Madeira News Blog

Oh dear! Anyone who doesn’t like football isn’t going to enjoy today’s news blog much. It nearly all revolves around an interview with the president of Nacional, Rui Alves, and with about 70% of the Diário front page, I guess it has a high profile because of tomorrow’s huge game here with Werder Bremen in the Europa League.

(16th September). Today’s main news headline : ‘Ambitious Nacional – The alvinegro sporting city will have a central photovoltaic system, road connection direct to the Caminho dos Pretos, a rugby pitch and athletics track’. Alvinegro is the club nickname for CD Nacional da Madeira. Alves says he is optimistic about tomorrows game. The club is approaching an average of 3 thousand supporters for its games, and has a growing membership list. The club is looking at some changes in the stadium complex, including solar power, access changes, and also acquiring nearby land to host an rugby pitch and athletics track.

That headline then has 3 more sub headlines:
- ‘In An Interview With The Diário, Rui Alves Believes That A Victory Over Werder Bremen Is Going To Confuse European Opponents’.
- ‘Race For The Presidency Of The League Of Clubs Continues In The Plans Of Rui Alves’.
- ‘Players Of Nacional Make The Set In The ‘Powerade’ Awards’. The players won plenty of awards for their achievements last season.
But as I suspect this is of little interest to most, I will move on.

‘Ronaldo, Happy For His Father, Sent Message And Scored Two Goals In Zurich’. His father was posthumously awarded for his contribution to sport, at the ‘Powerade’ Awards’ yesterday. CR737 then went on to score two of the five goals for his new team, Real Madrid, in the champions league victory last night.

‘Car Parks In The Centre ‘Summon’ Drivers – In the opinion of the environmental agency, Quercus, and drivers, the existence of accessible and diverse parking in Funchal feeds and fattens the traffic indulgence’. A vice president of Funchal Council says that they are developing a project, with the bus company Horários do Funchal, for a ‘park and ride’ scheme, where one drives to the outskirts of the city, parks ones car, and then catches a very frequent bus service from the car park to the city centre. The Funchal central traffic problem is getting steadily worse, just because parking facilities exist, and it also it still being possible to park without paying. "Paying to park is very cheap, and it shouldn’t be", says the president of the Madeira branch of Quercus. He believes that the comfort and speed of a car journey should be challenged by better public transport, and that there should be bus lanes on the main routes to improve public transport travel times. Around 47 thousand vehicles are believed to enter Funchal daily.

‘Armed Masked Robbers Raid Cash Desk’. They struck twice yesterday, firstly at the Hotel Funchal Design (Rua da Alegria), where they surprised the receptionist at 4.30 am. The two robbers had a knife, and forced the receptionist to hand over €57 from the cash till. Then sometime after 11 am, masked men appeared at Elos cash and carry in Viveiros, and forced checkout staff to hand over "a significant sum". They then fled on foot, chased by shop staff, but managed to lose their pursuers in the street labyrinths of Viveiros.

‘Elderly With Keys Around The neck – The robberies in the top of Ribeira Brava give rise to appeal : "The police must have compassion for the people". The call comes from ‘up top’, from the people in São João. "We asked the police to have compassion for the people". Celina Gonçalves, 75, lives alone in Lombo da Levada, and this Summer has been robbed three times. She is not the only one. The ‘nightmare’ started late in July when her house was freshly painted and wide open, and two individuals tried separately to steal the €400 she had set aside to pay the decorator, the second attempt was successful. She had been duped, so she she didn’t report the matter to the police or tell her family. Not long after, €300 she had set aside for another job that needed doing in her house, and after that another €200, were all stolen. She now has lock on every door, and wears the keys on a cord around her neck. Another story along the same lines follows, and the victim aged 67, reported to the Ribeira Brava police an attempt to rob her home, and was concerned that the response was not compassionate towards her. Even the church of São João has been a victim, with the donations from a mass and a box of candles stolen. They say "they only don’t take [steal] more because the people don’t have".

‘Eleven In The Final Of ‘Funchal A Cantar – Vânia Fernandes will be the patron on Saturday in the final, that will include fireworks’. The final of the singing competition will be held in the Praça do Município (town hall square) at 8 pm, and promises to be an unforgettable event, with a total of 65 artists involved. The 11 individual finalists were whittled down from the 30 in the preliminary round, held on Monday night.

‘Four New Cases Of H1N1 On Madeira – 21 suspected cases were investigated by the laboratory in the last week’. The Institute for Health Administration IASAÚDE confirmed 4 new case of Gripe A swine flu, taking the total to 39 since 12th July. One case came from Canada, the other three were secondary infections. On a related theme, vaccines for seasonal flu were starting to be delivered to pharmacies yesterday afternoon. Medical prescriptions for these vaccines are valid until 31st December.

‘Man Aged 29 Caught Selling Drugs In Night Spot (club or bar?) – 120 doses of cocaine and 600 Euros seized’. He was caught in the act by police with the drugs, and money presumed to be the takings from the drugs sold. In Funchal a police operation resulted in the seizure of hashish sufficient for 2,400 fixes.

‘Linha Saúde 24 Strengthened – 400 nurses with the capacity to answer 15 thousand calls a day’. Currently the health service hotline is taking 4,500 calls a day, 1,000 of those being specific to Gripe A concerns, but if necessary can deal with up to 15,000 enquiries daily. The centre is run by a private company, and should they fail to deal with 15% or more of the enquiries, they will be penalised, as they have already been 3 times for failing to meet half-yearly performance targets, since it was set up in 2007. The short term objective is to recruit 200 more nurses, to raise the call answering capacity to 20,000 per day, and then longer term, to cope with new cases of Gripe A swine flu, 800 to 900 nurses will be required.

Right old boring front page today, with the Diário team really scraping the barrel to get a newspaper together.

(26th August). ‘Vindimas (grape harvest) – Festival of Wine of Madeira, 3rd to 6th September, guarantees entertainment in Funchal and Estreito’. The dates given are for Funchal, whilst in Estreito de Câmara de Lobos the date is 5th September. Musical entertainment with folk bands and orchestras, art, cuisine, and wine tasting of course, are the themes that attract so many festival goers. In Funchal the main focus is in Avenida Arriaga. Extensive details of the programme for both locations is given, but as I don’t think many readers attend these events I won’t take it any further.

This story saved the day for me : ‘Scam In Caniço – Man passes himself off as a tool salesman in order to flee with the money of his victims. There are at least 3 cases’. He is posing at a salesman working for a shop of ‘Mata’, looking to fleece victims of their hard earned cash. The swindler, thought to be a drug addict, had contacted several people in Santa Cruz offering special promotions on the purchase of tools. He then took his victims to the branch of Mata in Caniço (Tendeira), asking the victim to wait at the back of the shop in order to obtain a "bigger discount", and taking the money for payment and fleeing the scene to a waiting getaway car, driven by an accomplice. The amounts varied between just a few Euros and €100. Video surveillance tapes in Mata have identified the likely culprit of the scams as a man from Machico. The increasing sophistication of crime here is worrying (yeah right!), the susceptibility of people to be scammed is equally worrying, but luckily and thankfully the stupidity of the majority of fraudsters outweighs all the fore mentioned concerns. Not wishing to labour the point, but who would climb in the car of someone who offered discounts at a shop, and then wait at the back of the shop with the promise of a bigger discount, having handed over cash for the purchase. As for the swindler, having gone to the trouble of employing a getaway driver, he then picks a shop with security cameras, and returns there three times and does the same thing. Didn’t anyone in Mata notice the first time someone was swindled?

Today’s main sports story, and also the main front page photo with a pair of canoeists doing their thing : ‘Canoes Full Steam Ahead (the exact Portuguese translation just didn’t work) - XVIII ‘around’ Madeira by canoe starts today with the medal winner Beatriz Gomes, partner of Helena Rodrigues in the world championship, taking the lead’. More than 80 canoeists are taking part this year. The course today is 19 km between Machico and Funchal. Gomes is a teammate of Madeiran Rodrigues, together winning the bronze medal a few weeks ago in Canada.

For anyone so inclined, the Fiorentina v Sporting 2nd leg match in the Champions League knock-out, is on RTP live tonight at 7.45 pm.

The irony is almost almost amusing in this one : ‘Robbery At Ponta Gorda Yields Around €1,500 To The Thieves’. The ticket office at the swimming and leisure complex was robbed, and according to Ricardo Nunes, manager of FrenteMar that operates the facility, the theft took place between midnight Sunday and 6 am yesterday. Aside from the theft of between €1,300 and €1,500, property damage was caused as a result of the break in. The irony is that this is the guy who was interviewed 2 days ago saying that business was really good … "Lido entrants have increased by 17%, and in Ponta Gorda by 12%". And then they leave a large amount of cash in the ticket office, (and have no idea when it was stolen with in a 30 hour time window).

‘Problems with Health Line 24 are national and not just Madeira’. The Secretary for Social Affairs on Madeira hopes that the service is improved and more appropriate, stressing that the inability to call the Health Line 24 is a "national problem" and not just for this island. "It is a general case and not only from Madeira, expanded Francisco Jardim Ramos to the Lusa news agency, reacting to a statement made on-air by a citizen of Madeira, who reported the bad service when she phoned the ‘Health Line 24′ to talk about Gripe A. She was told that the service was not available to the autonomous regions. Madeira has now had 30 cases of Gripe A with only 2 people hospitalised so far.

In a separate rather astounding article headlined : ‘Illness Affects More Men – Of the thirty registered cases on Madeira, 63 percent are of the male sex’. The communication from the regional secretary for social affairs then continues with the mind blowing fact that the "remaining 37% are women".

‘Illegal Arms Seized In Ponta do Sol – Two suspects were arrested’. The PSP police detained two individuals suspected of illegal activity connected with possession of illegal weapons. In a swoop in Ponta do Sol, the police found "a small arsenal" and seized two guns, 8 knives including two rather large ones, and 146 rounds of ammunition.

UPDATE :

‘Just One Third Of Registered Hunters Take Out Licenses – Hunting calendar already published. The season starts 4th October’. The records of the forestry authorities indicate that Madeira has around 3,000 hunters, but for years just 900 to a 1,000 obtain a license. The new season lasts from 4th October to 31st December, but rabbit hunting is extended beyond this. Many of those licensed to hunt do so in order to own and carry hunting weapons, as without this they cannot do so. There are two days of rest for the hunted, October 11th as an election day, and Christmas day. Hunting is limited to Woodcocks, Rock Pigeons, Quail, Partridges with red legs, and Rabbits (if I have my translations right!), but unfortunately it seems politicians are a protected species.

‘Pools Without Water’. The natural rock pools of Porto Moniz, located next to the Aquarium of Madeira, are empty again, which has again led to complaints from some bathers. The pools were already emptied on 18th August to clean out slime and algae, but this time the council have taken the action due to wear on the rubber seals that retain the water. The problem should be resolved today, but it is annoyance to users who don’t want to pay to use the other facilities.

Moving on to political news :

The front page political article today is the interview with a candidate who will make it to the Assembly of the Republic next month : ‘Beyond The Abuse It Is The Verdict Of The Voter – Bernardo Trindade, top-of-the-list of PS-M to the Assembly of the Republic, says that who takes up opposition on Madeira is a hero. And he waits the elections with self-control’. Just picking out one question, in what was a very restrained interview as regards the opposition PSD-M : Q : The election of three deputies (MPs), as in 2005, is unlikely to be repeated. It is a defeat? : A : If the result were to be repeated it would also mean that the PS had a comfortable majority in 2005. We had four and a half years of difficult governance, and there are professional classes discontented with the current government. My question is what is the alternative. I look forward seriously to the verdict of Madeira. In 2004 the socialists enjoyed a 27.4% share of the vote, at a regional level. That rose to 34.9% in 2005 when the current government started its term, but that has declined since then to just 14.7% in the European elections this year.

‘PSD President Helps Sócrates To Shine – The distinction for the prime minister comes after the transfer of a convent to the council’. In a national story, Prime Minister José Sócrates, yesterday praised the "courage" demonstrated by the city of Santarém for awarding him the gold medal of the city, at a time when the country is on the verge of elections. I bet Ferreira Leite, leader of the social democrats is hopping mad, that a prestigious award is given to an opposition politician so close to national elections.

‘PND Calls For "Forcible Removal" Of The Commander Of The Maritime Zone – José Manuel Coelho accuses Coelho Cândido of being in the service of ‘Jardim’s Sharks’. The national candidate for the New Democratic Party (aka Rabbit) campaigned in Funchal Harbour, accusing the commander of being in the "service of the great sharks of the Jardim regime and his cronies", and not fulfilling his obligation to look after the interests of the State and Portuguese sovereignty. He accuses him of double standards, in effect allowing dignitaries to do things that the normal public would be stopped from doing, naming the development at Quinta do Lorde as an example. I enjoy the ‘Rabbit news’, and this time there are two in conflict (Coelho as a last name and first name), and I had a good headline but it involved a rude word … perhaps I might get away with ‘shaft’ instead?

(25th August). The last item from yesterday’s front page, and the Diário’s daily feature. ‘Rodrigues Against Expenditure On Newspapers And Stadiums – The head-of-list of the PP-Madeira to São Bento expects to see the maturity of the Madeirans when it is time to vote’. This guy is the top of the CDS (Christian Democrats) list for the national elections. With the ‘share of the vote’ the CDS party, over the last 5 years, has achieved between 5.3% and 8.3% at the various elections … another no hoper except in the case of a mass protest vote. I agree with him of course that the government shouldn’t be spending €45 million in redeveloping the Marítimo stadium and injecting public funds into a newspaper.