ARCHIVED - Murcia Today Weekly Bulletin W/E 8th December 2013

Mediaeval market in Cartagena, Christmas pastries in Bullas, inaction at Corvera airport

What’s on Murcia

This week the major event which may interest expats is the Mediaeval market in Cartagena. This is open throughout the weekend, and offers a host of handmade craft items for sale, as well as jugglers, music, donkey rides for the youngsters and lots of warming food and refreshments for footsore husbands, all in the old quarter of the city.

Bullas in the North-west has the El Zacatín artisan market on Sunday, focusing on sweet cakes and pastries for Christmas, and there is also a classic Volkswagen rally on over the weekend in Bullas for those with an interest in cars.

San Javier in the Mar Menor also has a mini artisan market this weekend as part of the Fiestas patronales programme which is currently underway in the municipality with lots of activities, music and events throughout the next couple of weeks.

Also in the Mar Menor, ADAPT are running their traditional Christmas panto over this weekend, bringing  British humour to a bewildered mixed audience of Spanish and English.

Águilas has a large scale orchestral concert this weekend, and also offers its monthly free theatrical tour of the town on Sunday.

There are also a number of free concerts in honour of saint Cecilia hanging over, in Mazarrón, Cehegín,  and a paid benefit concert in Cartagena.

Totana is also celebrating its fiestas in honour of Santa Eulalia.

Next weekend is another big Bank Holiday, the Puente de la Constitución, so there are a flurry of events coming up. The What’s on in Murcia section is updated daily, as events come in, so keep an eye out for new postings. As the events are displayed in date order, it may be necessary to click onto the next page to see events further in advance, or use the Events diary in the header bar to see events day by day.

Active Murcia

Moratalla resumes its programme of guided walks  this weekend, and Mazarrón also has a walk on offer for “real walkers”.

There’s Rugby in the region this weekend, with matches welcoming spectators in San Javier and Murcia and some good offers for tennis enthusiasts have come in from La Manga Club. They’ve also launched some superb value leisure breaks for those who live within driving distance and would like to take advantage of a cut price spa or gastronomic weekend, giving the chance to do a spot of local sightseeing around the area and enjoy a bit of luxury at cut prices as well.

Murcia News

This week’s airport round-up looks at the progress ( or lack of) during the last week, focusing on the efforts of the former concessionary to win back their contract, and the ever practical response of the regional minister for transport and infrastructure to all the hot air and thinly veiled threats spinning around in the ether.

Property sales statistics for Murcia were positive, showing stronger sales in this region than in other parts of the country and giving cause for optimism about the health of the Murcian property sector, the report also showing how healthy sales are to overseas buyers along this Mediterranean coastline, although in the same week a separate report highlighted that only 20% of the sales are new builds, a factor which continues to highlight the weakness of domestic demand, and the lack of mortgages being issued in order to make property purchases. Putting it bluntly, mortgage uptakes have fallen for 41 consecutive months now, exacerbated by fears for job security.

Those fears were visible in a protest march which united 70,000 murcians this week and tonight protestors in Cartagena will once again take to the streets to try and prevent the closure of the emergencies service at the Rosell Hospital.

Economic worries are not confined to the man on the street, the regional government highlighted this week when national budgetary deficit figures sent Murcia to the bottom of the class, although moves are underway to try and create employment, the regional government announcing substantial incentives to try and help the under 30’s set themselves up in business.

It’s also been announced that the Portmán Bay regeneration contract will now have to go out to tender, thieves have again been in the news, this time stealing lambs,  and on Camposol, police were lucky enough to be in a corner where the street lights were working and catch a crook in the act, along with his booty!

Spanish News

The Parot Doctrine continues to dominate the news as a flood of terrorists, sex offenders and murderers are released back onto the streets because of this ruling by the European Court of Human Rights. It’s hard to remain objective and constructive when reading about the anguish and fear of the victims and their families watching these convicted criminals gaining their freedom and hearing their voices questioning what are the rights of ordinary people to be protected from those who set out to maim and kill innocent people in their own private search for sexual gratification or political point of view. Not all are accepting the releases without protest, and there have been several incidents this week in which police have had to protect terrorists leaving jail from angry members of the public waiting outside.

There have also been attacks against political parties directly, with PP headquarters in the Basque country and UPyD both daubed with paint as a form of protest, while others have turned their attention to direct aggression, bins burnt out in support of hunger striking ETA terrorists.

The weather has turned colder this week, with heavy snow across many parts of the Spanish mainland, but the cooler weather also favours some sectors, the saffron harvest underway in central Spain.

Gibraltar has been back in the news with another row, this time Spain is accused of opening a diplomatic bag at the border, an accusation denied by the Spanish government.

Spanish tourism figures hit a record high this week, and Brits continued to top the spending league, amassing a total of 10.9 billion euros so far this year while on holiday in Spain.

There are many other Spanish news stories this week, which can also be accessed via the www.spanishnewstoday.com web, which has its own weekly mailer for those interested in a weekly news round-up.

Valencia Today www.valenciatoday.es

The story which grabbed the most headlines this week was the conviction of former Castellón province president, Carlos Fabra. He is better known to many expat readers due to his involvement with the Castellón airport project, which has attracted the derision of the international media due to its failure to open after multi million euro expenditure.  However, his conviction grabbed less headlines than the subsequent announcement that his conviction is to be appealed, but not by him, but by the Fiscalia itself who says that the sentence is too lenient.

Another story to catch media attention focused on the 64,000 people desperate for one of just 400 jobs paying less than 1000 euros a month working for the Valencia health service, a sign of just how little work there is in Spain today.

And the media were also interested in the subject of handbags which double up as knuckledusters, several examples of which have been identified as coming from the Valencia region.

Alicante also hit the headlines, identified as being the province with the highest volume of property sales to overseas buyers in Spain, 26% of all sales recorded nationally to international purchasers being in the Alicante province.

And Alicante continues to storm ahead in the tourism stakes, registering steady growth, 470 million euros spent in the region during October alone, by tourist visitors, nearly half of them British.

A major hail storm also turned the beaches near to Alicante white, creating a truly wintery landscape for those with mobile phones to catch the moment.

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