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Monday 29 September 2008

Town of San Miguel de Salinas are in a state of shock after its cemetery was vandalised, graves robbed and coffins removed from their niches.

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Town of San Miguel de Salinas are in a state of shock after its cemetery was vandalised, graves robbed and coffins removed from their niches. This was the appalling scene of desecration that greeted the caretaker of the graveyard when he arrived to open the gates as usual at 8.30 in the morning. He discovered that one of the niches had been tampered with but had not been opened, while another one had been opened and the coffin removed. The coffin had been placed upright against the wall, with the body still inside. It was obvious that the clothing of the deceased had been searched for any objects of value. The robbers had also removed two receptacles from the niche containing human bones, which had obviously been there for many years. Police say that the perpetrators used tools to break down the stone and brick walls and so had come well prepared. It would appear that they had scaled the wall at the back of the cemetery, which faces onto land that is now in the process of being developed. The violators also caused damage to the cemetery in general and had thrown crucifixes and religious objects on to the ground.The cemetery is in a quiet road away from the town. It is kept in an immaculate condition and is surrounded by orange and lemon groves.Those families affected by the desecration have been informed.


Friday 26 September 2008

Police are reported to be investigating possible links between the shooting of a British man in Calle Ramón Areces in Puerto Banús on Wednesday night,

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The victim in the Puerto Banús shooting has been confirmed to be British and is in hospital in a serious but stable condition after being shot five times.
Police are reported to be investigating possible links between the shooting of a British man in Calle Ramón Areces in Puerto Banús on Wednesday night, with an earlier shooting incident at the Nikki Beach discotec.They think the British victim of the latest shooting, named with the initials M.H. could be linked to those who took part in the shooting at Nikki Beach. He remains in a serious by stable condition in hospital after being shot five times including to his right eye, right arm, right leg, pelvis and to the genitals.He is from Liverpool and has been living in Marbella with his partner for some years. Government Sub Delegate, Hilario López Luna, said that he has a previous police record and has served prison time in Britain. Yesterday the victim's home was searched as police tried to establish a motive for the shooting.Speaking in Algeciras yesterday, the Minister for the Interior, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, said that it was thought the shooting was linked to a criminal settling of scores, probably over drugs.
The man who is accused of carrying out the Nikki Beach shooting last August 23 is due to appear in court later today. In that shooting a 42 year old man was shot in both his legs.The day before that also saw an Irish man injured after being shot on the terrace of the Aloha Gardens bar.


Thursday 25 September 2008

Málaga man has been arrested by the police for growing marihuana plants on his terrace.

Posted On 11:12 0 comments

27 year old Málaga man has been arrested by the police for growing marihuana plants on his terrace. Police seized 40 kilos of the plants and say that they were being grown also in two rooms of the property where as many as 14 time switches controlled heaters, ventilators and automatic watering systems.The arrested man is reported to have been running a seed business and the raid came after an anonymous tip-off to the police.


Saturday 20 September 2008

Two British men have been arrested in Spain for alleged drugs offences, the Foreign Office has said.

Posted On 21:38 0 comments

Two British men have been arrested in Spain for alleged drugs offences, the Foreign Office has said. It confirmed Brian Deans - thought to be from Dundee - and Dean Hinton, from Northampton, were arrested in Alicante on 12 September. The Foreign Office said consular assistance was being provided. But it could not confirm reports that the arrests followed a seizure of more than 350kg of cannabis, a spokeswoman went on to say.


28 kilograms (61.6 pounds) of cocaine had been carefully tucked inside the frame rails of a 1947 Chevrolet Stylemaster sedan.

Posted On 21:32 0 comments

Had it not been for an anonymous tip, it's likely the bad guys in this latest real-life drama would have gotten away. The 28 kilograms (61.6 pounds) of cocaine had been carefully tucked inside the frame rails of a 1947 Chevrolet Stylemaster sedan. "Drug dogs couldn't detect anything" when passing by the vehicle, said Claude Catto, head of the interregional judicial police in Lyon, according to local news reports. Loaded into a large shipping container, the car and its secret cargo had already passed undetected through ports in Chile, Spain, Fos-sur-Mer, France, and finally Lyon. Customs documents revealed that the container and the car originated from Bolivia. Only a tip finally alerted police and customs officials that all might not be as it seemed with the old Chevy.Even with the knowledge that drugs could be hidden in the car, Mr. Catto told reporters that it still required eight hours for police to strip the car and locate the cocaine. The Chevrolet had to be completely taken apart, every single nut, bolt and body panel were removed.
According to police estimates, the cocaine is 90 percent pure and has a street value estimated at 2 million euros, or roughly $2.86 million. As for the '47 Chevrolet two-door sedan, a decent running example (much less a disassembled former drug mule) would only cost between $4,000 to $8,000 dollars.The bust marks a surprising end to a lengthy investigation by French police into drug trafficking in Lyon, and throughout the south of France. Seven people have reportedly been arrested in connection with the case.


Tuesday 9 September 2008

22-year-old man originally from Colombia is fighting for his life after a dramatic chase down the A-31 that ended in Alicante city centre

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22-year-old man originally from Colombia is fighting for his life after a dramatic chase down the A-31 that ended in Alicante city centre in a collision with a National Police patrol car. The drama began at around 9am yesterday morning when Guardia Civil officers in Villena spotted the man arguing violently with a woman, now believed to be his sister. When they tried to intervene, the man got in his car, speeding off down the twisty A-31 freeway towards Alicante city centre, before ploughing into a police roadblock on the Avenida de Elche, near the old flour mill. He was taken by ambulance to Alicante General Hospital, where he is reported to be in a critical condition suffering from severe head injuries, multiple fractures and contusions.


Nearly 30% of Spain is in the process of becoming desert

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Nearly 30% of Spain is in the process of becoming desert, according to a report by Adena, Spain's branch of the World Wildlife Fund."We have tried to raise the alarm, before everything goes to hell," said Oliveros, from the Toledo office of Ecologists in Action, Spain's largest consortium of environmentalist groups


.Fueled by corruption, speculation and a hot market that only recently cooled, vast patches of regions such as Castilla-La Mancha are being swallowed up by enormous housing developments, often on land designated as national parks or as protected zones because of delicate ecosystems and near-extinct wildlife.Once a quiet countryside of gentle hills, olive groves, medieval castles and cattle ranches, the land is now pocked with patches of cookie-cutter condos, golf courses and prefab swimming pools. And billboards: "Get your chalets now!" "Easy credit, no money down!" "A new way to live!"And the most bitter twist for environmentalists is that an abrupt downturn in the Spanish economy, not unlike the current U.S. financial crisis, means that most of the tens of thousands of new houses will go unsold.Spain caught a roaring case of property fever a few years ago; owning a home became part of achieving the European dream in a nation catching up with the rest of the West. Compounded by an influx of British and other foreign second-home buyers, demand soared, prices soared even higher, and greed infected the boom.Backroom rezoning has stolen property from under the feet of small landowners and farmers. Building permits have been granted where there is no possibility of water or sewerage infrastructure.The abuse became so widespread that a special investigative commission of the European Union last year branded Spain's urban-development practices illegal under European law and a violation of basic cultural rights.Despite a slew of criminal cases brought by prosecutors, government officials have proved themselves unable, or unwilling, to control the growth; often, they profited from it, in cahoots with unscrupulous developers."From the political right, or the left, it doesn't seem to matter," another member of Ecologists in Action, Juan Aceituno, said as he toured some of the eyesores with a reporter.Developers say they were merely meeting a demand for housing and turning a legitimate profit; because government in Spain is so decentralized, with each of 17 autonomous regions in charge of urban policies, officials have claimed impotence in setting or enforcing rules.For the last couple of years, it has been up to a ragtag band of environmentalist guerrillas backed by so-called green attorneys to challenge what they call "savage urbanization." Battles are won, and many more lost.In one victory here in Toledo, Oliveros and his associates managed to stop an apartment complex from being built on the ruins of one of the most important Visigoth sites in central Spain, planting themselves in front of bulldozers poised to dig up the site.For every triumph, however, there have been defeats. Driving up the road from Toledo, the entrances of towns are gantlets of cranes, brick factories and warehouses selling tile, plumbing materials and bathroom fixtures. Aquamarine prefab swimming pools stand on their ends like giant monsters challenging the buyer.Thirty-five miles north of Toledo, a sprawling mini-city and 18-hole golf course are encroaching on the picturesque medieval town of Escalona. Environmentalists say its builders destroyed 100-year-old oak trees (which were used by the developers in promotional literature as a reason to move there) and that the settlement, like similar projects, is dipping ever deeper into aquifers to supply prospective residents with water.Across Spain, nearly 20,000 illegal wells are sucking water reserves from aquifers to support new housing tracts. And especially in the drought-ridden south, scores of water-guzzling golf courses are incongruously covering the land like kudzu.The drought of 2005 was the country's worst in more than half a century, and rainfall is continuing to become scarcer in the Iberian peninsula, said Francisco Pugnaire, a member of the state's Arid Zone Experimental Station. This year, water had to be shipped to Barcelona."We live as though droughts are the exception, and that model is no longer sufficient," Josep Puxeu, a senior official in Spain's Water and Rural Land Ministry, said at a recent international conference on drought held in Sevilla, Spain.
Castilla-La Mancha has long been arid, as Cervantes himself noted. But residents say they remember being able to scoop up water from shallow wells just a couple of decades ago. Now, wells have to be drilled 200 yards deep or more.
The Iberian peninsula has the richest biodiversity of the continent, including an estimated 150 flora and fauna species of varying degrees of rarity. Spain has nearly a million acres of officially designated protected land, much of it embracing wildlife refuges. Castilla-La Mancha, for example, is home to one of Europe's rare lynx habitats.But tens of thousands of condos have been erected or were planned on the edges of 10 of Spain's most important national forests.
In the north, a ski resort, with 30 miles of runs and lifts that can carry 30,000 people per hour, is being built alongside a refuge for the endangered brown bear. South of here, houses pop up steadily inside a bird sanctuary.And north of here, in the Avila region about an hour's drive from Madrid, environmentalists, along with a group of dissident city officials, have been fighting to stop the construction of 1,600 houses, a hotel and four golf courses in a protected pine forest and bird sanctuary.Before a court intervened, 3,000 trees were chopped down, destroying part of the habitat of imperial eagles and black storks, an endangered species.
Environmentalists say they are encouraged by a new crop of court rulings in their favor, and by the fact that Spain's economic crisis is finally putting the brakes on construction.


Friday 5 September 2008

22 hotels in Lanzarote declared illegal by the Supreme Court of the Canary Islands still face an uncertain future.

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22 hotels in Lanzarote declared illegal by the Supreme Court of the Canary Islands still face an uncertain future. As the controversy over their fate continues.
Some of Lanzarote´s best known hotels are in the firing line, such as the five star Gran Melia Volcan in Playa Blanca, the Natura Palace and the Gran Castillo.
In total eight five star hotels, ten Apart-hotels and four new developments still in the planning stage have been decreed to have flouted an edict controlling construction on the island. Which was created back in 2000 to militate against
unfettered building work.However two local councils essentially chose to ignore these new rules. And granted licenses to hotels which contravened this ruling in two of Lanzarote´s main resorts, namely Costa Teguise and Playa Blanca.
Established hotels in Puerto del Carmen, Lanzarote´s leading resort, managed to escape the controversy. As local councilors here adhered to the new planning restrictions.A police unit that specialises in fighting organised crime was then formed to investigate whether the former mayors of Teguise and Yaiza were guilty of accepting bribes from developers in return for building licenses.
A view that was supported by the Supreme Court of the Canary Islands as a result of an action instigated by the central island government in tandem with the César Manrique Foundation.A further meeting was held recently between the Director of the Environmental Department of the Canarian Government, representatives from the Ayuntamientos of Teguise and Yaiza and the hoteliers association Asolan. But the leader of the island central government failed to attend – making a final consensus impossible.Those assembled were simply left to agree that a case by case study was necessary to explore how the offending hotels might be brought into line. There is some suggestion that these hotels could even be demolished. But most island observers consider this highly unlikely. As Linarite can ill afford to do such damage to the local job market or the islands international reputation as a holiday destination.


Half of the 165 passengers on an Air Europa flight from Tenerife to Salamanca Wednesday refused to travel in the Boeing 737-800 aircraft

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Half of the 165 passengers on an Air Europa flight from Tenerife to Salamanca Wednesday refused to travel in the Boeing 737-800 aircraft after the pilot informed them about a fault in the antifreeze valve before takeoff. The Air Europa plane was preparing for takeoff when the captain informed the passengers of the fault. He said the plane would change its route and fly to Madrid, where passengers would board another flight to Salamanca. Eighty-seven passengers demanded to be allowed off the aircraft while the remaining passengers continued to Madrid on the original Boeing 737-800. Meanwhile, the passengers who had gotten off the plane had to be transported by coach to the island's other airport in the north where they were found room on a larger Airbus 330, also bound for the capital. Officials of the low-cost airline said that there was "no danger at any moment" to the plane due to the fault and asked for help to halt the wave of fear that has gripped many travellers after a Spanair plane crashed at Madrid's Barajas airport, killing 154 passengers in August.


Mother of missing Irish girl Amy Fitzpatrick met Taoiseach Brian Cowen

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Taoiseach Brian Cowen met the mother of missing Irish girl Amy Fitzpatrick this afternoon.The 16-year-old disappeared after leaving a friend's house at about 10pm on January 1st to walk to her home on the Costa del Sol in Spain.Her mother, Audrey Fitzpatrick, and her partner, Dave Mahon, met Mr Cowen at Government Buildings for half an hour during which they updated him on the investigation.A spokesman for the Taoiseach said Mr Cowen offered the assistance of the Irish embassy in Madrid to help the couple deal with Spanish authorities in the search for Amy.Originally from Clarehall in north Dublin, Amy had been living with her mother in the Riviera del Sol tourist resort in Mijas for the past few years.Her family last month appealed for financial help to hire a private investigator. Her father, Christopher, also called on Spanish authorities to release CCTV footage from the track along which Amy is understood to have walked home.Her aunt, Christine Kenny, said Spanish authorities were still working on the case, but the family had not received any news since June. "We've done as much as we possibly can, but we simply don't have the manpower to search the entire area," she said.


Tuesday 2 September 2008

Tambovskaya branch of the Mafia makes it's money from a network of criminals in Russia

Posted On 02:19 0 comments

The Spanish Anticorruption 'Bureau' has asked its counterpart in Portugal for collaboration in investigating the presence and actions of the Russian Mafia operating on Madeira, and suspected of stripping profits and / or laundering money in the 'Zona Franca', the tax protected business community. The Tambovskaya branch of the Mafia makes it's money from a network of criminals in Russia, and last June in Spain 20 members of the gang were arrested in Spain and charged with numerous offences including money-laundering, murder, extortion, drug dealing, illicit association, falsification of documents and tax fraud.


Owners of a jewellery store have been robbed three times in the past year

Posted On 01:52 0 comments

Owners of a jewellery store located on a busy corner opposite the Mosque in Cordoba have installed so many anti-robbery devices that it now looks like a fortress. The store has been robbed three times in the past year, twice by having a car driven into the window. On the third occasion the thieves smashed the window with a drain grill. In addition to the usual burglar alarm and "thief-proof" locks, bullet-proof unbreakable glass was installed last week, as well solid iron beams across the windows to stop the cars. The owner said the store had never been robbed during opening hours, only at night, but with all that extra protection, the thieves are going to have to change their working hours.


Thirty robberies at chemists shops in Málaga province

Posted On 01:50 0 comments

Thirty robberies at chemists shops in Málaga province, and the authorities are so concerned about the situation that the police have drawn up a special plan to try to give better protection to the chemists and their staff. Working in conjunction with the College of Pharmacists, which is to provide the addresses and phone numbers of every one of the 600 shops, police all over the province will now change their patrol routes to include all the streets in which pharmacies are located, and hope that this will dissuade would-be robbers as well as providing reassurance to the staff. The police will give talks about possible security measures and what to do if a robbery does occur, regular meetings will be held with the councillor for public safety, and the College is promising to provide assistance with legal aspects after a robbery, and to stand as private prosecutor in any court cases resulting from a theft. The number of robberies at pharmacies is already 20% higher than last year, and several establishments have been targeted more than once. The thieves are normally hoping to find drugs such as Viagra which can be sold for a good price on the black market.


“The drums of crisis have started to roll,” says the vice-chairman of the Alliance for Tourism Excellence, Jose Luis Zoreda. “The outlook is stormy."

Posted On 01:38 0 comments

Holidaymakers affected by the growing credit crunch have deserted Benidorm, as Spain’s traditionally strong and resilient tourist industry sees a downturn during the peak season.Visitor numbers to beach resorts along Spain’s Costa del Sol dropped by eight per cent in July, as the government makes a pledge of €500 million to upgrade facilities.This unprecedented decrease in foreign visitor numbers in July has meant deserted bars, empty sun loungers and highly-discounted offers extending the length of the Costa del Sol, and has sent a warning signal throughout the industry.“The drums of crisis have started to roll,” says the vice-chairman of the Alliance for Tourism Excellence, Jose Luis Zoreda. “The outlook is stormy. There’s nothing to indicate that the rest of the year will compensate for the fall in business that occurred in July.”Compared with July of 2007, the area saw a drop of eight per cent in the number of foreign tourists in July of 2008. Between April and June, the numbers of holidaymakers from the UK dropped by five per cent, although Spain remains the favourite overseas destination for Brits. French, Italian and Swiss visitors also came in lesser numbers.The areas worst hit have been Andalusia, the Balearics, the Canary Islands, Catalonia and Valencia.Even domestic tourists, typically fiercely loyal to their own resorts, have decreased their holiday spending by thirty per cent, in a trend that increasingly shows “signs of instability”, according to the tourism and industry ministry.


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