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It has been revealed that the driver of the train in Palencia that was involved in an accident had in fact received a warning about the speed he was travelling. According to the Infrastructure ministry, the train was travelling at 125 Km/hr when the speed limit set for the area was 30
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A yacht flying the British flag and taken into police custody as part of an anti-drugs operation carried out six years ago, has caught fire as she sat in Portonovo harbour in Galicia it was revealed yesterday. The yacht the ‘Al Mohannad’ had been lying in various Galician ports since the drug operation, and last night police sources expressed the belief that the fire had been set deliberately.
It would appear that almost the entire Torrevieja Municipal police force is now under investigation, after the head of the Force, Alejandro Morer, was sent to court on charges that the force under his control tortured detainees, created false documents and failed to investigate crimes. Despite this, all the eleven policemen who were heard in court yesterday have been freed pending further investigations. Meanwhile, the case has caused quite a commotion in the town, with several foreign shop and business owners as well as members of the IU and Greens Party coming forward with further complaints, such as that of an Argentinean businessman who claimed that he was hit by a local policeman who claimed that his car was badly parked. It is also believed that the Torrevieja police force had established a network to blackmail local businesses, and the allegations now have become so serious that the assistant prosecutor for Alicante Province, Juan Carlos Lopez, has been assigned to the case.
For the first time in its history, the Moors and Christians Festival of Villena will take place this year in silence as blunderbusses and other weapons used in the traditional battle will not be fired due to the new law restricting the use of gunpowder. This will also mean that the participants in the fiesta, that is set to take place between September 5 and 9, will also protest against the new legislation that restricts the use of firearms even if they are used in special ceremonies or fiestas..
In eight days time – on September 1 – the Socialist Government’s Anti-Smoking Laws will come into being, meaning that in order to comply, walls will have to be built to cut off the smoking and non-smoking areas from any hotel, bar or restaurant of more than 100 sq metres. Failure to do so could engender fines of up to 10,000 Euros. The problem would appear to be that the government non Madrid has taken a different stance over the Valencian Government who have stated that the compartmentalization of the smoking and non-smoking areas may be undertaken by any machinery that guarantees that smoke is retained in one area. This has led to a great deal of confusion on the part of the 90,000 establishments in the Valencian Community affected by the new Law.
The Military Police that operate the security in Amsterdam’s Schipol airport yesterday detained twelve people who had been passengers on a NorthWest Airlines flight. The flight had been turned around by the pilot after he advised Schipol that he became ‘highly suspicious’ of the behavior of a number of passengers. As a result the aircraft was escorted back to Schipol by two F-16 fighter jets, but no other information was released following the incident. The flight had come from Minneapolis and its destination was Bombay, using Amsterdam as a refueling stop..
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Washington yesterday stated that the official reply from the Iranian Government over the United Nations request that it suspend its uranium enrichment programme ‘was not enough’. Despite this initial reaction, State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos revealed that the United States wanted to re-study the Iranian reply before deciding what measures to undertake.
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