Gored bullfighter leaves hospital

 

Spanish bullfighter, Juan José Padilla, who was dramatically gored in the face on October 7 as part of the Pilar fiestas in Zaragoza, was released from hospital in the city on Wednesday. He told the press, sitting in a wheelchair and with his face uncovered and clear of any bandage, that he would be putting on his suit of lights and entering the ring again, although he admitted that it was impossible to continue this season. He said he would be back in 2012. Chief Ophthalmology surgeon at the Miguel Servet Hospital, Luis Pablo, described the matador’s recovery as spectacular, given that he arrived in the E.R. with his eye out of its socket. The bullfighter admitted that the prognosis is not so good as the optic nerve has been affected, and his retina also came detached, but he said ‘in medicine you never know, and miracles exist’. He told the press that he would not mind seeing pictures of him being gored, where one horn entered his cheek and exited in his left eye, but he had not done so as yet. ‘I bear no grudge against my profession or the bull’, he said. ‘The bull has given me much grandness’.

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UK Benefit Fraud investigators have recently enjoyed more success in the fight against benefit cheats in Spain.

 

 In one of the latest cases to go to prosecution, Debbie Williamson from Rotherham was sentenced at Sheffield Crown Court to 18 months immediate imprisonment for having stolen UK benefits between 2004 and 2009. Ms Williamson had been claiming a number of non-exportable benefits from the UK, including income support. She denied having any connection with Spain, but investigators established she owned property in Valencia, had made regular cash withdrawals abroad and had her daughter in a local Spanish school. In total Ms. Williamson stole £42,558.72 from the British taxpayer by claiming benefits she was not entitled to after her circumstances changed. Ms. Williamson is just one of many cases that make up the estimated £79 million of benefit fraud committed abroad. Although most people claiming UK benefits abroad do so legally, Spain is one of the countries where most UK benefit fraud is committed. In many of these cases, the person has purposefully not informed the UK authorities of a change in their circumstances. Anyone in receipt of a UK State Pension or benefit has the responsibility to keep the department paying their benefit up to date with any changes that could affect their payment, no matter how small the change seems. More information on UK benefits in general and on which ones can and cannot be received whilst living in Spain can be found on the DirectGov website. If you know of someone committing UK benefit fraud whilst living in Spain, such as claiming a non-exportable benefit, working in Spain while in receipt of UK incapacity benefit, or claiming benefit as a single person but living with a partner, you can help to protect the taxpayers’ money. A free and confidential Benefit Fraud Hotline is available in Spain – call 900 554 440 or visit the Benefit Fraud website to help UK investigators close the net on the benefit thieves.

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SEPLA call 24 more strikes in Iberia, and some are over Easter

Iberia SEPLA union pilots have announced a new wave of strike action in protest at the company’s plans to start a new low-cost airline, Iberia Express, the first flight of which is set for March 25. They have called 24 more 24 hour strikes, which follow from the previous 12 which have already been seen. The stoppages are between March and May and some affect both the Easter break and bank holiday weekends. The pilots say they have upped their action because the company is refusing to talk and their attitude is ‘a radical rejection of any of the proposals offered by the collective, and to maintain the creation of Iberia Express which will result in the destruction of 8,000 jobs’. The union also claims that Iberia is not respecting Air Safety Regulations on work and rest time for the crew, saying that in one case a pilot has been sacked for this reason. The new strike action will be taken on 16, 19, 23, 25, 26 and 30 of March; 2, 4, 9, 13, 16, 20, 23, 27 and 30 of April; 2, 4, 7, 11, 14, 18, 21, 25 and 28 of May. On these dates Government imposed minimum services will see some services and normally the links to the Canaries and the Baleares are not affected. The 12 days strike action carried out so far is estimated to have resulted in losses of 32 million €.

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Makers say 'sorry' as excessive vitamin D found after dog food recalled from 190 Mercadona stores

 

A Brand of dog food in cartons sold by Mercadona has been blamed for causing kidney failure in pets. The supermarket chain – the largest in Spain – has now withdrawn carton-packaged Compy wet dog food from its shelves in 190 stores in Albacete, Almeria, Alicante and Murcia provinces. This action followed a flood of concerns from dog owners – including scores of expatriates – after their pets had been taken ill, with some vomiting violently. On Tuesday, four days after Mercadona had withdrawn the food from sale as a safety precaution, a statement from Tunilament pet division, which is part of Escuris, the company that manufactures Compy, confirmed tests on the pet food had confirmed excessive Vitamin D. They admitted that this Vitamin D increment could cause urine problems to pets, although only through high doses or persistent use of the product, according to the manufacturer’s veterinarian reports. Earlier, vets and many expatriates had identified Compy wet dog food in aluminium-lined cartons and sold by Mercadona as the common link between dozens – and possibly hundreds – of complaints by dog owners over sick pets. There were even reports by expatriates living in the Costa del Sol, but a Mercadona official gave assurances that the Compy product packaged in these cartons was not sold by them in Malaga Province. British-born Audrey Millar of Benitachell (Alicante) said her three dogs (Shih Tzu, aged 7 yrs, 4.5 yrs and 20 months - Teddy, Shakira and Latika respectively) had always eaten “the Mercadona dog food in the big tins priced at €1.25 a can.” “When the packaging was changed to cartons (indivisible packs of 3) they were less than enthusiastic about the food but did eat a bit - I mix it with Burns Mini Bites dried food for them.” “Within a couple of days they started to vomit violently (thank God for tiles!) and refused to eat the food.  I took them to the vet and she thought initially that they may have ingested pesticide as she had had a couple of other local dogs in with the same symptoms.” “She ran renal function tests on two of them and their urea and creatinine levels were raised.  “ “She did not consider it worth running the blood tests on the third one (Latika) as she had the exact same symptoms I then started cooking chicken/turkey/ brown rice/vegetables for them until their stomachs settled but I will continue to cook for them now.  All have lost a little weight but are almost completely back to normal although Latika was sick last night - they are on Uro Can tablets to protect their stomachs.” “Thanks for bringing this into the public domain - I am glad Mercadona seem to be taking it as seriously as they should be and let's hope they are willing to reimburse customers for vet's fees incurred - I know it has cost some people 100s of Euros and, worse still, some people have lost their beloved pets due to this fiasco. “And there is the cost of all the cleaning products I bought from them to clear up piles (and it was) of dog vomit for a couple of weeks!” “I feel quite guilty to be honest, as I know other pet owners do - like I have been poisoning them really. “ Meanwhile, Veronica Catala of Clinica Veterinaria Benitachell said she had seen 10 to 15 cases of dogs with kidney problems in the last two months, and the majority of dog owners – including Ms Millar - had fed pets with the Comfy dog food in cartons. Inka Labsch of Clinica Veterinaria Europa in Mojacar (Almeria) confirmed that in the last month there had been a huge rise in the number of dog owners bringing in pets suffering from kidney problems. “In the past month there have been nearly 10, and quite a few otherwise young and healthy animals.” Tests to see if the kidney problems was caused by Leishmaniasis came back negative, a vet told EWN. “At one point we thought it might have been caused by pesticide used to combat the Red Weevil Beetle plague we have here,” said Inka. “But then I heard that other vets in other towns were experiencing similar unusual numbers of young dogs with kidney problems, so I do not think it is that. Many of the dog’s owners say they feed their pets with Mercadona’s Compy brand wet dog food,” said Inka. Various pet owners’ who feed their dogs this pet food confirmed this. One of Inka’s patients is ‘Goldie, who is on a drip for five hours a day after tests showed she had kidney problems. Ken Grey’s five-year-old white German Shepherd ‘Gemma’ started to develop symptoms, which include excessive thirst. His partner Georgette Hurcomb took Gemma to the vet in Garrucha who confirmed the kidney problem. “I personally know of at least six dogs who all eat the same brand of dog food who have this problem, although I understand there are at least 20 dogs who may be affected, one of which died,” said Georgette who lives in Palomares. “We drink the same water as the dogs and they only eat this brand of dog food.” “I made a complaint to Mercadona and a representative contacted us very concerned and said they would take the dog food off the shelves and would conducting tests.” Jamie Moore’s dog Tyson was diagnosed with ‘bad kidneys’ by the vet in Turre. “I did not think it could have been the food from Mercadona as my dog has eaten this brand of food for many years,” said Jamie. “But since its packaging changed, he has had a reaction.” Albox resident, Heather Whythe’s dog ‘Scruffy’ fell ill after a week of eating the ‘trozos in salsa’. “Since switching to another dog food, she is now back to her normal self,” said Heather. Chris Reade realised something was wrong when his dog began drinking excessively, suffered from urinary incontinence and went from 20 kilos to 16 kilos. “No definite diagnosis was found, although liver and kidney function results were abnormal. I immediately took the dog off the meat and with complete rest and a diet of chicken and rice she is thankfully on the road to recovery.”

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Spain’s Deficit Tests Europe’s Financial Rules

 

ONLY months after they tightened the rules for the euro, Europeans are again confronting a question posed a decade ago: Is their rule book in fact a little stupid? In 2002, Romano Prodi, then the president of the European Commission, provoked widespread criticism by using the word “stupid” to describe the Stability and Growth Pact, a set of rules intended to maintain the stability of the euro zone by imposing fiscal discipline on member states. Now Spain is pressing for leniency, using more polite language but a similar argument. Deep in recession, Spain is not close to hitting European Union target dates for cutting its budget deficit to acceptable levels. And that, according to the logic of the new rules, ought to begin a process leading to the imposition of fines against Spain’s government. Euro zone finance ministers are set to discuss Spain’s economic situation Thursday in Brussels. It may come up again when European heads of government take part in a two-day meeting to discuss policies intended to increase economic growth. The new center-right Spanish government led by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy faces a severe economic squeeze. To hit the European Union’s deficit target it would need to impose another austerity package that, according to estimates, would be more than double the 15 billion euros, or $20 billion, of tax increases and spending cuts already agreed to this year. And Spain is entering its second recession since the sovereign debt crisis began and is struggling with an unemployment rate of nearly 23 percent. But the European authorities face a dilemma, too. The Spanish case illustrates a design flaw in the euro rule book — fining a nation in financial trouble can only make matters worse. Even insisting on more austerity could drive Spain over the edge. Inaction, however, could threaten the credibility of the revised rule book when financial markets remain nervous. While the European Commission, the executive body of the 27-nation European Union, has issued tough warnings to some smaller nations, including Hungary — which is outside the euro zone and subject to different sanctions — Spain is the first large country to run afoul of the strengthened rules. The issue is particularly delicate because when France and Germany violated the original pact in 2003 by running up excessive deficits, the agreement was softened. And some policy makers have said that is one reason euro nations did not weather the financial crisis better. Last year the pact was strengthened to make sanctions more difficult to avoid and to make overall debt levels a bigger factor in determining whether penalties should be applied. Jean Pisani-Ferry, director of Bruegel, an economic research institute in Brussels, said Spain posed a substantial test for the new rules. “It is big because it is a bigger country and this is a tough case: how to reconcile fiscal discipline and economic realism,” he said. “Spain is facing a true recession,” he added, with estimates that its economy will continue to contract. “The commission is forecasting minus 1 percent, the Bank of Spain minus 1.5 percent, and there is no shortage of people forecasting even less. I think they should be careful at a time when they are embarking on a large number of reforms.” But Mr. Pisani-Ferry added that the European Commission had latitude in determining whether a country had violated the new rules. The commission will recommend how to proceed, and, if it has determined that Spain has tried its best to meet the target dates but has been blown off course by events outside its control, the European Commission can propose new target dates. Under the Stability and Growth Pact, European nations are supposed to keep their budget deficits below 3 percent of gross domestic product and their debt levels below 60 percent of G.D.P. Spain’s target was a deficit of 6 percent of G.D.P. in 2011, 4.4 percent in 2012 and 3 percent in 2013. On Monday, though, the Spanish government said it ended 2011 with a deficit of 8.5 percent of G.D.P. Speaking in Brussels on Wednesday, the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, said he was awaiting more information from Madrid, and the new Spanish budget, due to be presented in March. “The reality regarding Spain is that we do not yet have a full picture of Spain’s fiscal slippage last year and the reasons for that slippage,” Mr. Barroso said. “Only then, when we receive the concrete information, we’ll be able to take a position.” He expressed confidence that the new budget “will be fully in line with the Stability and Growth Pact rules.” The national government in Madrid has blamed Spain’s regional governments, estimating that they accounted for about two-thirds of the slippage last year. The regions ended 2011 with an average deficit equivalent to 2.94 percent of G.D.P., compared with a target of 1.3 percent. Spain is one of at least 23 European Union nations in violation of the bloc’s rules, subject to what is known as “excessive deficit procedure,” with closer monitoring and clear targets. But it was already given the benefit of the doubt in December 2009, when it was allowed an extra year to reach the 3 percent deficit level. All of which makes for a difficult decision for the commission, which must walk a tightrope between squeezing Spain’s economy too much and undermining the new rules. Mr. Pisani-Ferry said he believed that it should worry more about the first of those factors than the second. “Credibility rests also on the fact that what you do is economically sensible,” he said.

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Spain braces for further cuts amid national uproar

Spain, whose economy – the fourth largest in the eurozone – is staggering under a burden of debt, is preparing for further austerity measures after its finance minister revealed that the 2011 budget deficit was substantially higher than expected. The deficit came to 8.51% of GDP – far higher than the European Commission’s own forecast of 6.5%. Brussels will now effectively dictate the 2012 budget ceiling which Spain will announce on Friday. The country will have to come up with more than 40 billion euros in savings to meet that target. However, most economists say the planned cuts are impossible as the economy is already slipping into recession. Spain has been in the eye of the European debt crisis storm ever since its Socialist government racked up one of the bloc's largest budget deficits. The Socialists were trounced for mishandling the crisis.  As a result, a new conservative government began a four-year term in December. It faced a wave of massive protests when it swiftly introduced tax hikes and spending cuts to the tune of around 15 billion euros. More anger followed when the new prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, introduced a labor decree making it easier for employers to fire workers. His reforms are said to be part of a program aimed at creating jobs: the country has the developed world's highest unemployment rate, at 23%. But the new legislation sparked an outbreak of discontent with hundreds of thousands taking to the streets of Madrid and other major cities.  The unemployment rate for Spaniards aged between 16 and 24 stands at 48.6%, and 39% for those between 20 and 29, according to this month’s government report. There are no official statistics but estimates suggests thousands are emigrating monthly and the country last year saw more people leave Spain than arrive in the country for the first time in a decade. One of the main sources of discontent is bad real-estate debts left over after Spain's housing bubble burst. The debt crisis led to a crash in Spanish real estate with thousands of new houses standing empty, resulting in a rash of so-called ghost-towns country-wide. Spaniards now accuse the government of enormous waste which left them without houses, work or money. “When the crisis started, the real estate bubble burst, and of course companies started going bankrupt. Public administrations started not receiving incomes they were accustomed to and the whole economy blew up,” Prof. Manuel Balmaseda, an economist from the ICAI School of Engineering, told RT. The property crash continues to hit people hard, but a nationwide movement is now fighting back. Banks prefer to repossess the homes of those who cannot afford the mortgages taken out when the outlook was more positive. Among the worst affected are Spanish youngsters and immigrants. The situation has sparked regular protests against banks, the government and the austerity cuts which are widely seen as provoking a further slowdown of the economy, which is set to shrink this year by 1.7%.

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The economic disaster that heavily indebted Spain has found itself in is clearly a consequence of Spain joining the euro

 

The economic disaster that heavily indebted Spain has found itself in is clearly a consequence of Spain joining the euro, insists economist Dr. Manuel Balmaseda. When Spain joined the euro, the EU Central Bank settled overly low interest rates, resulting in Spain receiving “enormous amounts of credit which increased Spanish indebtedness, particularly foreign”. Cheap money created financial bubbles, for instance in real estate. When the 2008 economic crisis came, the bubbles burst, many companies went bankrupt and the whole overheated economy blew up, explains the professor. Madrid now needs more flexibility to curb deficit as the EU introduces new rules on budget discipline. Spain appears to have become the first country to test them. Madrid is desperately trying to negotiate a higher 2012 fiscal deficit target than that set by the European Commission. The austerity measures taken by the new conservative government of the eurozone's fourth largest economy will bear no fruit, believes Dr. Balmaseda, “because the problem is in the euro.” “There are great expectations that a new government is going to arrange the problem,” the professor says, stressing that the honeymoon of the Spaniards with the new government will not last for more than six to nine months. Dr. Manuel Balmaseda, Professor at the ICAI School of Engineering, is certain that the futures of Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy lie outside the eurozone. He also believes that the countries remaining in the eurozone will not be very happy without their breakaway partners. Exit from the eurozone would mean a default for Spain, which is unacceptable for French and German banks that hold up to half of Madrid’s €900 billion foreign debt. These banks are interested in returning the money, whatever the cost for Spaniards. The professor believes that leaving the eurozone does not necessarily mean leaving the EU. “Nobody would chase Spain out of the EU,” he says. Dr. Manuel Balmaseda believes that the eurozone crisis is not just caused by governmental overspending. “The origin of the problem is the euro, the lack of competitiveness that the euro brought to Spain”. Spain is following the path of Greece with a two-year delay, believes the professor, because more austerity measures and further cuts of public spending are only pushing countries like Greece and Spain deeper into recession.

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Bailed Kyle Thain and James Harris return from Spain

 

Two men from Essex accused of attempted murder in Spain have returned to England. Kyle Thain, 24, and James Harris, 29, had been in Spain for the past seven months after being accused of attacking two men in an Alicante bar in July 2011. The pair, both from Southend, were held in a Spanish prison for four months without charge. They have now been allowed to return to England on strict bail conditions. Mr Harris returned to the UK on Tuesday and his friend Mr Thain arrived at Stansted Airport on Wednesday evening. New lawyer As part of the conditions of their return to the UK, both men must sign in at the Spanish consulate in London twice a month. Speaking before her son Mr Thain's arrival, Sharon Harris, said: "I am so excited and nervous at the same time. "I still can't believe it. I won't be happy until I've got my arms around him at the airport." Both men have protested their innocence and have said they can prove they were elsewhere at the time of the attack. They were released from jail in November and given their passports back after each paid £6,000 in bail, but were told they could not leave the country. A new lawyer has now negotiated their return home. Pablo Sebastian, a Spanish lawyer working in Alicante with offices in Hadleigh in Essex, has been helping the boys' families secure their release. "We are very relieved to have them home," he said. "It is an improvement because they are back with their friends, family and at their jobs." 'Lives disrupted' Mr Sebastian said the men's "impeccable behaviour" while on bail in Spain had persuaded the Spanish judge to allow them back to the UK. It is thought the men's families have paid about £25,000 to cover travel, accommodation and legal costs since the pair were arrested. The men must now wait to hear if they must return to Spain for a trial. Richard Howitt, MEP for the East of England, is now calling for a change in European law to ensure minimum standards of justice across all member states. "The idea they have been several months in prison, outside the country and suffered such a huge financial loss is unacceptable," he said. "If we had a system whereby you respect and uphold each other's system of justice, then Kyle and James could have come home seven months ago. "But their lives have been totally disrupted, as have their families', which is why we need better standards of judicial co-operation at European level."

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Mercadona Rocked As Own Label Linked To Canine Deaths

 

Mercadona is in the middle of a public relations disaster after its ‘Compy’ own label dog food brand was linked to the deaths of several pets across Spain, after having caused kidney failure in the animals. . The deaths were initially recorded by pet owners in Andalucia, Murcia and Alicante, but new reports have claimed that similar cases have been found along the Costa del Sol. Several pet owners insisted that the deaths were caused after their pets ate the own label product, and following intense pressure, Mercadona has removed two variants of the ‘Compy’ range from select stores. The chain said it is now studying whether there indeed is a connection between the product and the deaths. It would not comment on whether the problem was caused by a recent shift in packaging of the product from tins to cartons. Mercadona added: “At this stage we have only removed the product as a precaution and we are waiting for the results of the analysis. We do not know with any certainty if the food is to blame”.

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Blues legend Gary Moore died after drink binge

ROCK legend Gary Moore died after bingeing on enough alcohol to put him nearly eight times over the drink-drive limit, tests in Spain have revealed. The guitar ace (58) suffered a heart attack brought on by the massive amount of alcohol that he knocked back at the start of a sunshine holiday in Spain's Costa del Sol, the studies showed. No traces of any illegal drugs were found in his body. But he had 380mg of alcohol per decilitre of blood in his system, which is more than 30mg the amount associated with fatalities. And it was just short of the 416mg that Amy Winehouse had in her body when she died. Tests revealed that dad-of-three Mr Moore, found dead in bed at a luxury hotel on February 6 last year, had abused alcohol for years. Former Thin Lizzy guitarist Mr Moore died at the Kempinski Resort Hotel in Estepona hours after starting a six-day holiday with his new partner.

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