it here for reference only. I didn’t recognise the names of any of the 32 companies listed. MINISTRY OF JUSTICE

‘Absence Of Fathers Worsens Crimes Of Minors – The court has 50 cases to resolve and establish blame in families that fail in education’. Absent fathers push children into crime. The judge points the finger at families, and especially fathers in the failure in education of their children. In the Family and Juvenile Court of Funchal (TFMF), around 50 cases are waiting to be heard, all about children who have committed criminal offences. Judge Mário Silva points to "family dysfunction" as the main reason that pushes children and young people to commit crimes, such as theft or robbery. At the household level, the criticism of the judge is particularly directed to the father of these children, "because he is absent, or because he doesn’t intervene". The crimes associated with these children normally involve theft, and the judge is also concerned about the effects of high unemployment, citing "inactivity of parents" as one of the causes of crime, as some "live dependent on state benefits, with income from the social security and unemployment benefit". Although it is a disturbing article, Madeira does actually fare quite well compared to Portugal, with the relative numbers low and generally declining, thanks to the good work by the police and other child protection institutions. 

‘Europeans Today With 50 Thousand Phantom Voters’. Madeira has 50,000 thousand ‘ghosts’ on the electoral roll, and has more voters registered than there are people. At the last estimate of the Office of National Statistics, for 2007, the Autonomous Region of Madeira had 246,689 inhabitants. Of these, 44,046 were aged between 0 and 14. According to more recent figures Madeira now has 260,230 eligible voters for today’s European elections, 57,000 more than people think it should have. This situation, which has been known about for a long time, but was never resolved. Madeira, according to statistical studies, is the region of Portugal where there is the greatest discrepancy of voter numbers. Most are immigrants who maintained their voting rights in their counties of origin, but many others are young people who were registered automatically, following new census laws. I saw the number of 260,230 voters yesterday and thought that was higher than the resident population here, but I put it down to the huge number of Madeiran emigrants, who still have family / property / financial interests here, but live mostly abroad. I can’t really follow the logic of the Diário in attributing the massive difference to immigrants, as they boost population numbers but are not necessarily registered voters.