Future uncertain for emblematic Huercal Overa building

The council of Huercal Overa has decided not to go ahead with the compulsory purchase of the Cuatro Torres building in the town. The plan to buy the building was initiated in 2001 but due to obstacles presented by the present owners and the fact the council no longer needs it for the use it intended to put it to, i.e. as an administrative building for the cultural activities in the municipality (these activities are now carried out in the offices of the town's new thatre) the decision has been taken to abandon the purchase process.

The Palacete de Cuatro Torres building is an impressive piece of nineteenth century architecture situated in the centre of the town directly in front of the town hall and its abandonment has led it to fall into a state of disrepair generally lamented by the town's inhabitants.

Wi-Fi installed in Valle del Este

The Valle del Este residential complex which covers an area of about 108 hectares has become a Wi-Fi internet hot spot. Now it is possible to connect to the internet in any of the more than 1,300 homes, 142 hotel rooms or 18 golf holes which make up the course. The system has been developed jointly by Sistelec and Ingenova and consists of several exterior SkyPilot nodes installed around the complex. The wireless network has several features such as the capability to support converged voice, data and video, permitting broad band internet and VoIP and Video IP functionality, traffic prioritization and the creation of Virtual LANs for dedicated services.

Turtles hatch successfully on Cabo de Gata beaches

In a project being carried out by the regional ministry for the environment and the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC – Higher Council for Scientific Research) 250 Loggerhead turtle eggs collected from the Cape Verde archipelago off the west coast of Africa were buried in three nests on beached in the Cabo de Gata natural park. Of the 250 eggs 247 hatched, a result which has been hailed as a resounding success by the scientists as normally less than half of this type of eggs hatch on the Cape Verde beaches from which they were collected.

After they hatched the young turtles were immediately captured to be taken to marine centres in Malaga and Cadiz where they will be kept in semi-freedom until they are a year old at which time they will be brought back to the beaches in Almeria to be released. The aim of the experiment is to see if the turtles will then return to these beaches to lay their own eggs when mature thus perpetuating the repopulation of the species in the sea off the coast of Almeria.

Loggerhead turtles (Carreta carreta), known in Spanish as tortuga boba (daft turtles), can reach weights of more than 100 kilos in as little as five years and it has been reported they can grow up to 364 kilos in weight and 1.1 metres in length. It is estimated they live 30 to 62 years in the wild.

Government cuts solar energy subsidies

The Spanish governments decision to cut back solar energy subsudues, a move which came into force on Octber 1^st, may actually help the solar energy sector in Andalucia. The government has decided to reduce by 27 per cent the tariffs paid for electricity generated in photovoltaic plants – something which should drive investors to the areas with most sunshine hours and therefore more cost efficient energy production, i.e. Andalucia. The new energy quotas will also favour rooftop installations over 'solar farms' on the ground.

The Spain has the second most powerful photovoltaic energy production sector in the world after Germany and the new regulations are aimed at making the sector profitable without relying on government subsidies by the year 2015 as well as saving the treasury a lot of money. The tariff paid for electricity generated by solar plants on the ground or on rooftops was 44 cents per kilowatt hour which will fall now to between 32 and 34 cents per kwhour. The annual photovoltaic power quota has been fixed at 400 megawatts; 265 for rooftop installations and 135 for ground installations. In the year 2007 alone 634 megawatts of potential photovoltaic power generation was installed. The higher quota for rooftop installations is intended to promote this kind of system as they are more efficient, producing energy close to where it is to be consumed thus avoiding losses derived from transporting the energy. The lower subsidies should also encourage research and development in the sector as cheaper panel production costs and greater efficiency will lead to higher profits.

World’s third largest photovoltaic plant opened in Almeria

The president of the Junta de Andalucia, Manuel Chaves, has inaugurated a photovoltaic power generation park in Lucainena de Las Torres. The plant has a generating potential of 23.1 megawatts peak making it the third most powerful in the world after the Solarpark "Waldpolenz" in Germany and the planta solar Fuente Alamo in Murcia. The plant has about 135,000 generation cells covering an area of 450,000 square metres and has meant an investment of 140 million euros for the German company New Energy Invest GmbH. The park had to be officially open and registered with the Spanish authorities before the end of September to guarantee that the electricity generated would be bought at the subsidised tariff of 41.75 cents per KW hour, as the government reduced the price paid for energy generated by this type of installation to 31 cents per KW hour on October 1^st.

The plant should generate 35 million KW/H per year which is the electricity consumed by about 9,000 average households. The coal fired power station in Carboneras has a generating potential of 860 MW, about 40 times that of the new photovoltaic plant, which results in the emission of some 6,300,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, meaning the new park could be thought of as avoiding the emission of more than 150 million kilos of CO2 into the atmosphere each year.

European Union encourages language learning

Ever considered learning Bulgarian? What about Maltese or Irish? When it comes to languages, the European Union offers plenty of choice: 23 official languages and more than 60 others widely used. But for all that linguistic diversity, only about half of EU citizens can hold a conversation in a second language. And that's a big problem in today's global economy.

A new policy paper from the European Commission calls for an EU-wide approach that starts from the position that learning other languages is a lifelong process – not one that ends with school. The goal is to create opportunities to learn languages later in life, in vocational and continuing education programmes, for example. Ideally Europeans would learn at least two languages besides their mother tongue. Foreign language skills are vital to a cutting-edge economy. According to an EU-commissioned study, many small and mid-sized firms are losing business because of communication barriers. Recruiters say they have a hard time filling jobs requiring foreign language skills.

The demand isn't just for English. With companies doing business around the world, there's a growing need for other languages, including Russian and German (for Eastern Europe), French (Africa) and Spanish (Latin America). Within the EU, the problem has become more pressing with the addition of 12 new member countries in recent years – more than doubling the number of official languages.

To promote the learning of foreign languages and the art of communicating between them, this year the European Commission is holding a translation contest for 17-year-olds. Any secondary school in Europe can apply - by registering by October 20th. Shortly afterwards, the schools that will participate in the contest will be randomly selected by the Commission. By November 12th, the selected schools must submit the names of up to four pupils, together with the language pairs they have chosen for the contest. The pupils are free to choose any pair from among the EU's 23 official languages. For best results, however, professional translators normally translate into their mother tongue or strongest language (the one they feel most comfortable in). The translations will be evaluated by professional translators at the European Commission and the winners invited to Brussels in 2009 for an award ceremony where they can meet each other as well as some of the EU translators.

More information at;

http://ec.europa.eu/translation/contest/

Almeria company present flexible solar panels

Solmeraya was formed only six months ago as a 'spin-off' company of the University of Almeria, with a 200,000 euro loan from the Agencia de Innovacion y Desarrollo de Andalucia (IDEA) (Andalucia Innovation and Development Agency), a regional government agency, as part of a government initiative to provide funds to commercialise new technologies developed in Spanish universities.

The product which Solmeraya is promoting is a second generation technology of photovoltaic cells which are flexible and weigh less than a tenth of traditional solar cells. The idea is to use these specially adapted cells in the agricultural sector to make covers for the small reservoirs dotted around the Almerian countryside, to put on barns and storage buildings and to even to be used to cover parts of greenhouses. Their use as water deposit covers has the added advantage of keeping the temperature of the water down, avoiding evaporation and the formation of algal blooms.

The company is has announced that its research is now in its last phase and they plan to start production by the end of October from provisional premises in Almeria, with plans to move to the new PITA (Almeria Innovation and Technological Park) soon. They already have two orders from companies in Almeria.

Solar cooking but no sun

The 'Cheff Tour 2008' which started with the summer solstice in June came to Padules last week to promote Almerian chefs, gastronomic tourism, healthy cuisine and 'ecological' cooking using solar ovens (when the sun shines). Padules was the fourth destination for the tour this year after passing through Tabernas, Almeria and Vera during the summer. The tour is organised by Castillo de Tabernas olive oil producer, the Asociacion de Cocineros Reposteros Indalo de Almería 'CRIA' ( the Indalo Almerian Association of confectioners and pastry cooks) and Silestone, one of the biggest manufacturers of artificial stone for kitchens in the world.

Sergi Arola, one of Spain's leading avant garde chefs whose skills won two Michelin stars for La Broche restaurant in Madrid, participated in the Almeria edition of the tour and has spoken of the enormous potential of solar cooking in Spanish cuisine.

The mayor of Padules, Antonio Gutierrez, said that the initiative had awoken expectation, curiosity and interest among the town's inhabitants and that traditional Alpujarra cooking is already an important tourist reference which could benefit from the use of clean and renewable energy and that restaurants in the Alpujarra are contemplating the installation of solar ovens, which, with the magnificent meteorological conditions of the area with a high number of hours of sun throughout the year, could lead to the creation of special dishes and could become a new tourist attraction for the area.

Albox parents want new home for music school

The parents and teachers students at the Conservatorio elemental de Musica de Albox, the Albox
elementary music conservatory, have complained to the town's mayor, Jose Garcia, about the unacceptable conditions the children have to study in after the council promised to move the conservatory this year. They claim that the mayor said last December that the conservatory would be housed in the new multiple uses building in the town for the 2008-2009 academic year. The mayor has responded to the parents, telling them that the new building is not suitable for use as a conservatory as it is not soundproofed and does not meet necessary safety requirements for this function.

The conservatory is currently housed in a building which is more than thirty years old and, according to teachers and parents, has not been maintained. They claim that it has problems with damp, that the electrical installation doesn't work with sockets that need to be hit to make them work and that the toilets are broken. The mayor himself has said that the building is in a lamentable state but that adapting the new multiple uses building so it could be used for teaching music would be very costly.

Turre to make new school bilingual

The Turre town council voted last week to start to take the steps necessary to make the town's new school bilingual in Spanish and English. The move is seen as something the town will benefit from given that a large proportion of its residents are British, and it will also allow the town to help meet the national ministry of education's target of closing the gap in foreign language skills between Spain and the rest of Europe.

Heavy rain leaves Mojacar residents cut off

Heavy rains over the weekend resulted in about fifteen people who live in the part of Mojacar known as Cuevas Negras being unable leave their homes when their only access road was flooded. The local police and council workers took three hours to solve the problem and clear the water from the road and repair the damage caused.

The Turre fire fighters were called out to Garrucha to pump water out of a house which was flooded by the rain and to help clear the water from a road next to the beach in Vera which was also flooded by the rainfall.

Albox to Fines motorway stretch to open in December

The provincial delegate for public works, Alejandra Rueda, has announced that the 7.9 kilometres of new motorway between Albox and Fines should be finished this December. This will be the first section of the 'marble motorway' to be opened to traffic after more than three years of construction. When complete the new motorway will be more than 90 kilometres long and will connect the A-7 motorway with the A-92N motorway which runs between Puerto Lumbreras and Guadix.

Bullet holes lead to drug arrests

The Guardia Civil in Huercal de Almeria were called in to investigate the appearance of bullet holes in the wall of a house in the town, one of the holes inside the bedroom of the home. Upon studying the trajectories and angles of the bullet impacts the investigating officers determined that the shots had possibly come from the house behind the one affected and decided to interview its inhabitants. On approaching the house the agents thought the shots had come from they observed a man leave the property carrying a bag of rubbish. After stopping and identifying the man the Guardia Civil inspected the bag he was carrying and discovered several shell cases of a calibre similar to that of the bullets recovered earlier. On questioning the man he claimed to know nothing of the contents of the bag. The Guardia Civil went on to examine a car belonging to one of the inhabitants of the house the shots had come from which was parked in the street. Inside they found two plastic bags containing what later turned out to be about 200 grammes of cocaine as well as 100 grammes of hashish and several pistol cartridges. With this evidence the Guardia Civil obtained a warrant to search the house where they found another smaller quantity of cocaine and 33 9mm cartridges. Three men were arrested.

Mystery fish deaths in Cuevas rowing canal

Seprona, the Guardia Civil nature protection service has had to recover more than twenty tonnes of fish which had appeared dead and floating on the surface of the Cuevas del Almanzora rowing canal. Samples of the fish recovered have been sent to the Almeria environmental office of the Junta de Andalucia to be analysed in order to discover what caused their death.

The rowing canal was constructed for the Mediterranean Games which were held in Almeria in 2005. It cost 12.8 million euros to construct and was ceded by the Junta de Andalucia to the Cuevas town council last year.

Macael campaigning for motorcycle safety

The risk of being killed in a motorcycle accident is 17 times higher than in a car accident and the most important piece of protection for motorcyclists is the crash helmet. This is the message that the local police in Macael are trying to transmit in the safety campaign currently running in the municipality. The age group which is most resistant to wearing a helmet is that composed of 14 to 16 year olds, whose habitual excuses include the fact that wearing a helmet is uncomfortable or unattractive or that they forgot it or lost it.

As part of their campaign the Macael police have bought a number of helmets which they are giving to young people who have been stopped (and fined) for riding a motorcycle or moped without the minimum obligatory protection. The helmets are given freely with the police making clear to the youngsters that if they are stopped again for the same offence the fine will be considerably higher. The town council has also started a publicity campaign with radio advertisements which highlight the consequences failing to wear a helmet can have.