Madeira News Blog

(12th July). The front page main photo today shows a crowd of sunbathers watching a lone swimmer in the sea (actually a worker removing rubbish from the water) : ‘Filthy Stain Floods The Beaches – A bad Sunday at Lido and Ponta Gorda: piles of organic debris and waste plastics in the water. The boats of the port authority and of the Frente Mar were out in a regatta. The bathers were cussing’. The ‘slick’ of rubbish and plastic, of about 40 square metres, was dragging along the coast west of Funchal yesterday morning, and came inshore with the currents. The bathers talk about the illegal dumping of sewerage (or polluted water), which has been happening frequently throughout the last week. The absence of means of cleaning was also noted. The director of the company Frente Mar explained that was because of all the boats were in use in the regatta. The Lido bathing complex was flying the yellow flag, so swimming in the sea was not recommended, angering those who had paid €3.10 for a ticket. It also seems there are still jellyfish about, with one report of a girl getting stung.

‘Beaches Of Funchal Popular’. In another slightly connected article, the Diário reports that during June 31,000 tickets were sold for entry to the swimming / bathing complexes managed by Frente Mar. Most of these were for the Lido complex, with nearly 16,000 tickets sold, with Doca do Cavacas selling less than a thousand. Last year less than 24,000 tickets were sold for the same 4 complexes in the same month, partly affected by storm damage left from early April.

‘Notaries With The ‘Rope Around The Neck’ – The complaint is well known : The state pushed them towards privatisation and now takes the responsibilities away from them’. They talk about a fall in revenues in the order of 78%. Pushed into privatisation, the Public Notaries then found that their duties were stripped away day after day, and given to other organisations. They were once the ‘el dorado’ in the private sector. Government initiatives such as ‘Loja da Cidadão’, ‘simplex’ and ‘company in an hour’, and at least 11 other similar initiatives aimed at simplifying peoples lives and reducing bureaucracy, have left the notaries stripped of responsibilities and clients. The public notaries were gradually privatised following new laws in 2004, that allowed this in a 5 year experimental period, except for in Porto Moniz, and for those that switched there is no way back. Anyone feel disturbed by this? So concerned you won’t sleep tonight … no I thought not. Just another obstacle and expense out of the way for most of us. My local notary wanted €1,000 just to put an official stamp on a preprepared document in Portuguese, a two minute job.

Not from the Diário, but whilst Portugal enjoyed a day free of new gripe A (swine flue H1N1) cases yesterday (still 86 cases), there was a 15 year old English girl taken into hospital in Funchal displaying gripe A symptoms, but nothing yet confirmed. Actually I have just found this news in the Diário, and it rather usefully is accompanied by a picture of Big Ben in London. Of the nine suspected case on Madeira so far, none have yet tested positive.

The cherry liquor produced in Curral das Freiras (Valley of the Nuns), known as Ginja, is undergoing a certification process, with government and private support. Once the local brew has it’s own certification, the mark of quality obtained will enable the marketing of the product further afield, including exporting. It should take about a year to complete. The drink is made with the Morello Cherry, and at great effort and expense here is the recipe to make some yourself (10 person recipe):
Put 1kg of cherries, 1/2 kilo of sugar, and 3 litres of aguardente (recommended to use that made from grape sediment), into a suitable container and leave in a dark place, stirring every couple of weeks. It should be ready to drink in 8 months. (I bet Tobi will be having a go at this).

‘Dog Owner Condemned To Pay €11,000 – In 2004 two Pit Bulls attacked a child, the case was judged last week’. The owner of the two dogs that attacked a 7 year old boy, that received severe bodily injuries, has been ordered to pay €11,130 to the victim. More than  €5,000 of this is to cover the post-hospital rehabilitation costs incurred by the family. The boy fell into a pen with the dogs, and was savagely attacked and scarred. The dog owner was found not to have provided sufficient means to have safeguarded the boy. It’s very unusual to hear a story like this, as dogs here are known to be good natured and tolerant, but you never know with Pit Bulls. Cases like this in other countries would probably result in compensation running into six or even seven figures.

A paraglider was rescued by boat yesterday after he missed his landing point at Porto da Cruz, and landed on the beach of Boca do Risco, due to unfavourable wind conditions. He was absolutely fine, but had to be rescued by sea, as the beach has no access by land.

In the first 6 months of this year police have detected 83 overloaded lorries on Madeira’s roads. Police have now stepped up their checks to detect such situations. In the whole of 2008 there were just 36 offences detected. Offenders are fined either €500 or €1,250, depending on how much they are overloaded.

Football is back on the front page, and we are only talking about friendly matches not involving the Madeiran teams. ‘Benfica Start Pre-Season With Draw – A two goal advantage wasn’t sufficient to beat Sion (2-2)’.

A couple more front page stories in different sections, so I will cover those later.

(29th May). ‘Costa Cruises Increases Visits to Funchal – The Italian group pushes the crisis aside and expects to bring more passengers to Madeira’. The company says that the sector is not feeling the crisis, and that passenger numbers are expected to increase, for Portuguese travellers, up 9.1% to 6,000. Next year it is expecting another 10% increase in Portuguese passengers, even after a reduction of cruise ships visiting Lisbon (down from 37 in 2008 to 20 this year and next). Funchal will have 44 visits per year, compared to 28 last year. Overall, last year Costa carried 1.2 million passengers, which they expect to increase to 1.5 million next year.

(28th May). ‘The Dispute Advances In The Dismissals At The Savoy – Workers have already started receiving letters of dismissal from the hotel. Around 10 workers have already agreed to the termination of their contracts’. The hotel workers trade union will proceed with it’s legal challenge against the collective redundancies made by the bosses of the now closed Savoy Hotel in Funchal, which is to be demolished and rebuilt. A union spokesman said that he is convinced that "it is possible to prevent the dismissals", considering that this is an illegal process based on "unfounded reasons", and adds that workers are being pressured into submission. Whilst I doubt whether the Savoy owners relish this bad publicity, their financial resources will surely flatten the trade union, either by making all the workers offers they can’t refuse, or through manipulation of legal processes. Probably getting near the time to lay down and quit, and just hope the new Savoy Hotel gets built quickly.

The government of Madeira has decided to dish out an extra €944 thousand to help five public transport companies through the financial crisis. Two of them are from the ‘Horários’ group of Funchal, that operate the bus service in that region (€644,000 & €40,000). The additional expenditure is justified in order to help the firms to meet the needs of society in economic, social, and environmental terms. It will help to compensate for loss of revenue resulting from higher personnel costs, and other increased expenditure, that was not anticipated in the normal subsidization that these companies receive. Rodoeste, that runs the buses on the west of Madeira, will receive an extra €98,000, SAM (East) €73,000 and the bus company that serves Caniço €47,000. In total over the last 8 years, the regional government has paid out nearly €24 million to these companies for operating their services.

(27th May). A partner of Thomas cook, the travel operator, has turned to the German government for help, suffering financial problems. Arcandor AG, a 26.41% shareholder in Thomas Cook, has given an ultimatum for help with a €900 million rescue package. It needs the money by 12th June to stay in business, after failing to get financial backing from the banks, even after reducing its 86,000 workforce by 12,500. Politicians and a large competitor have criticised the ultimatum blaming Arcandor AG for management errors in retailing. The company is an important contributor to Madeira tourism.

(28th May). "Undeniably Portuguese Territory" – ‘Jaime Gama and António Manuel Correia work to enhance biodiversity and conservation in the Selvagens Islands’. The President of the Assembly of the Republic of Portugal said that the visit made on Tuesday to the Selvagens was a "statement of presence in a territory that is undoubtedly Portuguese", a warning to the Spanish who have been using the airspace in a long running dispute. Gama spoke from the biggest island ‘Selvagem Grande’, that forms part of the sub-archipelago of Madeira, accompanied by a group from the National defence Commission for the Assembly of the Republic. Gama also stressed the importance of work for the preservation of biodiversity, stating that "it is a wild landscape of great natural beauty," as recognized by Jacques Cousteau, who said that the local waters were the clearest in the world. The regional secretary of the Environment and Natural Resources, Manuel António Correia, said that this visit disproved the feeling that "Portugal does not recognize properly the environmental work done by Madeira. This is a real environmental sovereignty" the secretary said, adding that with all the work done on nature conservation, along with the presence of wardens "Portugal meets all requirements to maintain jurisdiction over land and surrounding sea areas".  The Chief of Staff (CEMA), Admiral Fernando Melo Gomes, stressed that "this paradise will continue with the support of the Navy", and announced that from the summer period he will put a team of Marines on the islands to help maintain order and preserve the beauty. How did Gama get back to Lisbon by plane? The question was answered, and he took a helicopter to Madeira and a plane from there.

‘Medical journals of the Atlantic Islands – Meeting runs from 3 to 6 June in Funchal. Vaccines, ageing, and breast cancer are the major topics of discussion’. The meeting, which will unite around 150 professionals from Madeira, the Azores, the Canaries, and Cape Verde, comprises three round tables, which will discuss the advances in vaccination, ageing and breast cancer. Work will start with a conference on ‘Climate Change and Emerging Infectious Diseases’, which will have as speaker Jorge Atouguia, associate professor of the Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

(27th May). ‘Drugs Seized Worth One Million – Since the beginning of this month police have impounded more than €1 million in drugs’. Judicial Police (PJ) have prevented the hauls reaching the streets of Madeira, and according to the coordinator of the Criminal Investigation Department of the PJ in Funchal, the €1,088,230 euros of drugs seized were the fruit of hard work, and not the result of operations planned for this month. In all there were eight seizures, all detailed in the article. There were a lot of foreigners involved, and in the last bust on Monday, two men of African origin were taken into custody after being caught with 2,000 cocaine fixes, and 600 of hashish, worth altogether on the streets around €53,000.

‘Recreational Park At Matur – The project should include a facility for observing planes’. At the end of 2010, the zone of Matur in Água de Pena, should have a ‘modern and sophisticated’ leisure area, in the area where the Hotel Atlantis used to be, before it was demolished because of it’s proximity to the airport. The responsible regional secretary, who is preparing the project, has a main objective "to create a green area for public recreation", with one aim being to accomodate plane spotters because it has a good outlook over Madeira Airport. Plane spotting, according to the article, is a hobby growing in popularity on Madeira. Young visitors to the new site will also have climbing equipment, and swings and slides to play on.

Under the programme to provide all school kids with a simple and cheap laptop computer, of the 13,800 eligible youngsters at basic level school, around 8,000 (60%) have already made their applications, and that has happened just since the 8th May. The eventual level of requests is expected to provide laptops for at least 95% of all kids. The programme for older kids (5th to 12th years) is also providing low cost laptops to around 11,000. I presume these are all for recreational and research use, as without 100% adherence I can’t see that they can form part of school lessons.

Madeira’s population has a very low feeling of insecurity, thanks to the population at large and the work of the security forces. Tuesday morning, at the swearing in of Jorge de Freitas as president of the Office of Regional Security Coordination, President Alberto João Jardim praised the climate of cooperation that exists between the different services that ensure public security. The role is intended to enhance cooperation between the various police and security services in joint actions, and will not interfere in the work of them individually. That’s good to know. Unlike Portugal, where people are feeling much more insecure according to recent reports, as crime increases with economic depression. One day this week someone gave me a newspaper from Portugal, called ‘O Crime’, which is purely dedicated to reporting crime on the mainland. I presume it is to draw attention to the growing issue, but with a cover price of €1.40, it seems the publishers don’t practice what they preach. It’s quite a big talking point here on Madeira about the continental crime levels, but most people are really not sure it is as bad as get reported in the media.

A dockers strike scheduled for today and tomorrow, and again in limited form between 1st and 5th June, will affect refuelling of ships visiting or stationed in Madeira waters.