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SPANISH NEWS

VALENCIA METRO ACCIDENT

The official death toll from the Metro accident rose by one – to 42 – yesterday after a41-year-old woman died from her injuries in Valencia’s La Fe Hospital. Her 11-year-old son still remains seriously injured in the same hospital. Hospital director Vicente Gil Suay stated that everything possible had been undertaken to try and save her life, but her condition could not be stabilized.

Two of the injured remain in the General Hospital of Valencia; a man and a woman injured in the accident are also still inside the Valencia Clinic, where their condition is said to be serious, and a statement from Dr Peset Hospital revealed that two patients remain there: a 44-year-old woman who is in an extremely serious condition and a seriously injured man aged 26.

Members of the Partido Popular in the Valencian parliament yesterday stated that they were completely open to any suggestion of the creation of a Commission of Enquiry into Monday’s crash. According to PP Spokesman Serafin Castellano, the enquiry would be very wide ranging, as the PP ‘had absolutely nothing to hide’. Mr. Castellano also stated that it ‘could be possible\ that former Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, and former Minister Jose Barrionuevo be called as they were in government at the time that Line 1 of the Valencian Metro service was built.

IDENTITY REVEALED

The identity of the body found under a motorway bridge, wrapped in a tarpaulin and weighed down with rocks has been identified as that of Colin Nobes following a series of DNA tests. Nobes was a former jail breaker and drug-runner who bragged that his extravagant lifestyle was financed by the sex industry as he owned two roadside clubs near Denia. The former car dealer was sent to prison in 1995 for handling a stolen motor cruiser and delivering stolen cars to the Channel Islands, but broke out of Winchester jail and fled to Spain to be with his wife. According to sources, two British people - Lindsey Frampton Slade and Adrian Marshall - are set to appear in a court in Denia on charges of murdering Nobes.

VARIOUS

The meeting between Batasuna/Eta and the Basque Socialists took place yesterday in a hotel in the Basque Country. However, all the participants at the meeting, which began half an hour late, had to walk past Pilar Ruiz, the mother of Joseba Pagazaurtundua, who was gunned down by Eta. She shouted ‘Traitors’ at all those who took part in the meeting – pictured below – but her comments were not included in a RTVE news report of the meeting.

Later a statement from the Victims of Terrorism voiced the opinion that the meeting ‘ was a betrayal of the highest order’. Meanwhile, Mariano Rajoy, the President of the Partido Popular stated that the Basque Socialists and by implication the Prime Minister ‘do not represent the state of Spain’ and that ‘any possible agreement reached is absolutely without any sort of agreement from the Partido Popular’. Also yesterday it was revealed that Batasuna/Eta will not authorize any more meetings of this sort until it has been established as a legal political entity inside the Basque Country

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There is expected to be some considerable confusion in Spanish airports this coming Monday when Iberia pilots are planning to stage the first of two 24-hour stoppages. Some 200 flights are to be cancelled affecting over 200,000 passengers. The strike is about the creation by Iberia of the budget airline Catair.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

UNDER ATTACK

It has been revealed that Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has been taken to an emergency medical centre after being attacked by some bees. Mr. Fogh Rasmussen was apparently trimming some trees on his estate in Naerum, outside Copenhagen, when he was set upon by some swarming bees that stung him on the head and neck. His security detail noticed that his neck was swelling badly and he was immediately taken to hospital.

OTHER NEWS

The Mexican Electoral College last night officially declared Felipe Calderon as the winner of the recent Presidential elections. The rightist president-elect won out over leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador by the slimmest of margins – 35.89% to 35.31%. Mr. Lopez Obrador has demanded a recount, but under the Mexican Constitution, the name of the President-elect must be declared by September 6.

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Three people have been charged with trying to sell the formula for Coca Cola to rival Pepsi Cola. The arrestees are thought to be a secretary who worked at Coke, and two accomplices who had tried to sell the formula for $1.5 million, but were stopped by an FBI ‘sting’ operation. Both Pepsi and Coke have been locked in a battle for supremacy ever since 1886 when Caleb Bradham came up with Pepsi Cola to rival Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton’s Coca Cola that had first been created in 1879. However, both companies called a truce to catch the ring

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