Live News From Spain As It Happens

A FIRE that swept through Benalmádena (Málaga) forced rescue workers to evacuate 40 holidaymakers from a hotel and several homes in the Higuerón district on Tuesday evening.

The A-7 motorway northbound was blocked off for several hours near the La Reserva del Higuerón restaurant and the evacuees had to be put up for the night in hotels further out of the area.

About 30 people in houses and flats on five streets had to flee their homes and all guests at the Hotel Spa El Higuerón were moved to the Hotel Torrequebrada out of town.

High winds and lack of daylight – given that the blaze broke out at around 18.15hrs – made firefighters' job even more difficult.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

SIX men have suffocated in the worst mining accident in Spanish history in the central region of Castilla y León.

An autopsy on the bodies showed that the pit workers, who perished in a gas leak at the Emilio del Valle mine in Pola de Gordón (León province), showed the cause of death to be oxygen deprivation.

All the deceased are aged between 35 and 45, emergency services say.

Five others were rushed to hospital in a critical condition.

The worst-affected, a 42-year-old man, is in intensive care at León hospital on a life-support machine and heavily sedated, but medics say they are 'optimistic and hopeful' about his recovery.  

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A BRITISH woman who thought she was flying to Spain ended up in the Caribbean after mistaking the Andalucía city of Granada with the island of Grenada.

Lamenda Kingdon, 62, had booked a flight with British Airways using air-miles she had accumulated to realise her dream of seeing the Alhambra Palace.

It was one of the items on her bucket list she made when she found out in July 2012 that the breast cancer she had been diagnosed with five months earlier had spread to her brain, and has since metastasised to her lungs.

After settling back with a gin and tonic after the in-flight meal on her plane from London Gatwick, Lamenda began talking to a lady sitting next to her about her illness and how she was looking forward to seeing the ancient Moorish palace.

But the woman apparently turned a shade paler and said, “you're not going to see it on this flight,” and called the air hostess....  

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

THOUSANDS of members of the Victims of Terrorism Association (AVT) filled the centre of Madrid yesterday (Sunday) to protest over the European Court of Human Rights' decision to overturn the Parot Doctrine which has already seen several ETA members released.

It could also pave the way for a number of rapists and serial killers to get out of jail and be entitled to compensation.

In practice, any compensation would be offset against that which they were ordered to pay to the victims or their families when sentenced and which, given that this runs into hundreds of thousands or even millions, is almost never paid in full.

And the Spanish government has pledged to ensure all dangerous criminals who have to be released if they are being held 'illegally' through retrospective application of the Doctrine will be under close surveillance for life.

The ECHR verdict is not binding on Spain, but as Spain has signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights, it is morally obliged to adhere to any decision affecting this area of law.

Spanish president Mariano Rajoy (PP) and his cabinet totally disagree with the verdict, and Rajoy himself was due to attend the protest to support the AVT.  

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

CATALUNYA'S regional president says a referendum on independence will definitely go ahead next year, and that when 2014 comes, he will set the exact date.

Artur Mas' determination to put Catalunya's secession bid to the vote comes in response to regional socialist leader Pere Navarro Morera's criticising him for 'deceiving the people of Catalunya' by talking about 'a referendum they know they are not going to do'.

Mas and Oriol Junqueras, leader of left-wing Esquerra Republicana Catalana (ERC), both support the move for Catalunya to become a separate country and are convinced the European Union will allow them to continue as a member State automatically.

Navarro criticised them both for 'getting the hopes up' of those who would vote in favour of independence 'under false pretences'.

“Don't say we're deceiving anyone, because we'll do everything possible to make sure the referendum happens in 2014 and Sr Navarro knows that,” Mas told reporters.

“Whether other State institutions block it in every format and via every route is another matter entirely.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

THE average age of a multi-millionaire in Spain is 66, according the most recent Forbes List, which gives the names, ages, fortunes and professions of the country's 100 richest people.

A total of 13 are aged over 80, and although nearly a quarter – 23 in total – are under 50, they are lower down the rankings with 10 of them being between numbers 70 and 79.

Although the wealthiest man in Spain – who is also the richest in Europe and third worldwide after Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim and Microsoft magnate Bill Gates – continues to be Inditex founder Amancio Ortega, aged 79 (pictured above left).

His late wife Rosalía Mera (pictured below right), who was 69 when she died earlier this year from a sub-arachnoid brain haemorrhage, continues to feature on the list, at number two, making her Spain's richest woman.

She was the co-founder of the Inditex chain along with her ex-husband Amancio, an empire which includes budget high-street clothing stores Zara, Bershka, Pull&Bear and Stradivarius, underwear retailer Oysho, interiors firm Zara Home, and mid-upper high-street outlets Massimo Dutti and Uterqüe.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

THE man who broke into the family home of ex-PP treasurer and senator Luis Bárcenas and tied up and threatened his wife, son and housekeeper says he 'cannot wait' to go to prison.

According to police, the accused, 64, also recently tried to set fire to a petrol station in Cuenca, and says, “Going to prison seems a brilliant idea. In Spanish prisons, you get hot meals.”

Enrique Olivares García, who refused to testify but apparently 'talked non-stop' during his interview at the police station, is said to have a mental illness which leaves him 66 per cent disabled, and psychiatric reports fully supported this.

Although Bárcenas' wife Rosalía Iglesias, who suffered an hour tied up at gunpoint with her son Guillermo and their cleaner, said the attacker was 'not mad at all' and that the ordeal he put the family through 'was perfectly planned'.

Olivares García is said to have been arrested for the first time when he was 18, in 1967, for aggravated robbery, and later for drug-dealing, fraud and criminal damage, the most recent being in 1999 in an attempted arson attack on a service station in the province of Cuenca.

He spent 20 years living in Latin America and has been in prisons in México and Argentina, and although he claimed he had been a member of Sandinist Army in Nicaragua, investigators say this is not true and is merely one of his psychotic delusions.  

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

PANISH students of English have up to 237 ways of spelling 'because', according to research by Cambridge University.

Linguists studied a corpus of written text and found variations of the word that included 'becouse', 'becaus', 'beacuse', and 'becuose'.

They also found spelling mistakes were most common in the words 'which', 'comfortable', 'accommodation', 'possible', 'believe', 'different', 'bicycle', 'environment', 'beautiful', and any word with a 'ght' in it – 'right' or 'caught' were frequently spelled as 'rigth' or 'caugth'.

Spanish people learning English tend to miss out letters, write letters in the wrong order or even add extra ones and frequently spelt words phonetically.

Students have fewer problems spelling nouns than verbs, only 30 per cent of written errors were grammatical and they are inclined to add an 'e' before words starting with an 's' and a consonant, as would be the case in Spanish, resulting in 'especific', 'especial', 'espectacular' and 'especialised'.

Common 'false friends', or words which sound the same as in another language but mean something totally different, were also identified from the corpus.

Spaniards speaking or writing English regularly misused words such as 'assist' (asistir in Spanish means 'to attend'); 'actual' (actual in Spanish is 'current' or 'up to date')...

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

ANOTHER member of Basque terrorist cell ETA, as well as a serial rapist who has 'not been rehabilitated', have been released from prison as a result of the Strasbourg verdict overturning the so-called Parot Doctrine.

The Doctrine reduces early release by applying 'good behaviour' time credit to the actual sentence – often hundreds or even thousands of years – rather than to the custodial sentence to be served, which is always a maximum of 30 years.

But now, early-release credit will be applied to the 30-year term, meaning many prisoners – particularly at least 55 members of ETA – have already been inside for longer than they would have been if the Doctrine had not been used.

As a result, all those who are eligible are now applying for release.

Two high-profile ETA terrorists have already been set free – Antonio Troitiño, now living in London, and Inés del Río Prada, both former members of the bloodthirsty Madrid Commando and responsible for a series of bombings in the mid-1980s which killed 24 people.

Juan Manuel Píriz López is due out, having served 29 years and eight months, although he would have been freed in four months in any case, even without any 'good behaviour' early release.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

LOW-COST carrier Ryanair has been ordered by a Spanish court to remove eight clauses in its terms and conditions which are deemed 'abusive'.

Madrid Mercantile Court 6, upon deciding a case opened by a leading consumer organisation – the OCU – said the Irish-based airline could no longer 'fine' passengers 40 euros each way when they forgot or were unable to print off their boarding passes and check in online before travel.

The OCU said this clause was 'abusive' because, in many cases, the cost of failing to print a boarding pass was more than that of the actual flight.

Also, Ryanair is no longer able to stipulate that legal action against it must be filed through the Irish courts or that Irish law will apply – passengers are able to refer to the law of any EU member State and take action via any court in the European Union.

Forcing customers to make payments either in cash or by card is no longer permitted, since they must be allowed to use either method.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

SPAIN is finally out of recession – even though the financial crisis continues.

Estimated figures from the Bank of Spain say the country's GDP grew by 0.1 per cent over the summer months.

But it remains at 1.2 per cent below figures for the same period in 2012.

And the growth announced – the first in two years – occurred over the months of July, August and September, when Spain's economy usually shows a dramatic change from the winter due to the influx of tourists.

The Bank of Spain, however, claims this return to growth is the result of an improvement in the export market in the third quarter of 2013 and economists from the consultancy Arcano calls the country an 'export powerhouse'.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

PARENTS of three teenage girls gang-raped, tortured and brutally murdered after hitch-hiking to a disco in 1992 fear the ECHR's verdict on the Parot Doctrine could mean their killer goes free.

Desirée Hernández Folch and Miriam García Íborra, both 14 and Antonia 'Toñi' Gómez Rodríguez, 15, went missing on Friday 13^th in November 1992 when they were on their way to Coolor disco in Picassent (Valencia province), near their home village of Alcàsser, but never arrived.

Their murder by two strangers, described at the time as 'satanic', was the most brutal seen in Spain since the Civil War and extremely rare, given that the country's violent crime statistics have always been among the lowest in Europe and in nearly all cases, victims and killers know each other well.

And Miguel Ricart, now 44, may be another candidate for early release from jail as a result of the European Court of Human Rights having declared Spain is in breach of EU law by applying the Doctrine retroactively.  

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

SHARES in Spanish construction giant FCC have gone through the roof since Bill Gates acquired six per cent of the firm.

The Microsoft magnate has bought 113.54 million euros' worth of shares in FCC, it was announced yesterday, and this morning they had gone up in price by 12.7 per cent to a total of 17.66 euros per share.  

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

ONE of Basque terrorist cell ETA's most brutal killers is now free and walking the streets thanks to Strasbourg having scrapped the so-called Parot Doctrine, which was used to limit early release for 'good behaviour'.

Inés del Río Prada, who belonged to the bloodthirsty Madrid Commando in the 1980s and which carried out some of the separatists' worst massacres in the capital, was sentenced to an exemplary 3,800 years in jail for 24 murders she was actively involved with after a series of bombings, including a devastating attack on the Plaza República Dominicana in Madrid on July 14, 1986 (pictured below right).

In practice she was only expected to serve 30 years, which would have seen her released in 2008 because of early release 'credits' such as one day off her sentence for two days' work whilst in prison, among other 'good behaviour' measures the custodial system allows.

But by applying the Parot Doctrine retroactively in 2006, her early-release days were deducted from her actual sentence – of 3,800 years – rather than from the jail term she was expected to serve, which would mean she would never be able to accumulate enough 'good behaviour' time to secure a premature exit.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A TERRORIST held in a UK prison after killing 22 people in the fatal bombings in Madrid perpetrated by the recently-released Inés de Río Prada has been let out on probation as a result of a recent ECHR verdict, but it is not clear whether the British courts will push for his extradition to Spain.

Antonio Troitiño, now 56, was sentenced to 2,200 years in jail for various attacks in the 1980s when he was a member of Basque terrorist cell ETA, including a devastating blast in Madrid's Plaza de la República Dominicana on July 14, 1986 (pictured below right).

Along with Del Río Prada, he would only have to serve the then maximum sentence of 30 years, but the so-called Parot Doctrine was applied which meant any early-release time he had accumulated through 'good behaviour' would come off his actual sentence – 2,200 years – rather than the term he was required to serve.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

AN EXPATRIATE who beat his ex-partner to death in their Costa Blanca bar has been jailed following a trial by jury.

The accused, a German national, owned the premises of a bar in Pilar de la Horadada (Alicante) and he and his ex-girlfriend were joint owners of the actual business.

Although they had been in a relationship previously, they agreed to carry on running the bar and working together after they separated.  

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A PETITION has been delivered to Parliament with 57,000 signatures calling for all donations to political parties to be made illegal and for those who do to face criminal charges.

The 'More Democracy Forum' (Foro +Democracia) delivered the petition, started on the website change.org, to the Secretary of State for Parliamentary Relations, José Luis Ayllón.

It calls for donations from businesses, and any anonymous donations, to be made illegal and for the fund administrator to criminally liable for all accounting matters relating to the party he or she is appointed by.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A VICAR who has told his congregation he will not pray for their deceased loved ones during mass unless they stump up their portion of the maintenance costs of the cemetery has caused widespread outrage in his village.

In what residents have called a 'lack of respect', the parish priest of Beniparrell (Valencia) is demanding money that 'churches never normally ask for' and which families cannot afford.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

SCHOOL is (probably) out for kids across the country for most of this week as a national strike takes place in protest over the so-called 'Wert Law', an unpopular education reform which includes massive grant cuts for university students.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (October 22, 23 and 24) will see teachers and university lecturers downing tools and taking to the streets in a countrywide demonstration that the National Students' Union (SE) says is 'more necessary than ever'.

Parents should check with their children's schools in advance as to whether classes will be going ahead.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

SPAIN'S national transplant association has reported a series of adverts online where people are offering their organs for sale.

The site in question, milanuncios.com, wiped the adverts as soon as they were flagged up but says despite its ongoing efforts to police these, it was very difficult to keep tabs on them all.

Setting up a search for the word 'kidney' could bring up literally thousands of adverts for BMW parts or swimming pools – as in kidney-shaped pools, says the website.

But it is now working closely with the association, the ONT, to locate and delete any advertisements offering organs for transplants in exchange for cash.

Although many of the advertisers are simply desperate for money to buy food, pay bills and meet their mortgage or rent obligations, say the ONT and milanuncios.com, many more are likely to be either scams attempting to get money from innocent and equally-desperate patients on transplant waiting lists, or the work of mafia-style organisations. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A FOURTH version of a 'scrap-for-cash' part-exchange scheme allowing drivers to get new cars at heavily-discounted prices is due to be launched in the next few days thanks to a government investment of 70 million euros.

The Plan PIVE, which has run three times now and allows owners to trade old cars in against brand-new models for a generous scrap value giving them a sizeable reduction on the purchase price, has proven to be highly successful in giving Spain's flagging motor trade a boost and getting very old and potentially unsafe cars off the road.

Piloted in 2012, the Plan PIVE is now in its fourth campaign and is expected to continue until the end of this year.

As a result, a total of 200,000 people have been able to trade in their old cars for new ones in the last year and a half.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

ONE of Catalunya's largest cava producers says it is 'extremely worried' about the possibility of the region becoming an independent nation.

José Luis Bonet Ferrer, chairman of Freixenet – among the most multinational manufacturers of Spain's answer to champagne – says Catalunya 'is an essential part' of the nation and 'must carrying on being so'.

Tensions created between Spain's central government and the Generalitat de Catalunya are not helping trade, he says.

“Business owners have the right to become worried if politicians seek to create tension instead of undertaking rational discussions,” stresses Bonet Ferrer.

He said he is 'deeply concerned' about the impact on business and the economy if Catalunya becomes a separate nation, since it would automatically cease to be a member of the EU, creating trade barriers, higher customs duties and a need to establish itself as a sound source of international commerce which the rest of the world had sufficient confidence to do business with. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A MEMBER of Parliament has called for women considering an abortion to be 'forced' to see their first scan photograph of the foetus before being allowed to go ahead.

Leader of the Unión del Pueblo Navarro, Carlos Salvador, from the northern region of Navarra, says instead of bringing in the highly-restrictive proposed abortion reform which will effectively make it impossible to terminate a pregnancy unless the mother's or baby's life or health are at serious risk, the government should keep the existing legislation – passed in 2010 – in force, but provide pregnant women with a sealed envelope containing details of support networks, what an abortion involves, and a photo of the first scan.

Salvador says this will 'make them think about the foetus as a living being', not as a 'non-human object which can be made to appear or disappear by magic'.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

VENEZUELAN president Nicolás Maduro has hit out at Spain's celebrating October 12 as a bank holiday with military processions – because it marks what he calls 'the greatest massacre in history'.

Likening it to the holocaust of World War II, the leader of the South American country says Spain's Día de la Hispanidad, which commemorates Christopher Colombus' finding of the New World and the subsequent colonisation of at least 19 countries by Spain, is a source of 'indignation and offence' to the people of Venezuela and neighbouring nations.

The 'indigenous holocaust' wiped out over 90 per cent of the native Latin American Indians – Mayans, Aztecs, Incas, mapuches, ilotas and many other tribes in the Caribbean, Central and South America, who 'previously lived in harmony and peace, untouched by war', Maduro recalls.

Within 50 years of Colombus' arrival, only three million of the 70 to 90 million indigenous inhabitants of the Americas remained.

Catholic priests were taught native languages such as quechua, aymara and guaraní in order to convert those remaining, and catholicism is now the predominant religion in Latin America with Spanish being the first official language in all of Spain's former colonies. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

MOTORWAY toll companies say the Spanish State should apply fees to all major trunk roads because it would provide up to 10 billion euros extra a year for the public coffers.

Members of the association of toll firms, ASETA, says it is 'inevitable' that currently free-to-use motorways would eventually become toll roads 'sooner or later', because it is 'not economically viable' for the State to continue to pay for the maintenance of its estimated 12,000 kilometres of main roads out of public funds.

Depending upon the type of toll – whether it is along sections of motorway, at certain hours of the day or for certain vehicles, or whether it is a blanket fee for all road-users – such a move could earn the State between 1.7 billion and 10 billion euros extra per annum.

Chairman of ASETA José Luis Feito is also chair of the Economic Commission of the CEOE, a national body representing Spanish industry, and says 'now is the right moment' for the government to consider applying tolls to its roads.

He says Spain is 'competing with countries like France and Germany' and has a road-maintenance budget of 'double or treble' that of either nation, and still does not spend enough on keeping the main highways in good condition.  

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A COUNTER.-REVOLUTION against Catalunya's bid to become an independent nation hit the streets yesterday (Saturday) with around 100,000 residents and natives now living elsewhere in the country waving flags and declaring, 'Catalunya is Spain'.

Chanting, Som Catalunya, somos España – 'we're Catalunya', in catalán and 'we're Spain' in Spanish – they gathered in the Plaça d'Espanya square, the Plaça Sant Jordi de Montjuïc square, and along the chic shopping boulevard, the Passeig de Gràcia, Barcelona's 'Oxford Street'.

Huge cloths measuring over 100 metres in length bore the Spanish flag on one half and the Catalunya regional flag on the other, and many also carried EU flags.

Some bore banners reading Som 47 millons/somos 47 millones, or 'we're 47 million', in reference to Spain's total population, written in both catalán and Spanish.

Others wore massive heart-shaped badges or tabards in the designs of the Spanish, Catalunya and European Union flags.

Many representatives from political parties in opposition to the CiU, led by regional president Artur Mas who is spearheading the now globally-famous drive for Catalunya's independence, joined in the march.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A SPANISH tourist has died after falling 600 metres off the top of the famous Pulpit Rock in the Norwegian fjords.

Authorities from the Scandinavian country confirm the man's family in Spain have been told and consular assistance is being provided.

Local newspaper Strandbuen, which interviewed other tourists, said the victim was just about to leave the famous Preikestølen, as it is known in Norwegian, which he had been visiting with a tour group, when he decided to take some more photos.

It was at this point that he fell off the edge – the first time a tourist has accidentally plunged from the massive cliff, says local sheriff Odd-Bjørn Næss. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

MADRID city council's latest local bye-laws covering 'antisocial behaviour' and threatening massive fines for those who break the rules is 'the biggest crackdown since Franco', according to British broadsheet The Independent.

In its article Buskers, pimps and plant-lovers beware, the reporter slams and sends up some of the rules he considers most ludicrous, such as four-figure fines for throwing cigarette butts or chewing gum onto the ground, 'walking bothersome dogs' and using benches for 'anything other than sitting on'.

Juggling, feeding animals of any description – from stray cats to one's own dog whilst walking – staging games or competitions in the street or shaking out rugs are banned, and buskers have to take and pass an exam in order to obtain a free licence.

If buskers fail their music exam, they are not allowed to practise in the street.  

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

ONE of the main banks involved in the preferential share scam which has seen thousands of account-holders across Spain lose their life's savings sent an internal memo round to staff ordering the to hide the terms and conditions from customers.

Caja Madrid, now part of the nationalised entity Bankia, was among the banks found to have sold preferential shares in the firm to regular clients disguised as risk-free savings plans, which were then proven worthless when the company collapsed and was bought out by the State.

Most of the account-holders in question had little or no financial services knowledge and some were elderly with practically no formal education, meaning they trusted staff at the banks when they were told to sign on dotted lines.

A lawyer representing the so-called 15-M movement, which has been railing against cutbacks, unemployment, high taxes, repossessions and other socially-damaging issues and which is now collectively suing the banks behind the scam says that the internal document from the Caja Madrid shows 'company policies programmed and designed' to obtain customers' consent – which was absent in some cases anyway – via 'deception and fraud' by 'hiding the reality of the product or service' and even 'manifestly describing features of the same which were false'.

Read more at thiknSPAIN.com

AUSTERITY measures in Spain are having 'devastating' effects on the mental and physical health of children and the disabled, according to human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe.

The Strasbourg-based outfit, which has 47 countries as members throughout Europe and including Russia, sent commissioner Nils Muiznieks, originally from Latvia, to carry out a fact-finding mission in Spain recently.

Visits to Sevilla and Madrid revealed widespread malnutrition among children and second-rate education, as well as disabled kids being put in mainstream classes with no extra help, meaning they were effectively learning nothing.

With unemployment at 26.3 per cent as at the end of June – down from the previous 27.2 per cent, the highest in history, because of the start of the tourism season and the temporary jobs which come with it – millions of parents across the country cannot afford to feed their children enough to keep them healthy.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

SPAIN has one of the worst adult numeracy and literacy levels in the developed world, according to a report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The average adult's reading ability means they are unable to understand their electricity bills and cannot make head or tail of classic texts such as Don Quijote.

Overall, the country has basic academic levels of 21 and 19 per cent lower than the average for the OECD in reading comprehension and 23 and 22 per cent lower in maths.

Japan and Finland, with 296 and 288 points respectively, came out with the highest levels and, in these and others such as Sweden, The Netherlands and Slovakia, the average A-level or BTEC qualified adult with a mid-range grade – the equivalent in Spain being Bachillerato or its vocational counterpart, the FP – has a far higher level of numeracy and literacy than a typical Spanish university graduate. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A MAN of 23 from Llíria (Valencia province) is facing jail after getting a 12-year-old girl pregnant through what they both maintain was a consenting relationship.

The girl, who is now 14, suffered a miscarriage as the pregnancy was ectopic, which led to peritonitis and nearly cost her her life.

She had met her boyfriend, who was 21, on the social network Tuenti, and both had lied about their age – he claimed he was 16 and the girl said she was 14.

Said to be completely smitten by her new boyfriend, the girl said: “When we had sex, I followed his instructions. I'd never done it before and hadn't planned to do it that morning, but I didn't feel under any pressure.”

When she told him she was pregnant, the young man apparently lost interest in her.

“He told me I had to have an abortion and that I could not possibly have the baby.

“I decided to report him as I felt betrayed, but I don't want them to punish him now because the mistake was mine as well as his. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

THE MINIMUM wage is likely to be frozen in 2014, although the government claims it will not make a decision until the end of this year.

Spain's minimum salary for a full-time, 40-hour week is currently 645.31 euros a month gross, or a daily rate of 21.51 euros.

The annual total for a full-time job may never fall below 9,034.20 euros before tax.

It went up by 0.6 per cent this year, but was also frozen in 2012, the first calendar year of the current PP government.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A BENIDORM woman has died after being gored by a bull during the festivals in Férez (Albacete province).

She had travelled to the village from her Costa Blanca home as she has family in Albacete, according to Begoña Ruiz, mayoress of Férez.

The deceased was one of four people who were struck by the charging bovine while they were inside the enclosure set up for the bull-running, just after 17.00hrs yesterday (Sunday)

She was gored in the stomach, leaving an open wound, and rushed to Hellín general hospital in an ambulance fitted with intensive care equipment, but was pronounced dead on arrival.

Her daughter, who had been gored in the shoulder, was taken in the same ambulance for treatment. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

BIRTHS and deaths can now be registered in hospital by medical staff and emailed to the relevant authorities, saving hundreds of thousands of new parents from queuing in the Civil Registrar's office with a mountain of paperwork.

The latest in a series of 'austerity' measures – given that it will involve more efficient use of public resources – and steps to streamline administration procedures means medical staff treating new mothers will complete the necessary details for registration on a computerised form and send it with an official 'digital signature'.

They must certify that the child is 'beyond all reasonable doubt' that of the mother claiming to be, both in the case of stillborn infants and surviving ones.

Death certificates can also be processed in the same way.

Medics will be required to state whether or not there were signs of violence involved in the person's death, or any other issues that may temporarily prevent him or her from being buried or cremated.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A GUARDIA Civil officer is in a critical condition in hospital after being shot by a gunman in a Mercadona supermarket.

He was attempting to arrest three armed men who burst into the store at 21.23hrs last night (Saturday) in Yunco (Toledo province) when they opened fire.

The policeman was shot in the neck and the bullet came out through his back.

He is in intensive care in the Virgen de la Salud hospital in Toledo city.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

THE largest-ever corruption and money-laundering scandal in Spain's history has finally been tried in full and over 50 people sentenced – over seven years after it was uncovered.

Another 50 or so implicated in the Costa-del-Sol-based 'Malaya Case' have been acquitted.

Marbella town council was found in late 2006 to have been running under a 'corrupt régime' for several years under Juan Antonio Roca, councillor for planning and also mayor for part of the time, involving property developers paying substantial cash bribes – which were not declared to the tax authorities – in exchange for lucrative construction contracts.

As well as in and around Marbella itself, residential complexes affected included one in Los Alcázares (Murcia Region).

Roca is said to have been the leader of the property racket and responsible for ensuring the illegally-received cash 'commission' payments found their way into the public coffers and the pockets of civil servants.  

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

Rafael Nadal will reclaim the No. 1 spot in the ATP World Rankings on Monday after reaching the final of the China Open in Beijing earlier today.

Nadal was leading the semi-final against World No. 5 Tomas Berdych 4-2 in the first set when the Czech player retired after injuring his back as he ran for a backhand slice.

"I barely can sit, I[can] barely can stand up [or] walk," said Berdych after he was forced to pull out with what he described as a "new" injury.

The 27-year-old Spaniard, who won the French Open (d. Ferrer) and US Open (d. Djokovic) this year, has not been No. 1 in the world since July 2011.

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NEW traffic legislation due to be passed today will increase motorway speed limits to 130 kilometres per hour on certain stretches, and will double fines for drink-driving from 500 to 1,000 euros.

Cycle helmets will be legally required for all under-18s on bikes, although whether or not they will be mandatory for adult cyclists will be discussed later in Parliament.

Pedestrians – not just drivers – will be breathalysed and tested for drug-consumption where they infringe traffic norms, even where they are not involved in accidents. 

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AN AMBASSADOR who supports Catalunya's call for an independence referendum may be struck off by Spanish foreign affairs minister José Manuel García-Margallo.

Alberto Moreno, 59, who will have been a diplomat in Andorra for three years in January after similar stints in Angola and Luxembourg, would normally be due to move to another location after this period of time, but Margallo has 'not ruled out' ceasing his career as front-man for Spain's embassies altogether.

Moreno was born in Barcelona and, in an interview with the newspaper El Diari d'Andorra, said that now the secession debate has reached such a critical stage, Catalunya should be 'allowed to hold a legal referendum about whether or not to remain part of Spain'.

And if 65 per cent or more people vote in favour of the north-eastern region becoming a separate nation, the central government 'will have to accept the result'.

“Otherwise, we would not be able to call ourselves a democracy,” said Moreno from his base in the Pyrénéen principality, the only nation in the world where catalán, spoken in his native region, is the sole official language. 

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A NEW drug developed and tested with the help of a Barcelona hospital has been proven to increase survival levels in advanced cases of stomach cancer.

The second-most lethal forms of cancer in the world, the fourth-most common and one which usually goes undetected until it is too late, until now the only real type of treatment has been chemotherapy, which does little more than prolong the patient's life for another eight to 10 months.

But clinical trials on 355 patients, many of whom were being treated in the oncology department of Barcelona's Vall d'Hebrón hospital, has found that the use of the antibody Ramucirumab inhibits the action of proteins associated in tumour growth in Stage III stomach cancer.

These proteins stimulate angiogenesis, a physiological process which leads to new blood vessels forming from existing ones and leads to rapid tumour growth.

Of the 355 patients tested, a total of 238 were given Ramucirumab and survived for 5.2 months longer with better tumour control than the 117 given a placebo drug, surviving for 3.2 months.

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BULL-FIGHTING and bull-running will be officially considered 'national cultural heritage' based upon its 'tradition' in Spain following a motion in Parliament ending with a majority vote by the PP government.

The move comes from a petition received in Congress with 600,000 signatures calling for the spectacle to be considered a 'cultural asset', and will mean the government will create measures and invest money in promoting and protecting bull-fighting and bull-running throughout the country.

Members of the opposition, including most of the PSOE, abstained from voting.

This goes entirely in the face of a recent protest by over 15,000 people led by the independent Pro-Animal Party (PACMA) calling for bull-fighting and any other spectacle within Spain's fiestas which involved unnecessary cruelty to animals to be banned.

The demonstration, which took place in Tordesillas (Valladolid province) and then moved to Madrid with a manifesto read and a spear snapped in front of the PSOE and PP headquarters, was mostly against the Toro de la Vega tournament held in the northern town which protesters described as 'the cruellest and most barbaric' form of animal torture for entertainment.

It involves several hundred people crowding around a loose bull and hurling sharp spears at it, until eventually the animal is completely surrounded and unable to escape the multiple weapons. 

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A BOMB scare in a cathedral in Zaragoza led to the entire building and neighbouring square being evacuated yesterday (Wednesday) after an explosion went off.

Investigations showed the device in side the Basilica del Pilar was a camping gas bottle, but it is believed to have been planted by radical left-wing activists.

Police believe they may be anarchists linked to similar Italian and Greek organisations, members of which have been found in Spain and who habitually preach and incite violence 'at its maximum expression'.

An 'insurrectionist anarchism' movement in Greece is said to be rife at present and are believed to be infiltrating – as a cover - otherwise harmless dissident groups whose activities are completely unrelated, and who are unaware of the extremists' presence.

Nobody was injured in the blast – even though the cathedral was open to the public at the time – but it was not due to be opened until this morning as it was still full of smoke.  

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OVER 20 earthquakes were felt in the Gulf of Valencia yesterday (Tuesday), making a total of 141 in the last week and a half – the most severe of which measured 4.2 on the Richter scale.

Each of them has had its epicentre near the Castor gas-drilling platform off the coast of Vinaròs (Castellón province), says the National Geographical Institute.

Some 1.2 billion euros have been invested in the Castor project, which is attempting to exploit an old oil pocket around 1.75 kilometres below the sea-bed and which will cover a third of the Valencia region's gas supply needs for 50 days.

But since drilling began on September 13, nearly 300 earthquakes have been reported.

Most of these have been of very low intensity, meaning they would not be felt, but lately they have reached levels that could cause damage or injury in the immediate area.  

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A CONTROVERSIAL new law forcing chronically-ill patients to pay for medication dispensed in hospital came into force yesterday – Tuesday, October 1 – but the majority of Spain's regional governments have refused to comply.

People with serious illnesses such as cancer, hepatitis, HIV or ongoing but non-life threatening conditions like psoriasis or infertility, some of whose medication is provided by in-house dispensaries instead of high-street pharmacies, will be expected to pay 10 per cent of the cost with a limit of 4.20 euros per individual prescription box or packet.  

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A REPORT from the Spanish tax authorities claims the PP government has 'not committed any crimes' in terms of money-laundering through its alleged cash-in-hand wage top-ups paid to high-ranking politicians and 'bribes' from companies in exchange for public works contracts.

Hacienda, the tax office, says any undeclared earnings received from the former treasurer Luis Bárcenas by Spain's president Mariano Rajoy (pictured) and the vice-secretary general María Dolores del Cospedal including and prior to 2007 do not count as the time-limit for their being treated as a criminal offence – five years – has expired.

And those occurring during or after 2008 are not considered an offence because the money received was less than 120,000 euros, the report continues.

Although the tax office cannot say for certain whether such undeclared cash payments were received, they are working on the hypothetical basis that they have been and that the handwritten accounts penned by Bárcenas were genuine.

These claim that in 2007, Rajoy and his colleague Ángel Acebes received 25,200 euros in cash and a third party member, Javier Arenas, former vice-secretary general, received 30,000 euros.

“More than five years has passed, meaning that in the event these actions had indeed been carried out, any possible tax fraud has expired,” the report claims.

The sums in cash Bárcenas allegedly paid Rajoy and Cospedal in 2008 were 27,600 euros and 15,000 euros respectively, which are 'not enough' to be considered a criminal offence as the total was less than 120,000 euros, according to the National Fraud Investigation Office (ONIF).

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