SIGNS OF THE TIMES

End to euro, yes to press, no to toll

Some commentators are daring to suggest that this Christmas might be the euro's last. Its future might be prolonged, however, if Portugal is hung out to dry along with Greece and Ireland. In that way the rot can be stopped before it reaches Spain. It certainly seems increasingly likely that Portugal will have to ask for a bailout from the other EU countries and the International Monetary Fund. If Spain were forced into such a position, this would be far more serious internationally, with consequences of global magnitude. Three very different scenarios are being talked about. A two-tiered euro might be formed, with France and Germany in the upper level. Otherwise, euro zone members might be forced into increased fiscal and political unity. A third scenario envisages Germany walking out and going back to the deutschmark. Those escudos tucked under the mattress might come in handy after all.

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The European Court of Human Rights has ordered the Portuguese Government to pay €83,999 to the newspaper Publico as compensation for violating the paper's right to freedom of expression. In 2001, Publico reported that the football club Sporting Lisbon owed €2.3 million to the taxman. Sporting Lisbon denied the claim and sued. The paper was acquitted of defamation. The decision was upheld by the Court of Appeal in Lisbon in 2006. The following year, the Supreme Court reversed the ruling and ordered the paper to pay compensation of €75,000. Publico then took the case to the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Yesterday it pronounced in favour of the paper saying that its report had sufficient factual basis and publishing it was in the public interest. One is tempted to pass comment, but perhaps not.

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The committee organising the campaign against the introduction of tolls on the A22 trans-Algarve motorway is planning a “surprise protest” sometime before Christmas. A further demonstration is promised for January. The committee is also planning to present a petition with 14,000 signatures to parliament in Lisbon. Two demonstrations have been held so far. Some Portuguese reason that tolls have to be paid on motorways elsewhere in the country, so why not in the Algarve? Protestors argue that tolls would push traffic on to the EN125, which cannot be regarded as a viable alternative route. Tolls would be to the detriment of the all-important tourist industry and many already hard-hit local businesses. The government intends to impose tolls from next April. To register disapproval, go to http://viadoinfante2010.blogspot.com

INSIDE ALGARVE

America enters the war on weevils

The United States is the latest country to become involved in the war against the red palm weevil. It will be interesting to see how the Americans fare, because all efforts to contain the weevil in the Algarve seem futile.

The weevil, the same beast that is drastically altering the scenery here, was discovered in two palms in a residential area of Laguna Beach, Orange County, California. The Department of Food and Agriculture said they were the first such cases anywhere in the US.

It is inconceivable that the weevil would have been confined to just two trees. As we well know here, infestation can go undetected for quite a while. By the time symptoms become visible, it's too late.

Ann Christoph, a Laguna Beach landscape architect and former mayor, knew a thing or two about the new illegal immigrants. “It is very serious because the weevil gets inside the trees and sucks the life out of them,” she said. “White fly just hangs around on the leaves of trees, but the weevil goes to the heart of the palms.”

Meetings were convened to discuss strategies for dealing with the new threat. Since then, things have gone quiet. Hopefully the Americans have managed to eradicate the problem in its infancy, but it might be over optimistic.

The Algarve is a paradise for the red palm weevil. California would be too - and on a far grander scale. Canary Island date palms, its favourite food, are an integral part of Southern California. The trees and dates are a multi-million dollar industry.

American investigators have concluded that the source of the Laguna Beach weevils was the international trade in live palms, even though importation of palms into the United States is prohibited. Same as in the Algarve.

Prevention and cure efforts here clearly amounted to far too little, far too late. It is unlikely that any American war effort could now be helpful to us.

The red palm weevil, known to the Portuguese as Gorgulho Vermelho and scientifically as Rhynchophorus ferrugineus, originated in south-east Asia. Its destructive powers greatly worried coconut palm growers in India more than a century ago.

The weevil's spread northwards and westwards hugely accelerated in the 1980s. It did not “work its way” across Asia or “find its way” into Africa as some reports would have us believe. It was irresponsibly transported by humans. Put simply, traders in pursuit of big profits imported trees to unaffected areas from well-known contaminated zones.

By 1985 the weevil had occupied Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. By 1990 it had reached Iran. Two years later, infected palm offshoots were exported from the United Arab Emirates to Egypt, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories.

The first weevils to cross the Mediterranean were carried in palms shipped from Egypt to the Costa del Sol in 1994. It was madness. The devastating nature of the pest was well known in Egypt, yet Spain had no importation restrictions in place at the time.

Two years went by before the Spanish government got around to imposing restrictions. Four years later the law was toned down. By then a lucrative trade in palms was flourishing across open EU borders.

The weevil had already spread from Andalusia to other areas of Spain, including Murcia, Valencia, Cataluña, the Balearic Islands and even the Canaries. It continued its European odyssey and turned up in force in Greece, Cyprus, Malta, France and Italy.

The EU Commission issued a belated directive banning importation from non-EU countries and demanding that all palms should travel with a phytosanitary certificate.

The high risk of the weevil entering the Algarve and the strict preventative measures needed to stop that happening should have been obvious to the Portuguese Government, the regional agriculture directorate and to local palm importers. Yet in 2007, infected trees were brought in from both Egypt and Spain without quarantine or any other impediment whatsoever.

The weevils quickly established themselves here. Municipal authorities, apparently oblivious to the problem, ignored infested trees right in the centre of towns and villages. Gormlessly, vulnerable new palms were actually added to roadsides and roundabouts.

The landscape right across the Algarve is now littered with dead and dying palms. Local battles are going on to save individual trees by setting traps, injecting and spraying, but the weevils are winning the war.

Containment efforts are expensive and ultimately pointless. Eradication is impossible until the last of the weevil's favourite palms has collapsed.

These trees were never in the Algarve in the first place. Why don't we stick to fostering indigenous plants that clearly enjoy it here?

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

Wild weather, bailout blues and pine crime

The wild winter weather is not confined to the northern half of Europe. Snow drifts are blocking many roads and isolated villages in Portugal. About 40,000 people were left without electricity yesterday because of thunderstorms, high winds and torrential rain. Civil protection workers were out dealing with landslides, fallen trees and flooded houses in the centre and north of the country. Lisbon and the Alentejo were also hit. Warnings have been issued about rough seas along the Algarve's southern and western coasts. Appalling weather conditions wreaked havoc at the weekend in Madeira and the Azores.

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The Guardian newspaper has reported that it is now virtually taken for granted in Brussels that Portugal will need a bailout. The paper said it has been told by two EU ambassadors that Portugal would need to be rescued “very soon,” despite repeated public statements to the contrary. "Portugal will need to be saved. The big issue is Spain," said another senior diplomat. The Reuters news agency is reporting this morning that euro zone finance ministers meeting today will be under pressure to increase the size of a 750 billion euro safety net for countries such as Portugal and Spain in order to halt contagion.

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Police have arrested more than 35 people and seized more than 50 tonnes of stolen pine cones in a month-long operation in the district of Santarém. Police say that pine cone thieves are usually agile, unemployed and with previous convictions for theft. Much of the thieving goes on up high in the trees in the dead of night. Legitimate pine nut collection and sales is a multi-million euro business in Portugal. Producers reckon that 15% to 20% of their crop is stolen each year.

INSIDE PORTUGAL

Call for new 'assassination' inquiry

Parliamentarians are demanding yet another inquiry into Portugal's most intriguing and enduring political mystery, the death of former Prime Minister Francisco de Sá Carneiro and his defence minister, Adelino Amaro da Costa.

Thirty years ago, on 4 December 1980, a light plane carrying the two politicians crashed soon after take-off from Lisbon Airport. They were on their way to a presidential election rally in Oporto.

Conspiracy theories about the cause of the crash persist despite no fewer than eight previous commissions of inquiry. Accidental death was the original official explanation. The crash was blamed on technical failure and pilot error, but many Portuguese remain convinced the plane was deliberately blown up.

Sá Carneiro was a founder of the Popular Democratic Party, which later became the Social Democratic Party (PSD). He had been prime minister for only 11 months when he boarded the aircraft, a Cessna 421, on that fateful night.

Eye-witnesses said they saw pieces falling from the plane moments after it took off. The strongest conspiracy theory suggests that Sá Carneiro and da Costa were the victims of an assassination plot connected to an arms-for-hostages deal and a rigged US presidential election.

The crash occurred the year after the revolution in Iran that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power. Fifty-two Americans were taken hostage when youthful Islamists stormed the US Embassy in Tehran in November 1979. The hostages were held for 444 days from 4 November 1979 to 20 January 1981. Following the spectacular failure of a US military rescue operation with eight US servicemen and one Iranian civilian’s dead, President Jimmy Carter resorted to diplomatic efforts.

Conspiracy theorists believe da Costa had information that senior Portuguese army officers were secretly passing arms to Iran as part of a plot by US Republicans to damage Carter's re-election campaign during this time.

Ronald Reagan and his vice-presidential candidate, George Bush Sr, were said to have struck a deal with the Iranian leadership to have the release of the hostages delayed until after the election in order to give them an electoral advantage.

It is thought that da Costa was targeted because he had uncovered evidence of a secret Portuguese army slush fund to be used for arms deals. He was allegedly killed to conceal evidence of the illegal arms movement through Portugal, which he was determined to stop.

Experts on IRA and ETA bombs have been among those suggesting a high-level campaign to conceal the truth.

After 30 years and eight commissions of inquiry, Portuguese parliamentarians of all parties are now being urged to demand a fresh inquiry in the hope that the truth will finally be revealed.

INSIDE ALGARVE

High hopes of royal honeymoon here

We wait with bated breath to learn from Buckingham Palace if Prince William and his finance Kate Middleton accept an invitation to spend their honeymoon in the Algarve.

The invitation has been sent by the Algarve Tourist Board via the British Embassy in Lisbon. It was personally conveyed by the president of the Tourist Board, Nuno Aires, to the retiring British Ambassador, Alex Ellis, at a dinner in the Algarve last week.

Neither the Foreign & Commonwealth Office nor Buckingham Palace will comment or say how many other such invitations have been received from around the world.

Several resorts and hotels in the Algarve have reportedly offered accommodation and facilities to the royal couple. No doubt they, along with the Tourist Board, are sincere in wishing William and Kate well and would do their very best to ensure an enjoyable time.

But a royal honeymoon in the Algarve is just wishful thinking.

The wedding is in Westminster Abbey on 29^th April. Okay, so the weather at the end of April and in early May in the Algarve is likely to be very pleasant. The countryside will be looking its best with windflowers abounding. Peace would normally reign in the post-Easter lull.

The arrival of the royal couple, however, would be accompanied by a veritable invasion of reporters and photographers, idolising fans and silly gawkers, not to mention perhaps a terrorist of two with paradise in mind.

Ensuring the couple's safety and seclusion would be a major problem, though not an insurmountable one bearing in mind the excellent job done recently by the security services during the NATO conference in Lisbon. Euro 2004 was another good example of how well the Portuguese police, working in conjunction with British security experts, can handle potentially boisterous hordes.

Obviously the hope in tourist circles here is that the royal honeymoon would boost the Algarve's image as a holiday destination. It's not a bad idea. A leading light in the local tourist industry called it “a good marketing iniative”.

But, frankly, it's a desperate one - and it isn't going to work.

For starters, it is highly unlikely that the second-in-line to the British throne and his gorgeous new wife would want to be so blatantly used for PR purposes. Secondly, lovely as the Algarve is, as a honeymoon destination for the likes of Prince William and Kate it is a bit tame. They might prefer somewhere a bit more exotic, well away from prying eyes, among wild animals other than Homo sapiens.

The Algarve is not virgin territory for the royal household. Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, came with her children and stayed in a private house near Lagos some years ago, but cut short her stay complaining of press intrusion.

Prince William knows the area a little bit having visited with a bunch of his chums on a stag week in 2005. His stay near Carrapateira on the West Coast was kept very hush-hush, but there is no way he could repeat that.

The invitation from the Tourist Board is a desperate one because, frankly, the regional tourist industry is in distress, if not a mess.

Astute insiders say the trouble is that we have not been able to keep up with the times. We're out-of-date. A great many tourists have moved on from the package holiday arrangements that served us so well in the '90s and up until the early years of the new millennium. As air travel became cheaper, people started venturing forth to new, emerging destinations.

The turnover in resorts and hotels in the Algarve was way down in 2008. The year 2009 turned out to be the worst in 15 years. It got worse still in 2010 and the expectation is that it will be worse again next year.

Let's not knock the Algarve Tourist Board and others in the struggling tourist sector for trying, but they will have to come up with a better initiative than asking William and Kate to drop by next spring.

PORTUGAL TODAY

Dream over, back to reality

More than anything, the football World Cup is about money. Portugal stood to earn loads of it had its joint bid with Spain succeeded in Zurich yesterday. Billions of euros were up for grabs. It was reckoned that the revenues for Iberia would have been six and a half times greater than the expenditure needed to host the event.

As it turns out, Iberia's bid was but a dream. With hopes for 2018 dashed, it's back to worrying about the economy today. And that hoary old question persists: will Portugal need a bailout or not?

Prime Minister José Sócrates still insists not. “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose,” he said after the announcement in Zurich. He was more upbeat on a possible bailout and the humiliation of having Portuguese financial affairs dictated by Brussels. The 2011 austerity budget with its tax rises and public sector pay cuts will do the trick, he believes.

German Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle says he doesn't think either Portugal or Spain will need a euro zone rescue plan. However, this runs counter to what many economists have been saying for weeks now, namely that it's not a question of if, but when.

"I hope the IMF does not turn to Portugal but I don't see this as an extraordinary problem," said Fernando Ulrich, chief executive of Banco BPI. "It is Germany that will decide if it comes, not the Portuguese government.”

If Portugal is deemed to need a bailout, many analysts believe Spain will inevitably be next. That would require a far mightier rescue effort.

The current economic plight of Portugal and Spain will be high on the agenda at the Iberian-American summit meeting in Argentina today and tomorrow. No doubt the Brazilian and other Latin American leaders will commiserate with those from Portugal and Spain over the failure in Zurich yesterday. This could be a good opportunity for the former colonial masters to pass around the hat.

PORTUGAL TODAY

2018 World Cup countdown

Ah well, you can't win 'em all. Someone had to lose. Dismay is sweeping through the Iberian peninsula with the announcement that Russia has clinched the right to host the 2018 football World Cup.

The decision by the executive committee of FIFA in a secret ballot in Zurich this afternoon will come as a big disappointment too in England, Holland and Belgium.

The Portugal/Spain bid was well-thought out and highly professional but it apparently lacked the appeal that Russia brought to bear.

Spain, of course, was the senior partner in the Iberian bid, but Portugal's experience in hosting Euro 2004 would have brought added expertise to the mega-event in 2018.

Together the two nations were able to highlight the fact that they have a vast amount of necessary infrastructure already in place, plus great experience in handing large numbers of visitors. “We could organise a World Cup next month if necessary,” Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said in Zurich this morning.

It wasn't enough. Russia are the victors.

The FIFA executives had plenty of time prior to this week to study the rival bids, but here's how the day of decision unfolded.....

The X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing arn't a patch on this. Portugal and Spain have put in a joint bid to hold the football World Cup in 2018, but they are up against formidable opposition: Russia, England and Holland/Belgium. A 22-member panel of FIFA executives will make their decision in Zurich this afternoon. Everyone says it's too close to call. Yesterday, Russia seemed to be the favourites. Portugal/Spain are said to be "quietly confident". England have a strong bid too. As David Beckham has so aptly put it, the winning goal is sometimes scored in the final minutes of a game. This morning, each of the contenders, startring with Holland and Belgium, makes a final 30-minute presentation.

9.0am - Portugal and Spain prepare to start their final presentation. One of their strongest points is that in times of austerity they have much of the necessary infrastructure already in place. For example, between them they have 21 top stadiums.

9.40am -  Portugal/Spain conclude their strong final presentation. If they or any of the other contenders do not get sufficient initial votes, it may go to a second round of voting.

10.05am - England presentation starts. The big guns in the England delegation include David Cameron, Prince William, David Beckham and Sir Bobby Charlton. It is thought unlikely that England or any of the other contenders will get the magic figure of 12 votes in the first ballot. If not the lowest scorer will be out and it will go to a second round.

10. 38am - England's 30-minute presentation, kicked off by Prince William, was very slick indeed. David Cameron and David Beckham were outstanding. You have to say, too, that much of the presentation was delivered with the sort of emotion and passion one normally associates with Latins.

11.0am – Russia's bid started slowly but has steadily gained momentum over the past two years. Despite Prime Minister Putin's decision not to show up in Zurich, many regard Russia as the most likely winners today. Their final presentation is about to start.

11.45am - The four presentations are now over. The Netherlands and Belgium were first off this morning but their assertion that “small is beautiful” is unlikely to sway the 22-member FIFA panel. It was a lively and entertaining presentation compared with that from Portugal and Spain. Led by President José Luis Rodrigues Zapatero, the Iberian presentation noted that the peninsula has 50 modern airports, is used to annually handling 70 million visitors and can boast 300 days of sunshine a year. England's was a much brighter and more polished performance, full of glitzy characters. Russia put on a competent show and tried to woo the judges by emphasising that Russia is entering a new era of openness to the world. Many would say that England won this final phase of the competition, but Russia and Portugal/Spain are certainly not out of it.

The nation to be given the opportunity of hosting the 2018 World Cup will be named at about 3.0pm.