Live News From Spain As It Happens

A VILLAGE in western Spain chimed in the New Year today (Wednesday) at noon instead of midnight – because most of its residents would not be awake at the usual time.

Villar de Corneja, in the province of Ávila, Castilla y León, has just 48 inhabitants and the average age is 75.

Mayoress Carmen Hernández says most residents would have gone to bed long before the midnight chimes and, for the last 10 years – since the first day of 2004 – church bells have rung in the New Year at midday instead.

“By midnight, the majority of residents will be on their second sleep,” says Sra Hernández, referring to the ‘first sleep’ of the day as the afternoon nap, or siesta, and the ‘second’ as when they go to bed at night.

As a result, 12 hours before the rest of Spain, most of the 48 villagers were out in the church square eating their 12 grapes – one for each chime.

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THE coldest night of the year saw frosts and sub-zero temperatures even reaching Spain’s coasts including what are normally the warmest parts of the country.

Monday night saw the mercury plummet to between 0ºC and 1ºC in the province of Valencia, one of the areas that usually sees the mildest winters, and Tuesday night was only slightly warmer.

Islands, coasts and low-lying areas are usually free from frost, but the State meteorological agency, AEMET says not one part of the mainland or Balearic Islands has escaped the deep freeze.

Record lows were recorded in Lleida, where temperatures went down to -14.6ºC, Baqueira at -13.8ºC, and Cuéllar (Segovia) and El Puente (Zamora) dropped down to -10.2ºC.

Initial forecasts were for inland areas, such as rural areas in the province of Castellón, to see temperatures of -22ºC.

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A TOURIST has been found frozen to death in the Sierra Nevada less than 24 hours after she went missing.

The 60-year-old Austrian woman had been trying to climb the La Veleta peak in the Granada province mountain range as part of a group of four who had set out from the Sierra Nevada university halls of residence.

Two of the group members – the victim and a 50-year-old man – went off on their own and became lost at around 13.20hrs.

The man was found at around 05.00hrs the following morning suffering from a serious case of hypothermia.

He was taken to the medical clinic at the Pradollano ski resort for treatment.

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KING Felipe VI's eagerly-anticipated first-ever Christmas speech condemned corruption, called for Catalunya to stay together with Spain and thanked everyone for their support in his coronation after his father, King Juan Carlos I, abdicated in June.

The Monarch began by thanking the public for 'letting him into their homes' on Christmas Eve night, when Spanish families have their festive dinner and get-together rather than on Christmas Day as is the case in northern Europe and Anglo-Saxon countries.

He commented on the hardship, uncertainty and difficult times suffered by Spanish society as a result of the financial crisis, how 'some of our political problems are generating concern', and on the fact that "the behaviour of certain public servants which are a long way off being what one would expect provoke, and rightly so, indignation."

Although he did not at any point mention the name of his sister, the Infanta Cristina or her husband, Inaki Urdangarín, the millions of viewers tuned into his speech read between the lines: the Duchess of Palma has been formally charged as an 'accessory' to the Duke's money-laundering and embezzlement racket, and faces trial next year.

"In October, I stated in Asturias that we needed moral role models to admire, ethical principles we could recognise, community values to maintain. I said, back then, that we needed a great collective moral impulse, and now I want to' add that we need a profound regeneration of our collective lives. And this task requires a fight against corruption which should be our relentless aim," stated the new King, who urged society to try to resolve its problems with 'firmness and efficiency' in order to 'regain the calm and serenity' that 'a democratic society like ours requires and deserves'.

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LOTTERY winners eager to get their hands on their prize money were left in suspense after technical faults meant none of the State-run betting shops could pay them.

With December 22 traditionally seeing queues of frenzied ticket-holders outside the lottery shops as soon as the numbers are drawn to claim their winnings, the frustration was almost tangible on Monday evening when they were told a computer fault meant they would have to try again the next day.

Lottery shops are normally able to hand out winnings of up to €2,500 over the counter, although for larger amounts of prize money, the lucky ticket-buyer has to go to a bank to claim it.

But although the State lottery board announced that the lower winnings would be available for collection from 18.00hrs on Monday onwards, when ticket-holders went back to the shop, they were greeted with a sign that said: "Christmas draw payments have been delayed for technical reasons. We will advise when these become available and apologise for any inconvenience."

The software hitch was across the board, meaning none of the winners was able to pick up their cash.

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SHARED custody of children can be denied by the courts in the event of ‘conflict’ between parents, according to a recent verdict in the province of Sevilla.

Upheld by the Supreme Court following an appeal by the father, a judge in the town of Dos Hermanas said that where there is ‘no mutual respect’ between a child’s parents, joint custody arrangements would be ‘harmful’ to his or her upbringing and development.

A mother decided to fight her husband’s request for shared custody when they were in the process of getting divorced, saying she was not happy with the fact her son had to be dropped off at and picked up from his father’s parents rather than the father’s own home.

She also reported screening and blocking calls from her ex-husband to their son because of the father’s having become ‘verbally aggressive’ with her on the phone several times.

Her husband had filed for divorce in 2009, two years after they got married, and whilst she was pregnant with their son.

The judge decided the case in favour of the mother, saying joint custody should ‘always be based upon the child’s interests’.

Although this is the first time the Supreme Court has denied shared custody based upon the parents’ relationship with each other, the judge said this verdict was ‘not an exceptional measure’ but should be considered the norm.

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OVER 60 would-be migrants from north African countries have been caught in the last 48 hours off the coasts of Murcia, Alicante, Granada and Almería.

An empty wooden boat was discovered near the Orihuela Costa area in the southern Costa Blanca on Saturday, and nine of its original occupants were later found.

Most of them claimed to be under 18, which would allow them more favourable treatment now they have been caught, but coastguard police are suspicious about this and are carrying out investigations.

They have not confirmed which country they came from.

Two crafts were intercepted off the shores of La Manga del Mar Menor (Murcia province) on the same day, in which at least 20 north Africans - believed to be Algerian nationals - were travelling.

They were found near the Monteblanco area and attended to by members of the Red Cross, who gave them food, hot drinks, water, blankets and clean, dry clothing.

But by the time the Guardia Civil from nearby Cabo de Palos arrived to take them in, all bar 11 had fled.

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A BRITISH father and son have been arrested for attacking each other in their Valencia flat with a knife and a paintball gun.

Police were called out by neighbours who heard shouting and banging inside the apartment in the Russafa neighbourhood of the city, and found a 30-year-old man and his father, 58, embroiled in a fight.

The father told officers that his son had shot him in the eye with a paintball gun, and had a severe bruise there to prove it.

But he omitted to tell them that he had also attacked the younger man.

The son described how his father pushed him to the floor and threatened him with a carving knife, and that he had retaliated by shooting him with a pistol.

Both men, who live together in the Valencia flat, were injured, police say.

They have both been arrested and charged with actual bodily harm.

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PRE-CHRISTMAS traffic is already mounting up and is expected to continue in the same vein until around Wednesday, with tailbacks of up to 12 kilometres at the exits of most of Spain's major cities.

According to the General Directorate of Traffic (DGT), this weekend has already seen gridlocks on the A-1, M-40 and A-2 leading out of Madrid, and the B-10 and B-20 leaving Barcelona.

Further south, the A-92 and N-630 near Sevilla has been nose-to-tail and the V-30 and V-31 outside Valencia, near Alfafar and in particular on the road to the airport have been rammed.

Motorways and sliproads leading to airports, particularly those in 'expatriate belts' such as those of Alicante, Málaga, Murcia and Valencia are expected to see ongoing gridlocks adding considerable extra time onto journeys as foreign residents return to their home countries for Christmas.

Up to Wednesday night, some seven million cars are expected to be out on the roads, with Christmas Day falling on Thursday, although many workers are likely to take Friday off – as Boxing Day is not a bank holiday in Spain – to give them a long weekend.

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A RUINED business owner who blew up his car in front of the PP headquarters in Madrid has been arrested and denied bail.

Daniel Pérez Berlanga, 37, who has been on the dole since May and has been unable to find any type of employment was facing losing everything when he filled his car with butane gas bottles and ignited them in the Plaza de Castilla in the capital.

Seconds before, the former businessman from Bronchales (Teruel province) had crashed the vehicle into the building.

The judge did not find him guilty of terrorism, but charged him with malicious damage and possession of explosives.

He is said to be suffering from schizophrenia and had been arrested when he was 22 for stealing a car, according to the Guardia Civil.

The accused was arrested first thing on Friday morning after his explosive protest next to the government's offices on the C/ Génova in Madrid.

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THE husband of a Spanish tourist who was murdered on Monday in Venezuela has been arrested on suspicion of plotting her death in order to claim on her life insurance.

María Liz Cristaldo López, 35, was shot as she tried to run from the scene of a robbery in the densely-populated La Lechuga district of the city of Maracaibo.

She had been conned by a taxi driver transporting her and her husband, Jesús González, 36, who was injured in the struggle that saw them relieved of their mobile phones, gold jewellery, money and other personal effects.

González, originally said to be a Chilean national but now reported to be from the north-western region of Galicia in Spain, is said to have been in cahoots with a Venezuelan man and his partner to kill the young woman for financial gain, according to the Secretary of State for Public Order and Safety, Jairo Ramírez.

The Venezuelan Crime and Forensic Police Investigation Unit (CICPC) in the state of La Zulia where the murder took place said they arrested a man called Miguel who admitted he and the woman's husband had been planning 'from Spain, for a long time' how to make her death look like a random murder in order for González to claim on her life insurance policy.

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A COSTA Blanca university is offering a new foundation degree-level diploma in rock music.

Students take the first year of the course via distance learning online, honing their instrument-playing skills, improving their technique and polish, and increasing their vocal range.

They also learn musical directing, stage skills, instrument technology, history of rock, rhythm and percussion, amplifying and even building guitars, managing basic sound and voice equipment, and undertake voice classes aimed at composing records, forming harmony bands, and studying the language of music.

The qualification, called 'Graduate Expert in Rock', is roughly the equivalent in level to a 'chartered' title in the UK and is about the length of a BTEC Higher National Certificate, or just less than half a degree.

It has been pioneered at the Miguel Hernández University in Elche (southern Alicante province) and includes specialist modules in vocals, guitar, bass and drums, together with compulsory and optional units, requiring around 200 hours of study each year.

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TRAFFIC police will be out in force this week to crack down on driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs.

They will set up extra breathalysing points until this coming Sunday, December 21 inclusive and are expected to stop and test at least six million drivers, as they did over the same period last year.

Drink-driving is less common nowadays, reports the Guardia Civil, having dropped from 5% to 1.7% since the year 2001.

But 'drug-driving' is on the increase, they warn, with more and more motorists involved in accidents found to have consumed, in the main, cannabis, and also cocaine and other stimulants on some occasions.

Even more dangerously, some drivers who are caught are found to have been consuming both drugs and alcohol, a potentially fatal combination even without being behind a wheel.

Just over a quarter of drivers killed in car accidents across Europe are found to have been drinking, but in terms of distance covered in kilometres, motorists on only 1% of European roads are found to be at least double the drink-driving limit for Spain.

This is currently 0.3 grams per litre of blood for men and 0.2 for women, compared to 0.35 in the UK.

In Spain, it is standard procedure to breathalyse all drivers involved in serious accidents, whether fatal or not and, in 100,000 cases, they found 5,131 – 5.13% - had been drinking previously.

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THE first-ever sentence against an individual for videoing a film on his mobile phone in the cinema has been passed in Menorca.

A court in the island's capital, Mahón (Maó) reveals that a young man from nearby Sant Lluís was caught by cinema staff last October using his phone to record an entire film at the Ocimax cinema in the former city – and that he had already been arrested on two previous occasions for the same offence.

Police seized his phone and, after examining this and the footage, concluded that the model was sophisticated enough for him to have been able to copy it onto DVD or save it as a file on a programme such as Windows Media and then sell it on.

The images recorded were of impeccable quality, very close to that of a legitimate DVD film sold in the shops.

Officers concluded that he intended to profit from the films made by selling them as pre-releases, which breaks copyright laws.

The accused was charged with a civil, rather than criminal offence, since he had not yet made any money from selling copies of the films.

He was sentenced to six days of being 'tagged' by the court so his whereabouts could be traced at any moment, had his mobile phone confiscated permanently, was ordered to pay legal costs involved in the case, and banned from going inside any cinema for four months.

Although this is the first time a person has been punished by a court for filming inside a cinema, it is the latest in a string of copyright convictions involving intellectual property.

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A CONVICTED murderer wanted by a Spanish court has been taunting judges by sending them postcards from the Caribbean.

Walter Jerôme C. R., a French national, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the fatal shooting of Dutchman Johannes Everardus Engel in the town of Aler, in the Pyrénéen province of Huesca, northern Aragón.

This was in 2006, three years after the murder, following a trial by jury, but the Supreme Court declared the sentence void on a technicality and ordered a fresh hearing after the killer had been behind bars for 18 months out of a 24-year sentence.

Although the Supreme Court magistrates considered that the jury had proven beyond reasonable doubt that the accused fired the fatal shot – particularly as he had pleaded guilty – they did not believe there was sufficient evidence to prove his motives or that he did so in cold blood.

The hearing was scheduled for January 11, 2008, but the sentence being declared null and void meant the prisoner had automatically had to be released before then.

This gave him time to flee the country.

An international arrest warrant was issued and, upon learning this, the killer sent a postcard from the island of Margarita, off the coast of Venezuela, to Huesca provincial court in what were described as 'jovial tones'.

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THE Infanta Cristina has paid the nearly 600,000 euros she owes the tax office, but her lawyers have put it in the wrong account.

They paid it into the bank of the court of Barcelona, rather than that of Palma de Mallorca which is handling her case.

The mistake was highlighted when the court of Palma claimed it had not received the 587,413 euros, including interest, which she is said to have defrauded from the tax authorities via the company Aizoon, which she owned 50-50 with her husband, Iñaki Urdangarín.

Judge José Castro found out that the Duchess of Palma’s defence team had mixed up the last two digits of the account number, and has alerted the court of the error.

It is not known whether, with the money now deposited to refund the unpaid tax, she will escape criminal charges.

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SPAIN'S foreign affairs ministry has called for an 'urgent' meeting with its counterparts in Venezuela after its leader called a former Spanish president 'a bloodthirsty murderer'.

Nicolás Maduro, who took over after Hugo Chávez lost his battle with cancer, says PP president José María Aznar 'promoted the Iraq war' alongside US leader George W Bush in 2003.

“There were 1.2 million people killed in Iraq thanks to Aznar, Spain's bloodthirsty murderer and ex-president,” announced Maduro during a public conference in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, on Friday.

Aznar was president until the 2004 elections in May, when he lost his seat to socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero due to having claimed the Madrid train bombings two months earlier were the work of Basque terrorists ETA rather than, as later transpired, Al-Qaeda.

One of the first actions taken by Zapatero when he gained power was to withdraw all Spanish troops from Iraq.

Maduro made these accusations in the context of blaming the USA for bringing down oil prices through its 'imperial game' of hydraulic fracturing, or 'fracking'.

“They are destroying the earth's crust in the USA to get to oil which has flooded the world petroleum market – they're producing nine million barrels a day, lots of oil, and have brought down the price of fuel as part of their geo-political power struggle to take over the world and to hit Russia where it hurts,” stormed Maduro.

Calling the United States 'the world imperial petroleum vampire', the Venezuelan leader added: “It wasn't enough for them to have destroyed Libya like they did. Nowadays, oil fields are controlled by terrorist groups.”

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PARENTS in the Valencia region have been asked to vote in an online public opinion poll to find out which language they would prefer their children to be taught in.

The regional government, or Generalitat plans to launch a new multi-lingual curriculum which will allow pupils to leave school with a reasonable working knowledge of English, and fluency and accuracy in both Spanish and the regional tongue, valenciano.

Two programmes have been proposed – one where the main lingua franca of the classroom is valenciano, and another where Castilian Spanish, or castellano is the main teaching language.

Anyone whose child goes to a State school in the region is invited to take part in the poll on Friday, December 19 via the website https://opina.edu.gva.es.

They will need a password and username to do so, which they can obtain from their children's school before Friday.

Where a child lives with his or her mother and father at the same main residential address, each parent can vote separately.

Which main teaching language should be used in schools is an issue that has long divided parents in the three provinces of Valencia, Castellón and Alicante, with some preferring their children to be taught in valenciano as it is the language they speak at home and will allow them to compete for civil service jobs in adulthood, whereas others prefer their kids to be educated in castellano so they are not limited to living in the same region when they reach university or working age.

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THE typical Spanish diet could be the key to a longer life and youthful looks, according to scientists in the United States.

An abundance of freshly-caught fish and seafood, grilled rather than deep-fried, plenty of olive oil, rice, beans and pulses, vegetables and fruit – all of which are staples in coastal areas of Spain – have always been recognised as healthy choices.

But as well as lowering cholesterol, regulating blood sugar, improving circulation and heart health, keeping joints well-oiled and skin more wrinkle-free than diets high in refined sugar and saturated fat, latest investigations have shown a Mediterranean-style food régime may actually keep cells younger for longer.

Although inland Spain's diet is more meat-based, beans and pulses are commonly used in the north and in Madrid, and vegetables feature more heavily in these areas, both of which are excellent gene-protectors, says the article in the British Medical Journal which detailed the results of research in a Boston (USA) hospital.

Scientists engaged 5,000 nurses in their study and monitored their health over more than 10 years.

They examined the 'caps' on the end of chromosomes, which are known as 'telomeres' and protect these from harm.

Each cell in the body, except for red blood cells, contains a central core known as the 'nucleus' which, in all cells where it is present – except for women's eggs and men's sperm – contains 46 smaller structures known as chromosomes.

Chromosomes are made up of a complex chemical known as deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, which carry information known as genes.

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SWEDISH furniture giant Ikea plans to sue the Valencia regional government for not letting it open its new store on Sundays and bank holidays.

The company was under the impression it would be able to do so when it opened in Alfafar, just outside Valencia city, but was forbidden to do so by the council.

Shops are permitted to open on Sundays and national, regional and local bank holidays where they are based in an area considered to be a 'tourist hotspot', but the inland dormitory town of Alfafar has no other significant attractions other than Ikea.

An appeal to the regional government has failed, since they have backed Alfafar town council in not letting the store open Sundays.

Local furniture shops said doing so would suppose unfair competition for them, because they do not wish to open on Sundays and bank holidays.

But nearly two-thirds of Ikea's trade in Europe comes from Sunday opening, since the majority of the general public are off work that day.

Head of Ikea for Spain, Carolina García says the firm is 'looking into the possibility of' taking legal action against the Valencia regional government for misleading them into building a store they believed they could open on non-working days, only to find out once it started trading that they would not be allowed.

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SUPERMARKET chain Mercadona has invested five million euros on 'contactless payment' technology, which means shoppers only have to 'show' the machine their cards.

They work with mobile phones, bracelets and even stickers, and mean the customer does not have to insert his or her card and type in a PIN number.

Already in the pilot stage and expected to be rolled out by February, the system will be available for purchases of less than 20 euros.

It is designed to speed up transactions at the till and make life easier for consumers, as well as encouraging them to use cards rather than cash to reduce costs, administration, risk of robberies and time spent at the till.

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SPAIN is among the 10 countries in the world with the lowest number of murders, reinforcing its reputation as one of the safest nations on the planet and where violent crime is very rare.

The World Health Organisation (WHO)'s most recent report covers crime rates for the year 2012, when 698 people were murdered, a rate of 0.8 per 100,000 inhabitants.

This is a long way below the European average of 3.8 per 100,000, and half that of the UK, which is 1.5 per 100,000 residents.

Spain is level pegging with Germany and Sweden, and slightly better than Italy where nine people per million (0.9 per 100,000 inhabitants) were murdered in 2012.

Spain was only beaten by Slovenia and San Marino (seven per million inhabitants), Singapore, Iceland and Norway (six per million), Japan (four per million) and Luxembourg, the country with the fewest murders in the world at two per million residents).

France and Greece were the only countries which did not supply data in time.

More men in Spain tend to be victims of homicide - 11 per million - than women, five per million.

Stabbing or bludgeoning was the main cause of death, accounting for 47% of cases, with a quarter of the total being caused by firearms.

Worldwide, murder is the third-most common cause of death in men aged 15 to 44, with 475,000 people of both sexes assassinated every year around the globe.

Women and children, internationally, are far more likely to suffer violence, but it is less often fatal than with men who are more likely to be murdered.

The WHO report also shows that one in four children on Earth have suffered physical abuse at some point, and one in five have been sexually assaulted.

On an international level, one in three women has been physically or sexually assaulted by her current or former partner or spouse at least once in her life.

Fatal violence has diminished in the last decade by 16% around the world, says the WHO's director-general Margaret Chan, but she warns that even non-lethal violence can seriously affect the victim for the rest of his or her life.

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TWICE-WORLD champion in MotoGP Marc Márquez is reported to have moved to Andorra to reduce his taxes.

The 21-year-old, who scooped up the top title in his rookie year, 2013, and repeated the performance the following season, is said to be earning around 10 million euros a year – but by establishing his permanent residence in the Pyrénéen country, he will reduce his tax liability to an annual 30,000 euros.

Spanish national daily broadsheet El Mundo and the national newspaper for the principality itself, El Diari d'Andorra, both say he is set to head north and is just waiting for the smaller country's immigration deparment to approve his residence application.

Márquez and his brother Àlex, 18, who was Moto2 world champion this year, come from the town of Cervera in the land-locked province of Lleida, in the north-eastern region of Catalunya – just 120 kilometres from Andorra.

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TOLL fees on Spain's motorways will be frozen in 2015 for the first time in five years.

This welcome decision for drivers has been provoked by ever-declining profits as a result of motorists boycotting A-roads.

With tolls having risen sharply every year since 2010, when they were last frozen, the volume of traffic on motorways where fees are charged has plummeted to levels seen in 1996, not long after they were first opened.

In many cases, such as the Mediterranean 'corridor', the AP-7, tolls have doubled or even trebled in less than 10 years.

Between 2002 and 2009 inclusive, toll companies agreed an inflation-based formula with the central government for progressively increasing fees – the average annual rise in inflation between October of one year and of the following divided or multiplied by the increase or decrease in traffic volume as applicable.

For this coming year, with inflation now in negative figures, the price 'increase' comes to 0.01% - which means companies will leave fees at 2014 rates for another 12 months.

The average toll fee increased by 1.85% in January this year, the second-lowest increase since the formula was first applied in 2002.

But by then, combined with the financial crisis meaning commuters are lower in number with fewer people using their cars every day, the cost of using the motorways had already become prohibitive for the average driver and most were tending to use back roads except when it was absolutely essential to use the toll network.

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SPAIN'S Christmas lottery has always been the most popular of the year, but for the first time ever record queues have been forming outside betting shops.

In most of the lottery outlets in Madrid, residents determined to end the year as millionaires - or at least a-few-thousandaires - have been waiting patiently for up to six hours to get a ticket.

The El Gordo lottery, which costs 200 euros for a full ticket or 20 euros for a tenth of a ticket, known as a décimo, is the

most prolific in terms of prizegiving - it results in more winners than any other national or international lottery in Spain, but the cash hand-outs are usually much smaller.

The top prize for a décimo can be as much as 300,000 euros, but most big prizes are five-figure sums and the majority are under 10,000 euros, or even just a few hundred.

But Christmas would not be Christmas in Spain without El Gordo, drawn on December 22, and members of the public who started to line up outside shops in the capital at 09.30hrs this week have often had to return the following day because they did not reach the check-out desk in time for lunchtime closing at 13.00hrs or 14.00hrs.

Couples with children in prams, pensioners who called their daily El Gordo queue a 'Vía Crucis' or a 'pilgrimage', saying they 'have spent more time lined up outside lottery shops than in church', and even tourists mostly say they have no intention of giving up until they get their hands on their décimo.

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A PRIVATE collection of family photos belonging to the late cubist painter Pablo Picasso have been lent to a British historian and put on display in a London gallery.

They include photos of the Málaga-born artist's first wife, ballerina Olga Khokhlova, and of some of his mistresses, which were used as inspiration for many of his paintings.

Another shows Picasso walking across a garden carrying the family dog.

The pictures were handed over to British art historian Sir John Richardson, 90, by the painter's only legitimate grandson Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, a long-standing close friend.

They were produced literally after 'coming up in conversation', Sir John says – he was chatting to his good friend Bernard, a great lover of photography, who mentioned in passing that he had 'hundreds' of snapshots and home films taken by Picasso which he had kept stored since his grandfather's death over 40 years ago.

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A COLD front heading in from the west will bring snow, icy winds and tidal surges to most of northern Spain and part of the Balearic Islands today (Monday).

Residents in the provinces of Teruel and Huesca, both in Aragón, and Castellón in the east may have woken up this morning to a blanket of white, especially if they live in areas of 400 metres or more above sea-level.

Elsewhere in the country, snow is expected at altitudes of between 600 and 1,000 metres minimum depending upon location.

Gale-force winds are set to hit Castellón, all provinces in Catalunya except Barcelona and all of Aragón except Zaragoza, whilst the whole of the northernmost strip, Tarragona and the island of Menorca will see tidal surges in coastal areas.

In the far north, including north-western Catalunya and the Balearic Islands, rain is expected this morning with thunder and lightning, but should dry up by around lunchtime.

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OVER 100 people stripped naked and covered themselves in red dye symbolising blood in a protest over the use of fur in fashion design in Barcelona yesterday (Sunday).

Organised by AnimaNaturalis International, the demonstration saw activists lying down and playing dead in the central Plaza del Rey.

Models Judit Benavente and Bastet Davinia, wearing fur coats – which may have been fake – and streaked with 'blood' carried banners which read in Spanish and in English, 'Animals need their fur. You don't'.

The demonstrators revealed that a total of 60 million animals worldwide are killed so that their fur can be used for clothing.

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THIEVES have stolen around 70 original works of art from a gallery in Madrid, valued at upwards of 600,000 euros, reveals the owner's father.

Pedro Márquez, who ran the Puerta de Alcalá art museum before handing it over to his son, says intruders gained entry by breaking into a disused bar, Las Tablas, next door to the gallery at number 67 of the C/ Alcalá, close to the iconic city-centre archway, and making a hole in the wall.

This was said to be some time between Wednesday evening and Thursday morning.

Witnesses called the police after seeing a small group of people described as eastern European leaving the building at night carrying pictures.

Several of these were original works by Valencia-born artist Eustaquio Segrelles, whose uncle José Segrelles was illustrator to 19th-century novelist Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, also from Valencia, whose works often centred on villages in and around the famous Albufera wetlands in the south of the province.

And 14 paintings of a collection of 30 by Sevilla artist Pablo Segarra Chías which formed part of a special exhibition were taken.

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SCIENTISTS from a Barcelona university have worked out that today's pet cats domesticated themselves 10,000 years ago to ensure they got fed.

The Comparative Genomic Laboratory at the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) said dogs and cats began to cohabit with humans back in the Neolithic era, a time when agriculture first came about, and that in the case of felines, this was to prevent their own starvation.

Archaeological findings show the earliest evidence of cats living as pets with humans was in Cyprus over 10,000 years ago.

The domestic cat, whose scientific name is Felis Silvestriscatus, has around 20,000 genes, and these have been compared to those of the wild mountain cat, the tiger, the dog, the cow and the human.

Genetic changes in wild cats dating back to the Palaeolithic era meant they evolved to become more docile, since this made it easier for them to get food.

This behaviour has stood the test of time, and explains why cats try to 'butter up' their owners, or show more affection, when they want to be fed.

Dr Marqués Bonet, co-author of the research, says genes which have survived millennia are those which condition the animal to seek reward, the equivalent of positive reinforcement in humans.

“That explains why cats have learnt to be cute and cuddly when they are hungry,” says Dr Marqués Bonet.

Another factor which has evolved genetically in pet cats since prehistoric times is their excellent memory, say the UPF researchers.

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THE latest edition of the Michelin Guide for Spain and Portugal has been released, with 19 new restaurants gaining their first star.

The Aizan, on the ground floor of the Hotel Meliá Bilbao near the Guggenheim museum, specialising in traditional Basque cuisine including cod in sauce, and Elkano, based in Getaria (Guipúzcoa province), founded by the late Pedro Arregui 50 years ago and specialising in roast meat have won two more Michelin stars for the Basque Country.

In the Balearic Islands, Restaurante Andreu Genestra in Capdepera on the Palma-Manacor road in Mallorca, an eatery using freshly-caught fish from the Cala Ratjada and home-grown vegetables, Simply Fosh in Palma, a modern, cheaper and more casual take on the dishes created by celebrity chef Marc Fosh based upon local seafood, and Can Dani in Sant Ferran de ses Roques in Formentera have all gained their first Michelin star.

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SPAIN has the highest life expectancy in the European Union – it's official, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Women in Spain typically live to 85-and-a-half and men to 79-and-a-half, putting the average for both sexes at 82-and-a-half.

This has risen by five years and six months since the year 1990, compared to an average of 5.1 years across Europe as a whole.

The OECD puts this down to the 'excellent public health system' in the country.

Switzerland and Iceland, with an average for both sexes of 82.8 years and 83 years respectively, mean Spain's life expectancy is the third-highest in Europe, but is the highest in the EU as Switzerland and Iceland are not among its 28 member States.

Within the 34 countries in the OECD – considered to be the 'first world' and 'emerging' countries – Spain's women live the second-longest after females in Japan, who reach an average of 86.4 years.

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MADRID'S La Paz University Hospital is the best in Spain, according to a panel of experts, and Valencia's La Fe hospital is 10th-best in the country.

Research based upon the opinions of patients and healthcare professionals conducted by marketing firm Analysis and Investigation, and financed by the Business Monitor of Corporate Reputation (MERCO) found that the top private hospital in Spain was the University Clinic of Navarra in the north, followed by three others in Madrid – the Montepríncipe, the Sanchinarro, the Quirón and the Ruber Internacional.

As for State hospitals, the five best are found in the capital and in Barcelona, the survey says.

Hospital Clínic i Provincial de Barcelona, the Gregorio Marañón in Madrid, the Vall d'Hebrón in Barcelona and the 12 de Octubre in Madrid are second, third, fourth and fifth respectively.

The top 10 public hospitals in Spain include Madrid's Ramón y Cajal University Hospital, the Virgen del Rocío in Sevilla, the Hospital Clínico San Carlos in Madrid, the Santa Creu i Sant Pau in Barcelona, and the La Fe hospital in Valencia.

Other private hospitals in the top 10 are all in Madrid – the Sanitas La Zarzuela and Sanitas La Moraleja – or Barcelona, the Quirón, the Quirón Teknon and the Hospital Universitari Sagrat Cor.

The first-ever reputation-monitoring research on Spain's hospitals to be carried out, the study involved 2,399 medical experts including doctors, nurses, patients' associations and health journalists who analysed 186 quality and service indicators.

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AN EX-PRESIDENT of Spain has become a Colombian citizen and sworn allegiance to the flag of the South American country.

Felipe González, former socialist leader who was president prior to the PP government led by José María Aznar – voted out in the 2004 elections – has been granted a Colombian passport in recognition of his ongoing efforts at helping restore peace in a nation which has had a long history of violence and kidnapping, mostly at the hands of drug barons and the armed organisation, the FARC.

Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos described González as 'a great friend' of the country and 'an extraordinary person', and the former Spanish president himself recalled that he had been 'linked to Colombia for over half his life' in one way or another.

“You cannot imagine the satisfaction it gives me, feeling every bit as Colombian as I am Spanish, and feeling every bit as Spanish as I am Colombian,” González said as he pledged to comply with the South American nation's Constitution in the Casa Nariño, the government headquarters.

“There are moments in the life of a president that create special pleasure, and this is one of them – granting nationality to a person who has been such a great friend of Colombia's,” announced Santos.

González, who was head of State in Spain from 1982 after the year-long reign of Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo – successor to Adolfo Suárez, first president of the democracy - until 1996 when Aznar came into power, 'brought Spain its greatest levels of prosperity in recent times', according to Santos.

In those years, González 'helped the economy to grow', 'modernised the country', and gained entry into the European Union for Spain.

At the same time, González offered 'advice and help' to Colombia 'with no thought of personal gain' and 'out of affection for the Colombians', both during the reign of Santos himself and previous presidents Belisario Betancur (1982-1986) and César Gaviria (1990-1994), the present leader stated.

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FORMER president of the PP for Castellón Carlos Fabra has gone to jail 11 years after legal action was first taken against him.

He was given five days to enter prison voluntarily, a period which ended yesterday (Monday) and which he eked out until the very last minute, telling reporters he 'preferred to stay at home'.

Fabra, who is no relation to the Comunidad Valenciana's regional president Alberto Fabra, chose to go to a detention centre in Madrid, close to his family and many of his friends, and also near to the medical team which has been treating him following a liver transplant.

Ex-president of Castellón provincial council and head of the PP for the province, Carlos Fabra has been sentenced to four years behind bars for four counts of tax fraud committed between 1999 and 2003, during which time he knowingly failed to pay 693,000 euros in duties.

Fabra's ex-wife María Amparo Fernández has also been sentenced to two years in jail for two fiscal offences – allegedly taking an illegal commission for speeding up the commercialising of healthcare products retailed by Naranjax, a firm owned by Vicente Vilar who filed legal action against her 11 years ago.

Fabra, 68, was acquitted of power-dealing and bribery, which meant the 13 years in jail he was originally facing were reduced to four

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A FURTHER 12 cities in Spain will be linked up to the high-speed AVE rail network over the course of 2015.

Castellón on the east coast, Murcia in the south-east, Granada and Cádiz at either end of the southern region of Andalucía, Burgos, León, Zamora and Palencia in the centre-north region of Castilla y León, Vigo in the far north-western region of Galicia, and Cáceres, Mérida and Badajoz in the land-locked western region of Extremadura will join the fast train system next year, although as yet, rail board ADIF has not confirmed exactly when this will happen.

As a result of the financial crisis, the initial investment of 29 billion euros planned has gone down to five billion, meaning the bare minimum of works – connecting the cities to the high-speed network – has become priority, with other modernisation and improvement works having to be shelved.

So far this year, the fast AVE train system has increased to include the Albacete-Alicante line and the Barcelona-French border track, but next year will see an upsurge with sections of track currently unconnected being opened between Zamora, Vigo and Ourense in Galicia, across the coast through Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria and the Basque Country, and cutting the distance between the Asturias cities of Gijón and Oviedo to Madrid by an hour and 25 minutes.

Trips to Madrid from the three Basque cities of Bilbao, Vitoria-Gasteiz and San Sebastián-Donostia – the provincial capitals of Vizcaya, Álava and Guipúzcoa respectively – will be reduced by 36 minutes.

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