Madeira News Blog

(22nd September). Today’s main news headline : ‘Region Refuses To Pay President ‘Do MAR’ – Óscar Gonçalves went yesterday to complain to the Madeira executive, and to the representative of the republic’. It’s a new battle between Madeira and Lisbon. This time due to the International Shipping Register of Madeira (MAR), and the choice of Oscar Gonçalves to chair the MAR Technical Commission. Normally it is the role of the Government of the Republic to nominate the president of the Technical Commission of MAR, but obtaining the agreement of the Madeira government as a matter of unwritten protocol. However, Óscar is little known in the world of shipping, but a well known collaborator of the socialist party PS-Madeira, and the government (PSD) here complained that it had not been consulted about his appointment in May, as had been customary in the past. As a result the government here have refused to pay his salary, as well as restricted his movements outside of Madeira. They argue that he is not qualified to carry out inspections and surveys for vessels registered with MAR, which they say is one of the legal requirements. The matter is now in the hands of the appropriate authorities in Lisbon. MAR has 157 commercial vessels registered, 14 of which are passenger ships.

‘Robberies In Garajau And On The Levada Dos Tornos – Youths steal the cash register and have the police waiting when they arrive home. Couple robbed at knifepoint in Camacha’. The first story is about a Café / Bar called ‘Brites’ in Garajau, that was robbed at around 4 am yesterday morning, when 2 young men smashed the shop front glass window, and took the cash register, containing just some change. The two robbers, who were regular customers in the bar, took the till to a car park to open it, where they were caught on video camera in the act, along with the registration plate of their car. Police were able to identify the owner of the car, the mother of one of the men, and when they arrived home the police were there waiting. They were taken back to the crime scene, where they apologised to the owner, returned the stolen money, and offered to pay for the damage caused, which included the €400 cash till, the broken window, an aquarium, and a fridge. It is possible that that the same two men had also tried to break into a bar in Cristo Rei, hurling a rock at the front window, which didn’t shatter as it was double glazed, but caused around €200 worth of damage all the same. The sophistication of the crimes and the intelligence of the criminals of Madeira never ceases to amaze me, and once again the police do a great job in cleaning up the mess. I have no idea whether the men involved here were charged, but often an apology to the owner and the payment of the losses and damages suffices, showing the forgiving and kind hearted nature of people here. Personally I would have wanted them strung up if they had done that to me, but there again there are men who have committed far greater crimes but still legally walk our streets. PS Dare not mention who for fear of reprisals.

The other story sounds much more serious, as two German tourists were robbed at knifepoint on the Levada dos Tornos, in the zone of Vale Paraíso, Camacha. He surprised the couple, and demanded the valuables that they were carrying. He stole the rucksack and about €100, but apart from being shocked, the couple were unharmed. The rucksack was later recovered by police, less the money. The police have a description of the suspect and are conducting investigations. I hate doing these stories more than anything, as levadas are supposed to be such safe and peaceful places … and of course still are. The police normally catch these thugs, but it’s best to be aware that there are occasionally problems in just one or two places. How people will obtain such information after next week I don’t know, but I hope they can ask at hotels or go on accompanied tours, or at least find out about any risky areas from somewhere.

’36 From The Savoy Refute Dismissal – The case started yesterday in court’. The collective dismissal of staff from the now closed Savoy Hotel in Funchal is in court, with 36 workers challenging the SIET Savoy Group decision to dismiss them. Their aim is to reverse the decision, and guarantee themselves future employment. The trade union representing the workers said it was the only option open to them once negotiations with the employer had failed. Win and they have their jobs back, lose and they will be entitled to compensation based on length of service. Many of the 99 workers have already accepted the termination and compensation package offered, when the hotel closed to be demolished, to make way for a new Savoy Hotel.

After yesterday’s story about the school of in São Martinho (Funchal) that failed to be ready on time because of building problems, it seems that São Martinho kids are stricken with bad luck, or good luck depending on the point of view. ‘Lombada School in São Martinho Fails To Open At The Start Of The School Year – A lack of staff has left parents and students at the school gate’. They turned up, but that’s as far as they got, as the school remained closed when staff didn’t turn up. The situation caught some parents off guard, along with 250 kids, even though there had been some communications about potential problems. Teachers weren’t lacking, except for the maths teacher, but one cleaning lady was on holiday, one was transferred, and the other one remaining refused to work alone. The knock on from that is that the catering staff and auxiliaries didn’t then turn up for work for fear of being put on cleaning duties. According to the government Education Department the situation has been resolved and the school is now fully operational. It wouldn’t happen in the private sector for sure, and if I had been in charge I would have had those parents in scrubbing the floors and doing the cooking, and sent the non-teaching staff off to meet those ex-Savoy Hotel workers.

‘Erasmus’ Sent Away 117 Madeiran Students In 6 Years’. The programme, according to funding available, allows students at Madeira University to study abroad. The scheme is growing in popularity, but as there is no specific funding for the purpose, applications depend on the general funding of UMa being able to support the applications received. The programme has proved particularly popular for students in physical education and in languages, with the countries most selected being Slovenia (23), Spain (32) and the Czech Republic (32).

Bit of a school theme going today, so here’s another : ‘Gripe A : Teachers “are not a priority risk group”. Contingency plans against the H1N1 swine flu virus in schools caught the attention of the Teachers Union of Madeira, this week. Coordinator Marilia Azevedo regretted the fact that the infection prevention plans have been made only with students in mind. A spokesman for the matter (I have no idea where from), said that the health services and Regional Secretary for Education and Culture had been working together for some time, “[teachers] are not a priority risk group in particular, as the groups that are in contact with the sick are health professionals. I do not see that there needs to be a special scenario for teachers”. What gobsmacking incompetence, as infected teachers are as much of a problem as infected children to start with, but absent teachers cause a different problem altogether, and without them to control the children, the risk of cross infection is highly elevated. Just imagine if one infected teacher in the weekly staff meeting infects the whole teaching staff group … chaos!

’224 Citizens Of Funchal Try Out The Services Of Horários do Funchal For Free – Bruno Pereira, vice-president of Funchal Council will be one of the participants’. The famous yellow bus company of Funchal wants to attract new customers to its regular services of public transport. With this objective in mind the company yesterday started the week with a promotional project ‘Ad personam’. Under the initiative, which is part of a wider European action called ‘Intelligent Energy of Europe’, over 224 people aged between 18 and 60 years can travel free for a week on the bus network of Horários. The lucky 224 were selected from 805 respondents to a survey undertaken in May, and addition to this weeks freebie, will be able to obtain discounted bus travel for the rest of the year through a monthly pass.

The headline I thought I would never see : ‘Marina At Lugar de Baixo Reopens – It will open, but not for boats to moor there’. No firm date has been set, but it is virtually certain that the marina infrastructure will reopen to the public sometime this year, with boats allowed back in shortly after the Winter. Clean up work is still ongoing, including partial clearing of a cliff face. The badly damaged car park has been demolished, and will not be rebuilt, but other parking is available. I can hardly wait for Uncle Bertie’s reinauguration (right!), and to go and enjoy the swimming pool and tennis court, or even just taking a coffee there. I have never tried hard-hat swimming before, but I presume I will need a strap-on-version, as well chastity-belt type swimming trunks. As for the coffee, will the café staff be trained to ask “will it be one lump or two?”

The sport / football headline : ‘Cup Takes Marítimo To The Azores’. Our team travels to Santa Clara to play on the 18th October, in the 3rd round of the Portugal Cup. Nacional will go to the north of Portugal to take on Varzim. Both opponents play in the Liga Honra (the 2nd highest level), and so should not in theory present too much of a challenge. There are still other teams from Madeira left in the cup, but as there are no big name opponents involved, I will leave it there.

Work on the new cemetery in Caniçal has been halted for three weeks. A digger started work, but after a couple of days was taken away. The main problem is with expropriations, or compulsory land purchases. The €1m project wasn’t in the council work programme for the current mandate, but the decision was made to proceed urgently because the existing cemetery is absolutely full. Aside from the purchase of land, how can a cemetery cost anything like €1 million to build? Aside from some ground levelling and boundary walls, what else is there. Will it be fully equipped with ready-to-wear tombs and blank gravestones, or am I just out of touch with today’s cemetery construction prices?

(11th August). Today’s main news headline : ‘Savoy (to be) Demolished Floor By Floor – The option of implosion is put on the shelf. The hotel will come down in bits with strict environmental conditions. The debris will have to be channelled to a special landfill for INERT materials to be constructed in Santa Cruz within a month’. The Regional Directorate of the Environment has dismissed the plan to demolish the disused hotel by implosion, and it will now be done top down. The owners, Group SIET, will be responsible for separating out the debris to determine and allocate the correct disposal route. The first landfill site for ‘inertes’ on Madeira, in Santa Cruz, will be licensed in time for the demolition. As well as safe materials, such as wood, cement, plastics and metals, there will also be hazardous and asbestos materials. In the information provided to Funchal Council, the Regional Directorate for the Environment has also made recommendations about the dust and noise from the demolition, although much of that will have been mitigated by the decision not to implode the building. The complete work will need to be covered, with water jets being used to ‘damp down’ dust, and vehicles leaving the site will have their wheels washed. The noise will mainly affect a residential and tourist area, so the hours of work and intensity of machinery will be planned with this in mind. The Portuguese word INERTE translates into English as INERT, which confuses matters (for me anyway, as it signifies non-reactive), but it sounds like Madeira’s first ever landfill site for INERTES may be for the less pleasant materials, but I may be wrong. I don’t think I would feel too happy about that in Santa Cruz. Firstly it is rubbish from Funchal, so why take it elsewhere. Secondly, with the mountainous terrain and sometimes heavy rainfall, I would hope the location is well placed and absolutely safe from leakage and cross contamination. No doubt our man in the area will have an opinion on the matter?

The main front page photo today shows a group of third generation men sat around a table in a public place, playing cards : ‘Estate And Rats Harmful For Residents And Tourism – Santa Maria Maior presents many complaints’. This is the Diário featured location this week. The people in Santa Maria Maior have little interest in local politics or the elections. The list of complaints from one trader is headed by rats, "as large as rabbits, which horrify the tourists" yet the council do nothing. The problem, states Manuel João Vieira, is aggravated with the smell and dirt in the drains, "The rats along there are almost like tourists" he said sarcastically. The ex-president of the parish council admits to the problem, but says it is the owners of the buildings that need to deal with the problem. The Diário spoke to five residents about what they thought about the performance of the council (below are the full responses given):
Luís Sousa – Painter – "This council leaves much to be desired … the rats and the smell are a shame for tourism and the president does not speak to anybody".
José Freitas – Retired – "There are many bad things, starting with the rats and the smell in the historic area. Then there is the garden where there are lots of drugs".
José Nóbrega – Retired – "They have done some things. It more or less performs. I think it is better to have the PSD than those who do not understand these things".
Ernesto Silva – Retired – "I see everything much the same. I think this council has not done much, but for me any party will do".
João Manuel Vieira . Trader – "The work has not been bad. What is most lacking is dealing with the rats in the historic centre, where there are rats like rabbits, and restoration of the houses".
That was pretty much it rats and more rats, although there was a second separate article that headlined more on drugs and prostitution in that area. That’s Santa Maria Maior crossed off my list of places to visit this Summer.

‘A Sailboat Crashed Against the Shore Yesterday Morning – The one crew member was found with fatigue and dehydrated’. The leisure boat that was shipwrecked near Ribeiro Salgado had an English flag. According to the port authority, the boat coming from Tangiers (left on 27th July) suffered damage to the mast whilst at sea, with further damage to the hull when hitting the coast at Porto Santo. The boat was taken to the beach, where it will be repaired, and will then be towed to the marina. The 53 year old Swiss citizen in command had fallen asleep with exhaustion prior to the crash, and had run out of drinking water.

‘Lethal Accident On Porto Santo’. A motorcyclist died yesterday afternoon after a collision with a jeep’. The ex-footballer aged 40 used to play in goal for local side Portossantense, and was well known locally as ‘Chico’. The accident occurred in sítio do Cabeço, and Chico was airlifted to Funchal Hospital but died later from his injuries. Police are investigating the cause of the accident.  That makes the 10th road death this year, and the second already this month.

‘Balloon Registers Record Of 3.88′. A 41 year old driver arrested in Santa Cruz on Sunday, registered a 3.88 blood-alcohol count when stopped by police, beating the previous record this year.

‘Robbery In Camacha’. A family were awoken at their home in Sítio dos Casais d’Além, in Camacha, by an intruder who was turning out the bedroom drawers. The father who worked nights was just parking his car outside, at around 5am on Sunday morning, when he heard his wife screaming, but he managed to apprehend the burglar and call the police. The individual was identified by the police, but he will only be charged with ‘invasion of property’, as had not had the opportunity to steal anything. The four year old daughter who witnessed the event was very shocked, and spent the rest of the day unable to speak, very scared and tearful. This case, for those living in Camacha, is just another example of the need for more policing and security in the area, that has long ceased to be a peaceful place.

Today’s football headline is the draw for the Portugal Cup football fixtures . ‘Taça de Portugal Opens With Two Local Derby Games’. The first round, to be played on 30th August, has drawn Canicense with Porto Moniz, and Santana with Porto Cruz. That should save some travelling expenses. There were 7 more Madeira teams in this stage of the draw, with the ‘big guns’ coming in later.

‘Five New Cases Of Gripe A – The laboratory in Funchal Central Hospital reported cases detected between 3rd and 9th August’. The pathology lab confirmed 5 new cases of swine flue H1N1. Four males and one female aged between 15 and 30 were infected, but none were hospitalised. The victims were from Spain and the UK, and that takes the total for Madeira to 21 cases since the start, all so far imported.

In case anyone failed to notice, July was a hotter month than usual, and was the hottest and driest place in Portugal. The Institute of Meteorology used the reference period 1971 to 2000(???) for its conclusion that on Madeira and Porto Santo the mean average air temperature was higher than normal. Besides the higher temperatures, the rates of ultraviolet radiation (UV) on Madeira have been unusually very high, and even at ‘extreme’ levels in recent weeks.

‘Agricultural products rot in fields and stores – Farmers of the West can not sell products’. Potatoes are badly hit, with the trade price down as low as 5 to 7 cêntimos per kilo. One farmer talks about losing 400 tons of crops, as he cannot cover his production costs, and may have to finish in agriculture. Leaving everything to rot in the fields is a cheaper option. Other vegetables and apples are also facing a similar ‘serious crisis’. "The supermarkets import products at the time of our crops and strangle the market for production" says a spokesman for farmers of the West. Anyway, that explains why potatoes have plummeted in price in the last few weeks. I have just read the whole article again, and there is no indication of whether this is a local or national story, but I now realise from the TV news that this is in Portugal.

‘Outdoor Cinema At Madeira Forum – Showings take place Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday in the central square’.  Starting today the open air cinema will be at  the forum, through until 6th September. Today’s offering is ‘Who wants to be billionaire’, a work by Danny Boyle that tells the story of an orphan of 18 years from the suburbs of Mumbai, India. Thursday will be ‘Milk’, a film that won Sean Penn an Oscar for best actor. The first week of outdoor movie ends with the movie ‘Marley & Me’.

(24th June). Today’s main news headline : ‘Mandatory To Change The Economic Model – Or Madeira must reduce its running costs or cut back on investments. The suggestion comes from a study of the Catholic University, commissioned by ACIF, to evaluate the effects of the Regional Finance Law’. The study also suggests salary cuts, and offers new economic models that will work better with Madeira’s circumstances. The headline says it all really, but why was it necessary to commission a study, and what good is it now halfway through the financial year. As a quick bit of background, the Portuguese government slashed the budget application for Madeira at the end of last year, so it has been well known for over 6 months that the government here would have to cut back on it’s spending plans. But could this government not actually figure out itself that if the budget was smaller it would have less money to spend, or is this study just a way of making it bleedin’ obvious?

The main photo on today’s front page shows a rather unpleasant slick seeping into the sea : ‘Factory Contaminates The Sea At Porto da Cruz – The discharges polluting the waters continue to keep the bathers off the beach’. The acidity of the pollution is dangerous to life. The beach of Porto do Cruz opens the Summer season the same as in the past, with pollution in the sea. The story is repeated every year, as the factory that make aguardente (rum) from sugar cane causes a discharge onto the beach of Alagoa. The problem is the overlap between the two things, and the yellow liquid that gives off a strong odour is giving the beach a bad image. The Diário assessed the beach users for an opinion, and there were just 6 users. 2 German couples were there, but they saw the pollution and chose not to go in the water, and two other swimmers went to the far end to avoid the discharge. Clearly a long term solution is needed to contain the discharge. But for now, if we had to choose a Madeira without poncha, or without Alagoa beach, it’s a tough call.

‘Armed Wallet Thieves Return To the Levadas’. Tourists were held at knifepoint on the Levada dos Barreiros on Monday morning, by a man now being sought by police, seemingly knowing who he is through similar crimes. He told them to hand over all valuables, but ended up with only €30, before running off. There are concerns that the robbery will discourage tourists from walking the  Levada dos Piornais(?).

‘Extraction Of Sand And Gravel In Faial Is Legal’. After months and months of arguing about the illegal extraction of materials from Ribeira do Faial, a parliamentary commission has now decided that work can continue there as long as the jobs are safeguarded and the environmental requirements are observed. This followed a petition by locals to keep the operation going, after it was shut down several months ago.

The first phase of the national exams finished yesterday.

There will be strike of technicians in the health service here and nationally on Thursday and Friday. Amongst other services, radiology, physiotherapy, operating theatres, external consultations, and clinical analysis will be affected.

The front page also covers a Summer fashion festival on 24th July in the Naval, but as I don’t understand fashion I probably have no hope of understanding it in Portuguese.

‘Trade Union Demands Guarantees In The Agreement With The Savoy’. All negotiations from now on are to be between the legal advisers of the Association of Hotels of Madeira and the Savoy Hotels Group SIET. A meeting yesterday discussed the commitment to those 45 workers who are already on their way out (as a result of the demolishing of the old Savoy Hotel), but are expected to rejoin the staff in the new hotel, when rebuilt.

‘Talents Put To The Test In Câmara de Lobos – The Regional Talent Festival takes place next Tuesday’. Eleven contestants representing each region of Madeira will compete in the 10th edition of the contest, which forms part of the Summer Festa between 26th June and 1st July. One judge will also be appointed from the 11 regions, but they cannot vote for their local talent. The most successful region is Funchal, who won in 3 consecutive years 2003 to 2005. Parades are scheduled to take place on Sunday at 9.30pm, in Câmara de Lobos, with 800 participants in 14 troupes. The theme of the day is ‘Culture’. The night will be a long one, with a carnival dance, and fireworks with music at midnight.

‘Classics To The Conquest Of The XXII Rally – The rally starts today and includes various Ferrari Models’. "Ferrari invade the avenue", all ten of them on Avenida Arriaga, on the day that marks the 22nd tour of Madeira, organised by the Classic Car Club, with support from Funchal Council and the regional secretary for transport and tourism. After all the paperwork and formalities for the 40 teams, the first stage will be the traditional opening challenge, that starts at around 8.30pm tonight. The main event starts tomorrow, with two days on the road, divided into several sections, and then the winner for 2009 will be decided. Tomorrow the event sets off from Santa Cruz at 10am, and will end up in São Vicente around 5.30pm. Friday the day starts at 9.30am at Câmara de Lobos (don’t forget to lock your car people), and should end up in Funchal (at the podium) around 4.30pm. The winner will be announced at 8pm, and the prize giving will be at the Regency Hotel at 11.45pm.