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Date Published: 18/10/2014

ARCHIVED - Murcia Today weekly bulletin 18th October

The hazards of collecting snails, safety checks at Corvera airport and ebola alert continues in Spain

A busy week in Murcia, with several major themes emerging.

Starting in the Mar Menor, the first story of interest has been the plans presented by environmental group ARCHIVED - Murcia Today weekly bulletin 18th October ANSE, who are proposing the demolition of up to 150 properties in La Manga in order to create four sand dune protection areas. The economic crisis curtailed the relentless coastal building which has concreted in much of the Spanish coastline, allowing breathing space and time for those attempting to stop the developments, and for the court cases to crunch their way through the legal system of all those developments which infringed environmental protection laws and ate into protected areas. Marina de Cope near to Águilas and Novo Carthago in Cartagena on the shores of the Mar Menor are both prime examples, and now ANSE want to protect some of the very small areas of natural dunes remaining on the La Manga strip.

San Javier council, meanwhile, are still fighting for the other municipalities which benefit from the Mar Menor tourist industry to pay their share towards the maintenance costs for the Estacio bridge and channel which links the Mar Menor to the Mediterranean, and the Mayor has also once again reiterated his opposition to the ARCHIVED - Murcia Today weekly bulletin 18th October closure of San Javier airport for civil flights. Meanwhile the environmental health of the Mediterranean coastline has been emphasised by a report showing that the important posidonia meadows which fringe this coastline are healthy and are not being adversely affected by desalination plant activity.

This of course, means healthy fish and plenty of them, and so this week the Guardia have confiscated a plump catch which illegally found its way into a Los Alcázares fish shop, as well as arresting “furtive fishermen” caught in the marine reserve with harpoons.

Meanwhile in the North-west the environment is also on the menu, as Superheroes from Planet Ecology try to instill good habits into youngsters while they’re still young enough to sign convenios with Captain Reciclar to save planet Earth from drowning in its own consumption.

Infrastructure is next on the news list as the Ministry of Development authorises the expenditure of 82 million euros to bring the long awaited high speed train line into Murcia City, although immediately this has provoked uproar as rather than burying the line through residential areas as residents had demanded, the line will enter ARCHIVED - Murcia Today weekly bulletin 18th October the city overland.

The fate of toll roads facing bankruptcy has been decided and the Cartagena-Vera “ghost highway” forms part of the block of motorways which can no longer support their own running costs due to falling traffic and unserviceable loans and will now be bailed out by the ministerial re-financing plan. The Cartagena – Alicante AP7 however, does not form part of the plan as it is considered viable.

Another major structure in the region has begun operations this week as the ILBOC lubricants plant in the Escombreras industrial area of Cartagena begins production, a collaboration between Repsol and Korean SK lubricants, this is the biggest plant of its kind in Europe.

Other transport linked news is that the Looooove bus is coming to Bullas, bringing potential partners for lonely farmers in the agricultural areas of the municipality, while in Jumilla a taxi driver faces the wrath of the law after ferrying 11 year old runaways who had stolen more than 30 grand from their parents to the station and signing an authorisation allowing them to travel unaccompanied to Madrid. Meanwhile in Mazarrón, the council promise to revise the infrastructure which led to Camposol D being coated in thick mud and dozens of ARCHIVED - Murcia Today weekly bulletin 18th October gardens destroyed during the recent gota fria downpour.

The other major infrastructure story is, of course, Corvera airport, and this week the war of words continues as politicians battle it out during the anxious wait for news of financing authorisation from Brussels, and safety inspectors visit the airport to test security and safety systems as part of the bureaucratic processes which must still be undergone to grant certification to the infrastructure. The airport now has firemen and falconry services contracted and in operation, although anxious holidaymakers would prefer the wings on the runway to be hardframe rather than feathered!

Emergency services have also had a busy week, fishing a dog out a Torre Pacheco reservoir ( read this if one of these infrastructures is near to you, they can be lethal), rescuing beleaguered fishermen, sniffing out a fishy story following a major manure spillage causing a 14 km tailback on a motorway which the driver of the lorry concerned claimed to be unaware he’d even caused in spite of his lorry being absolutely plastered with muck, and rescuing members of the public engaged in the dangerous pastime of snail hunting.

Lots more stories in the news, simply scroll down the page and click onto the next batch of pages at the bottom, and don´t forget, the regional news can be subdivided into your own local area by selecting, North-west, south-west, central Murcia or Mar Menor and Cartagena using the area sections on the top header bar, or even drilled down to one municipality level using the town sections at the bottom of every page, accessed via the map box.

What’s on Murcia

Lots of different activities to choose from this weekend. Murcia City is hosting the annual solar race, which has moved from the Cartagena speedtrack to an urban circuit in Murcia, featuring ecologically powered ARCHIVED - Murcia Today weekly bulletin 18th October vehicles built by University research students from across Europe. The engineering of the future is in these vehicles, which run on ingenuity and not a lot else.

Also in Murcia is the Codex Belix re-enactment weekend, which includes a Second World War battle across the River Segura, with lots of people dressing up as soldiers throughout the ages, including parades and encampments in the Malecón Gardens. There are also a couple of small Mediaeval markets in the city as ARCHIVED - Murcia Today weekly bulletin 18th October well.

Lorca has its Fericab horseshow with pure bred horses, Los Alcázares hosts the annual national jetski championships off the beaches of the municipality, Alhama de Murcia has a Motocross event, with all proceeds going to cancer charities, there’s a darts tournament at the Condado de Alhama and La Manga holds its first half marathon, which also has an excellent free concert in the evening at Cabo de Palos and ARCHIVED - Murcia Today weekly bulletin 18th October accompanying tapas route.

There are fiestas in Balsicas, artisan fairs at Alhama de Murcia, which also has a theatrical guided route, a youth arts and crafts fair in Cartagena and artisan market in Caravaca de la Cruz, as well as lots of free guided routes and walks.

All the cultural, club and musical activities are listed in date order in the what’s on section and the sporting activities, walks and family activities in the sporting section, all in advance, and all in date order, so you don´t have to wait for the bulletin to see what’s on for the coming week. Just click on at any time using the header tabs at the top of every page and there’s always something new being added.

Spanish news summary www.spanishnewstoday.com

Once again much of the national news in Spain this week has been dominated by the ebola virus, but since the start of the week there has been a fair amount of good news mixed in with the scares and political ARCHIVED - Murcia Today weekly bulletin 18th October arguments.

The best news of all is that the condition of Teresa Romero, the Madrid nurse who became the first person to contract the virus on European soil while treating missionary Manuel García Viejo, appears to be starting on the long road to recovery. She is still being treated in isolation at the Carlos III hospital in Madrid but the viral count in her system is described in the latest hospital bulletin as “very low” and she is now fully conscious. At the same time, none of the others who have been admitted to the isolation floor of the hospital have tested positive for ebola, and hopes are high that the feared spread of the disease has been contained.

This leaves breathing space for the implications of the whole episode to receive more attention, chief among them being the performance of the health service in dealing with ebola over the last two months. From the decision to fly back two infected missionaries to Madrid, where they died, to the way in which the case of Teresa Romero was handled, the authorities have all kinds of awkward questions to answer, not least among them the logic underlying the decision to put down Teresa Romero’s dog, Excalibur. Her husband has written an open letter to the dog promising him that justice will be done, and although the man directly responsible for ARCHIVED - Murcia Today weekly bulletin 18th October Excalibur’s death has since resigned many believe more heads should roll in the aftermath of recent events.

Away from ebola, the saga regarding the proposed independence referendum in Catalunya rolls on, with the main development this week being the announcement from regional president Artur Mas that it will not be possible to hold the vote legally. Most of the rest of the country already accepted this, and for the moment his announcement that the referendum will be replaced by a “citizen participation day” with ballot boxes has left many observers confused over what exactly his Plan B consists of. Most worryingly for Sr Mas, it seems that the unity of pro-referendum groups has been broken by the failure to hold a full vote, and for the time being the whole process appears to have stalled. However, many are still demanding that the people be allowed to vote: some activists painted a whole town yellow last weekend to show their support for the referendum on the same day as new King Felipe VI presided over his first Spanish national day celebrations. As is only to be expected the official events proceeded much as normal, while the unofficial protests attracted greater media attention: those in Cataluña showing the volumes of people demanding to remain Spanish receiving substantial coverage.

Other stories in the news include more illegal immigrants attempting to scale the six-metre fences which separate Spain from Morocco in the north African enclave of Melilla, a brief stock market crash on Wednesday and Thursday stoked by fears of a triple-dip recession, the possibility that Basque prisoners held in French prisons will be transferred to Spanish jails and a 94-year-old British wing-walker entering the Guinness Book of Records after being flown twice around the Rock of Gibraltar while strapped to the wings of ARCHIVED - Murcia Today weekly bulletin 18th October a 1930s biplane. You don’t see that every day.

We’ve also had the astonishing journey of an Elche eel, a bi-lingual parrot and magnificent mangos in Andalucia, all as the hunt for the author of Don Quijote continues in Madrid.

In the Spanish property market, meanwhile, there has been mixed news: sales figures appear to be picking up from the all-time lows reached last year, but prices continue to fall. Admittedly the rate at which market value is being lost from Spanish residential property is slowing, but it seems that in general terms buyers are looking for bargain second-hand properties rather than eating into the huge stock of unsold new-builds, and as a result no significant progress is yet being made towards a solution of the core problem of over-supply.

Lots more stories on www.spanishnewstoday.com and in the product dedicated specifically to the neighbouring Comunidad Valenciana www.valenciatoday.es

Currency round-up

ARCHIVED - Murcia Today weekly bulletin 18th October This week currency exchange rates had a volatile week, as share prices and varied economic news saw rates see-sawing. The week closed at 1.25, a slight fall on the recent 2 year highs for those changing money from Sterling to Euros. This highlights how important it is to choose the correct day on which to transfer funds and work with specialised currency experts, as one day really can make a big difference for those who transfer their pensions across to Spain or are buying a Spanish property. Rates change all the time, so keep an eye on currency rates if planning a transfer any time soon.

If you still use a bank to transfer money, ask our currency experts for a quote to use a money transfer service, youll be amazed how much more you get for your pounds using this method and its really easy to do!

Click for this weeks currency round up showing the exchange rate between Sterling and the Euro.

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