Live News From Spain As It Happens

A BRITISH five-year-old at the centre of a worldwide emergency search yesterday (Saturday) has been found in the Torre del Mar area of Málaga and his parents arrested.

Ashya King, who has recently been operated on at Southampton General Hospital for a massive malignant stage-four brain tumour, was taken out of the centre by his parents against medical advice.

He is now in the maternity and paediatric unit of Vélez-Málaga hospital and his father Brett, 51, and mother Naghemeh, 45 have been taken into custody.

Interpol was informed after the couple took their son from hospital on Thursday lunchtime – which they are allowed to do for short periods, as he is a long-term patient in rehabilitation – and had not returned for over six hours, but were seen on Friday afternoon boarding a ferry heading for Cherbourg, northern France from Portsmouth.

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AT LEAST 1,300 jobs could go in Gibraltar now that the UK has changed betting laws and levied new taxes.

The Rock's head minister Fabián Picardo is said to be 'furious' with David Cameron's government for imposing the Gambling Act 2014 on its overseas territory and potentially costing it up to 300 million pounds (about 375 million euros) a year.

Picardo says the law reform goes against Article 56 of the European Union Treaty covering the right to free movement of goods and services between member States, and calls the UK's actions 'illegal', 'illegitimate', 'out of proportion', 'discriminatory' and 'unreasonable'.

As well as tourism and financial services, Gibraltar's main industry is betting and numerous online gambling houses are run from the Rock.

But now, heavy regulations mean gamblers will be taxed more on their winnings, betting houses operating from Gibraltar will get fewer tax breaks, and tax benefits of 15% will be applied to firms where operations are centralised all in the same place.

Major betting firms such as Ladbrokes, William Hill and Betfair which operate in Gibraltar have their head offices in the UK, meaning fewer tax exemptions for branches on the Rock.

Picardo says the move will just make online betting houses in Gibraltar 'go underground' and keep their operations off the radar as much as possible to avoid being taxed so much, meaning they will escape regulation.

Britain has passed the Gambling Act 2014 ostensibly to protect the consumer, but in practice it is aimed at clawing back money for the tax authorities since Gibraltar's lucrative gaming industry does not provide them with a great deal at present.

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A BRITISH boy suffering from a brain tumour has been snatched from Southampton General Hospital by his parents, and UK police searching for him on the Costa del Sol say it is 'vital he is found today' (Saturday).

Wheelchair-bound Ashya King, five, whose mother and father are said to be Jehova's Witnesses, took their son from the ward, where he was being fed through a tube by a machine, on Thursday without doctors' permission.

He has recently undergone surgery to remove the tumour and is unable to communicate verbally, as well as being mostly paralysed.

Medics are very concerned Ashya's parents do not have enough batteries to keep the feeding apparatus running and that it will cease to work by the end of today, meaning his life is in danger.

The battery is not easy to change when it runs down as it forms an integral part of the machine – rather like an iPhone – and the apparatus has to be taken apart to get it out and put a new one in.

It is normally plugged into the mains and cannot run for very long on a battery – this is only used where the machine has to be unplugged, for example if the patient needs to go to the bathroom or move between wards.

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TRAFFIC is likely to be extremely heavy on Spain's main roads this weekend as millions return home after their August holidays.

Residents in large, land-locked cities, especially Madrid, will be leaving their coastal resorts ready to start work again on Monday.

Likewise, tourists from France and other northern European nations who have travelled down to Spain by car will be heading back.

Very little congestion was seen yesterday (Friday) except at Spain's northern border, although more is expected today and gridlocks are predicted to reach a peak by Sunday, being the last day of August and of the weekend.

The N-340 through the province of Tarragona and the AP-7 motorway past Barcelona - both in Catalunya - suffered tailbacks last night, as did the A-5 motorway coming out of Madrid.

But traffic jams of up to 14 kilometres long were reported in the Basque Country in the border town of Behobia heading towards France, and eight kilometres long on the AP-8 in Zarautz (Guipúzcoa province, also in the Basque Country) crossing the frontier towards the more northerly nation.

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A WOMAN who has been deliberately setting fire to supermarkets to avoid paying for her groceries has been arrested.

The accused, C.B.S., 51, is said to have an existing criminal record.

She was caught by National Police in Huelva, south-western Spain after an in-store arson attack which caused flames of over five feet in height in an aisle.

On each occasion, the suspect is said to have started the fires to take advantage of the mayhem caused and the fact that security staff were otherwise occupied in order to sneak out of the store with a full trolley.

Two fires were started in branches of the same supermarket in the city within less than a week of each other, but on the second occasion she was unable to get away with her trolley and had to abandon it and leave on foot.

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RESIDENTS in popular Catalunya seaside towns have staged a series of protests over 'drunken tourism'.

They complain that foreign holidaymakers have been seen walking stark naked through the La Barceloneta district of Barcelona, and noise, vandalism, fights and other anti-social behaviour is rife every summer in Lloret de Mar (Girona province), Salou (Tarragona province) and Calella (Barcelona province).

People living in these areas complain authorities and traders do their best to attract youths away from home for the first time who, armed with new-found freedom and alcohol prices considerably lower than in their home countries, cause havoc for those who have to live there year-round.

Townspeople insist it is the northern Europeans who create the most trouble, and that it is not uncommon to see people urinating or even defecating in the street or collapsing completely unconscious after drinking too much.

Cheap self-catering apartments and low-cost airlines mean many of Catalunya's coastal resort towns are well within the budget of 20-somethings who are having to watch their cash.

And although authorities and traders say the anti-social behaviour of these holidaymakers is a small price to pay for making enough money to survive through the whole of the winter, travel agencies and those who live near touristy areas say it simply has to stop.

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GLOBAL warming could mean tropical diseases such as dengue reach Spain within a short period of time, according to researchers from the University of East Anglia in Norwich.

Using current data from México, one of the countries where dengue fever is a risk, and comparing it with that of the 28 countries in the European Union, the investigators in the Norfolk (UK) college worked out the probability of the disease reaching the continent.

Coastal regions on the Mediterranean and Adriatic seas, the Po Valley in northern Italy, and north-eastern Italy could be at risk, say the UEA scientists.

As for Spain, the south is the most likely area to get hit by dengue, as well as the east coast.

Paul Hunter, of Norwich Medical School says the incidence of the tropical virus is likely to rise to as many as one victim per 1,000 inhabitants in the last three decades of this century.

His team studied climate and dengue fever incidence in México and in 27 EU countries over the period from 1961 to 1990, and from this were able to predict how this might increase if climate change continues its current course over the short term – from the years 2011 to 2040 – the medium term, from 2041 to 2070, and the long term from 2071 to 2100.

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A BLAZE has broken out in the Sierra Nevada mountain range not far from Granada, leading to 15 helicopters and hydroplanes being sent out.

The fire started at 16.00hrs (on Friday) in two places simultaneously, leading emergency services to believe it is the work of arsonists.

It began near the village of Cenes de la Vega close to the Lomas de Genil area of Granada city, but as yet has not reached the heart of the Sierra Nevada national park, one of Spain's best-known ski destinations.

At least 142 firefighters have been working on the blaze overnight, and at the time of publication it continued to burn.

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A SERIES of recommendations for women to protect themselves from rape has inflamed social network users and socialists on the central government.

The ministry of the interior published a list on Twitter this week after a young woman reported a gang-rape at Málaga summer fair by five youths, with nine pointers including carrying a whistle to attract attention, checking one's parked car carefully at night before getting in, and closing curtains when undressing 'to avoid indiscreet observers'.

The advice also included not hitch-hiking nor picking up strangers in one's car, avoiding remote wasteland, country areas or empty back streets especially at night even when in company, and if one has to use these regularly to get home, to change one's route regularly.

Women who live alone should only put their initial or surname, not their full first name on their letter boxes, says the ministry, and should leave lights on in other rooms in the evenings to give the impression more than one person lives there.

When using public transport at night, women should avoid empty bus stops and, if the bus is nearly empty, sit as closely as possible to the driver.

Women are advised not to enter a lift when it is occupied by a man on his own whom they do not know, especially at night or in apartment blocks, and if they have to do so, to stand as closely as possible to the alarm button.

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TWO of the tourists missing after this week's Indonesian boat crash are Spanish – and may be alive and well, but shipwrecked on a remote island.

One of them has been named as Víctor García Montes, 43, from Sevilla, who works as a procurator in Madrid, and the other has been identified by his first name only, 'Jorge'.

Fishermen say they have seen two foreign tourists 'shipwrecked' on a beach in Bima, on the uninhabited volcanic island of Sangeang Pulo 

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A LIFEGUARD on a southern Costa Blanca beach is able to swim for 4.5 kilometres without getting out of breath, and can pull a tonne and a half in weight without flinching.

This would be a near-impossible feat for any human, but the 'bionic' lifeguard in San Pedro del Pinatar on the Alicante-Murcia provincial border is in fact a dog.

Bruno, a black Newfoundland owned by beach rescue employee David Álvarez has turned into such a valuable asset to the offshore rescue team that they are considering getting more dogs of the same breed to help out.

According to a recent article in the British tabloid The Daily Mail, Álvarez took his pet to work with him one day so he would not get lonely stuck at home without human company.

But he never dreamt Bruno would end up practically doing his job for him.

David said his pet was just 10 weeks old when he first took him to the beach, having only had him for a fortnight, and that he was amazed at how well the puppy was able to swim.

He had not bought him to help him in his rescue work – just as a furry bundle of fun to love and to keep him company, says the report in the Mail.

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AN EARTHQUAKE measuring 4.4 on the Richter scale struck the province of Sevilla yesterday (Tuesday) lunchtime, but no injuries or serious property damage have been reported yet - despite the tremor being compared to the devastating aftershock which destroyed Lorca (Murcia) in May 2011.

Its epicentre was close to the town centre of Montellano, in the southern mountain range of the province on the coast side, and was reported at 13.38hrs.

The features of the quake were described by the National Geographical Institute as being 'very similar' to those of the massive Lorca quake which, although initially minor, preceded an aftershock of 5.2 on the Richter scale very close to the surface - just a kilometre underground - and which destroyed thousands of homes, brought the church tower down and left several dead.

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SCIENTISTS at a Barcelona hospital have created a drug which is capable of killing off a lethal form of brain tumour and stopping it from spreading.

Led by Dr Laura Soucek, the team at the Vall d'Hebron hospital have been working on an inhibitor which blocks the protein Myc, responsible for the growth, division and multiplication of cells which form the glioma, one of the most common forms of brain tumour and the most difficult to treat.

The prognosis for sufferers of glioma is generally poor, with treatment being ineffective and a cure very rare.

But by blocking the Myc protein, the tumour is attacked once it has already formed, as are the 'master' cells, preventing them from 'breeding', or multiplying and spreading out.

Following the first and very promising results from their initial investigations, the research team is now seeking to extend the therapy to clinical trials.

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SPAIN'S most expensive city to live in is San Sebastián (pictured) in the Basque Country, followed by Madrid and Barcelona in that order.

Tarragona, in southern Catalunya, is fourth and Bilbao – also in the Basque Country – is the fifth-most pricey city to set up home.

A study posted in Forbesmagazine explained that researchers took the price of a basket of food, a kilo of apples and a loaf of bread, as well as the average rent or mortgage price, the cost of a bus or train ticket and a 10-journey pass, a taxi trip and a litre of petrol, local taxes including IBI – payable on residential or business property owned – vehicles and rubbish collection, and the price of eating out or going to the cinema.

They compared all this with the national average and listed those which came out more costly than that figure to live in.

All of Catalunya's provincial capitals made the list – after Palma de Mallorca, the sixth-most expensive city in the country to live in, came Girona and Lleida.

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THE mother of a 10-month-old baby who travelled to Spain alone on a toy boat from Morocco has been traced.

She and the infant's father reportedly became involved in a confrontation with border police on the coast of Tangiers, north Morocco, and failed to catch the boat their daughter had already been placed on.

The baby was taken in by Red Cross volunteers who were attending to the literally hundreds of sub-Saharan Africans who had flooded into the shores of the province of Cádiz that night.

They said the little girl, who was provisionally named Princesa (Spanish for Princess) was suffering from mild hypothermia and was very tired, hungry and thirsty.

She drank two full baby-bottles of milk immediately after waking up.

Although lone children who make the dangerous crossing in an attempt to enter Europe via the 'back door' are normally held in a young person's shelter, Princesa was placed with a foster family to ensure she was given the maximum level of care and attention whilst authorities tried to trace her family.

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A NIGERIAN national isolated in hospital in San Juan (Alicante province) has tested negative for the deadly Ebola virus, medics confirm.

The 30-year-old went to Alicante General Hospital with his sister, describing symptoms including vomiting, bleeding, a fever of 38.3ºC and a general feeling of being very unwell.

He had recently visited his home country, where several cases of the haemorrhagic virus – which has less than a 10% survival rate – have been reported, among which have been at least two deaths.

The patient and his sister were immediately isolated in separate, sealed-off wings.

Although the woman did not have any symptoms, she had been in close physical contact with her brother, meaning if he had been infected, she may well have caught the disease.

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A SUSPECTED case of the lethal Ebola haemorrhagic virus has raised the alarm at an Alicante hospital.

Two Nigerian nationals who had recently been in their country of origin, one a 30-year-old man and the other his sister, were taken in separate ambulances to the hospital in San Juan (Sant Joan) just north of the city.

The brother had a fever of 38.3ºC, the lowest at which Ebola may be a possibility and was described as having 'symptoms' of the deadly condition, although exactly what they are has not been revealed.

His sister did not apparently have any symptoms, but as she had been in close contact with her brother, she was tested – although as yet has shown negative results.

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SINGAPOREAN tycoon Peter Lim is ready to sign on the dotted line and become owner of debt-ridden Valencia FC.

The multi-millionaire businessman has reached an agreement after long talks with Bankia, the State-owned bank which finances the Premier League football club and to which team bosses owe 20 million euros.

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NEARLY one in four drivers on Spain's roads are under the influence of drugs, shock figures from the highways and motoring authority reveals.

For every 100 motorists pulled over for random saliva tests, 36 showed up positive results - or 3,600 this year out of the 10,000 or so carried out.

And when standard testing is carried out at the site of a crash, the figure rises to half - only 50% of results were negative.

Head of the General Directorate of Traffic (DGT), María Seguí says these statistics are a source of 'great concern' for her department, which has been claiming for many months that consumption of illegal drugs by drivers was on the up.

This is why twice as many drug tests have been carried out in 2014 as last year.

Drink-driving is becoming more rare, with only 2% of drivers breathalysed found to have consumed alcohol, but Sra Seguí says this is not such a low figure as it sounds.

Of the three million breathalysed so far in 2014, the 2% means a total of 60,000.

Effectively, it means that every day in every province in Spain, six drivers on the road are over the limit - or for every 50 cars that pass you, one is driven by someone who has had too much to drink.

And another 18 of them will have taken drugs.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

BRUSSELS has ordered an investigation into alleged contraband cigarette-smuggling and money laundering in Gibraltar.

The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) says it 'has reasons to believe' that such activity is taking place on the Rock and has alerted the British and Spanish governments, ordering them to launch an inquiry.

According to OLAF's Spanish representative and based upon figures seen, 'either they smoke a carton of cigarettes a day in Gibraltar, or something is very wrong'.

Given that the Rock enjoys certain tax advantages, cigarettes are sold much more cheaply there, which is legal.

Whilst a carton of 10 packets costs on average 40 to 45 euros in Spain, the same ones in Gibraltar retail at between 25 and 27 euros.

But the number of cartons being shipped into the Rock and flying off the shelves suggest that they are not being purchased for personal use, rather for being sold at a profit over the border.

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THE average worker in Spain spends six months' wages on taxes before they are able to spend their earnings on bills, food, mortgage or rent and general enjoyment, a recent survey has revealed.

And tax hikes mean employees and the self-employed need to work an extra nine days and spend a further 747 euros than they did in 2010, says the think tank Civismo.

Typically, every cent earned each year up to and including July 3 goes on taxes, since workers spend the first 102 days of their salaries on Social Security (national insurance) payments, the next 41 days on income tax or IRPF, a further 25 days if they are self-employed on IVA, or value-added tax – irrespective of their turnover – and a final five days for other, miscellaneous taxes.

Of the extra 747 euros it costs the average worker every year now in taxes, 116 euros go in income tax or IRPF, 193 euros in relation to the IVA hike in 2010 when the top rate rose from 16% to 18%, plus a further 370 euros for the 2012 IVA rise from 18% to 21%.

The final 68 euros relate to property tax or IBI, car tax, and other 'special taxes' such as those on petrol, electricity, alcohol and so on.

And the difference between how long it takes a worker who earns a typical gross wage of 1,000 euros a month to pay off all tax duties and those who earn enough to be comfortable is anything up to 23 days.

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POLICE officers will be allowed to confiscate photo or video cameras 'or any other item' from demonstrators in the street if they believe these will be used 'for illegal purposes', in a new twist to the PP-led government's Citizen Safety Law.

Critics of the move include leader of United Left (Izquierda Unida, or IU) Gaspar Llamazares.

He says this is merely so that the police will be able to delete any incriminating footage or photos that prove protesters' innocence in a dispute or which show officers acting with unreasonable force against members of the public.

Interior minister Jorge Fernández Díaz stresses that the police are already, theoretically, able to seize cameras at public gatherings under a law passed in early 1992, but the imminent Citizen Safety legislation will reinforce this.

Llamazares said cases of footage being scrubbed had already been recorded.

He mentioned an incident on May 21 this year in the La Madreña Social Centre in Oviedo (region of Asturias).

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A BRITISH coach driver was arrested and 62 passengers left stranded overnight at a police checkpoint in Girona when it was found that another person's tachograph card had been inserted in the vehicle.

Some of the travellers booked into hotels for the night when they realised they would not be going anywhere, but around eight of them stayed on board the coach overnight and were given lifts to the railway station in Girona city the next morning by police.

Low-cost travel company Megabus.com, part of the UK-based corporation Stagecoach, was transporting the 62 passengers from Barcelona to London via Toulouse and Paris when it was pulled over during a random check on the AP-7 motorway in Maçanet de la Selva (Girona province) at 17.00hrs on Sunday.

Police found that the British driver, who was the only one on board, had used a colleague's tachograph card to make it look as though he had been on the road far less time.

Megabus.com had not provided a relief driver to share the job of what would typically involve 24 hours in a car and much more by coach, meaning the arrested man had been on the road all the way from London to the Costa Brava by the time he was caught.

While he was being questioned and charged, travellers faced a seven-hour wait before most of them decided to seek hotel rooms at around midnight.

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RADARS and sensors to detect noise levels in Málaga will be installed to monitor how much of a nuisance bars, discos – and even people talking – create.

The detectors, which will cost 180,000 euros but be paid for by the European Union's anti-noise programme, will be fitted in 10 streets out of a shortlist of 25 in Málaga's two most heavily-frequented areas, the city centre and the Teatinos district.

Environment councillor Raúl Jiménez says nightclubs and bars are often 'unfairly' blamed for noise nuisance when in fact they only contribute a small amount to the general decibel level.

“These sensors are not designed to catch anyone and fine them, because the noise level in the streets does not just come from one source – it comes from several,” Jiménez explains.

Once the sensors are set up, probably in December or January, the city council will then collate the information generated to study it and work out where the 'problem' lies and how best to tackle it, with full details on the local authority website.

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EMERGENCY services were forced to evacuate 17 residents in the Montes de Málaga area yesterday (Sunday) when a massive wildfire broke out, and spent the next seven hours bringing the flames under control.

They are still working on putting out the blaze at the time of publication.

Seven of the evacuees were staying at a country hotel on the El Comenar road, and the other 10 were on the Camino Jotrón, a country lane in the rural outskirts of the Costa del Sol city.

A total of 17 hydroplanes and helicopters were working on the inferno from 13.15hrs when it broke out in the Los Anayas area until nightfall at around 21.30hrs, when the 100-plus firefighters on foot and in engines swapped shifts.

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A BARCELONA man has been rushed to hospital after his electronic cigarette exploded and caused him injuries.

The unnamed victim, from Vilafranca del Penedès just outside the city, was charging his 'E-cigarette' near his bed when it blew up and set fire to his mattress.

His bed went up in flames and he sustained burns to his arms, but his life is not said to be in danger although the severity of his wounds has not been revealed.

E-cigarettes, a popular alternative to conventional smoking and banned in enclosed public places - but not currently in bars or restaurants - in Spain, have come under scrutiny recently as certain incidences have shown they may not be such a safe option after all.

One man was diagnosed with serious lung problems caused by a type of glycerine in the cartridges used to refill E-cigarettes, although bronchologists at the hospital treating him say he was 'smoking', or 'vaping' - so-called because the contraptions give off vapour rather than smoke - a very high quantity per day which, had they been mainstream cigarettes, would have made him an extremely heavy smoker.

Electronic cigarettes contain and give off nicotine, the addictive element in conventional cigarettes, but none of the other harmful chemicals found in these.

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A PORCELAIN doll 'rescued' from the wreckage of the ill-fated Titanic is now on display in a museum in Ayamonte (Huelva province) in southern Spain 102 years after the ship sank during its virgin voyage.

The doll was documented in the memoirs of one of the few survivors, Eva Hart, and was rescued 37 years ago by Abel Federico Nogueiras.

Eva and her mother both escaped the Titanic alive, and the younger woman passed away on Valentine's Day in 1996, aged 91.

She had to leave her much-loved doll behind in her second-class berth when passengers were evacuated from the ship, but it turned up again after a tuna-fisherman working for the family-run company Argenbel found it by accident when she was 72 – a whole 65 years after she had given it up for lost.

Abel Federico died four years before Eva Hart did, and his son contacted collector Teresa Martín who currently has around 300 dolls in her possession, having started amassing them from a very young age.

She had already started up her own small, private doll museum in a garden shed at her home in Ayamonte when she heard about the porcelain creation – of which only the head and neck remains – and began to carry out extensive research.

Sra Martín has not revealed how much she paid for the doll, which the Nogueiras family had always believed must be a worthwhile relic as it was found near the site the Titanic sank in the northern Atlantic, but says her exhaustive studies involved ploughing through documents about girls on board the ship who had dolls with them until this eventually led her to Eva Hart and to analysing the mould used to make the doll.

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SPAIN'S government has upped vigilance at the borders of Ceuta and Melilla in light of the Ebola pandemic and applied strict procedures to protect Guardia Civil officers stationed at the frontier.

A regular point of entry for would-be illegal migrants from sub-Saharan Africa who storm the chain-link fences in their hundreds almost nightly, the Spanish-owned city-provinces of Ceuta and Melilla on the northern Moroccan coast means patients affected with the deadly haemorrhagic virus may slip through the net.

Once in either city, they are on Spanish territory and can reach the mainland or islands without needing a passport or going through customs, since it is effectively a trip to another part of the same country.

The immigration centres in both enclaves, overrun with Africans trying to enter Europe via the back door and living in borderline inhumane conditions due to overcrowding, could also be a hotbed of Ebola if any of the inmates have come from an affected country.

Workers at the centres and at the Spanish border with Morocco are now considered 'exceptionally high-risk' and the Federal Police Union has complained that no emergency procedures have been taken for their protection.

This has stirred the government into action, and vigilance already in place at airports has been extended to immigration centres and to the Moroccan border.

But the head of the border police, Emilio Baos, has insisted there is no cause for alarm as yet.

Everyone taken to the immigration centres in Ceuta and Melilla is given a thorough medical check-up and, given the heightened risk of tropical diseases from the central sub-Saharan strip of Africa, are automatically placed in isolation at the first sign of any suspicious symptoms.

Repatriated priest 'recovering well'

The controversial repatriation of Brother Miguel Pajares, 75, from Liberia – dubbed by Spanish medics as a 'political, not health-related' decision – has gone well and the patient is said to be responding well to treatment at Madrid's Carlos III hospital

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A BRITISH bank manager who committed suicide last year due to 'work-related stress' is believed to have helped to stash the multi-millions in image rights earned by Barça FC footballer Lionel Messi.

The firm of which 62-year-old David Waygood, from Kemsing in Kent, UK, was sole director is said to be among several companies outside of Spain where the Argentinian player's money was hidden, according to reports in British tabloids The Mirror and The Daily Mail, as well as local press in the Kent area.

Some 3.75 million euros were reportedly placed in 'front' companies in the UK, Belice, Switzerland and Uruguay to avoid paying taxes in Spain.

Mr Waygood's firm is said to have held shares in a nominee company in the UK, whereby the nominees own or control the company on another party's behalf based upon agreements between both which are top-secret.

A former HSBC and NatWest employee who lived on Sherborne Grove in Kemsing, David Waygood left a suicide note last year for his adult children James – who had been staying with his father due concerns about his welfare - and Lizzie, and then threw himself under a train in Otford (county of Kent, UK) on April 27.

His company was facing investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority, and the stress of this is thought to have been the last straw.

A coroner confirmed Mr Waygood's death was caused by suicide after an inquest six months later in Tunbridge Wells.

Suicidal businessman 'in treatment and counselling'

He was seen by the driver of the 08.32hrs from Sevenoaks to Blackfriars, standing on a footpath near the crossing on the famous Pilgrim's Way immortalised in The Canterbury Tales, a few metres back from the track.

The depressed banker stepped onto the track and stood facing the train head-on with his hands held up as the driver sounded the horn, according to Mr Waygood's local newspaper, The Sevenoaks Chronicle.

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SPAIN has been sanctioned by the United Nations for 'negligence' after a seven-year-old girl was murdered by her father, despite her mother having reported the man 50 times for domestic violence.

Ángela Gonález lost her battle for full custody of her daughter Andrea, since the child was not considered a direct victim of domestic abuse – only the mother, who had suffered years of being raped and beaten by her ex-husband.

She says the Spanish justice system has 'failed' her, 'mocked' her and 'laughed in her face', and that the authorities who 'refused to take her seriously' and eventually awarded the father access rights against her will are every bit as guilty of murder as her former partner.

Ángela's ex-husband committed suicide after killing Andrea when she was staying at his house in 2003, and the grieving mother has spent 11 years trying to get justice and recognition – a quest that has led her to the European Union and the United Nations (UN).

This is the first time the Spanish State has been taken to an international court over a domestic violence issue, making the United Nations' verdict an historic one.

“The UN recognises that the justice system's negligence was what led to Andrea's death and that this provides an opportunity for improvement,” says Viviana Waisman, executive director and co-founder of Women's Link International, the group which took Spain to court by filing legal action with the Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Ángela González says she managed to get three injunctions on separate occasions against her ex-husband, filed action for psychological abuse, pressed charges after being physically attacked in front of the police, being beaten in the street and being raped, but that in the end 'got nowhere'.

A judge, 'in his wisdom', says Sra González, decided that allowing her ex-husband unsupervised access visits to Andrea was 'in the interests of her father', and has added that she would 'even go as far to say' that the justice system 'couldn't care less' about her daughter's murder.

The UN verdict states that the decisions concerning Andrea's father's visiting rights made by the Spanish courts were 'based upon stereotypes' and 'inflexible standards', or a one-size-fits-all approach, and 'preconceived notions about what constitutes domestic violence'.

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STAFF at Madrid's Adolfo Suárez airport will be on strike from August 15 to 17, coinciding with the bank holiday across Spain on the Friday, over plans to privatise the airline governing body AENA.

The strike will affect the work of operational security staff including firefighters, doctors, police and general personal attention employees, who will down tools between 15.00hrs and 20.00hrs on Friday and then from 07.00hrs to 11.00hrs and 20.00hrs to 23.00hrs on Saturday and Sunday.

Strikes will affect other airports in Spain including Ibiza, Málaga-Costa del Sol, Pamplona and San Sebastián on different dates, which have yet to be confirmed.

Tenerife North and Tenerife South airports will be hit by strikes from August 27 to 30 inclusive.

The General Workers' Commission for AENA staff believes privatising the airports governing body will lead to a general increase in terminal taxes and that this will lead to a rise in the cost of flight tickets, causing tourists to go elsewhere as travel to Spain becomes more expensive than to other countries – despite a general agreement with airlines using Spanish airports to freeze taxes until 2018.

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A 20-YEAR-OLD holidaymaker has died after falling from a sixth-floor balcony in the Magaluf district of Calvià (Mallorca).

One of 22 who have fallen from verandas or windows in hotels and apartment blocks in the Balearic Islands this summer – of whom at least five have died – the youth was found on the ground split seconds after the accident at around 06.20hrs yesterday (Wednesday) morning.

The French national was not said to be practising the frequent and foolhardy stunt known as 'balconing', where young foreign tourists try to jump from their hotel patios into the swimming pool below.

He is believed to have been trying to climb from a window onto a balcony through an open patio door to get into his accommodation at the Magaluf Playa Apartments close to the BCM nightclub on the Punta Ballena strip, as he did not have a key.

The victim slipped and fell, and lost his life immediately in the impact.

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SPAIN'S new socialist leader wants to see everyone who has no income, irrespective of their status or nationality, be given monthly benefits of 426 euros.

Already, those whose dole money has run out may be entitled to this benefit for rolling six-month periods, although restrictions in place mean adult children living with their parents may not be entitled to it, among other people.

And for those who have never signed on the dole – having never worked, had to quit their jobs or who were self-employed and were forced to give up their activity, for example – they are not usually entitled to any money.

Socialist head Pedro Sánchez says all unemployed persons with no income who are either over 45 or who have children should be entitled to this benefit, and a further 100 euros a month per child should be paid.

Victims of domestic violence should also receive it, since at present those who manage to obtain benefits as a result of having been forced to leave abusive partners or spouses only receive around 200 euros – and even then, normally only if they have dependent children.

Disabled persons without a sick pension should receive 426 euros a month, too, Sánchez says.

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A PRIEST carrying out aid work in West Africa has contracted the deadly Ebola haemorrhagic virus from patients he was treating – but thanks to an online petition, will be repatriated to Spain under controlled conditions for medical attention.

Brother Miguel Pajares, 75, has been in isolation in a hospital in Liberia along with Sisters Chantal, Paciencia, Catherine and Juliana, the latter of whom is Spanish.

He treated the hospital's director, Patricdk Nshamdze, when the medic caught the Ebola virus, but Nshamdze passed away on Sunday.

Relatives and friends of the missionaries in Liberia fear that with limited medical resources in the country, the same could happen.

As well as Pajares, Chantal and Paciencia have been confirmed as suffering from the condition, but as yet Catherine and Juliana are thought to have escaped.

A petition on campaign site www.change.org was launched on Sunday and already it has borne fruit for Pajares, who is due to land in the military airport at Torrejón de Ardoz (Madrid) this afternoon.

He is in an isolated compartment on the plane and anyone in contact with him is required to follow extremely strict procedures to ensure they do not have any physical contact with him since even skin-to-skin can result in an exchange of bodily fluids, through sweat, and pass on the disease.

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CHEFS in a Basque city are waiting to hear if their giant tortilla, or Spanish omelette has made it into the Guinness Book of Records.

Served up on Saturday, the potato tortilla measured five metres (16'3") in diameter and weighed 1.5 tonnes, having been made by the team from Vitoria (Álava province) using 1.6 tonnes of potatoes, 30 onions, 15 handfuls of salt and 150 litres of olive oil.

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AROUND 100 Spanish retirees protested in front of the tax office in Ferrol, Galicia yesterday (Monday) over plans to tax their pensions earned abroad retroactively.

Migrants who were forced to work in France, Germany and Latin America during Franco's dictatorship and who earned pensions were told last year that their earnings from these must now be declared to the Spanish tax authorities, who will apply retentions on them even where they would not be subject to tax in their country of issue whether the recipient was resident there or not.

And the latest blow they have received means the tax will apply on pension income from the year 2008 and the full amount for those years payable now.

They will also be fined where this pension income has not previously been declared.

Many are now in their 70s, 80s or even 90s and just about scrape a living from their foreign and Spanish pensions combined.

But money-laundering rules mean any resident in Spain who holds assets abroad is required to declare these via Form 720 as from last April, which means many expatriates as well as Spaniards who had to go to other countries to work in factories and on farms between the 1930s and 1970s.

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TWO houses have burnt down and over 600 hectares of countryside destroyed in another fire in Mijas (Málaga) – the second in less than a fortnight.

One of these houses was completed gutted inside, as seen in the picture below.

Mayor Ángel Nozal says it was the 'most dangerous' he had seen in his 30 years in politics in the Costa del Sol town, and numerous residents – at least 150 according to firefighters - had to be evacuated.

It took over 16 hours to bring under control after breaking out in the La Roza area.

The blaze is thought to be the work of arsonists, since it was started in two points – next to the La Cala football ground and in the Fuente Leal area.

Thick clouds of black smoke obscured the view in Fuengirola and could be seen as far away as Marbella, Nozal reveals.

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KING Juan Carlos is back on duty despite having abdicated this spring in favour of his son, who is now crowned Felipe VI.

The former Monarch, who retains his title of King, is due to make an official visit to the Colombian capital of Bogotá on Tuesday (August 5) in time for the swearing-in on Thursday of the country's president Juan Manuel Santos.

Santos was re-elected on June 15 this year and will continue as president until the elections of 2018.

King Juan Carlos will be accompanied by Jesús Gracia, Secretary of State for International Cooperation, representing Spain in a ceremony that 74 other countries will be present at including presidents of several Latin American nations – Perú, Ecuador, Argentina, Venezuela, Panamá, Hondurás, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Sources from the Royal household say the former King's trip will not set a precedent for his future official engagement, and that the exact nature of his involvement in public duties for the Crown will not be fully revealed until after the summer.

King Felipe VI, who has attended 69 swearing-in ceremonies of Latin American presidents since January 1996 – but as Prince Felipe of Asturias, never as King – will be partially on his summer holidays in Palma de Mallorca when his father travels to Colombia, although a number of official engagements for the new Monarch will ensue from this coming Tuesday.

His father, Juan Carlos, is said to have been concerned about the inactivity his abdication was likely to result in.

Sources close to the former King have said he is very lonely and dreads weekends and holidays when he does not work and has no public duties to attend to.

He eats alone in his study and he and his wife, Queen Sofía, only communicate via their secretaries unless they appear together in official engagements, something that is unlikely to occur now Juan Carlos is no longer King.

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SPAIN is preparing itself as far as possible in case the deadly Ebola virus – currently sweeping three west African nations – reaches the country.

The Spanish-owned city-provinces of Ceuta and Melilla on the northern Moroccan coast could be a point of entry for the disease, which so far has a survival rate of less than 10 per cent and his highly infectious, although not contagious.

Whilst no apparent risk or signs of the disease entering Spain have been detected as yet, these two enclaves of Spain are a known and regular entry point for sub-Saharan Africans attempting to enter Europe via the 'back door', either by jerry-built boat or by climbing the border fence after trekking across the continent for months, and not everyone who gets through is caught and sent back.

Madrid's Adolfo Suárez airport is also a major gateway for illegal immigration from African nations, meaning staff have been placed on their guard and given training to enable them to cope if a potentially affected passenger is seen.

A full procedure has been set up to deal with any likely spread of the disease to Spain, with red folders containing full documentation having been sent to health authorities in each of the country's 17 regions, as well as Ceuta and Melilla.

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THE family of former Catalunya regional president Jordi Pujol is said to have around 500 million euros in bank accounts in Andorra alone, reportedly 'hidden' there to avoid paying tax.

And considerably more is believed to have been transferred to accounts in Luxembourg for the same purpose.

According to police investigating the self-confessed tax evasion of the entire Pujol family, the money in Andorra at least may be the proceeds of commission received by Pujol during his 23 years as regional president from private companies in exchange for lucrative public works contracts, which by law should have entered a sealed bid process and been allocated independently.

A large percentage of the Pujol family fortune was hurriedly transferred to Luxembourg, also a tax haven, after the president's ex-daughter-in-law shopped the family at the end of 2012.

Jordi Pujol Ferrusola, the ex-regional leader's son, is said to be responsible for managing the family finances.

Police say funds are stashed in Banca Mora, the Private Bank of Andorra and Andbank, among other financial institutions, and they are having 'great difficulty' in identifying the Pujol dynasty's accounts.

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FAMOUS Spanish mountaineer Miguel Ángel Pérez has been found dead in his tent at Camp 4 on the K2.

The climber was on his up the 8,200-metre mountain in the Himalayas after having crowned it four days ago for the second time in his life – one of the eight of the world's 14 peaks exceeding 8,000 metres which he has successfully conquered – in an attempt to reach the summit solo this time.

After a first, aborted attempt to scale the peak, due to extreme cold, Miguel Ángel had to seek refuge in the well-known 'Bottleneck' area and, having made it to Camp 4 apparently in good health, intended to carry on down to Base Camp where the rescue team was waiting for him. 

But on Wednesday morning he was found dead in his tent – a tragedy discovered by fellow mountaineer, US-born Cleo Weidlich, who had the unpleasant task of breaking the news. 

Close friend of the deceased, climber Jesús Calleja from León in central Spain, said Miguel Ángel was a determined character who never gave up – and that this could have turned out to be a fatal flaw in his personality, a weakness as well as a strength.

“It might have been more advisable for him to have gone back down after conquering the K2 rather than making a final attempt to reach the summit alone – he has always been a person who doesn't give up easily, and this may have been what cost him his life,” laments Calleja.

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A PATERNITY suit against the recently-abdicated King Juan Carlos I (pictured) has reared its head again taking advantage in the 'gap' in his diplomatic immunity.

Alberto Solá Jiménez and his lawyer relaunched the ongoing case practically as soon as the Monarch stepped down to make way for his son to be crowned Felipe VI.

And the Catalunya man who believes he is the new King's half-brother says his biological mother had an affair with Juan Carlos before he took the throne, meaning he was not 'above the law' at the time of the 'incident' giving rise to the eventual claim.

But King Juan Carlos still enjoys partial diplomatic immunity, meaning any legal cases against him leap-frog the normal judicial channels and go straight to the Supreme Court, the highest in the land except for the Constitutional Court which exists merely for claims arising through the Spanish Magna Carta not having been correctly applied or interpreted.

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