Mercadona Rocked As Own Label Linked To Canine Deaths

 Mercadona is in the middle of a public relations disaster after its ‘Compy’ own label dog food brand was linked to the deaths of several pets across Spain, after having caused kidney failure in the animals. . The deaths were initially recorded by pet owners in Andalucia, Murcia and Alicante, but new reports have claimed that similar cases have been found along the Costa del Sol. Several pet owners insisted that the deaths were caused after...

Blues legend Gary Moore died after drink binge

ROCK legend Gary Moore died after bingeing on enough alcohol to put him nearly eight times over the drink-drive limit, tests in Spain have revealed. The guitar ace (58) suffered a heart attack brought on by the massive amount of alcohol that he knocked back at the start of a sunshine holiday in Spain's Costa del Sol, the studies showed. No traces of any illegal drugs were found in his body. But he had 380mg of alcohol per decilitre of blood in...

Spanish government will try and secure the 'gold on the Rock'

 With the Odyssey gold back in Spain, the Spanish keep referring to more gold that remained in Gibraltar. It is being reported in Spain that the Spanish government will try and secure the 'gold on the Rock' through what they term a European order. They say that although Gibraltar likes to play a dual role, it is in fact part of the UK and thus Madrid is knocking on the UK's door to get them to urge Gibraltar to hand over the gold. Bilateral...

Tarragona village wants to grow marihuana to get out of the recession

 village in Tarragona has come up with a way to beat the recession. They propose to plant marihuana. A smokers’ club in the village of Rasquera and say the plantation would create jobs. They say they will not sell it, rather it will be for the use of the club members and also for ‘therapeutic ends’. A cannabis association in Barcelona that uses the drug for therapeutic reasons has offered to pay 36,000 € to the club and sign a deal with the...

Renounce your British Citizenship?

Britain ignores its citizens who live abroad. James Preston, a businessman in Spain angrily declares he will renounce his British citizenship. Yet he feels sick at feeling forced to do so. Why does he do it? He is denied representation at Westminster (the vote!) because he has lived outside of Britain for more than 15 years. He has fought before the High Court his demand to be represented as a Citizen in the British seat of power – the Parliament...

Spain and Morocco to establish joint police stations in Tangiers and Algeciras

 Spain and Morocco have agreed to open joint commissioners’ offices in Tangiers and Algeciras from May. The interior ministers from both countries gave the announcement on Tuesday in Rabat. Jorge Fernández Díaz and his Moroccan counterpart, Mohand Lanser, did little detail about the composition of these ‘centres of police cooperation’. Morocco is the first country outside the EU with which Spain has come to such an arrangement. There are already...

Four members of 'Anonymous' arrested in Spain

 National Police has arrested four members of the Anonymous collective in Spain as part of an international operation against cyber-crime. Two of them are currently in prison thought to be behind DDos attacks, and the other two have been released. They are allegedly linked to attacks on the UPyD webpage, as well as for revealing personal data from the GEOS security personnel. A man known as ‘Thunder’ or ‘Pacotron’ was F.J.B.D. arrested in...

Search for a lorry driver after man and his niece are found dead in Zafra

The Guardia Civil are searching for a lorry driver following a double homicide in Zafra, which they consider was the settling of scores. The family of the man shot dead, a businessman Manuel Borallo, along with his niece, Verónica Gordillo, say that the crime could have been committed by a lorry driver from Algeciras whose whereabouts are now unknown. It’s thought however that he could have been in Zafra when the crime was committed in an industrial...

Barclays Bank told by Treasury to pay £500m avoided tax

 Barclays Bank has been ordered by the Treasury to pay half-a-billion pounds in tax which it had tried to avoid. Barclays was accused by HM Revenue and Customs of designing and using two schemes that were intended to avoid substantial amounts of tax. The government has taken the unusual step of introducing retrospective legislation to end such "aggressive tax avoidance" by financial institutions. Tax rules forced the bank to tell the authorities...

UK photographer Paul Conroy out of Homs

 British Sunday Times photographer Paul Conroy has been evacuated from the besieged Syrian city of Homs and is in neighbouring Lebanon. He was smuggled out of the Baba Amr district on Monday with help from the Syrian opposition and Free Syria Army fighters, diplomats told the BBC. The whereabouts of the French Le Figaro journalist Edith Bouvier remain unclear. The two were wounded in an attack on a makeshift media centre last Wednesday. ...

Son-in-law of King Juan Carlos of Spain admits he defied orders in corruption trial

 The Duke of Palma, the husband of the King's youngest daughter Cristina, appeared in court in Majorca over the weekend, subpoenaed to give evidence in a case that has turned the spotlight on Spain's royal family. The Duke, a former Olympic handball medallist who received the title when he married in 1997, has stirred latent antimonarchist sentiments in Spain with the suggestion that he used his royal influence to feather his own nest. The Duke,...

A glamorous French politician is set to become France’s first ever ‘MP for Britain’ to represent more than 100,000 Gallic expats living in the UK.

A glamorous French politician is set to become France’s first ever ‘MP for Britain’ to represent more than 100,000 Gallic expats living in the UK.Emmanuelle Savarit, 39, is leading the race to be elected to France’s newest overseas constituency - based in London’s well-heeled Kensington.The...

Spain's banking sector set to shrink to about 10 lenders

This year, Spain’s banking sector looks set to shrink to about 10 lenders from more than 40 before the economic crisis, as the government forces banks to recognise steep losses from a housing crash. Small and medium-sized banks will scramble to join forces to meet capital requirements implicit in a new law demanding lenders write down up to 80 per cent of the book value of real estate assets on their balance sheets.  Click here for Cloud Computing...

Spanish property scandal: expat battle to save Albox homes

 The property in Albox, Andalucía, is part of a group of homes served with demolition orders in 2012. The couple, who do not wish to be identified at this stage, built the property in 2002 and say that they believed that they had planning permission from the local council and all the necessary paperwork. They were issued with a demolition order in December 2009. The couple's lawyer, Gerardo Manuel Vazquez, says the planning and real estate system...

Ruiz-Mateos family paid themselves days before Nueva Rumasa declared bankruptcy

 Members of the Ruiz-Mateos family put up their wages just days before their Nueva Rumasa group declared bankruptcy. A document has revealed the strategy followed by the family, intended to avoid them facing any embargo and allowing the payment of their mortgages. José María Ruiz-Mateos has 13 children and each one saw money diverted to them. Also under investigation is the claim that a few days before bankruptcy the family ordered the ‘cleaning...

Brussels says NO to Spain's request for an easier deficit target Brussels says NO to Spain's request for an easier deficit target Brussels says NO to Spain's request for an easier deficit target

Brussels has made it clear to Spain that it wants them to publish their budgets for this year before it enters into any discussion on relaxing deficit targets. Mariano Rajoy had been hoping to get the budget deficit for the end of this year changed ahead of the budgets which will be given at the end of March, after the Andalucía elections. Spain’s deficit target for the end of 2012 is 4.4%, but Rajoy thinks they will only be able to get somewhere...

Bailiffs take the desks while the children are in class

 Crying and upset children at the Santa Illa private college in the Chamartín area of Madrid on Thursday, as bailiffs arrived and started to take the furniture, and even the blackboards and chalk while the 200 children were attending class. One of the parents told El Mundo that it was ‘outrageous’ after, along with the other parents he had been summoned to the school at about 11am. He said ‘The parents have lied to the children, saying how...

France reporter Edith Bouvier asks for Syria evacuation

 The French journalist who was wounded in an attack on the Syrian city of Homs on Wednesday has asked to be evacuated from Syria quickly, saying she needs urgent medical attention. Edith Bouvier was injured in the attack that killed journalists Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik in the Baba Amr suburb. In a video posted online by opposition activists, Ms Bouvier says she has a broken femur and urgently needs an operation. She asks to be evacuated...

Juan Antonio Roca has face to face showdown in court with Marisol Yagüe

A face to face declaration in the Malaya case in Málaga on Wednesday brought sparks between the ex Marbella Town Hall real estate assessor, Juan Antonio Roca, and the ex Mayor of Marbella, Marisol Yagüe. Roca said to Yagüe – ‘Darling, I deeply lament disagreeing, but I did give you money’. To that Yagüe said ‘You are looking for a way out of jail’. The conversation between the two came after she denied to the prosecutor that she had received envelopes,...

Libyan land being freed for development in Marbella

 A large real estate project which the Libyan Arab Foreign Bank wanted to place in Marbella is back on the road. The project was frozen because of the death of Muamar El Gaddafi, but now the lawyers for the development say it is active again. The lawyer Ignacio Pérez de Vargas said the plans are for 1,915 homes, a golf course and a congress hall to be built in La Resinera, the finca owned by the Libyan in Benahavís which stretches to 6,900...

Ex Marbella Mayor, Isabel García Marcos, found guilty of corruption

 The ex Mayor of Marbella, Isabel García Marcos, has been handed down her first conviction for real estate corruption. Penal Court 10 in Málaga fined her 3,600 € and banned her from holding public office for ten years. Three other ex councillors were given the same sentence, José Jaén and Carmen Revilla among them, and another 11 ex-councillors were given a year’s prison sentence and a ten year ban. These include Julián Muñoz, Rafael González...

Let's Hear it for the Costa Del Sol...

 I'm getting fed up with the poor old CDS being written off as a kind of Brit immigrant colony populated by either beer-drinking pizza-eating tattooed types who want Blackpool with sun or a load of tarts and gangsters.. When I told friends we were moving from Prague to the CDS their reactions were raised eyebrows, comments along the lines of 'But it's full of tarts, gangsters and chavs'...comments more revealing of the ignorance of the person...

Hospitalised, robbed, arrested – new TV series follows consular staff as they help Brits in distress

 How the staff of British Consulates in Spain help citizens in distress is to be highlighted in a new TV documentary series to be broadcast next month on the UK’s Channel 4.UK in Spain The new TV series, filmed last summer, reveals how consular staff come to the rescue of Britons who find themselves in trouble. From helping victims of crime to advising Brits arrested by the police, the series also follows consular staff as they visit holidaymakers...

No date set for Málaga's second prison to come into service

Construction appears to be funded, but the problem is how to find the money for the staffThe entrance to the Alhaurin prison  There is concern over when a new prison being built in Archidona, Málaga will be able to accept inmates. 70% of the construction, which is budgeted at 117 million, has been done, and there is a date of the end of this year or the start of next for completion. However to start accepting inmates the prison has to employ...

'IRA' drug-gang linked to double British murder

The "IRA" gang referred to in a British murder trial last week as running the drugs trade in Liverpool is almost certainly a mixture of local gangsters and their Dublin and Limerick-based associates, gardai believe. The mention of the gang came in the murder trial of Thomas Haigh, 26, who was convicted last week of the double murder of two men referred to as gangland "enforcers", David Griffiths, 35, and Brett Flournoy, 31. Both men were shot dead,...

Horse Racing: Winter-spring season starts in the Costa del Sol Hippodrome

 February 19 begins the winter racing season at the Hippodrome Costa del Sol in Mijas. In this winter-spring season which runs until April 13, there will be a total of five racing days. The dates of the races are as follows: Winter Racing days in the Costa del Sol Racecourse February 19 February 26 March 4 – Mijas Cup April 6 April 13 The facility is open from 10:30 am and races will take place from 11:30 am, except that of April 13th to be...

Trains coming to the Costa del Sol oriental

 New plans for the expansion of the railway network include a line from Almería to Málaga, and also one from Motril to Granada - this should make getting about on that side a lot easi...

Pair Of Late Night Shootings In Coachella Valley

 Two shootings happened within minutes of each other in the Coachella Valley Saturday night. The first, a drive-by in a Cathedral City neighborhood, according to police. It happened around 8:30 P.M. near the intersection of Shifting Sands and Ortega. A vehicle pulled up along side a car and someone inside the first vehicle opened fire, hitting a man inside the car, said officers on scene. The suspect vehicle then took off before officers arrived...

FOUR men have pleaded guilty in a New York federal court to charges linked to the Gambino crime family.

 The charges result from a variety of activities including assault, loansharking, drug trafficking and trying to recruit illegal aliens to work in adult entertainment clubs. The US Justice Department described the four, Alphonse Trucchio, Michael Roccaforte, Anthony Moscatiello and Christopher Colon, as being "a captain, two soldiers and an associate of the Gambino organised crime family of La Cosa Nostra." Attorney Preet Bharara said, "For...

Spain to extend life of its oldest nuclear plant

Spain will extend operations at its oldest nuclear power plant by five years, Industry Minister Jose Manuel Soria said Saturday as the country seeks to make the most of its energy sources. The decision was immediately slammed as "irresponsible" by environmentalists. "The nuclear safety council has given approval for a five-year extension" of the Garona plant near Burgos, northern Spain, Soria told a meeting of his conservative Popular Party in...

'Kinky' nuns and tattooed Christs spark controversy for Spanish gallery

 Catholics and conservatives have denounced as blasphemous two recent exhibitions in Madrid featuring kinky nuns in lingerie and tattooed and near-naked Christs, demonstrating outside one gallery. Catholic group AES called a demonstration for Friday evening outside the Fresh Gallery in Madrid against its latest exhibition: "Obscenity", a collection of photographs by Canadian artist Bruce LaBruce. The 50 pictures on display include a portrait...

Spanish duke to be questioned by judge in embarrassing first for Madrid's royal family

 Spain's royal family has long enjoyed a level of privacy and respect that the Windsors could only dream of. But, in an uncomfortable first for the Madrid monarchy, one of their number will face questioning from a judge this week in a scandal which has rocked the royal family and raised questions over the future of the monarchy. Inaki Urdangarin, the son-in-law of King Juan Carlos, is preparing for a court appearance in which he will defend...

Morocco bans Spain’s El Pais newspaper over royal cartoon

 Morocco has banned the distribution of Thursday’s edition of Spain’s influential El Pais, as a cartoon published by the newspaper allegedly tarnished King Mohammed VI’s name, an official said. “The decision to ban (the paper) was made on the basis of article 29 of the press code” that protects the monarch, the senior communication ministry official told AFP on Saturday. “The caricature contains a deliberate intention to smear the (king’s)...

Morocco bans Spanish paper over royal cartoon

 Morocco has banned the distribution of Thursday's edition of Spain's influential El Pais, as a cartoon published by the newspaper allegedly tarnished King Mohammed VI's name, an official said. "The decision to ban (the paper) was made on the basis of article 29 of the press code" that protects the monarch, the senior communication ministry official told AFP on Saturday. "The caricature contains a deliberate intention to smear the (king's)...

British man killed and 24 injured after coach crash during half-term skiing holiday

 British man was killed and 24 others were injured when a coach carrying school pupils home from a half-term skiing trip careered off a motorway in northern France today. At least four teenagers are in a serious condition following the accident on the A26 road, near Chalons-en-Champagne, in the Ardennes region. The dead man's name has not been released. He was 61 years o...

Javier Arenas welcomes rail plan for Costa del Sol

 The President of the Partido Popular in Andalucía, Javier Arenas, and candidate for the PP in next month’s regional elections, has applauded the Minister for Development’s decision on the European railway route. He said the infrastructure project was ‘very important for the future, for innovation and the creation of employment’. Ana Moto announced earlier in the week to create a rail link from Almería to Algeciras, passing through Málaga and...

The continuing cold and drought is starting to cause serious damage to the campo in Andalucía.

:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder. The freezing temperatures and a 50% reduction in the normal amount of rainfall has resulted in a loss of 78 million € in the region, according to the Union of Small Farmers UPA.  Hard hit provinces are Almería, Sevilla, Córdoba, Huelva and Málaga and the UPA General Secretary, Agustín Rodríguez, claims...

Iberia airlines has cancelled 111 flights today in another 24 hour strike. 65% of the airlines routes are in service as normal.

:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder. The protests, called by the ground crew unions CTA and CNT with the cabin crew union TCP Stavia started last December when the SEPLA pilots’ union too action, are against the creation of a new low-cost airline, Iberia Express.Today’s is the ninth 24hr stoppage in Iberia since December ...

Lorca had a relationship with a Uruguayan writer and millionaire, Enrique Amorín, and the writer speculates that he could have taken the body after Lorca’s death.

:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.With the recent failures to locate the body of the Granada writer, Federico García Lorca, who was shot dead on August 18 1936 by the Guardia Civil for being a member of the Frente Popular and openly gay, a new theory on what may have happened has emerged. According to the Peruvian writer, Santiago Roncagliolo,...

Luxury eco-resort opens on Easter Island

 Luxury has landed in the island's capital, Hanga Roa, with the soft opening of Hangaroa Eco Village & Spa. Situated on the town's main drag and only a kilometre from the airport, the 75-room resort appeals to travellers who want to experience the wonders of Easter Island in eco-friendly style. The overall design is inspired by the ancient dwellings of Rapa Nui, the island's native people, and includes such environmentally sound components...

'FAT' FREDDIE'S GIRL IN SUICIDE VIGIL

Hood's lover desperate to raise awareness over spate of young victims  FUNDRAISER: Vicky Dempsey poses with picture of her brother THIS is gangster 'Fat' Freddie Thompson's girlfriend posing for photographs at a fundraiser for suicide awareness last week. Vicky Dempsey...

EU to punish Spain for deficits, inaction

  The European Union is likely to take action against Spain's newly installed government by May for delaying austerity measures ahead of a regional election next month, sources familiar with the situation have told Reuters. Spanish and EU officials said in response to Reuters' story that the government in Spain was working hard to reduce its deficit and that it was premature to say the country might be punished. Three senior EU officials...

Two arrested in connection with Cabopino stabbing

 Two people have been arrested in connection with the stabbing to death of a man whose body was found in Cabopino in the early hours of Tuesday week. The 26 year old received three stab wounds in his back after an argument in a bar. Diario Sur reports that two arrests have been made but that the investigation remains open. Police will have to establish which one of the two arrested men was the main player in the aggression. It seems there...

Investigators found shotguns and machine guns, inch-wide metal bars guarding doors and windows, the secret room under the floor, and a hidden elevator that led to an underground bunker and an unfinished tunnel.

Eugene Paull heard the beep.In his three-story home east of Brooksville, Paull was lying on his bed that morning last March when the security system sounded. He rolled over and glanced at two nearby TVs wired to a dozen videocameras. Law enforcement officers swarmed across his property.Seconds before the 66-year-old could slip into a secret room he had nicknamed the "worm hole," the SWAT team caught him.Investigators found shotguns and machine guns,...