Madeira News Blog

I was thinking I might get a nice easy blogging day today, as three of the front page stories I won’t be covering, the death of Michael Jackson being one, the confederations football cup where Brazil just about beat South Africa to reach Sunday’s final. The other from the International Whaling Commission conference on Madeira, where you will find similar news stories in English on hundreds of websites. That leaves just two, the one below, and one in politics.

(26th June). Today’s main news headline : ‘Arrests For Trafficking Triple – Even before the first 6 months of this year are over, 36 arrests for drug trafficking have been made. Last year, by this time, there were just 12. The quantity of drugs seized also grows’. Important I know, but this story crops up every couple of months in the headlines, so no need to be too shocked. In a nutshell, heroine seizures have increased substantially, and the number of arrests too. In 2007 there were 28 arrests, last year just 12, and this year 36, but all three figures refer just to the first 6 months of that year. It is clear that demand for drugs is increasing. What is quite interesting is that the routes and origins for smuggling drugs into Madeira has changed. Flights from Venezuela to Madeira were popular, but not so now. More frequently now are foreigners travelling from Portugal. Attempts to bring drugs into Madeira are now moving more towards the two ferries, and in some cases the trafficker will even transfer by air to Porto Santo from Madeira airport to avoid detection there, and then come back by boat to Madeira. There is no doubt that the police and customs are getting better at detection of drug trafficking, so you can look at the situation from two angles, and that doesn’t really leave us a with any firm conclusions. The Diário has produced an illustration for hashish, heroine and cocaine showing arrests and seizures for 2007 – 2009 which explains it better than I can, and it is easy enough to understand even if you don’t speak Portuguese : MADEIRA DRUG SEIZURES 

I did take a look at the article on whales and whaling, and although it is in this context a mainly international issue, the article also says that Madeira will not revert to whale hunting, and there are plans to introduce new legislation to further protect whales, dolphins, and other marine species. 

‘Day Of The Region Celebrated Inside And Outside Of Madeira’. The first of July is a public holiday to mark the ‘Day of the Region’ for Madeira, and it will be celebrated not just here but also in Venezuela, South Africa, and Canada, in Madeiran communities, where Madeira’s politicians are also planning to be. Here next Tuesday and Wednesday there will be concerts in St. Catherine’s Park Funchal (9.30pm), and a special service will be held in the cathedral on Wednesday.

‘Firemen Retrieve Body At The Pináculo – Search operations had commenced on Wednesday night’. Firemen found the body yesterday morning of a 37 year old man around 120 metres from the miradouro (viewpoint). It is believed that he fell.

There are discussions taking place about twining Hatillo in Venezuela with Calheta. The president of the municipal council there said "Calheta is very special". She is here at present, but her responsibility covers a population of 150,000 people back home.

(25th June). ‘PSP Tests Radars In Via Salazar – The same will take place in other zones with previous warning to drivers’. In a pilot project the Public Security Police have placed radar speed traps in via Salazar, with drivers being warned through road signs, and according to the police commissioner the reaction has been good. The positioning of the traps will normally be in accident black spots and where speeding is known to take place. The next road to be equipped may be "for example" Avenida das Madelenas.

(26th June). ‘Madeira Assembly Works For 5 Minutes Without Quorum – It was a short period of 5 to 7 minutes and without any votes taken. But it was a gross and formal error’. There were just 21 members present at the start of the session, a situation that the secretaries who are responsible failed to pick up. The Diário made a bit of a big deal out of it, but it happened and it passed without any impact, so not worth the debate really.

‘PSD Suspend Work In The Legislative Assembly – Jaime Ramos made the request after an exchange of words with Fernando Letra of the Left Block (BE)’. Yesterday Letra cited recent statements made by the President of the Government about people on benefits who were able to work, and asked him to identify these people. Ramos then used a motion called ‘defence of the honour of the president of the regional government’ to get his majority party of social democrats to vote to suspend works. No word yet of when work will be resumed.

‘Government Announces Measures To Safeguard Children – Training for parents and candidates for adoption amongst the new requirements’. The measures will apply to children through infancy and adolescence, with training for adoption candidates and a school programme for parents. The measure will also tackle child poverty and include measure already taken in some neighbourhoods (such as Nogueira), with ‘street teams’ that will guide children through to becoming adults. There will also be some changes in education that will aim to teach children discipline and how to live in society, beyond the normal academic subjects.

President Jardim is set to present his list of eleven social democrat candidates for the councils of Madeira later today. 8 will be existing post-holders, and the 3 new ones will be in Santana, Porto Moniz and São Vicente. Jardim chooses the candidates, and in a flash of semi-democracy, the Political Commission of PSD-M ratifies his choices. Now shall I stay in to hear the results tonight, or shall I be irresponsible and trundle off to enjoy the warm-up for the festa of São Pedro in town … it’s a tough call I know!

(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.