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22nd January – 4th February 2015 Pet flight sponsor
Candelaria Hospital
Special feature
History
Make a difference
Designated Ebola centre
Wingate School
Teide snow wells
Pages 6 & 7
Page 8
Pages 14 & 15
Pages 20 & 21
Kilometre zero In October 2013, we were present at the beginning of a remarkable journey. A local British woman Carol Salisbury Chappell had been involved in helping a friend with transport to and from Candelaria hospital for treatment for cancer. Due to cutbacks, this was no longer available from the health service and severely ill people were faced with nightmare public transport journeys. One day she turned to her friend’s daughter Dácil and promised, “I’m going to get you a bus”. She put her money where her mouth was and started off the fund with a generous personal donation; 16 months later her dream has become a reality and a new 17 seater minibus is now available for the Spanish cancer association AECC to ferry patients to and from for their life-saving treatments. The public transport trips not only took more time, but were a nightmare for those patients feeling nauseous after some treatments and this special transport means they can now travel with people who are more sympathetic to their problems. AECC links with councils from Guía de Isora to Arico means practically door to door transport for those undergoing treatment can be arranged. Continued on page 2
Oil prospecting halted
Slick and span Oil giant Repsol has packed up its offshore drilling ship after they admitted that the exploratory bores off Lanzarote and Fuerteventura were unsuccessful. Given the way oil prices are moving, the wells would’ve had to have been very fine indeed to make it worth the costly extraction work, and this is not the case. They have not found a viable oil supply at all during their two-month trial drilling and the amount of gas found does not justify the expense of extracting it. So, after months of arguments and political hot air and backtracking, the drill ship has left. The explorations, which were authorised by the Spanish Government despite massive opposition in the Canaries, where the authorities have filed a string of legal challenges to block the work, have now been halted and the Rowan Renaissance drilling ship used since November 18 is to be redeployed off the coast of Africa. Sources at Repsol said that
Photo: www.rowancompanies.com
Cancer bus
The ship is now off Africa
a total of 750 personnel had been employed in the drilling work and the results were not a surprise given that the explorations had been given, “Only a 15-20 per cent chance of success”. “The analysis of the samples shows that, although there is some gas, it is insufficient in volume or quality to warrant extraction. Fur-
thermore, the layers of hydrocarbons located are too thin to be viable,” said the firm in a statement. The news has been welcomed by opponents of the search for oil off the Canaries, who have always maintained that a hypothetical oil industry would be a serious threat to the Islands’ tourism.
In the meantime, a new law will mean that the Canarian authorities will supply environmental impact studies on any future oil or gas extraction requests, which whilst they cannot forbid them as it is outside their legal area of competence, should mean a more balanced study than one carried out by a private company. Following the news announcement, Canarian President Paulino Rivero met with local representatives of environmental groups and representatives of the island councils of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura and declared, “The Canarian Government will continue the battle on all open fronts, legal, political, institutional and the EU, so that no petroleum company can drill again in the Canaries.” An agreement is to be set up with both the main Canarian universities to analyse how the test drills have affected the ecosystems of the islands. n