British tour operator goes bust

 

 

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The Duchess of Alba with her new husband Alfonso Díez outside Dueñas Palace in Seville.

 Photograph: Javier Diaz/Reuters

She is a frizzy-haired 85-year-old eccentric and hugely wealthy aristocrat with a squeaky voice and an impossibly long name. He is a lowly civil servant 25 years her junior. Today the two were married, prompting a frenzy of excitement in this southern Spanish city.

Crowds formed outside Seville's Dueñas Palace – just one of several regal residences the Duchess of Alba owns around Spain – as she, her family and a few friends gathered for a small ceremony for her marriage to Alfonso Díez in the palace's private chapel.

The billionaire duchess, who has been known to ask the media for money in the past, allowed in just two news agencies – for free.

"She is an amazing woman. She does whatever she wants and doesn't give a damn what people say," said 18-year-old tourism student Ana Trigo, as she fought for space on the pavement outside the Dueñas's imposing gates. "I know she's got lots of money, but that's just the luck of birth isn't it?"

A neatly groomed priest, a flamenco singing troupe, innumerable bunches of roses, sunflowers and carnations, and at least two bullfighter guests made their way into the palace complex as security guards pushed back the crowd of gawping, shouting Sevillanos.

"I've written a paso doble and want to sing it for her," said composer Vicente Tarrancón, who travelled the 300 miles from Alicante with an electric piano and a violinist but who remained firmly outside the palace gates.

Onlookers mostly were not disturbed by the duchess's inherited wealth, estimated at up to €3.5bn (£3bn), even though one in five Spaniards are currently unemployed and the economy is heading towards a double-dip recession.

Apart from her palaces, the duchess owns huge tracts of land all over Spain and has a collection of paintings that include works by Goya and Velázquez.

"She gives a lot of money to charity and employs a lot of people. And she repaired the church of the Christ of the Gypsies," said housewife Mari Luz González. "She's wonderful."

Cries of "Guapa!" or "Good-looking!" welcomed the pallid duchess when she appeared dressed in a pink wedding dress with a green ribbon around her waist at the palace gates with her new husband. She responded by dancing a few flamenco steps.

Most people, however, seemed to be taking a tongue-in-cheek attitude to the duchess's latest romance and using it as an excuse to indulge in Seville's favoured pastime of partying. At least one onlooker had dressed in a bridal gown. Another came disguised as Spain's monarch, King Juan Carlos, who was reportedly petitioned by the duchess's children to see if he could dissuade their mother from remarrying.

"Let's face it, the scandal is not that he is younger, but that she is so old," said Margarita Ruibal. "It's not every day you hear of someone of that age getting married."

An unemployed man who called himself Buti came dressed as a yoghurt carton to protest at the €40 a day paid to farmworkers. "Here they are, living it up in their palaces while 300 families a day lose their homes in Spain," he said.

The duchess's attempts to stop her six children from squabbling with her husband-to-be over money – by making her will public before the marriage – failed to appease them all, prompting the duchess to call one daughter-in-law "lying, wicked and covetous" on a television gossip show.

The daughter-in-law and her husband were among the few guests who turned down the wedding invitation. "Alfonso doesn't want anything. All he wants is me," the duchess said earlier this year.

Newsstands, meanwhile, displayed the front cover of Interviú magazine – which showed topless pictures of the duchess taken three decades ago on an Ibiza beach. The publicity-loving aristocrat was said to be formally furious, but privately delighted, by the flattering figure she boasted when she was a mere fifty-something. The magazine said it had held on to the pictures for 30 years so as not to upset the duchess, but thought them now worth publishing.

Local shops were selling duchess-themed "I love DQS" T-shirts featuring her trademark frizz of white hair. The regional CanalSur TV station beamed live coverage into the city's bars, where unemployed men sold postcards of the Virgin Mary statues that populate Seville's churches.

The duchess, whose full name is María del Rosario Cayetana Victoria Alfonsa Fitz-James Stuart y de Silva, boasts 49 inherited aristocratic titles – at least 20 of which allow entry into the select club of Spanish Grandees. She also claims the title of Duchess of Berwick and boasts blood ties to the British royal family and Winston Churchill.

Twice widowed, her last husband Jesús Aguirre, who had previously been a leftwing Catholic priest, died in 2001

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Posted in: The Duchess of Alba with her new husband Alfonso Díez outside Dueñas Palace in Seville.

Change of Heart for Maurice Boland

 

 Maurice Boland, is set to launch a new radio station later this month after formally leaving Heart FM. The controversial DJ posted a statement on his Facebook page this morning (Wednesday) thanking the station for its support during his ‘short but enjoyable stay,’ but announced he had a new project in the pipeline. “Let me assure you that my absence on the airways will be only short lived. I’m delighted to announce that along with an exceptional team of top class broadcasters, I am developing a new radio project,” he said. He later told the Olive Press: “I am really excited to be setting up a new radio station. “It will be similar format to before with news and current affairs and I have a great name and fabulous studios. “But I haven’t really released any information about it yet. I put it on Facebook as so many people had been calling and emailing me asking where I had gone as I had disappeared off Heart so I was forced to reveal something,” he added. Boland refused to confirm the name of his new station but sources believe it will be an online station called Eye Talk Europe. It comes after the disgraced Irish entertainer returned to the airwaves in April after his close relationship with a 16-year-old girl was exposed. He was forced to lie low for nine months after having his contract terminated at Talk Radio Europe (TRE), as exclusively revealed at the time by the Olive Press. The broadcaster, 62, had set out to help the teenager forge a musical career but their relationship had evolved and he later admitted to making a ‘terrible mistake.’

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Peter Bibby on the run while other boiler room crooks get jailed

 

Seven crooks who ran an £8million boiler room scam flogging worthless shares in a supposedly successful bio-diesel enterprise have been jailed for a total of 39 years. Worldwide Bio Refineries was portrayed by coldcallers as a fantastic investment, turning vegetable waste into fuel, but it was a dormant company with just £20 in its bank account. The Serious Fraud Office says: "The share-selling was undertaken by salesmen working from a number of boiler rooms in Marbella and Barcelona although many of them used false names and claimed to be calling from offices Frankfurt, Stockholm or Amsterdam. "The business prospects of the company and the bio-diesel market were inflated by WBR's directors and the salesmen, who claimed that substantial international business was being done and that the business's shares were valued at £110 million. "Investors believed that their investment in a successful bio-diesel enterprise would net them significant short term returns, bolstered by claims that WBR was to be floated on the stock market which would result in a significant increase in share value. These claims were bogus. "The reality was that the UK bio-diesel plant produced no output and, with only limited imports coming from a Singapore plant, WBR was not being managed with any intention of it becoming a growing commercial success generating profits from sales of bio-diesel. WBR was simply a vehicle for fraud." At Ipswich Crown Court, Dennis Potter of Singapore, born April 1939, was jailed for seven years. Redmond "Ray" Charles Johnson of Tyne and Wear, born September 1944, got three years. From Marbella, Steven John Murphy, born in February 1976 and Greg Pearson, born August 1973, both got six years inside. From Hertfordshire, Paul Daniel Murphy, born in September 1973 got six years and Lee Eliot Homan, born in July 1972, got five years and six months. Peter Bibby from south London, born in September 1967 is on the run. He was sentenced in absentia to six years. Serious Fraud Office director Director Richard Alderman said, "I am very pleased with the sentences in this case which reflect the callous way the criminals preyed on their victims." Potter and Johnson were associates of Alternative Diesel Investments, run by Robert Alan Scott and an earlier "completely fraudulent" operation.

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64% Of Moroccan Men Are Reunited With Their Wife

 

Sánchez-Domínguez states that “Moroccan men show strong endogamic tendencies and use marriage as a way of being reunited later on with their partner within Spain. The most common type of behaviour consists of a Moroccan single man coming to Spain. After a certain amount of time, he returns to Morocco where he gets married to a Moroccan woman and then returns to Spain without his spouse. Later on, he is reunited with his wife within Spanish society. Some 64% of Moroccan immigrant men have employed this strategy. According to experts, religion as well as geographical proximity to Spain are key factors in explaining this phenomenon. Exogamy is an indication of an immigrant’s level of social integration. Those who have higher tendencies towards exogamy are Argentineans and Colombians. According to the researcher, linguistic and cultural proximity means that the number of marriages with the Spanish population is very high “because they see each other as equals.” Furthermore, it was observed that Brazilian, Dominican, Cuban and Colombian women display a high percentage of marriage with Spanish men within just a year of arriving in Spain. This is a phenomenon known as “imported brides”. Sánchez Domínguez highlights that “in general terms, endogamy decreases according to the amount of time that an immigrant spends in a country, which, in turn, is a clear indication of integration. On the other hand, endogamy is higher amongst immigrants with less educational attainment and exogamy is more prevalent amongst immigrants who have a university education.”

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Spanish Women Marry Immigrants With More Qualifications

 

A team at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) has studied the marriage strategies of immigrants in order to determine the nature of endogamic (between people of the same nationality) and exogamic partnerships (between people of different nationalities) in Spain. The preliminary results indicate that, unlike Spanish men, Spanish women prefer immigrants with more qualifications. “It caught our attention that human capital was more important in determining outmarriage amongst Spanish women but this is not the case in Spanish men. In other words, it seems that Spanish women prefer to get married to an immigrant man who has a higher educational attainment. However, this preference does not exist amongst Spanish men when it comes to getting married to an immigrant woman,” explains María Sánchez-Domínguez, investigator at the UCM and co-author of the study that was published in the International Sociology Journal. The researcher and her team gathered data from the National Immigrant Survey of Spain (2007), which was carried out by the UCM’s Population and Society Study Group (GEPS) and Spain’s National Statistic Institute (INE). The survey acts as a unique source of information and can be used to understand the characteristics of immigrants in Spain since 2007. Sánchez-Domínguez points out that “although it is from 2007, the survey contains both information on the current situation of those surveyed as well as their migration history. It is the only source of information that we can use to study the marriage strategies of immigrants and link them to integration processes. It is useful not just in understanding immigrant marriages in Spain but also those marriages that took place in the country of origin. From these data, in an initial study, researchers analysed endogamic marriages in Spain and the relationship between marriage and migration strategies. The expert’s main conclusion was that Moroccans are more prone towards endogamy, followed by Romanians and Ecuadorians.

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Greenpeace has revealed how Spain is “repeatedly and systematically overlooking illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing by its huge fleet throughout European waters and beyond”.

 

Greenpeace has revealed how Spain is “repeatedly and systematically overlooking illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing by its huge fleet throughout European waters and beyond”. The report, titled Ocean Inquirer, takes as a case study one Galician family whose companies have received over €16m in subsidies from European taxpayers to fund a long list of criminal activities. Greenpeace states that the Vidal family’s many ships have been found conducting IUU fishing for decades, right around the world, and been prosecuted in the US, the UK and in the Pacific and the Spanish government have promised on numerous occasions to investigate and put an end to these abuses. But Greenpeace claims that what they have actually done is fund them - with our money. Spain has the largest fishing fleet in Europe, maintained with billions in subsidies - more than double the amount of subsidies received by any other EU nation. Greenpeace has accused the Spanish fleet of exploiting the CFP to infiltrate the fleets of other European nations and take their fishing quotas. If Spain, and Europe, continue with business as usual, it is predicted by the EU that less than 10% of our fish stocks will be at sustainable levels by 2022. Greenpeace’s case study of the Vidal family documents their long history of illegal fishing, their prosecutions and convictions and their frequently successful attempts to avoid justice, and Spain’s continuing failure to deal with an issue which has been raised with them on numerous occasions. It also reveals new evidence on Vidal’s latest business venture, an alleged fish oil factory in Galicia. This factory is not currently operational, many months after its claimed opening date, and yet Greenpeace says it has already earned the Vidal family another €6.5m - in EU subsidies. Greenpeace oceans campaigner Ariana Densham said, “According to some estimates, up to 49% of the global catch is IUU, and this is one of the reasons why our over-exploited fisheries are in such rapid decline. The fact that in Europe this theft of fish is being subsidised by taxpayers’ money, that we’re actually paying pirates to steal our fish, destroy one of our oldest industries and devastate the marine environment, shows just how corrupted the CFP is.” Greenpeace is calling for a full EU investigation into subsidies given to the Spanish fishing industry, and for all future subsidies to be given to legal, transparent and sustainable fishing practices, consistent with the CFP’s stated objectives. In response to this report, European fisheries commissioner Maria Damanaki stated that “The serious allegations are already under investigation by the European Commission and being followed up with the Spanish national authorities. We are establishing all facts in order to pursue breaches“.

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Sheikh Abdullah Ben Nasser Al-Thani's work on La Bajadilla Port in Marbella delayed

 

DELAYED La Bajadilla Port in Marbella has still not begun, because four months after the work was assigned, the contract has not been signed. There are three appeals against Sheikh Abdullah Ben Nasser Al-Thani’s project, which was due to be completed in 2015. One is from the Marbella Marina International Consortium, which was on competition with the temporary union created by Marbella Town Hall and Qatar Sheikh and Malaga CF owner, Al-Thani. His proposal to expand Marbella’s port and marina was chosen over theirs, but they believe that the decision was “unfair”. They haven’t directly asked for the process to be stopped, but bringing a case against the decision makes this automatic, regions such as Andalucia must have a specific tribunal to regulate relationships between public administrations and the companies chosen to carry out work, as the Junta de Andalucia does not have one, the Andalucian Supreme Court of Justice will rule in this case, and a judge will decide if the work can go ahead, even if the case continues at the same time. In any case, it appears the contract will not be signed this year. Al Thani’s project conceives a circular port with space for 1,221 yachts and a cruise stop, as well as a 45,000m2 commercial and leisure area with a five-star hotel. It aims to create around 3,000 jobs.

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35 towns in Malaga spend more than they make

 

101 towns in Malaga province, 35 ended last year with budgetary deficits for spending more than they were making. Changes to the Constitution which were approved by PSOE and the PP in early September in congress in order to limit the deficits of public administrations could mean that many towns will find themselves in a sticky legal situation. The text states that “local administrations” must have “budgetary balance” by 2020, but seeing the figures for the province, which is not an exception in Spain, for 2009 and 2010, this will not be easy. The numbers could be even worse than it initially appeared, as Atajate, Carratraca, Cortes de la Frontera, Gaucin, Genalgualcil and Parauta have not yet handed in their figures for either year, while others, which although the Tax and Economy Ministry’s records show their budgets were balanced, admit that they ended the year with empty coffers and no money available in banks and payments to face. Many cases have only come to light after the elections when new parties have taken over. Malaga city has a debt of €735m, the highest in the province and the fourth worst in Spain behind Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia. The second worst figures are seen in Benalmadena, with a debt of €87m, although the worst deficiency is in Cuevas Bajas, with a difference of €800,000 between what was spent and what was taken in 2010.

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Spanish sailors to be decorated after rescuing French woman taken hostage by pirates

 

The Defence Minister, Carme Chacón, announced that Spanish forces from the amphibious assault ship, ‘Galicia’, are to be decorated for rescuing a French woman who was taken hostage with her husband by Somali pirates off the coast of Yemen earlier this month. Evelyne Colombo was rescued on September 10 two days after the catamaran she and her husband were sailing had been attacked by pirates. Her husband, Christian Colombo, was murdered and his body thrown into the sea during the pirates’ assault. The Galicia was on patrol with the EU anti-piracy mission Operation Atalanta when it intercepted the skiff which was transporting the 55 year old French woman. Operation Atalanta command ordered the Galicia to open fire on the skiff’s engines and the pirates responded by shooting at the Spanish ship. The pirate skiff capsized after the gun battle, but the hostage was rescued and seven pirates were arrested.

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El Hierro still on yellow alert, but no fears of an imminent eruption

 

UME Emergency Military Unit was deployed to El Hierro on Wednesday as the island remained on yellow alert amid fears of a volcanic eruption. The Defence Minister, Carme Chacón, was also due to travel there on Wednesday afternoon to supervise their work, and spoke of the UME’s deployment as a preventive measure to assist emergency services in any evacuation over the increased seismic activity on the island. EFE indicates that there is a 15 percent probability of an imminent eruption, but the island’s government has ruled out any need to evacuate the island. The President of El Hierro’s Cabildo, Alpido Armas, said, ‘That’s not going to happen. We will not need to evacuate 4,000 people. If there is an eruption, it will not be a violent one and the worst that can happen is that a 200 metre mountain emerges’. Fifty three people were evacuated from Frontera due to the seismic activity and it’s understood that they will not be allowed home for the moment. Local schools there were also closed as a precaution because of the risk of landslides. The last volcanic eruption on El Hierro was in 1793, when the Lomo Negro volcano erupted. The last on the Canary Islands was just 40 years ago on La Palma.

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Wanted Belgian fugitive arrested in Alhaurín El Grande

 

wanted Belgian fugitive has been arrested in Alhaurín El Grande after a marijuana plantation was discovered at a property in the town. He was found there with a man and a woman, and all three are believed to have been part of an organisation which cultivated the drug for distribution in Europe. The Civil Guard found 55 marijuana plants on the property plus a 9 calibre revolver. One of the group was identified as F.V.B., who was wanted on a warrant for extradition to Belgium to serve a prison sentence of four and a half years for armed robbery. EFE indicates that he took part in an armed hold-up of a goods lorry in Wervik in 2009, where the lorry driver was assaulted with an electric shock weapon and left handcuffed and tied up by the neck.

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Franco mass grave found in Jerez

 

It has been a local rumour for many years, that the El Marrufo estate in Jerez de la Frontera had been used to bury hundreds of people shot under Franco. The rumour was well known in nearby Cortes de la Frontera, Jimena de la Frontera and Ubrique. But the investigations made by archaeologists over the summer have confirmed the site, the size of ten football pitches, filled with bones and bullet casings. There were so many casings the archaeologists said they were like seeds, labelled ‘Piritécnica Sevilla 1936’. Jesús Román, one of the archaeologists working at the side says they think it could be ‘one of the largest mass graves away from an official cemetery, and think there are between 300 and 600 bodies present. The El Marrufo Estate was used as a detention, torture and execution centre, dealing with about ten people a day. Women and children as well as men were killed at the site.

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Ferronats, a company formed by Spanish construction firm, Ferrovial and British air traffic controllers, Nats, has won 10 of the 13 tenders to run control towers at Spanish airports

 

Ferronats, a company formed by Spanish construction firm, Ferrovial and British air traffic controllers, Nats, has won 10 of the 13 tenders to run control towers at Spanish airports as AENA privatises 49% of the company. It will control Alicante, Valencia, Ibiza, Sabadell, Sevilla, Jerez, Melilla, Cuatro Vientos, Vigo and A Coruña. The remaining three towers on the Canary Islands at Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and La Palma have been awarded to the Sacerco company. AENA estimates savings of 46.6% as a result, with Ferronats bidding 70.4 million, and Sacerco bidding 20 million.

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Posted in: a company formed by Spanish construction firm,Ferronats,Ferrovial and British air traffic controllers,has won 10 of the 13 tenders to run control towers at Spanish airports,Nats

Iberia to launch new low cost airline next week

 

Iberia is planning to launch a new low cost airline next week. The Iberia board is expected to approve the project on Tuesday 4 October, to launch the low cost airline for the company’s short and medium distance services. The new airline is expected to take up 37 of the 69 A-320 aircraft the airline currently has in service. Iberia is now merged with British Airways to create the IAG, the International Airline Group, and the IAG board would have to ratify the decision on Thursday. Iberia has been holding talks with the pilots’ union SEPLA on the conditions for them in the new airline. The airline contends that it needs a structural reorganisation, but the union considers that all the flights should remain under the Iberia brand, and considers maintenance would be cheaper with a single company. An earlier leasing of six planes to Vueling, the budget airline with a 45.85% Iberia shareholding, proved unsuccessful with Iberia passengers complaining they were being put on Vueling flights. Five of those six planes are now back with Iberia. The expected name for the new airline, Iberia Express, was first mentioned back in October 2009.

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Major heroin haul in Algeciras

 

The second largest ever haul of heroin in Spanish history has been seized at the port in Algeciras, from a container which was on route to the Ivory Coast from Pakistan. The consignment of heroin was found in three hundred cylinders, each weighing half a kilo, which had been hidden in the cargo of iron oxide powder. The Agencia Tributaria Tax Authority had tracked the container until it arrived at the port, where it was searched on Wednesday. There has been no announcement of any arrests in connection with the find as yet. Spain’s biggest ever haul of heroin was in Sitges, Cataluña, three years ago, where more than 300 kilos were seized.

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Ex Ronda Mayor released on bail in corruption case

 

Antonio Marín Lara, the ex Socialist Mayor of Ronda who was amongst seven people arrested on Tuesday in an operation against alleged planning corruption, dubbed ‘Operación Acinipo’, has been released on 150,000 € bail. He was freed on Thursday after questioning by the judge and is charged with perversion of the course of justice, bribery, money laundering, misappropriation of public funds and influence peddling. It’s understood that he has 15 days to pay his bail. Marín Lara left the court in Ronda at around 5pm, five and a half hours after he arrived there under police escort. The six remaining suspects who were arrested on Tuesday have also been released from custody, but all have been charged. Two other people have been questioned at courts in Madrid and Valencia and face similar charges as the ex Mayor. The four Socialist councillors, including the ex-Mayor, among those arrested on Tuesday have now resigned from the PSOE party. The party had previously suspended the four.

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