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!

(18th May) The CEO of Zon, one of the two major players in the TV and internet market on Madeira, says that the company is going to change the cable network, and a 100Mbps network “will be operating in the short term”. The new generation network will enable services for video and television in HD (high definition), with much faster transmission speeds for communications and entertainment and services much more advanced. Currently there are 8 channels available in HD, but with the new network this can be increased to 20 or 30 channels. He wouldn’t commit to a date yet, but estimates that news will be available in 2 or 3 weeks. The fixed line telephone service introduced by Zon in 2007 (?) now has 17 thousand customers, with a target to reach 20 thousand by the end of this year. I think most customers get the telephone for nothing, as part of a customer retention offer for the whole package of services, but they will have to do something clever with their prices fairly soon to stop customers moving across to rival MEO.

In a separate article, Zon admits it is still interested in operating the fifth terrestrial channel, despite having already been eliminated at the first hurdle for its failure to meet the conditions to ensure competition in the selection contest.

And sticking with telecommunications, the same CEO of ZON announced that in one to two years it will be possible to video conference through our televisions, combining voice and image in a routine telephone call. The company needs more time to develop the technology, but another factor will be persuading equipment manufacturers to produce the hardware needed at a price that will be attractive to the market.

(19th May). ‘Rodrigo Has Transplant Scheduled For 29th – The procedure will take place in the Portuguese Institute of Oncology in Lisbon. The family expectation increases’. After a long long search for a suitable bone marrow donor, that took baby Rodrigo Sousa almost into his final weeks of life, the medical procedure has now been arranged for a week on Friday. Rodrigo has been undergoing chemotherapy, but has managed to put on weight and now has 5 teeth. The donor, a lady from Germany, was eventually found on an international computer database.

(19th May). ‘Project Costing €3.2 Million In Ponta do Sol Has To Be Rectified – The protective barrier in the sea was inaugurated just a few years ago, but the council say that it was badly done and demands alterations’. The government of Madeira requires the construction, completed in 2004, to be “dismantled”. The corrective work is likely to be more costly than the original project, and will have the aim of restoring quality and allowing more space and depth in this bathing zone. To do so, the beach area would have to be widened, and the stretch of the concrete construction that runs parallel to the beach would have to be moved out further. The article says that it is almost impossible to swim in the existing area, especially when the tide is low. The reasons for why the barrier is as it is at present is not something I can discuss here, but it is well discussed locally (at a rumour level) that there were other options available back in 2003 during the planning stage, and the options chosen for Ponta do Sol, Calheta, Ribeira Brava, and probably others, were possibly not chosen for reasons of ‘best for purpose’, best value, and public approval.

(19th May). ‘Boats Of Sanos In Dry Dock 6 Years Already Lost Revenue Of €100,000’. This story relates to two boats that were brought here from the UK 6 years ago, and for legal reasons were prevented from going to sea. They were purchased for search and rescue missions, and their time spent on dry land is estimated to have been at the cost of €100,000, half of that due to rental space in the dry dock, and a similar amount will be needed for maintenance. The boats were grounded because of problems of certification, but the operator SANAS-Madeira believes they will be put into service around mid-July, subject to a final inspection.

It was unavoidable to notice on RTP news this morning, that the Jornal da Madeira had the headline ‘160 Cases Of False Notes In 4 Month’. Don’t worry I haven’t been sucked into the dark side and actually looked at the government rag, but I thought it best to mention it so you can be on the lookout for any dodgy looking banknotes that may come your way.