The Almaria Herald

“The truth, carefully.”

Business

Fuel vote returns to a Chamber shadowed by missiles and quarantine

The reserve comes to a vote on Monday, and every element around it — corridor, tariff, Subcommittee — has been set aside for afterwards.

By By V. Aldama·2 min read

Continued — see The Thread: fuel-stabilisation-reserve →

The Chamber of Commerce reconvenes Monday to the sealed Fuel Stabilisation Reserve, and it does so in a week that has rearranged every assumption beneath the vote. Overnight naval intercepts in the Eastern Reaches, reported by the Foreign Ministry in a statement that ran to six lines and no more, suggest that missile and drone activity in the shipping lanes carrying Almarian fuel has passed from intermittent to sustained. Underwriter surcharges on southern-corridor hulls, already circulated at twelve to eighteen per cent, are now understood by two Chamber members to be nearer the upper bound.

Don Cordoba, who chairs the Chamber and who has spent the week in the quieter work of the harbour and the encrypted line, has made no public statement on the reserve since Tuesday. Those who have sat with him describe a man disinclined to drama and unwilling to let Monday's sitting be conducted as anything other than the vote it is. The accessory business — the Cardenal's request for a Maritime Safety Subcommittee, the Northern Tariff file, the register of merchant hulls still riding at anchor off the Vella — has been gathered into a single folder and set aside for Tuesday.

Cardenal Marín's request that the Subcommittee sit before the fuel vote has been acknowledged by the Chamber clerks. It has not been scheduled. The Cardenal, who does not press, has not pressed.

The Foreign Ministry's warning that a prolonged disruption could drive domestic fuel prices up by as much as eight per cent before the summer is the kind of figure that tends, in Almarian commercial memory, to be an opening bid. The Commerce Hall's assessment, circulated privately on Wednesday, puts the range higher if the corridor surcharges hold through June.

Foreign Minister Vidal will convene the Cross-Party Maritime Security Committee at the Palau de Govern on Thursday next. It is understood that the Prime Minister will not attend in person. The Chamber, for its part, will have voted by then.

(continued on p. 1)

Society

Estrella de Llevant held at the breakwater; three dead, boarding team aboard

The passenger ship from the Canaries is held in quarantine anchorage with three dead, as the Vella absorbs a second shipboard illness in a week.

By By the Port desk·p. 1

Politics · Crown

Don Rafael reads discipline; Renko answers from the steps

Two statements from the same stone steps, four hours apart, mark the week's only contest of argument.

By By the Politics desk·p. 2

Religion

Cardenal reads the Estrella's crew at Sunday intercessions

The Primate will name the Estrella's eleven alongside the correspondents, and has not repeated his request that the Subcommittee sit before Monday.

By By the Religion desk·p. 3

Opinion

The week the vote became the week

By V. Aldama

It is not often that a Chamber sitting is stripped so thoroughly of its accessory business. Monday's vote on the Fuel Stabilisation Reserve, when it was first put on the order paper a fortnight ago, was to have been the minor movement in a fuller programme — the tariff file, the Subcommittee's convening, the quieter instruments by which the Commerce Hall tends to its corridor. One by one, these have been lifted off the day and set on the day after.

Continued →

Gossip from the Vella

¶A certain Nationalist rhetorician was observed rehearsing the word 'discipline' in the looking-glass at the Cámara Baja barbers before delivering it to the steps; the barber, a man of few opinions, is said to have counted seven repetitions.

¶The Foreign Minister's note to the northern bloc has been translated into three languages and acknowledged in none; the Palau's translators, one hears, are being kept on for the weekend.

¶An envelope addressed to a certain Opposition Leader was delivered this week to the wrong office on the Carrer del Consolat and returned unopened — though not, those who handle such things tell us, unread.

Classifieds

· WANTED — Experienced clerk for maritime underwriter, Moll de Ponent. Discretion essential. Apply Box 44, this paper.

· FOR SALE — Complete Cordoba-bottled 1962, twelve cases. Estate circumstance. Enquiries at the Athenaeum porter.

· LOST — Grey cat, vicinity Sant Joan, answers to Bartolomé. Reward offered by the almoner's office.

Obituaries

Sra. Elvira Montcada i Ribes

Ninety-one; of Almaria Vella; widow of the shipwright Joan Montcada; last of the women who kept the Moll de Ponent chandlery through the lean years. Rosary Saturday at Sant Joan.

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