Stolen Motril Mangos........

Agrojete SL sufre el robo de 800 kilos de mango, de su finca en Motril en el Pago de las Zorreras, con más de 8.000 árboles

Carta de Agrojete SL tras serle robados 800 kilos de mango:

Agrojete S.L. posee una finca plantada de mangos en el Pago de las Zorreras de Motril de unos 8.000 árboles aproximadamente.

Hemos observado que entre el domingo 25 y el lunes 26 de Agosto nos han robado aproximadamente unos 800 kg de mango variedad osteen siendo el primer año de cosecha de esta finca, pues se plantó hace 3 años.

Estamos muy preocupados ante el inicio de campaña contra estos robos y así lo hemos denunciado ante la Policía Nacional, Policía local y Guardia Civil de Motril; esperando hagan su labor para frenar los robos en dicha finca en la cual llevamos invertidos más de 400.000€ y tememos lo peor de no poder recolectar parte de nuestra cosecha.

Por lo dicho y expuesto requiero a los cuerpos de seguridad de Motril una respuesta rápida y eficaz para frenar a los ladrones ya, de lo contrario tomaremos nuestras propias medidas y volveremos a denunciarlo cuantas veces sea necesario para que se ponga fin a estas sustracciones de frutas de dicha finca.

Firmado: José Antonio Vallejo Franco Gerente de Agrojete S.L.



SDL free internet translation.....

SL Agrojete suffers from the theft of 800 kilos of mango, on their farm at Las Zorreras, Motril, from more than 8,000 trees.

Letter of Agrojete SL after be stolen 800 kilos of mangos:

Agrojete S. L. possesses an estate  planted with mangoes in  Las Zorreras, a suburb of  Motril, of approximately 8,000 trees.

We have noticed that between Sunday 25 and Monday, 26 August we have had stolen approximately 800 kg of mango 'osteen' variety being the first year of harvest on the estate since was planted 3 years ago.

We are very concerned about before the start of the season against these thefts and so we complained to the National Police, local police and Civil Guard of Motril; waiting to do their work to curb the theft in the estate in which we have invested more than €400,000 and fear the worst for not being able to collect part of our harvest.

What has been said by Jose and exposed to the security forces of Motril a rapid and effective response to stop the thieves already, otherwise we will make our own measures and we will return to denounce it as many times as necessary to put an end to these subtractions of fruits of the farm.


Signed:    José Antonio Vallejo Franco Gerente de Agrojete S.L.

The building plans for over 8,000 homes have been put on hold in Motril.....

PLANS for building more than 8,000 homes in Motril have been put on hold.

The new Plan Litoral law passed by the Andalucian Government is preventing any house from being built bringing negative consequences to the local economy.
 
Originally designed to protect the coastline environment, the Plan Litoral forces Andalucian towns to immediately adapt the Andalucian Urban Development Plan (POTA).
That means many of the 8,773 houses planned to be built in Motril have been ruled out by the POTA even though they are in the General Plan for Urban Development (PGOU) passed by the council in 2004.

Only 1,818 of these houses have been built and the remaining ones, even though only off-plan, have been cancelled with no possibility of amendment.

On top of that, new projects can’t be passed as the plots they would supposedly be located in are officially ruled out by the POTA.

The Motril town council has complained about this situation as it considers it is seriously damaging the local economy.
“It is a contradiction to have the regional government cancelling plans that it previously passed,” said Infrastructures Management deputy Nicolas Navarro.
“The Junta de Andalucia should be more flexible in this economic crisis,” he added.

Gibraltar - Artificial Reef & Spain's Retaliation At the Border......

Trevor Bickerstaff

The Rock of Gibraltar - 1862 showing Windmill Hill Barracks, O’Hara’s Tower and the Spanish mountains in the distance

A comparison of Lee's painting and Firth's photograph of the same subject. Both were probably created on more or less the same dates.

  http://gibraltar-intro.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/chapter_2211.html

Spanish fisheries chart steers clear of British waters.........

A screen shot of the Junta de Andalucia website showing Spanish designated shellfish fisheries near Gibraltar in red and green. None of them overlap into British Gibraltar territorial waters. The artificial reef at the heart of the current dispute with Spain is outside the nearest fishery, known in Spanish as a ‘caladero’. Under Spanish law, commercial fishing can only be conducted in such areas.

Maps freely available on the Junta de Andalucia’s official website show that shellfish fisheries designated by Spain in the Bay of Gibraltar clearly respect the boundaries of British Gibraltar territorial waters.

The fisheries, known as ‘caladeros’ in Spanish, are the only zones where Spain allows commercial fishing but stop clear of British waters.

The revelation will cast doubt on Spain’s claim that it is acting to protect the interests of Spanish fishermen in the current dispute.


When the Gibraltar Government created an artificial reef off the runway a fortnight ago, Spain complained that the 70 concrete blocks had destroyed a traditional Spanish shellfish fishing ground.

But although at least one Spanish trawler routinely raked the area for clams, the site of the reef in British waters is well outside the nearest fishery designated by the Junta de Andalucia.


Gibraltar and the UK have maintained throughout that Spanish actions at the border and in other spheres are motivated less by fishing than by politics and the underlying sovereignty claim.

Raking the seabed for shellfish in British waters is illegal under Gibraltar’s nature protection laws.




BOUNDARY LINES

The maps on the Junta website show that the nearest designated Spanish shellfish fishery ends north of the port of La Linea breakwater.

By contrast, the Gibraltar reef is inside British waters south of that same breakwater.

Spain does not recognise British jurisdiction of that area of sea but even so has not designated the site of the reef for commercial fishing.

Under Spanish law, fishing is only allowed within designated ‘caladeros’. That means that even if this was a stretch of Spanish sea, commercial fishing would not be allowed there.

In fact the nearest designated Spanish fishery in the Bay of Gibraltar, known by the Junta as Bahía de Algeciras II, ends on the northern boundary of the area of sea claimed by Britain.

The same is true on the east side of the Rock, where the shellfish fisheries designated by Spain end north of the runway on the edge of British waters.

In other words, irrespective of jurisdiction, there are no designated Spanish shellfish fisheries in British Gibraltar territorial waters.

That means that Spanish fisherman cannot legally rake for clams in these waters, whether under Gibraltar law – which applies – or Spanish law, which does not. 


 SPANISH DIPLOMACY
Yesterday a senior Spanish diplomat insisted that the current dispute would not end until the artificial reef was removed from waters off Gibraltar.

Ignacio Ibañez, director general for foreign affairs at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, made the claim even as he denied that the tight border controls were retaliation for the reef.

“On the fisheries it’s very clear, you have to take out these blocks from the sea,” he told the BBC in an interview.

“Our request is not going to the Gibraltarian authorities, our request is going to the UK…”

Gibraltar has insisted from the outset that the reef was built for environmental reasons to regenerate an area of the seabed off the runway and Western Beach.

But this argument holds little sway with Spain, as Sr Ibañez made clear yesterday.

He said the area in question had been designated by both Britain and Spain as a designated EU nature protection site and that any activity in such an area required prior study and consultation.

“To build an artificial reef in an area where fishing is happening makes no sense,” he said.

“You create artificial reefs where you don’t have fish. You don’t create artificial reefs where fish are there and fishing activity is happening.”


 by Brian Reyes   -    15 August 2013
Gibraltar Chronicle

The Rock of Gibraltar - 1860 painting by Frederick Richard Lee, R.A. (1798-1879)

1862 - The Rock of Gibraltar - the view is from the ruins of the Spanish fort of Santa Barbara.


http://www.artrenewal.org/pages/artwork.php?artworkid=17470&size=large  

Following use of Gibraltar as a Smokescreen - The heat is back on Prime Minister Rajoy

Article by David Eade from Gibraltar's Panorama 

After Rajoy and Margallo’s recent attempts to use Gibraltar as a smoke screen to divert attention away from the corruption scandals in Madrid,  this week sees the Spanish Prime Minister back in the dock whether he likes it or not.
Not the dockyard of Gibraltar or even Rota but in the dock of the court of public opinion.
He would have been there anyway as this week the investigating judge in the Bárcenas corruption case will be questioning the PP’s secretary generals, past and present. However thanks to the Spanish daily El Mundo,   Rajoy is again under suspicion with questions asked over whether he has lied to Spain’s Parliament?

BOMBSHELL
In El Mundo’s Sunday edition it revealed that the former treasurer of the Partido Popular, Luis Bárcenas, who is currently in prison awaiting trial on corruption charges, cashed a cheque from the party in May of last year.
 It is a bombshell because Rajoy has categorically stated that at that time,  Bárcenas was no longer employed by the party.

The newspaper reproduced a photograph of the pay slip of Bárcenas dated May 2012 which shows that he received the sum of 18,257 euros.

The former PP treasurer is at the centre of a corruption scandal that has engulfed the ruling party with allegations of illegal payments to its politicians and officials.

The discovery of this payment put the embattled Spanish Prime Minister firmly back in the hot seat. He told Congress, Spain’s lower House of Parliament, on August 1 that after he won the general election in November 2011,  Bárcenas was no longer with the party.

The Partido Popular has reiterated that Bárcenas was no longer a member of the party from 2010 and that it had refused his request to rejoin after he had temporarily resigned as treasurer the year before. He had been granted leave of absence to try for a Senate seat and then been caught up in the Gürtel corruption case.

However El Mundo believes that after Bárcenas sought to be reincorporated into the Partido Popular an application was made to Social Security for him as a member of the senior management with an indefinite contract for which he would receive 14 payments plus the required legal retentions. His salary was over 255,000 euros a year. On this the Partido Popular had “no comment”.

Bárcenas, who was PP treasurer for two decades, is currently in prison accused of offences against the Spanish tax authority, money laundering, fraud and falsifying documents in the Gürtel corruption case. Gürtel also is centred on the PP and involves allegations that a network of businesses made illicit payments to the party’s politicians in return for contracts.

Bárcenas has testified before the investigating judge that the Partido Popular had hidden accounts in which monies received from companies in the construction industry were placed. He added that leaders of the party between 1991 and 2008 including Rajoy had received payments from these accounts.

Needless to say Rajoy and the rest of the leaders of the PP deny the existence of any hidden accounts or that they received any payments from Bárcenas. 
Bárcenas had accumulated around 48 million euros in Swiss bank accounts from his illicit activities.

Rajoy is on record as telling Congress that it had been wrong to have any confidence in Bárcenas but declared his innocence of having any knowledge of or receiving payments from his illegal accounts.

BADLY SHAKEN
The Spanish public’s belief and trust in the political class has been badly shaken over the corruption allegations and the support for the PP has dramatically collapsed.
 Rajoy is a leader under suspicion as he leads his country through a catastrophic economic crisis with the looming threat of Cataluña seeking independence.
The recent debacle over Gibraltar has caused ridicule for both Rajoy and Margallo coming in the same week as it was proposed that all Spanish workers should take a 10 per cent pay cut.

On Wednesday the secretary general of the Partido Popular, Maria Dolores de Cospedal, is due to appear before the judge investigating the Bárcenas case. Her predecessors Francisco Álvarez Cascos and Javier Arenas are due to testify this week also. Arenas was the PP’s candidate for the president of Andalucía at the last regional election.

The heat is going to intensify on Rajoy and the PP in the coming weeks and months.
A Transparency International survey showed that 86 per cent of Spaniards believed their politicians to be corrupt. The indications are that the 86 per cent are right.


13-08-13

What are the competing claims over Gibraltar?

By Vanessa Barford   BBC News Magazine
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23617910