Throat cut outside Barraca disco in Sueca, Valencia.

24 year old woman has died after having her throat cut in a fight with another woman in her 30’s outside a discotheque in Sueca, Valencia.The owners of the Barraca disco where it happened have given their condolences to the family of the victim, and issued a statement expressing their ‘tremendous consternation’ at what had happened, and underlining that the disco staff are collaborating fully with the police to try and establish exactly what took place.It happened around 7am on Sunday morning and reports say both women were local residents in the La Ribera area. The SAMU health team called to the scene could do no more than confirm the death.

Official limousine stolen in Spain

Ulla Schmidt flew to Alicante at her own expense, but her driver drove the nearly 2410km journey in her $196,000 limousine to Spain from Berlin to ferry her to and from official meetings with German retirees in southeastern Spain.

"Her chauffeur's accommodation was broken into and the car keys were stolen," said a Health Ministry spokesman.

Germany's Social Democrat (SPD) health minister came under pressure to explain why she took her official limousine, complete with chauffeur, to Spain where the vehicle was stolen.Opposition politicians demanded Ulla Schmidt provide more details about the affair.The incident could damage the SPD who trail Merkel's conservatives by more than 10 points in opinion polls in the run-up to a September 27 federal election.

Increased usage of antidepressants and tranquillizers

In Spain, 24 percent of women use antidepressants and 31 percent use tranquillizers -- sometimes used to help people sleep, researchers said. Lead author Sonsoles Perez of the Las Aguilas Health Centre in Madrid and colleagues studied 121 women in Madrid ages 25-65 using family dysfunction surveys and the additive scale used to evaluate social readjustment. The psychopharmaceuticals analyzed were antidepressants and benzodiazepines -- sedatives, anxiety reducing, anti-convulsant or muscle relaxants. Although one might think that family conflicts lead to greater consumption of psychopharmaceuticals among women, we did not find any such relationship Perez said in a statement. Some people with family, work-related or financial problems do not feel able to tackle their problems and fall back on the use of drugs.The study, published in the journal Atencion Primaria, also found in 78.6 percent of cases, these drugs are prescribed in primary health centers. The diagnosis is recorded in the patient's medical records in 64.5 percent of cases, with the primary causes being depression at 11.6 percent, anxiety at 9.9 percent and 3.3 percent of insomnia. The researchers found benzodiazepine use increases with age, but there was no similar finding with antidepressant use.

Diamond robbery was masterminded by a trio of British youths

Diamond robbery was masterminded by a trio of British youths, it can be revealed.The gang – who have been charged with more than 30 robberies – regularly took ‘a civilised’ full English breakfast at 4pm each afternoon, near their Coin home.The dangerous gang – who had weapons in the garage of their rented Sierra Gorda property – were however, always impeccably polite at their regular meeting spot Leslie’s Bar.“They were always very well-mannered,” a waitress told the Olive Press. “I liked them, so I was surprised when they were arrested for these crimes.”
The group – which includes one woman – have been arrested over an incredible 30 or more robberies and burglaries, amassing a booty of luxury items over the last few years.The group – who kept a series of dangerous Staffordshire bull terrier dogs at their home – came from England, Wales and Ireland.According to sources they had lived in the area for up to two years, renting luxury detached villas in the Coin and Alhaurin el Grande area.They lived a ‘low key’ lifestyle, but wore designer clothes, expensive watches and other top accessories. mijas diamond robbery but police became suspicious of their extravagant way of life following a 30,000 euro robbery at the Mijas Diamond and Jewellery Centre.They had previously visited the jewellers and carefully sketched plans of the layout of the shop, before raiding a few weeks later.After police obtained a search warrant for their rented home they found designer furniture and other items, including a 9,000 euro Bang & Olufsen TV, and a stolen Volvo in the garage. They also recovered a selection of weapons.
According to a police spokesman the robberies and burglaries were well planned and executed.He said: “In the Mijas robbery the gang posed as tourists on an excursion. The day of the robbery they dressed up as building workers and erected barriers in the street, before smashing the shop window.”They are also alleged to have raided private homes in the area, while the Volvo was stolen from a Chinese resident in Coin at gunpoint.The downfall of the gang was keeping the best of what they stole and only selling on the rest.Police believe the gang may have had three more accomplices.

e-mail on the Costa del Sol,can seriously damage your wealth

If you can’t wait to surf the Web or check your e-mail on the Costa del Sol, a few words of advice: Think twice about it. Or maybe three or four times.Roaming with your BlackBerry or iPhone abroad to simply make voice calls will cost you an arm and a leg. Using it to surf the Web or send e-mail could cost you your whole body, with bills running into the hundreds of dollars. Early iPhone users learned this the hard way; AT&T forgave some of the most outrageous bills and cautioned users to turn off the automatic e-mail checking that was eating up data usage.But even if you use your smartphone to check e-mail and send photos manually, you could be headed for trouble. And the problem is made worse by the skimpy information provided on the Web sites of the two main GSM wireless providers in the United States: AT&T and T-Mobile. (GSM is the predominant system used in Europe. Sprint and Verizon use CDMA, and most of their phones will not work in Europe.)Both companies’ Web sites state the cost to use data when roaming. But it’s priced in megabytes, a measurement that means nothing to most people. (Can you imagine if your wireless plan told you how many MB of data you could use, rather than how many minutes you had?)How much data you use to send a text or visit a Web site depends on whom you’re asking. T-Mobile’s site says that a text message uses about 3KB, and visiting a Web site will eat up between 250 to 500 KB a page, depending on how many images are on the site.AT&T’s site does not state an equivalency between Web-page access and the amount of data used, although a spokesman said that the company would add that information soon. According to AT&T, visiting a Web site could use 50 to 75 KB a page and checking three e-mail messages could eat up 60 KB

Marbella constructor José Ávila Rojas, arrived at the prison in Albolote

Marbella constructor José Ávila Rojas, arrived at the prison in Albolote on Wednesday morning to complete an eight year sentence for four counts of tax fraud. His appeal against last year’s sentence from the Granada provincial court was turned down by the Supreme Court last month, and it left no other means open to try and avoid entering prison.The fraud relates to the purchase and sale of two properties in Marbella, Málaga province, at the beginning of this decade, calculated as amounting to 3.5 million € in unpaid IVA and income tax. The sentence from the Granada court last summer also ordered the businessman to pay a fine of 10 million €.
EFE reports he was due to spend Wednesday in the prison’s admissions department before being assigned to a cell at some stage on Thursday.

Beach sewers and pumping stations that are still in use on the Western Costa del Sol.

Old concrete structures covered in graffiti they have to take a detour around while strolling along the shore are sewers and pumping stations that are still in use. And they may never learn, unless perhaps just after a spell of rough weather, that beneath their feet is a fragile network of pipes. Some of these structures have been there for 40 years, but it is only now that serious plans have been made to remove them. After all the authorities are not short of reasons. The sewers and pumping stations are not only an inconvenience to bathers but they are also in a kind of legal limbo as they occupy the strip known as the public maritime domain protected by the Coasts Law. They also complicate beach regeneration work and are in places so fragile that breakages and sewage leaks onto the beaches are not uncommon.
The plans for the first phase of the 60 million euro scheme have already been drawn up by Acosol, the water company that belongs to the Mancomunidad de Municipios on the Western Costa del Sol.

No official figures for the number of Britons going home, because nobody is counting.

The change from the peseta to the euro caused inflation that ended the "cheap living" forever.

No official figures for the number of Britons going home, because nobody is counting. But Spain is certainly counting its unemployed, up to 17% with more than four million out of work. And that has a painful effect for the Britons who prospered during Spain's boom times. Jim and Caireen Candlin met in Spain, married in Gibraltar and decided to raise their young children on the Costa Brava.Estate agent Marion Atkins is quitting Spain to run a pub in Britain Aberdeen-born Caireen says: "I think Spain is ideal for bringing up children. That's why I'm staying here while he goes back to the UK." Jim is heading home to retrain as an electrician after building work dried up. He says: "We've both worked for firms that have gone bust in the past year. "When we couldn't pay the rent one month and had to phone our parents for help, we realised economically it wasn't working here. We couldn't carry on like that." So now the couple have decided to leave the area, and possibly the country.Like Jim and Caireen, Barnaby Griffin and his wife Rebecca have been forced to live apart by a search for work. Rebecca returned after two years in Orihuela Costa to do temping in London, while Barnaby stays on as a performer in the local bars. "All my friends our age are struggling," he says. "People talk about living the dream but all it seems to be is sunshine, cheap cigs and wine. This area had low wages anyway and we're fed up living hand to mouth."