Madeira News Blog

(5th August). Today’s main news headline : ‘Porto Santo Alert To The Madeira Market – José António Castro, president of ACIPS, says that regional tourism is decisive for the island and he no longer believes in the new hotel of Ronaldo’. The president of the commercial association of Porto Santo says that the hotels should learn to adapt to market conditions in times of crisis, and start to sell packages inside the regional market, to those Madeirans that represent over 80% of the tourism that visits the island, recognising the it is a "pretty complicated" situation, particularly due to air transport, and particularly the cost. He believes that Porto Santo is capable of marketing itself on its strengths, highlighting safe conditions as a major factor. "We have to sell using the safety factor, with the potential to be an ecological island, with clean spaces and unpolluted seas, such as the paths and walking tracks" he said, adding "Nethertheless we’re still a little known destination in the European markets, even with the good work of the Association for the Promotion of Madeira. But we feel that Porto Santo lives essentially from the Madeirans". He also talks about the proposed 7 star hotel which would have footballer Cristiano Ronaldo as a partner and promoter, and believes that the project will not go ahead. He says so much time has now passed since it was announced, and that as CR7 no longer exists, the idea of a 7 star hotel (in line with the player’s shirt number) disappeared when the player left Manchester United.

‘Sand Constructions In Porto Santo And In Funchal – Panda goes to Porto Santo for the 52nd competition promoted by the Diário de Notícias’. Last year Funchal was selected as one of the locations for the preliminaries of the competition ‘Contruções na Areia’, and does the same this year on Saturday (starts 11am). The competition takes place on 18 beaches around Portugal. Also on Porto Santo on 15th August (3.30pm Praia da Fontinha), the event will be filmed and shown by the children’s TV channel ‘Panda’, and will be attended by the TV star, the big cuddly Panda himself. The competition is open to children aged between 6 and 14 who own a plastic bucket.

‘Vinho Seco Of Porto Santo Banished From The Downtown Street Sellers’. For some reason this was in the ‘economy section’ of the Diário, which seems to have been taken over by Porto Santo stories today. I have explained about ‘vinho seco’ before, but just in case anyone missed it, it is a local dry red wine made from low quality grapes, and is a main tipple of the working class and poor, as it sells for €1 or less a litre. Most visitors to Madeira would be unlikely to come across it. It is also believed to contain toxins, and is the root to much of the drunkenness and alcoholism on Madeira. Anyway, back to the story. Fruit sellers working from street stands in Vila Baleira on Porto Santo have been prohibited from displaying or selling Vinho Seco, by the council, a source of annoyance for some, as the wine "is much appreciated by the Porto-Santenses and tourists". The licensed sellers are now deemed to have inadequate hygiene conditions to serve the wine in glasses. The bars and tascas are unaffected. The ruling has cheesed off producers and sellers, as there was already insufficient demand to sell all the wine produced. The Diário found that it was still possible to get the tipple ‘under the counter’, or buy a bottle disguised as something else. Sounds like another politically correct thingy to me … lacking hygiene indeed … I would use this stuff to clean my lavatory if I ever ran out of disinfectant, and its probably cheaper, and certainly smells better

The main photo today shows a traffic queue on the via rápida at the start of roadworks  : ‘Vialitoral Reduces Confusion In Boa Nova – The persistent critics of the chaos caused by maintenance works are going to stop: the management company accelerated the works in order to ease the traffic until Saturday’. The job was targeted to be done in record time at the junction at Boa Nova, after a storm of criticism from unhappy drivers along that route, after long traffic queues. The company recognised and regretted the inconvenience caused by the essential work, and the change in plan enabled the work to be completed at midnight last night, leaving the two lanes open and flowing for today’s travellers. Further work will be undertaken on expansion joints Saturday and Sunday, but of course there will be much less traffic then, and further work planned for next week will also cause less hindrance.

‘Police Already Receive One Debt That They Complained About – The ‘ungrateful’ weekend was highlighted in the Diário. The government didn’t like it. But the debt of P. Cruz was paid yesterday morning to the police officers’. President Jardim made an appeal, and the president of the Casa do Povo (House of the People) in Machico responded with a cheque for €742, overdue by a year for the policing provided for their Grape Festival.  Alberto João Jardim denied a lack of recognition for the police that had worked long hours during the hot weekend for the royal visit and the rally, saying that he had sent thanks in writing to the Regional Commander of the PSP (police). The union official didn’t withdraw his accusation of ingratitude though. Perhaps it is the case that for special events like festas and the rally, police are paid directly through the organisers of the event … sounds strange though?

Three more ‘forest’ fires reported yesterday. One in Santo da Serra was extinguished by Santa Cruz firemen, who after returning to base were then called to another high up in Gaula. The other was in Lombada, Ponta do Sol, and nearly burnt down an electricity post.

In football : ‘Ex-Nacional Player Alonso Signs For Marítimo’.

Anyone watch the Sporting v Twente champion league qualifier last night? It looked all over for Sporting Lisbon until 90+5 minutes, in a 95 minute game, when the Sporting goalkeeper came upfield in desperation for a final corner to be taken … and scored with his shoulder, with a couple of deflections along the way! Amazing. I remember Jimmy Glass from many years ago doing the same thing.

The board of the Health Service of the Autonomous Region of Madeira (SESARAM) is promoting first aid training for people aged between 16 and 25. The initiative aims to provide young people with useful skills that could help save a life.

‘Week Of Youth Starts Today – Art, music, astronomy, and plenty of social life are the high points of the initiative’. The 2009 version, promoted by the regional secretary of human resources, runs until 12th August. It also includes a hip hop contest on Saturday. A contest involving trendy beer ingredients, that should be worth a visit!

3 months after the first case showed in Portugal, there are now 342 367 registered and confirmed cases of Gripe A, or H1N1 swine flu, with the majority not needing to be hospitalised and quickly returning to normal life. No one has died. I have not heard of any new cases on Madeira for getting on two weeks now, so I reckon we must be totally clear for the moment.

(1st August). Today’s main news headline : ‘Accounts Reveal More Performance And More Bad Debts – The accounts for Madeira for 2008 register, in times of crisis, an unexpected record in the rate of performance, as much in the receipts as in the investment plan. But the regional government left around €100 million unpaid’. To be honest, I have little idea of what some of this is about, being full of financial and accounting terms, and abbreviations that I don’t know what they stand for. It says that investment expenditure by the government was up by €133 million on the previous years, to €505.9 million. Capital expenditure was up 31% from 2007, with big increases in the sectors of transport and communication (+162.7%), security and public order (+116.5%), housing and associated services (+25%), agriculture (+14.8%), and education (+7.3%). Meanwhile public investment in the health and tourism / transport sectors were down (-7.9% & -25.7%). Receipts achieved 93% of that budgeted, achieving €298.3 million against an expectation of €317.5 million. Indirect taxes (purchases /IVA /VAT) underachieved by €6 million, being mainly income from alcohol, tobacco, petrol, car tax etc. However, the government did fail to pay around €100 million owed for services and to suppliers.

Aside from the photo of the fire in Gaula, the main front page photo showed the King of Spain being presented with the Gold Medal of the City by the president of Funchal Council : ‘Juan Carlos Condemns Terrorism – The King of Spain made a space yesterday in his visit to Madeira, in a speech in Paços do Concelho of Funchal, to condemn the "savage attacks" in Burgos and in Majorca’. The "despicable" terrorism overshadowed the visit of friends. The king sent a message of support and sympathy to the families of two dead policemen, and stressed the importance of collaboration between Portugal and Spain in the fight against organised crime and terrorism. The president of the Republic of Portugal, on the visit to The Madeira Wine Institute, said that "everyone says that the wine of Porto is the greatest ambassador for Portugal", and having realised his blunder he managed to correct himself and pay homage to Madeira Wine instead. Quite an interesting article actually, with lots of little entertaining snippets. What the newspapers didn’t know of course is that Juanny and Sofe popped over to Rib. Bra. late last night for a few beers with me and a bowl of my homemade ‘paella real’. I can’t reveal much about the conversation for security reasons, but my guests said they preferred Super Bock beer, made in Portugal, to our local Coral beer, and that in just two days they were a little shocked at the prices they were charged for the traditional ‘Balão’ whilst supping in Funchal. On the more important topic of who was the true king of Spain, Juanny admitted that Cristiano Ronaldo probably earned more than him, and maybe even ranked alongside in popularity, but according to the constitution, there could only be one official king and at the moment that was him. However when pushed on the fact that he was not in Spain at the present, he reluctantly admitted that until get he gets home CR737 was unofficially standing in, and in the meantime had free access to the royal wardrobes, a fact that concerned the couple a little. 

The headline from the Madeira Wine Rally, after day two :‘Basso Commands The Pace At The front – The Italian won 8 of the 12 ‘specials’ yesterday. Alex Camacho goes into the final day in 3rd place in the Rali Vinho Madeira’. Today, the places to be are in Ponta do Pargo, Lameiros, Chão da Lagoa, and ‘Paul’. Updates & reports in English :
YAHOO SPORTS
AUTOSPORT

‘Gripe A Necessitates Careful Feeding – Faculty of science for nutrition had produced an ebook on the subject’. In the event of a swine flue epidemic it will be recommended that persons infected remain in their homes, and the Faculty of Nutrition and Food at the University of Porto has produced an ebook (www.dgs.pt) to help us stock and and eat healthily during the time of the infection. The main rules is for simple food, eaten regularly in small quantities, and to keep well hydrated. Stock up with pre-made meals and long life canned food. Drinks with a lot of sugar and alcohol are not recommended. In the pantry you should have bottled and packaged items, canned food, dry foods (a mix of those that can be eaten uncooked, or need to be cooked), and fresh foods that keep well at room temperature. In the fridge / freezer keep meat, fish, poultry, vegetables, fruit, pre-made meals, bread, and dairy products.

(31st July). This was in the Jornal da Madeira, and although it was headlined in the Diário I couldn’t find the story at the time : ‘Diário de Notícias Dismisses 13 Workers – The process has started but the Union of Journalists protests’. The newspaper started the process of dismissal yesterday of the 13 staff, mostly journalists (10). The news shocked those affected badly, especially those that had decades of service at the newspaper. The journalist’s union believe that the proper protocol has not been followed and legal requirements have not been met for an action of ‘collective redundancy’, including starting discussions with those losing their jobs without the trade union representative being informed. In a press release the EDN, that owns the company, said the action was necessary because "the world economy is experiencing a major crisis, crossing all sectors, with particular impact on those in financial, real estate, automotive and media". It goes on to say that EDN have implemented a series of cost cutting measures, but if these turn out to be insufficient to achieve the objectives, then other additional measures will be taken as necessary. A bit worrying to say the least. How a newspaper like the Diário could ever make ends meet was always a mystery to me, but to lose 13 staff, mostly reporters, what are we going to be left with … another Diário da Cidade, full of ads and features, but very light on news?

(25th July). Today’s main news headline : ‘Gripe A Changes Habits In The School – Electric hand dryers and disposable towels replace cloth towels; washing of toys and door handles; lessons in hygiene; all in September’. That’s just the headline, and the new school term is still two months away, but the list continues : Windows open in classrooms to keep them well ventilated, a switch to liquid soap and paper towels, stocks of disposable masks, tissues, and disinfectants. How much it is all going to cost no one knows, and the budgets are only just starting to be done. Even children are to be taught in school not to mess with their mouths and eyes with their hands. That’s just schools, and the article goes on to briefly cover other public places like social centres and public toilets, that need precautions to prevent the infection and spread of swine flu.

‘Kidnappers Threaten – Names on the ‘black list’ of José Martins are receiving threats with demands by mobile phone on Porto Santo’. The police investigate’. Just a tiny headline on the front page. The ‘tombstone’ (photo) of marked men, allegedly placed next to a grave by José Martins, alleged kidnapper and murderer, has already led to threats to some of those named, sent by text message. The messages gives 48 hours to meet the demands within. The four (at least) businessmen named on the tombstone, are accused of a hand in the failure of the company ‘Erucasa’, owned by Martins around a year ago. The four have been to the police, but there may be more victims. The messages were all different, and although each ended with the words "this is a warning", they did not say what the consequences would be if the demands were not met. You would think at first it must be hoax, but the fact that he has their mobile phone numbers gives some credence to the article. I am beginning to think I should write a book about this whole episode, and I reckon it would sell well as a work of fiction. Maybe even worth international news coverage (Tobi, you know what to do, and we will split the proceeds) 

‘Journalist Silenced – The Journal of Madeira took a reporter off its panel called the ‘Media File’. The management of the Journal invoke exclusivity. The decision arises after criticisms of Jardim on a programme of RTP-M’. Jardim asked for the recording of the programme and sent it to the regulator and the National Electoral Commission. Journalist Marsilio Aguiar was prevented from taking further part in the weekly programme on RTP Madeira ‘Media File’, after 3 years in the role. The programme covers the news highlights of the week, with journalists invited to express their personal opinions, not as representatives of the media companies they work for. The JM management came to the conclusion that the presence of the journalist on television is "incompatible" with the role he plays as head of editorial of the Journal, a newspaper almost totally owned by the PSD Government. The fact has not passed by unnoticed in public opinion, and the removal is interpreted as a ‘reorganization’, given the recent protests of the President of the Government to the views expressed by some commentators on the program. There has been speculation that this is a clever way for Jardim to indirectly ‘liquidate’ the program. The Diário contacted the journalist, who refused to comment on the affair (now there’s a surprise!), but the director of RTP Madeira has gone on record as saying that he has not appeared on the last two programmes due to "professional issues". The programme is now going to be suspended until after September due the period of the election campaign. There are no details given of what was actually said in the programme, but it shows that freedom of speech is not alive and well, and criticising government is especially dangerous when you work for a company that is government controlled and funded.

‘Gripe A – Ministry, bosses and trade unions debate who pays for forced absenteeism’. In a national story, a meeting was held yesterday on the subject of who pays the workers in the event that a place of work has to be closed due to a risk or an actual outbreak of H1N1 swine flu. The working laws specify that workers have the right of 75% of their salary, paid by their employer. But bosses have already refused to honour this expense, as it is a matter of public health. It’s an extraordinary situation, with the motive of resolving the situation before it happens, and not penalising employees when it happens. The trade union presence is concerned that some unscrupulous employers may use the situation to create forced lay-offs. The ministry for employment has already expressed the view that the situation requires no new measures.

In a slightly linked story, the Portuguese are the Europeans most pessimistic in a scenario of losing their jobs for fear of not finding another for a long time. Just 16% were optimistic of finding new employment quickly.

The 10 Spanish scouts that were admitted to Funchal hospital were observed / tested, and nearly all have been cleared of infection of Gripe A. Just two are now waiting for test results to come back from Lisbon. A laboratory has now been established on Madeira, and should be functioning this weekend, removing the need to send samples to Lisbon for testing.

Just about keeping the chain going … pet owners may need to be concerned about the Gripe A crisis, not just for themselves, but also for their pets. Cats and dogs will not be affected, but parrots and parakeets are vulnerable. I can’t remember the last time I saw a parakeet out for a walk and sniffing another parakeets private parts, so I would have thought that the only real risk would come from an infected owner.

At an award ceremony yesterday to give 28 newly qualified young nurses their certificates, President Jardim promised them jobs. "If by the 31st November, the opportunity for employment has not opened, you have my authorisation to hold a protest outside my offices" he said. Shrewd wording or poor translation on my part?

‘There Are less Mosquitoes Than Expected’. Initial results of an investigation to count and locate the Aedes Aegypti indicate that there are less insects than expected. The working group that includes entomologists are undertaking searches in various parts of Funchal and Câmara de Lobos. One of the entomologists however alerts us to the danger of the mosquito, and calls to the population to reinforce the fight against them. He explains that the eggs of the mosquito are able to stay active as long as 3 years in completely dry conditions. Unable to find many pests in Câmara de Lobos?, I find that hard to believe.

I gave up reporting extreme UV levels some weeks ago, as it seems to be microwave weather pretty much every day now. The advice is as always keep covered or out of the sun between 11am and 5pm. Did you know that even in the south of Portugal, the general rule is to avoid the hours from midday until 4pm, giving them two more beach hours than us on Madeira. Who said that a great all year round climate was such a great thing?