A report issued by the Almeria Farmers Association (COAG) together with consumer associations UCE and CEACCU confirms that in 2009 the price difference between what farmers sold produce for and the price consumers had to pay had increased six-fold. Especially in produce grown in Almeria green houses such as courgettes, aubergines, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, melons and watermelons.

The price of Almeria produce has increased by an average of 620 per cent while in the rest of the country the increase is of 490 per cent.

Almeria airport is to improve its security measures by introducing state-of-the-art scanning and surveillance technology, it was announced last week.

Eight million euros to be spent on improvements

Spanish airport authority, AENA, announced that eight million euros will be spent on the airport during 2010. The first improvement is designed to help control vehicles entering the airport’s restricted area, which gives direct access to the aircraft loading areas and runways. A guard room for security staff is scheduled for construction which will be equipped with a scanner system, allowing the contents of vehicles to be checked before they enter the restricted area.

A SUCCESSION of storms hit the province during the festive season, making this Christmas one of Almería’s wettest on record.

Roads in the municipalities of Ohanes, Viator, Pulpí and Serón had to be closed due to the heavy rainfall, which also caused large boulders to fall from cliffs along the El Cañarete coastal road between Almería city and the town of Aguadulce.

At two points the boulders reached the road but the prompt action of emergency services prevented the road from being closed.

His body was found floating in the sea off La Cala del Moral on Monday

A body found floating in the sea off La Cala del Moral, Rincón de la Victoria, on Monday has been identified as a man who was reported missing in Almería province earlier this month. Antonio Miguel Sánchez, aged 48, disappeared from Vera on 6th December.

A breathalyser test showed him to be 10 times over the limit

It’s been revealed that a Lithuanian lorry driver resident in Águilas, Murcia, was arrested in Almería province last Thursday after driving his vehicle on the wrong carriageway of the A-7 motorway. A breathalyser test found him to be 10 times over the legal limit, which, for professional lorry drivers, is 0.15 mg.

He fell from the fifth floor when his rope of sheets of gave way

An inmate from the provincial prison in El Acebuche admitted for treatment to Torrecárdenas Hospital in Almería City is in Intensive Care after falling from the fifth floor while trying to escape the building. He made his attempted escape in the early hours of Tuesday, falling when a knot gave way on one of the sheets he had tied together to form a rope.

A court ruled the ONCE organisation must pay him his 25,000 Euro

The High Court in Madrid has ordered the ONCE organisation to pay up for a winning ticket whose owner accidentally washed it in the machine with his trousers. The ticket was reduced to three small pieces of pulp after it was left in the trouser pocket and put through the cycle in the machine, with all remaining visible, Ideal newspaper said, a tiny piece with the ONCE colours of green and yellow and the letters ‘ON’. The Madrid court ruled this to be sufficient to show that the scrap was, indeed, the remains of an ONCE ticket.

The first flights will be within 3 months once the contract has been confirmed

A new air link between Almería and Sevilla is to be operated by Air Nostrum, a route which has been authorised as a public service and which will be funded by Andalucía’s regional government.

The monthly “shopping basket index” -the test of inflation of prices of goods found in the average family’s shopping basket- has shown that prices in Almería have rised more than in the rest of Andalucia in October.

Prices across the province rose an average of 0,9% over September, with the biggest increase being in clothes, a whopping 14%.

A FAMILY have been awarded 45,000 euros after having to put up with 15 years of noise pollution.

The Spanish family lived next door to a pub in Pulpi, Almeria, that played music louder than 56 decibels around the clock, often failing to close at the time it was meant to.

The High Court in Andalucia ordered Pulpi council to pay the family compensation because they had failed to measure the noise levels from the bar.

A French patrol boat rescued another patera off the coast of Murcia

A boatload of illegal immigrants were rescued early on Thursday as they were sailing adrift and in danger of sinking six miles off the south western shore of Punta de la Polacra in Cabo de Gata. There were 12 male adults on board the five metre boat, which was in such a bad condition after the trip by sea that it could not be towed by the Civil Guard vessel which found them after the migrants were spotted by the SIVE electronic surveillance system.

Police believe the bones could have been buried there up to 50 years ago

Mystery surrounds, for the moment, the identity of remains found beneath a house in the centre of Almería in the La Chanca area of the city.

Workmen working at the site of the semi-ruined house on Calle Francisco first found a skull beneath the flooring, and then came across other human bones, some of them so deteriorated that parts of them had turned to dust.

Sales increased by 16 per cent in the second quarter of 2009 compared to the first

DATA released by the Spanish National Statistics Institute reveal that for the first time in many months, the property market in Almeria Province may be showing signs of recovery.

Transactions within the housing market increased during the second quarter of 2009 when compared to the first by 16 per cent.

Nicolás Uclés was released with charges after appearing before the judge

The F.A.F. Andalucía Football Federation has named José Martín Doblado to take over from Nicolás Uclés, the former President of the Almería Football Federation who was relieved of his duties following his arrest last week on a child pornography charge.

The 60 people affected in Albánchez will not be able to go home for at least two weeks

60 people evacuated from their homes after a landslide in Albánchez on Wednesday will not be able to return home for at least two weeks, while emergency work takes place to contain the slip and ensure the 21 houses are safe.

As the blaze in the Sierra de Cabrera is brought under control 12 villages are without water

Residents of 12 villages in Almería are in for a complicated weekend with the forest fire in the Mojacar area leading to a breakdown in the water supply distribution in the area.
80,000 people live in the villages, a number which is much higher in the summer, and they are all expected to be without water for the whole weekend, with supplies hoped to be restored on Sunday.
Meanwhile people who were evacuated from their homes because of the fire on Thursday afternoon are starting to return home as the fire in the Sierra de Cabrera, between Turre and Mojácar is brought under control.

All 16 passengers are reported to be in good health

The 16 passengers rescued from an open-topped patera boat off the coast of Níjar on Sunday night were all said to be in good health on reaching port in Almería in the early hours of Monday. The Zodiac boat was detected by the SIVE electronic surveillance system shortly after 11.30 pm, some three miles off the eastern shores of San José, and they arrived at the port approximately two hours later.

They are the English Railway in Almería and the Torre del Rayo in Carboneras

The huge iron structure known as the ‘Cable Inglés’- the ‘English railway’ at Almería port is to be restored with almost 2 million € of government funding. This raised piece of railway track was once used to unload minerals onto ships, and was built between 1902 and 1904 by the company, The Alquife Mines, to the design of a Scottish engineer named by Ideal newspaper as John Ernest Harrison.

108 immigrants have been intercepted in the area in just 24 hours

Five patera small boats carrying 79 immigrants were intercepted on Saturday off the coast of Almería.

A total of 7 boats carrying 108 immigrants arrived on the Almería coastline in the 24 hours to Saturday.

AFTER two and a half years of construction, and an 11 million euro investment, the new departures terminal at Almeria Airport has finally opened. The 52 Air Nostrum passengers headed for Barcelona at 7:10am on July 1 were the first members of the public to make use of the new 3,500 square metre terminal.

With this new building, the previous 17 check in desks have been increased to 21 with another six still to come after the second phase of the terminal’s expansion which is due to be completed by mid 2010.