Venezuela arrests Colombian drug kingpin

 

The arrest of Maximiliano Bonilla-Orozco at his home in Venezuela's third largest city of Valencia on Sunday was announced, perhaps not coincidentally, during a visit by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos. After a five-hour meeting at the presidential palace, Santos thanked Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez for the "welcome gift" of capturing "a very high-value" drug trafficker "who has caused terrible damage to our country." Venezuelan Interior Minister Tarek El Aissami said Bonilla-Orozco, 39, would be extradited to the United States, where he was charged with drug trafficking in a 2008 indictment in a New York court. The United States accuses Bonilla-Orozco of trafficking several tons of cocaine from Colombia to the United States, and transporting more than $25 million in drug-related proceeds from the United States to Mexico. "Maximiliano Bonilla-Orozco is the leader of an extensive transnational narcotics exportation and transportation organisation that distributes thousands of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia, through Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico, to the United States," a US State Department profile says.

Marvel character, Erik Lensherr a.k.a. Magneto, has apparently infringed the copyright of the King of Spain

Marvel character, Erik Lensherr a.k.a. Magneto, has apparently infringed the copyright of the King of Spain in Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, with the Zarzuela Palace claiming the X-Men villain's alternate costume is identical to the military uniform worn by King Juan Carlos.

Representitives for the Zazuela Palace have contacted the Spanish distributor of the game in the region, Koch Media, to warn them of possible copyright infringement.

This isn't the first time the Spanish Royal's has stamped their feet over the strong resemblences, as Marvel faced a similar dispute when Magneto first donned the uniform in The Pulse: House of M Special X-Men special.

eurozone and UK economies lurch towards a renewed recession

eurozone and UK economies lurch towards a renewed recession, the US recovery has surpassed expectations and appears to be firming for now.

The decoupling of the US from Europe is good news for global growth and points to the fact that the two regions have pursued very different fiscal policies over the past year. European nations have been forced to step on the spending brakes to control debt, while the US has been able to delay the switch from stimulus to austerity.

“We have no doubt that the UK is suffering from the severe fiscal austerity the government has put in place and this has contributed to the UK’s weaker economic performance relative to the US,” says Frank Engels, co-head of European economic research at Barclays Capital.

Barclays Capital estimates that these austerity measures have shaved 1,5 percentage points off UK GDP this year and will do so again in 2012 through their indirect impact on household demand and confidence, as well as the direct effect of lower government spending.

More than 100000 UK public servants have lost their jobs in the government’s drive to eliminate the UK’s structural budget deficit by 2015. (The previous government’s commitment was only to halve the deficit over the same period.)

Chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne’s argument is that the situation would have been worse if it hadn’t enacted a credible deficit reduction plan, since this would have risked the UK being dragged into the eurozone’s debt crisis. Instead, UK bond rates are at record lows, meaning the government is not facing higher borrowing costs. This has helped to support the economy at a time when borrowing costs are rising significantly across the eurozone, including the core economies of Spain, Belgium, France and Italy.

For this reason, Osborne is refusing to flinch from his plan, even in the face of worsening UK economic data.

The UK, like the US, benefits from being considered a safe haven fixed income (bond) market and for that reason can continue to borrow at reasonable rates. It is also not part of the eurozone. It could therefore be argued that the UK need not have tightened fiscal policy so aggressively.

“It could probably have got away with doing a bit less,” agrees Barclays Capital chief UK economist Simon Hayes, “but the UK government’s caution is understandable, given how brutal financial markets can be and how quickly they can shift an economy from being in the good bucket to the bad one .”

Eurozone economies clearly didn’t have any alternative. Investors have voted with their feet, driving up yields (hence borrowing costs) in the bond markets of those countries unable to demonstrate the political will to rein in government debt.

Italy is the latest example. Last week nervous investors pushed Italy’s yields back above 7% — the level at which peripheral EU countries sought bail outs. The Italian bond market is the third- biggest in the world, owing bond holders around € 2 trillion. It is simply too big to save.

The risk of a major fallout in Europe is increasing. While European Central Bank president Mario Draghi has said Europe will be heading towards a “mild recession” by year-end, the latest JP Morgan purchasing managers’ index for Europe suggests its problems are worse than the authorities are letting on and that the economy is probably already in an outright decline, says Sanlam Investment Management economist Arthur Kamp.

“It was hoped that reasonable growth would allow countries like Italy and Greece to work their way out of financial distress,” he says . “However, a double-dip recession will simply push up government debt levels.”

On the other hand, Kamp believes the US economy could grow by around 2% this year and hopefully, combined with Chinese economic growth , pull Europe back into positive growth territory.

The US economy has enjoyed a string of positive data releases over the past few weeks, which suggests the economy is on a firmer footing. Part of the reason is that the US has had the luxury of time to get a handle on its $15trillion debt mountain.

Thanks to the US having the world’s largest government debt (bond) market as well as the global reserve currency, not even the loss of its AAA credit rating in August had any material effect on US borrowing costs. The upshot is that the US has been able to delay any serious fiscal adjustment for at least another year.

In addition to the $775bn stimulus plan enacted in 2009, US president Barack Obama recently put forward a $447bn jobs plan. Though this additional stimulus has been rejected by the Senate, Obama still hopes to push it through in a piecemeal fashion.

The disbanding of the so-called debt “super committee” seems ominous but its work was about deciding where cuts would come from, not the extent of cuts. These will now be triggered automatically in line with Obama’s budget deal with the Republican party. This will wipe up to $2,4trillion off government spending over the next 10 years but these savings are heavily back-loaded towards the outer years in order to prevent depressing short-term growth.

The term being given to this juggling act of supporting short-term growth while promising long-term savings is “growth- friendly fiscal consolidation”. Over the course of the past year it has become the new consensus in developed economies.

SA’s approach is very much in line with this shift in global thinking. “Whereas over the past few months there was strong support for fiscal austerity, that has changed,” finance minister Pravin Gordhan told the FM recently. “There is now a much more nuanced approach which says: focus on growth and jobs in the short term because a focus on fiscal austerity won’t produce the goods.”

The problem is that you can’t solve debt with more debt indefinitely. Europe’s condition shows what happens when an economy eventually does apply the austerity brake . If this is what the US will look like from 2013 , then the future is indeed grim.

500 vehicles per year are abandoned at car repair shops

500 vehicles per year are abandoned at car repair shops in Almeria province.

The owners leave them for repair and then abandon them when they are unable to pay the bills.

Mechanics say that this has always happened, but more so in the past few years, and in 2009, almost 1,000 vehicles were abandoned at garages in the province.

They report losses that year alone of more than €2m because of what the unpaid repairs cost them.

However, the following year, a law came into effect by which, if they notify the traffic department and the car is not collected and paid for within a month, they can call for it to be taken for scrap, meaning they can take back any pieces used for the repair which helps to reduce costs, although there is no way for them to get back the time they have spent on the vehicle.
In most cases, when vehicles have been abandoned, the cost of the repairs was quoted at around €1,000 and the vehicle is between eight and 10 years old.

Spain must help herself

Following the pressure on the Spanish debt on Thursday, the Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, called for more help from the European Central Bank to buy Spanish bonds. But today Brussels has responded by saying, ‘Spain must help herself’.

The community economic spokesman said ‘We’ve been saying this for some time’, although he added that the European institutions are already doing what is needed to help countries in danger.

P.P. leader Mariano Rajoy has made a call to the markets for a margin for his new government. ‘I hope this stops and they realize that there are elections’, he said, adding that Spain is a ‘serious and trustworthy country’ which has always paid its debt, but he blamed the Socialists for the situation, ‘These people have left us broke’, he said.

Meanwhile the risk premium, the difference paid between German and Spanish ten year bonds, has fallen today to 450 points after opening this morning at 502 and being higher than the Italian number for a time.

victim was having sex with her husband at the time she fell.

There has been another case of balconing in Spain, this time in Adeje, Tenerife, and with the twist that the victim was having sex with her husband at the time she fell.

The British tourist who fell several metres then got her ankle caught between the bars of an internal staircase was left hanging there, head down and totally naked until the emergency crews arrived.

49 year old A.M.A.M. had been having sex with her husband against the railings on one of the public areas of the hotel and in the frenzy, the railings gave way. The husband called the emergency services and the local and national police arrived with a fire crew.

After their initial surprise, the managed to release the woman’s trapped right leg, and she was taken for observation to the Hospitén Sur.

Four people from the same family, one of them a six year old boy, have died in a flash flood in Castellón.

 They were washed away in their car in the heavy rain on Sunday when the small river, Rio Seco, in Onda burst its banks. 

The Government Sub-Delegate reports that it happened at about 5,30pm, but the car was not found until just before 7pm. Those to die were trapped inside the vehicle which was covered completely by the water.

The dead were the 42 year old father who was driving the car, his six year old son, his 81 year old father and 78 year old mother. The fire service sent an underwater rescue diving team to the scene.

The Valencia region was hard hit by the rain and flooding, and Valencia airport had to close for a time on Sunday. In Vinarós, Castellón roads were closed as 102.7 litres per square metre fell in five hours.

U.K. tax falls on overseas property investors

 

Overseas property owners based in the UK are about to be targeted by a new HM Revenue & Customs "affluent unit", which has been set up by the British government to address what it sees as tax avoidance by the rich.Photo 20minutos.es What next I wonder?? A new team of 200 taxation investigators and specialists has been established by HMRC to identify wealthy individuals who, amongst other things, own land and property abroad … such as a holiday home. OPP understands that the tax attack unit will concentrate on overseas property assets first, and then switch its attention to UK-based commodity traders (who have been accused of helping to drive up food prices,) before looking into the number of UK residents who hold offshore investment accounts. HMRC says that it will be using sophisticated "data mining" techniques to try and track down people who own overseas properties, but do not pay the right amount of tax. This might include someone who owns a villa in Spain which they are renting out, or an individual who owns a piece of land in France that is being used as business premises, said an HMRC spokesman. The experts will be looking for people who do not seem to be declaring the correct income and gains. The new unit, which has been announced by the UK’s Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, will focus solely on people paying the 50% top tax rate. David Gauke, the exchequer secretary to the Treasury, said there would be "no hiding place" for tax cheats, adding that the UK government “is committed to tackling tax evasion and avoidance across all areas of the economy. That is why we allocated HMRC £917m to reduce the tax gap over the next four years. This new team is part of that investment." Ronnie Ludwig, tax partner at accountancy group Saffery Champness told OPP that “those who have been letting out their foreign property and declaring the rents received have nothing to fear, but those who own foreign property which has never been let out should be prepared to prove to HMRC that they have received no income from the property.” “This will involve producing UK and foreign bank statements and being able to demonstrate that they could afford to purchase and maintain the property out of normal declared sources."

Toxic Smoke fills Hotel Senator in Marbella

 

On Friday the 18th November 2011 our family with a 3 year old toddler and a 15 month old baby checked into the SENATOR Hotel in Marbella for a one night stay. We knew that the Hotel SENATOR had only recently opened and indeed everything seemed brand new and glitzy. After the usual check in fomalities we finally got to our room on the 4th floor which was OK in every respect other than perhaps being a little on the small side. After returning from dinner we immediately went to sleep as we were very tired. At probably between 3 and 4 am I woke up and I thought there was a bad smell in the room. At first I gave it no further attention and went back to sleep only to wake up again and now identifying the smell you get when you turn on an electric heater that has gathered dust. Both my wife and children were completely asleep. As the smell got worse and now clearly was no longer a smell but serious toxic smoke that started to fill the room I woke my wife and she immediately realised that this was smoke from a fire. Then our baby started to cough very badly. I immediately opened our balcony door and to my amazement saw three fire engines and at least three police cars on the front side of the building with firemen entering the Hotel. At this moment images of flames coming out from the balconies entered my head. However only smoke could be seen everywhere. We immediately put on some clothes grabbed essentials and run out of the room only to find that in the hallway smoke was pouring from what seemed to be a fire sprinkler. Another couple opened the safety exit door to the escape staircase and there we found that the smoke was much less apparent. So we went down into the reception which was smoke filled and out into the road. Heavy smoke came out from a basement access into the road. Another guest told us that apparently the fire had started in the newly opened Sauna. By now more guests had decided to leave the hotel for the safety of the street and we were all huddling about in the cold expecting some news about what was going to happen to us. The manager of the Hotel could be seen on top of the Hotel stairs smoking a cigarette. Eventually we requested some explanation and information about the situation as obviously everybody was tired and did not want to remain in the street for ever. The Manager almost casually said that the fire had been put out and that everybody could go back to the rooms as it was now only a simple matter of getting rid of the smoke which he estimated would take about an hour. I made it clear to the manager that both our 3 year old toddler and our baby could not go back into a room where smoke would still be present for at least an hour. He agreed but provided no alternative. So I asked him whether it was safe to retrieve our car from the garage which he said it was and we left. The following questions need answering both by SENATOR Hotels Group and by the local authorities: 1. Why was there no alarm? We might not have woken up perhaps never because as is well known most people do not die from fire but from the toxic smoke it produces. My wife and my children in particular our baby and 3 year old were fast asleep in our smoke filled room. The fact that there was no alarm which was queried by other guests surely implies that either there was a serious breach of procedure or an inadequate safety system in the Hotel. Fire and smoke procedures are subject to extremely serious inspections by the local authorities in all countries. In fact a hotel normally cannot open or will be closed down if any of these procedures are inadequate, faulty or non existent. 2. There were communications over loudspeakers outside the hotel. We could not hear the words spoken on the 4th floor and it seemed that this was more of communications between the police and the firemen. Apart from that we assume that the communications were in spanish and therefore could not be understood by the foreign guests in any case. There seemed to be no call to evacuate the hotel as some guests were still waving from their hotel balconies. 3. That the guests were told to go back ot their rooms even though smoke was still pouring out and would be for at least one hour also indicates a complete lack of understanding of the serious health risks of smoke particularly to children. 4. Nobody gave any explanations or assistance to the guests which included many children. We were all required to stand in the cold of the street for over one hour. You would have thought that a Hotel would have a program in force for such an event including a reciprocal arrangement with another close by hotel for the guests to be able to wait in the reception and be able to use the toilets and get some refreshments in particular for the children. 5. To clear the dining room of thick smoke an industrial fan was brought to the door to literally blow the smoke out of the windows. 6. The penultimate safety question must be: why would a fire in the sauna of the wellness centre of the SENATOR Hotel produce smoke that pours out of every ventilation and airconditioning outlet right up to the top of the hotel? 7. The ultimate safety question must be: why does the SENATOR Hotel in Marbella have no smoke alarms? We are concerned about the possible longterm effects on the health of our children. When cleaning our noses we were worried to notice that our tissues were black. How much of this has gone into our baby's and toddler's lungs? What is the toxic composition of this smoke? We are waiting to hear from the SENATOR Hotel group as to compensation for our nightmare and what they will do to prevent this ever from happening again.

The Government blames the judges for the Málaga drugs theft

 

300 kilos of cocaine was taken from a warehouse in Málaga portPhoto EFE Government sub-delegate for Málaga, Hilario Lopez Luna, has blamed the judges for the theft of 300 kilos of embargoed cocaine from a warehouse in Málaga port. He said that despite requests being made for authorisation to destroy the drugs, that permission had not arrived from the judges, and that was why there was so much drugs being stored. He said that the drugs taken had already been analysed and the judges have samples so no ongoing investigation would be affected. López Luna denied knowing about the security problems at the warehouse, saying he had never received any information on the subject from the Guardia Civil or anyone else. He said the warehouse was manned weekdays between 7am and 3pm by a private security firm, and for the rest of the time the Guardia Civil had the key. The thieves broke into the warehouse on Saturday night last weekend. His comments have been criticised by the judiciary. ’You can’t move the responsibility now from the administration to the judiciary’ said the President of the Andalucia High Court of Justice, Lorenzo del Rio. The judge noted that ‘the law obliges the immediate destruction of seized drugs’, after samples are taken. ‘Until they can show me documents showing that the destruction of the drugs was pending permission, I will think that it was already authorised’, he said.

20 arrested for sexual exploitation of women

 

The case started with the arrest of a mother in Vélez-Málaga who obliged her children to prostitute themselvesTwo groups which dedicated their time to the sexual abuse and exploitation of women have been broken up by Spanish police. The case resulted from a police investigation in Vélez-Málaga into two children who were obliged to prostitute themselves by their mother. A total of 20 arrests have been made in Málaga, Girona and Madrid, including two thought to be the heads of the operation who were arrested in Figueres, Girona. The groups operated in clubs and private homes and the women were forced to work round the clock and consumer large amounts of alcohol and drugs. They would often be beaten if they refused any request. Six people have been charged for crimes linked to prostitution and corruption of minors, while the rest face charges of prostitution and acting against the rights of workers.

British woman falls off hotel balcony when having sex

 

There has been another case of balconing in Spain, this time in Adeje, Tenerife, and with the twist that the victim was having sex with her husband at the time she fell. The British tourist who fell several metres then got her ankle caught between the bars of an internal staircase was left hanging there, head down and totally naked until the emergency crews arrived. 49 year old A.M.A.M. had been having sex with her husband against the railings on one of the public areas of the hotel and in the frenzy, the railings gave way. The husband called the emergency services and the local and national police arrived with a fire crew. After their initial surprise, the managed to release the woman’s trapped right leg, and she was taken for observation to the Hospitén Sur.

traders bet that Spain would follow Italy into bail-out territory.

traders bet that Spain would follow Italy into "bail-out territory." French bank Societe Generale said: "Spain is now joining Italy on the radar screen". Warren Buffett, the US investor, said bond markets were displaying a "partial run on Europe." British borrowing costs fell to just 2.2pc.

Michel Barnier, the EU markets commissioner, said he wanted to ban credit rating agencies from rating bonds from bailed-out countries. He told French radio that the agencies could lose the "right to rate certain countries for a certain time that are receiving an international support programme from the IMF or European Union." But few could see how the ban could be imposed.

In Athens, a debate over Lucas Papademos' leadership starts in the Greek parliament today. The new premier has to win a confidence vote tomorrow and then prepare next year's draft budget to take to his first showdown with eurozone finance ministers in Brussels on Thursday.

Antonis Samaras, leader of the Greek opposition, warned that he would not support Mr Papademos' interim government for more than three months without elections. His objections are said to be barring the disbursement of the €8bn tranche of international aid to Greece.

The King of Spain’s son-in-law was at the centre of a corruption storm today as he came under investigation for siphoning off public money.

Inaki Urdangarin - the husband of King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia's youngest daughter Infanta Cristina - is suspected of misappropriating cash paid into an NGO.

The former handball player now faces a possible interrogation by investigating judge Jose Castro  and risks causing huge embarrassment for the royals.

It is claimed that his non-profit company, Instituto Noos, was given an enormous 2.3million euros (just under £2million) by the Balearic Islands’ regional government to organise two conferences on tourism and sport in 2005 and 2006. 

The judicial investigation is looking into whether the bills for the events were inflated and if the money ended up in private companies run by Urdangarin, who is Duke of Palma, the capital of Majorca.

Urdangarin, 43, left Instituto Noos in 2006, months after the exorbitant sums paid by the Balearic government were revealed by the Socialist Party.

 

 

He said today: 'I cannot comment about on-going judicial proceedings.'

The prosecution claims Urdangarin and his associate Diego Torres created a network of societies with which they diverted public and private funds received by Instituto Noos.

Under suspicion: The former handball star is charged with creating a network of societies into which he diverted private and public funds

Regal scandal: Princess Cristina and Urdangarin (far right) pose with Spain's royal family King Juan Carlos, Queen Sofia, Crown Prince Felipe and wife Princess Letizia and Princess Elena

They are under investigation for document falsification, corruption, fraud and embezzlement, and Torres’s home has been searched.

The Royal Household expressed its 'absolute respect' for the legal decisions and added that it has 'nothing to say at this moment' as this is 'an investigation which must follow its course'.

The Duke and Duchess, who married in 1997, now live in Washington, DC. The couple have four children. 

Urdangarin played in Spain’s national handball team at three Olympic Games, captaining the side for Sydney 2000.

A Romanian man wanted for murder and robbery in Portugal has been arrested in Torre del Mar.

27 year old from Romania escaped to Spain after he was sentenced for the death of a woman who was killed in Portugal in 2005

EFE archive

 


Named by El Mundo newspaper as 27 year old Ioan R., he fled to Spain after a Portuguese court sentenced him to 15 and a half years in prison for the death of a woman in 2005. The victim was smothered to death in her bed during the course of a robbery.

The wanted man was traced to the Axarquía district of Málaga province and was arrested near a bar in Torre del Mar on November 4. He has now been transferred into the custody of the National Court for extradition to Portugal.

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