News Headlines

SPANISH NEWS

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero yesterday overflew Galicia along with the Socialist President of the Autonomy Emilio Perez Touriño and Environment Minister Cristina Narbona, who stated that she had been ‘very impressed’ by the dreadful spectacle. Prior to this Mr. Rodriguez Zapatero had visited several centres that were coordinating the fire fighting efforts and, as happened when he arrived at the Galician Government offices, he was greeted with boos and catcalls by the public. Particularly vehement was Carlos Pereiro, the President of the Montes de Sotomayor areas where one of the worst fires had taken place, who was alleged to have shouted at the Prime Minister: “Goodbye, you useless s.o.b., go and have some Galician seafood.” Today, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba will travel to the autonomy to ‘supervise’ the fire fighting efforts. Another of the incognitos is the whereabouts of Socialist Number Two Pepiño Blanco, who, despite being born in Galicia, and having spent almost all of his political life in the Autonomy, is still nowhere to be seen. ---

Judge Baltasar Garzon yesterday officially warned the President of Eta/Batasuna Pernando Barrena that if the demonstration that is planned for this Sunday goes ahead, he will issue orders that Mr. Barrena and four other members of his political group that have called for the demonstration would be sent to jail. Prior to Mr. Barrena appearing before Judge Garzon, Arnaldo Otegi, the Batasuna/Eta spokesman issued another warning to the Socialist Government: “ Does anyone believe that it is possible to undertake a process of seeking solutions, or any sort of peace process be possible when one of the sides is being constantly attacked? The answer is: with great difficulty.”

THE KNOCK-ON EFFECT

As a result of the virtual closure of several airports in the United Kingdom yesterday morning following a terrorist emergency– see below – this had an almost immediate ‘knock-on’ effect for the airports of Manises and El Altet. Normally on any given weekday a combined otal of 108 flights leave from these airports for various UK destinations, and by yesterday evening only 49 had departed. As a result, the Tourism representative for Alicante, Sebastian Fernandez got in touch with Daniel Wickman, the acting British Consul, in order to take care of those who were unable to leave. In Valencia, the only direct flight by Iberia to London was cancelled, and by the evening, only six flights out of a possible fourteen had left, with the low cost airlines opting to cancel their flights altogether

YET ANOTHER ATTACK

Two men, their faces covered with scarves and armed with a pistol and a machete, forced their wait into the offices of a Sagunto businessman, demanding money. After threatening Francisco Catala and beating him, he gave them what cash he had on him, but they also took a blank cheque and a computer. It was the fifth attack Mr. Catala had suffered in less than a year.

LESS THAN EXPECTED

Environment Minister Cristina Narbona had issued a warning to the Valencian Community about a massive arrival of Jellyfish that finally did not materialize, and to make matters worse, local experts stated last night that the jellyfish invasion this year is far less that on previous occasions. As a result all the hotel associations of the Valencian Community have formally requested that the Minister ‘refrain from making such inflammatory remarks that are clearly aimed at damaging our business interests and those of our members’. Josefa Perez, the Benidorm Councillor for beaches issued a formal invitation for the Minister to visit Benidorm and see the beaches for herself, ‘as she clearly has no idea what she is talking about when she issued that advisory’.

A REAL CHAMELEON

That yesterday was how police described Francisco Javier Martinez Sanmillan, who spent the past seven summers in his 12,000-square-metre plot of land with an extensive mansion just outside Pedreguer. The most wanted man in Spain for his drug dealings had undergone several operations to change the physical appearance of his face, and had grafted skin from his feet onto his fingers to avoid being identified. He had been on the run from the police for fourteen years and it is believed that for some of that time, he kept himself hidden in an underground bunker he had built on his land in Pedreguer, whilst police sources stated that it was probably the Columbian drug barons that enabled him to have all the operations to alter his appearance.

JUST TOO MUCH

Employees as well as the clients of the cafeteria inside Alicante Hospital have stated that for the past two months, they have had to live with temperatures as high as fifty degrees in the kitchens and ten degrees less in the cafeteria outside. Their trades union USO has apparently lodged a complaint with the Hospital board, but has had no reply. One trades union representative stated this it was normal for any employer to improve the working conditions of employees, but this simply had not been undertaken.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Chaos was brought to most air travelers yesterday after it was announced by British Home Secretary John Reid that a plot had been uncovered involving blowing up at least ten airliners in the air as they approached the United States. Their alleged plans were to use a peroxide-based solution that could ignite when sparked by a camera flash or another electronic device that was taken on board the aircraft by suicide bombers in their hand luggage, creating, in the words of Paul Stephenson, the Deputy Commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police ‘mass murder on an unimaginable scale’. The disruption to passengers was considerable as British security staff insisted on imposing a highly restricted amount of articles that could be brought onto planes as hand luggage to just passports, wallets, glasses – but no case – keys with no electronic devices, and necessary medicines, with women and their babies being allowed to bring baby foods on board, provided that they test it in front of security officers prior to boarding any aircraft. These restrictions are expected to remain in place until this coming weekend.

Meanwhile, acting on a tip-off from Pakistani authorities, police in the UK arrested 24 people, at least two of which had already taped a suicide message to be broadcast after their deaths, in an operation that had been months in the investigatory stages. It was later revealed that some of the would be terrorists that had been arrested included the white son of a former Conservative Party worker, the son of an architect and an accountant and a heavily pregnant woman. United States officials stated that the terrorists hoped to stage a dry run within two days with the actual attack following immediately afterwards. In the aftermath of the first arrests, police raided several locations, cordoning off large areas and forcing people to evacuate in an operation that is expected to continue over the next weeks.

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