SSUENN 1555 //24 23 29 APRIL 2015 2015 IISSUE OO . .1590 - 30-December
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COSTA DE ALMERÍA
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Washed ashore Rare whale washed up in Mojacar A CUVIER’S beaked whale, rarely seen in the area, was washed up onto a Mojacar beach last week. Wildlife experts are attempting to determine the cause of death. See Page 6
Looking its best Improvement work underway in Mojacar MOJACAR Council is carrying out extensive work on the streets near the beach in order
to have the area in top condition ready for next year ’s See Page 8 tourist season.
Improving access Better roads in the pipeline ROADS near Arboleas industrial estate, used more and more by Albox drivers recently as a detour due to work on the motorway, See Page 60 are undergoing resurfacing work at the moment.
Red Cross at the ready Toy campaign now under way DATES are now confirmed for a Christmas Red Cross campaign in Macael to help disadvantaged By Matthew Elliott Expatriate residents across Almeria were forced into the unenviable position of being helpless bystanders as millions across the nation took to the polls in the nation’s most hotly-contested elections in generations. Under Spanish law only nationals are allowed to vote in this massively significant democratic exercise, which has excluded
thousands of expats in Almeria Province, leaving them to look on with their hands tied as issues seriously affecting their lives played out on the small screen. Mojacar once again played its historic role as a bell-wether town for the wider region and gave the Popular Party (PP) a first place finish, but with desperately lower numbers that have seen its majority axed by an insurgent wave of discontent. Despite
Socialist Party (PSOE) leader Pedro Sanchez holidaying in Mojacar each year, the historic village condemned his party to a tremendous defeat with only half of the votes given to Rajoy’s PP. With over 300,000 people voting, the PSOE did better across Almeria and will match the PP for deputies sent to Madrid with two apiece, while emergent parties Ciudadanos and Podemos have one each.
children and is inviting residents to take part and help them in their See Page 60 endeavours.
Clowning around New children’s playground for Albox hopes to bring an extra treat for A BRAND new play-park will local children after the Christopen its gates in January, as the mas period. Payoso Fofo park in Albox See Page 64
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LOCAL NEWS
Restaurant fire A FIRE broke out at El Sevillano Beach Restaurant in El Zapillo area of Almeria, bringing Local Police and firemen to the scene after thick smoke was seen
coming from the establishment. No-one was injured and only part of the roof was damaged. The fire started while repairs were being carried out on the roof.
Youth sports CUEVAS DEL ALMANZORA Town Hall’s Sports and Youth Department is preparing for a youth gymkhana which will be held on December 28 at the Parque del Recreo at 4.30pm. Anyone between 15 and 30 can register to take part at the Youth Information Centre at the town hall until December 23. There will be prizes for everyone.
Musical proposal SINGER Manuel Tortosa chose a gala held at El Ejido Auditorium to propose to his girlfriend. The singer was performing at a charity event to raise funds for the dis-
abled when he invited his girlfriend to come on stage and got down on his knees to pop the question. She said yes and the couple plan to wed in 2018.
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Cannabis greenhouse found in property ELECTRICITY was illegally connected to grow the plants A MAN, 38, was arrested in Nijar for allegedly growing marihuana and illegally connecting to the electricity supply. Guardia Civil from Garrucha patrolling Tahal noticed a strong smell of marihuana coming from a house where the y s us pe c te d drugs w e re be ing grown. Once they had located the house, Guardia Civil identified the owner and set up surveillance in the area, which helped them to observe a constant use of lights, extractor fans, ventilators and other machinery used in indoor cannabis plantations. They requested an order to enter and search the property, where 30 quite large plants were found, as well as fertiliser, chemical products, lighting, temperature and water systems. During the search, they also found that the man had illegally connected to the electrical supply due to the high
INDOOR GREENHOUSE: Thirty quite large plants were discovered. costs of energy needed for the systems which were being used.
More than 7.2 kilos of marihuana in different phases was seized.
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24 - 30 December 2015 / Costa de Almería E W N
Isabel Allende
A Christmas message from the EWN directors A WONDERFUL thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, like the British rain, and we all go through it together. This year the EWN family implores you to remember that word. Together. We urge you to help us bring back the true meaning of Christmas - the spirit of giving, not getting. Let us abandon meaningless materialism, rekindle the flame of charity in our hearts, and remember that without community, we can never speak of character. This is why this Christmas, as part of the Euro Weekly News 2016 Giving While Living campaign we will be donating to a wide variety of worthy causes on behalf of you, our readers. We believe that these different charities do such invaluable work in their local communities that through them, together, we can make a lasting difference. We will be kicking off our campaign with a thousand euro donation to the Asociacion de Padres Serrania de Churriana who assist parents of disabled children, working especially hard at this emotional time of year. We will be donating to Make a Smile to help with their invaluable assistance to orphaned and suffering children; MABS, one of the leading charities in Spain dedicated to supporting those with cancer; Sam Bayley who has done incredible work for those with mental health issues; MACS who support and raise funds for medical treatment for people with cancer and related problems; and Palma Pictures who have produced a wonderful short film to help raise money for food-banks. A donation will be made to 3C’s Care Agency, an agency devoted to helping senior members of the community in their time of need. On a personal note we will also provide help to a family in Axarquia, where the children unexpectedly lost their father in February. We stress that all of these charities and endeavours are fully transparent and we know with certainty that any money or goods provided will go straight to those in need. These donations are spread across all six of the areas where EWN is distributed, providing you, the readers, with the only national paper with six local editions written by expats for the expat community. Christmas is the time of year we can be truly human, it is a tonic for the soul, a state of mind. This Christmas we urge you to remember the forgotten, the lonely, the lost, and the hungry. Take round some food for a neighbour you know may be having an especially tough time of it this year. Wake up early and lend a helping hand at one of the many soup kitchens which are the anchors keeping many afloat. Be a friend in need, a shoulder to cry on, a consoling voice amid all the fanfare and noise. Remember that you too have felt the pangs of despair, and that someone close to you will be feeling them now. Remember that we came to Spain because we wanted to do things differently, so let’s be different this Christmas and renew our faith in our community for we are only as strong as the weakest among us. Therefore with all this in mind, we would humbly like to offer our sincerest wishes to all of our readers, and our valued clients, without you none of this would be possible.
A Very Merry Christmas from everyone at the
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INDEX News 1 - 26
Featured News 3
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Almeria are the lowest spenders for Christmas SURVEY found out how much families intend to spend
Newsdesk 28
Russian Press 29
European Press 30
Finance 31 - 35
Stocks 32
Leapy Lee 37
Our View 38
Colin Bird 38
Letters 43
Daily TV 44
Legally Speaking 46
Time Out 47 - 50
Health & Beauty 52 - 53
Social Scene 54 - 56
Albox 58 - 65
Homes & Gardens 66 - 67
Pets 68 - 69
Classifieds 73 - 75
Motoring 76 - 77
Sport 78 - 80
SPENDING: One of the areas where most is spent is on food. FAMILIES in Andalucia estimate they will spend 3 per cent more on Christmas this year, according to the Andalucia Consumer Union. Based on the results of their survey throughout all eight Andalucian Provinces, spending on the Christmas lottery, food,
gifts, leisure activities and other matters are expected to rise for the third year running. One of the areas where most is spent is on food, representing 32.07 per cent of the total, with an estimated average of €142. Households in Almeria plan to spend just €98.5, the lowest amount in Andalucia.
Meanwhile, 32.1 per cent of the total budget is due to be spent on gifts, at €142.55. Residents of Almeria will spend the least, with €98.75. The amount which will be spent on leisure activities may fall to €84.37 on average. Almeria has the lowest with €48.98.
Trial date announced for attempted murder A WOMAN, 30, is due to stand trial in February for attempting to kill a man outside a pub in Velez-Rubio in March 2012. She is facing nine years in prison.
The woman was in a vehicle with several other people and asked the driver to stop. She allegedly got out of the car and headed straight for the victim, who was standing
outside, jumped on him, knocked him to the floor, and stabbed him repeatedly. He was admitted for emergency surgery at Torrecardenas Hospital with injuries which
could have killed him. He remained in hospital for four days. If found guilty she may also have to pay the victim €26,000 in compensation.
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24 - 30 December 2015 / Costa de Almería
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Model has been awarded €50,000 in compensation AFTER a disagreement, a photographer allegedly used photos without permission A WOMAN has been sentenced to pay compensation to another after using her photographs to offer her services as a prostitute. In 2008, a model, aged 20 at the time, went to a photographer after appearing on a national TV programme as she wanted to further her career. It was agreed that she would only pay the photographer for the equipment and materials. She took photos of the model clothed and wearing just underwear, but the model was not happy with them and said she was not going to pay. The photographer responded by saying that she had reported her and would ‘take her down.’ The following day, the model began to receive calls from men who wanted to meet
ADVERT: The judge ruled it violated the model’s honour and damaged her reputation. her and discovered that her photos had been used in an advert on a website for sexual contacts. It used sexually explicit and degrading language, and said she was a prostitute.
Police discovered the advert had been placed from Ibiza, where one of the photographer’s neighbours was located. The judge ruled there is evidence the photographer created the advert, and that it vio-
Policeman attacked at Almeria station A NATIONAL POLICE officer was injured at Almeria s tation wh e n h e a sk e d a man for ID. Two plain clothes officers approached a man who was insulting and threatening a woman and identified themselves. When they went to look in his backpack he pulled out a machete and slashed the officer ’s face from his nose to his ear. The victim was bleeding as he alerted other nearby units and his colleague handcuffed and arrested the attacker. Other officers arrived, the machete was seized, and the victim was taken to the Virgen del Mar Hospital for emergency care. Although he has a large wound, it did not endanger his life or affect delicate areas. According to a security guard a t t h e st a t i o n , w h o alerted the officers, the man
had been behaving aggressively towards other people. The man has a criminal
record and was known to the authorities for similar incidents.
lated the model’s honour and damaged her reputation. The case was dealt with in civil court and resulted in her being awarded €50,000 in compensation. which she requested.
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Man seriously injured A MAN, 18, was admitted to Torrecardenas Hospital in an irreversible coma after being involved in a collision with a car in Roquetas de Mar. The accident occurred on Saturday evening at the roundabout where the Gran Plaza shopping centre is located. Local Police and paramedics attended the scene.
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NEWS EXTRA
Track accident A MAN, 51, was airlifted to Torrecardenas Hospital in Almeria after falling off the motorbike he was riding on the race track in Tabernas. He had knocked his head and lost consciousness, as well as breaking his arm.
Drunk driver A MAN, 27, was arrested in Vicar for attempting to run over a Guardia Civil officer when he was ordered to stop at a routine checkpoint. He fled the scene and was found to be driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs.
More tourists ALMERIA Province received 9.1 per cent more tourists in its hotels between January and October 2015 than it did over the same period in 2014.
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Woman accused of making false report against her husband SHE claimed she had not moved from Nijar, but it was confirmed she had been in Almeria A MAN arrested when his wife reported him for allegedly violating a restraining order near her home in Nijar was found to have been in Almeria City at the time.
According to local Spanish daily Diario de Almeria the man had been banned from coming within 200 metres of his wife after she reported him for abuse in March.
In October, having allegedly violated the order, he was given a tracking device to prevent him from coming within 300 metres of her. On December 9, he visited AlmeEquinac/Facebook
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Beaked whale on local beach A CUVIER’S beaked whale was washed up on a beach in Mojacar. Wildlife protection and rescue organisation, Equinac, took samples to determine the cause of death. Equinac rescues protected marine species such as turtles, whales and dolphins on the coasts of Almeria and offer a free service all day, every day.
BEAKED WHALE: Was found washed up on Mojacar beach.
ria City to meet with lawyers. That evening, the control centre registered him coming within 300 metres of the woman on two occasions and he was arrested hours later. The woman claimed she had not moved from Nijar that day, but the control centre confirmed that she had been in Almeria. Therefore, the case against him has been shelved provisionally and she may face trial for making a false report. Meanwhile, an Almeria woman has been sentenced to seven months in prison for attacking her boyfriend during a fight, insulting him and throwing stones at his car at his home in Nijar in November. She caused €330 in damages to the car window and broke one of his toes when she stepped on his foot. She has to pay him for the damage as well as €900 in compensation and a fine of €3 per day for two months.
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NEWS EXTRA
Top chefs LE Cordon Bleu cookery school in Madrid has named the 50 students who have been chosen to go through to the next phase of the fourth Promises Award. Five are from Almeria.
Saving glass HUERCAL DE ALMERIA has installed a pioneering new system to collect glass for recycling in areas where there are more hotels and restaurants. The collection system makes it easier to collect and transport glass.
Deaths probe THE Junta de Andalucia Centre for the Prevention of Work Related Accidents has completed the report regarding the explosion at the Almeria Scientific and Technical Park on September 21, which resulted in two deaths.
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Funds given to help fight truancy in Almeria SCHEMES to track student absences By Sam Croft THE Territorial Delegation of Education in Almeria has approved grants worth €17,574 for five NGOs that are aiming to prevent and control student absenteeism in 19 educational centres in the province. Each of the NGOs has presented a project to combat truancy and the money was divided among the five associations. The projects, which will be carried out with the approval of the school councils of these centres, will attempt to promote increased communication between families and schools. Additionally, the projects will develop culture, sports and leisure, and educational support activities that
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Saint gets a facelift
Photo credit: Wikipedia commons
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THE image of the Patron Saint of Carboneras, San Antonio de Padua, has been taken to Murcia to be restored. It is the first time in more than 70 years that the 1.2metre wooden image has left the town. The author and year of the piece are unknown, but it was inspired by a similar image which existed in the town before the Spanish Civil War and is thought to have been destroyed.
Safe robbed
The regional government wants to make sure children are attending classes. will keep students interested in going to school. There will also be an increased empha-
sis on tracking student absences and new initiatives will be provided, like the
idea of picking-up and accompanying students to their respective schools.
GUARDIA CIVIL are investigating a robbery at a car showroom on the San Rafael Industrial Estate in Huercal de Almeria. In the early hours of last Thursday, thieves entered the showroom through a hole in the back wall and took cash from a safe in the office.
MOJACAR BEACHES should be easier to get to after the work.
Improvements to keep Mojacar looking its best MOJACAR Town Hall’s Traffic Department has started works to improve the streets of the town, which are in addition to those planned by Almeria Provincial Council. The first of the tasks the town hall has taken on is to repaint the horizontal road signs on the stretch between Hotel Indalo and Vista de los Angeles. Zebra crossings, parking spaces, bus stops… and in general everything on the streets in the Paseo del Mediterraneo area of Mojacar. Work is also planned in the area known as El Palmeral and the many kilometres of road that make up the main beachside arteries of Mojacar. Emmanuel Aguero, Councillor for Traffic at Mojacar Town Hall, stated that his department intended to start these improvement works with an
aim of ensuring the streets are in a perfect condition ready for Easter when the tourism season begins. The council has therefore included more than €60,000 in the 2016 budgets, which will allow tasks including repainting bus stops and zebra crossings, replacing vertical road signs, creating parking spaces for the disabled, constructing speed bumps in various areas of the town and reordering traffic flow in certain busy areas near Mojacar’s beaches. The work, which is starting now, will continue all through the first three months of 2016 and will be finished before the new seafront promenade is inaugurated, meaning Mojacar’s beach areas will be looking their best when the tourist season begins.
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Drugs at sea NAVY Patrol Ship ‘Infanta Cristina’ helped to detect a ship which was suspected of being involved in drugstrafficking in the Alboran Sea, together with an air force plane, while on routine maritime surveillance duties.
Nativity live
Stamp money AN Almeria court has opened criminal proceedings to investigate the alleged embezzlement of more than €240,000 of public funds by a member of staff at Almeria University between 2003 and 2015, to buy stamps.
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Coastline protection
NEWS EXTRA
UNTIL January 6, Garrucha has a living Nativity scene with some 30 actors in period costume and animals on a 500m2 set, which can be seen every afternoon.
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ALMERIA PORT: Visitors experience the atmosphere of a working fishing industry.
A day at the fish market GUIDED tours are being offered over the Christmas period THE fish market at Almeria Port has been included in Christmas guided tours of the city. Visitors can observe the process involved from when the fish is brought in from the sea until it ends up in people’s shopping bags ready for meals over the Christmas period.
They can see the typical local fishing boats and attend the daily auctioning of fish, as well as seeing what was used to catch it. Tours left from El Varadero Restaurant to visit an area which even many locals don’t know about. Participants were also taken around
the surrounding area and found out more about the Mediterranean tapeweed, which grows on the sea bed in the area off Almeria’s shores. The explanations were given at San Telmo lighthouse before the visitors took a walk amongst the fishing boats moored in the area.
THE Coastal Department has presented a plan to prevent further erosion of the El Ejido coastline. The local town hall is said to be studying the proposals in order to apply those which will be most effective to prevent damage to the Balerma and Guardias Viejas areas. The mayor, Francisco Gongora, said that they were valid solutions, although at the moment, the favourite is the plan to create a barrier which stretches horizontally along the coast 50 metres from the shore, extending 100 metres. It could run from La Lonja to La Torre in the Balerma area and would stabilise the area and allow for it to be regenerated without damaging other areas in the process. This would mean that the beach could be extended for locals and holidaymakers to enjoy. For Guardias Viejas, one of the plans is to create short jetties covered in sand to allow for it to be transferred to other areas.
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NEWS EXTRA
Charges dropped against ex-mayor
Postal votes SOME 12,445 people from Almeria voted by post in the general elections on Sunday. Throughout Spain, 783,000 people requested to vote by post, which is 14.4 per cent more than in the last General Elections in 2011.
Eight donors EIGHT healthy people in Almeria are prepared to donate a kidney to help improve the quality of life of an ill relative and are undergoing medical compatibility studies, according to the transplant centre in the province.
2016 budget THE budget approved by Almeria City Council for 2016 amounts to €181m, according to Councillor for Taxes, Juan Jose Alonso. This is €9 million less than the budget for this year.
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RESEARCH PROGRAMME: To find more uses for beer.
Help for waste PROJECT aims to put an end to environmental issues ALMERIA University is leading a European Research programme, Greenbiorefinery, to turn the waste from producing beer into nutrients for animal food or fertiliser. Five other research centres from Spain, Colombia and Argentina are also taking part
in the project which aims to put an end to the environmental issues which beer production presents. The waste would be treated with microalgae to produce biomass and other products so that there are no CO2 emissions.
THE former mayor of Zurgena has been acquitted of allowing five houses to be built on land classfied as not suitable for building. Candido Trabalon, along with the councillor for Urban Development, Manuel Tijeras, and five other councillors have all been acquitted as it is not clear if they realised that granting licences to build five houses was illegal. The court has considered that they may not have been aware of the classification of the land. The promoter and the builder of the houses which are located between Los Llanos and El Cucador have also been acquitted, again because it is not clear they were aware that the work was illegal, especially as they had obtained all necessary permits. The local politicians were members of the PSOE socialist party and the Partido Andalucista and were facing
eight months in prison and a seven-year ban from holding public office for alleged administrative corruption. The builder and the pro-
It is not clear they were aware that the work was illegal. moter of Almeria Estates/Procosona SL were facing 12 months in prison and a fine of €12 per day for 15 months for territorial planning crimes. There were reports which failed to deny the permits, and therefore they were approved in 2006 in an area where similar houses had already been built. Work may go ahead on the houses, as contracts were signed with nine buyers, and the court has annulled the orders which ruled that building work should be stopped.
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NEWS EXTRA
Joint exercise MEMBERS of the US Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task ForceCrisis Response-Africa based in Moron de la Frontera, took part in an exercise with Spanish legionnaires at the Alvarez de Sotomayor base in Almeria.
Rural watch THE Plataforma Abderitana has insisted on creating a rural watch to guarantee safety in countryside areas, and give local farmers in Adra peace of mind until all Local Police positions are covered.
Bills down THE Ministry of Agriculture has granted an improvement for the fee included in water bills, which funds the work to channel water from the Negratin reservoir, Granada, to the Almanzora Basin, Almeria.
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Algarrobico legalities are still rumbling on IF the regional government wants the land they will have to go to the civil courts THE Andalucian High Court of Justice has ruled that if the Junta de Andalucia Regional Government wants the land on which the Algarrobico Hotel was built, it will have to go via the civil courts. The right to repurchase the land on which the Azata del Sol hotel is built for â‚Ź2.3 million, which the Junta de Andalucia exercised in 2006, does not mean that it has purchased the property, the court has ruled. To do so, the regional government must go through the civil court. The Junta appealed for the reversal of a sentence in May by which the High Court of Justice refused the regional government the legal assistance it requested to repurchase the land, and obtain authorisation to enter the land and effectively take possession of it. The court considers that a document must be filed to formalise the legal agreement between the Junta
PHOTO GREENPEACE
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AZATA DEL SOL: Hotel was built on illegal land. and Azata del Sol to hand over the property.
Azata del Sol has not accepted the money for the property.
NEWS
Two more companies TWO sustainable tourism companies in Cabo de Gata are joining the companies which offer discounts with the Almeria Card. The card includes discounts and advantages at major tourist areas in Almeria City, and also in other towns, such as museums, monuments, guided tours, bars, restaurants, nightclubs and shops. Now two companies, Natures and EcoAgata have joined them. The first works in geotourism, and environmental education and training, with outdoor activities. The latter organises walks in nature, bird watching activities and a marine classroom for children. Almeria Tourism Department explains that since it was created more and more businesses have joined the scheme as it benefits them as well as their clients. The aim of the card is to encourage users to visit local businesses.
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NEWS EXTRA
Car gutted A VEHICLE was totally gutted by fire on the hard shoulder of the A7 motorway near Nijar. The driver was able to get out and noone was injured.
Tobacco van A RESIDENT of Almeria, 35, was arrested in Benameji, Cordoba, for allegedly selling contraband tobacco. He was carrying 37,000 packets in a van when he was stopped by Guardia Civil.
Wise men THE new Mayor of Almeria, Ramon FernandezPacheco, will meet the Three Wise Men on the evening of January 5 at Puerta Purchena in Almeria for the traditional parade, as the City Hall square is undergoing refurbishment.
Children take part in Xmas Carol competition TRADITIONAL Spanish carols were sung before parents and relatives CHILDREN from HuercalOvera took part in a local Christmas Carol competition which was held at the Teatro Villa. The competition was organised by the Council of Culture with the collaboration of five local schools. T h e c h ild re n , d res s e d a s shepherds, angels, and all of the characters from the Nativ ity, s u n g trad itio na l Spanish carols and modern versions of them before their parents and relatives. The councillor for Education, Belen Martinez, and for Culture, Antonio Lazaro, attended the event and congratulated the children on their performances, as well as the teachers on th e d e d ica tio n to w ards
NATIVITY SCENE: Five local schools took part with the children dressed as shepherds. pre pa ring the c hildre n to take part in the competition. The ma yor re minde d
everyone that a New Year’s Eve party will be held from 11.30pm on December 31 in
Plaza de España with grapes t o wel com e i n t he New Year.
Your Belgian estate agent at the coast!
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Mayor’s court case shelved A COURT in Almeria has closed a case against the mayor of Almeria City, Ramon Fernandez-Pacheco, who was accused of electoral crimes. Almeria Magistrate’s Court number 5 has ordered that the case against the mayor, who had been at an electoral table at the last municipal elections until he was ordered to leave, be closed provisionally. He was a candidate for the Partido Popular and should not have been at the table, however, the judge did not find any evidence of crime. On the other hand, it is punishable to fail to attend to duties at an electoral table without a valid excuse. Plus, the court rules, he immediately left the table when he was requested to do so and took no further part in the electoral process or counting of the votes.
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Sentenced for stealing from benevolent friends A RESIDENT of Almeria has been sentenced to n in e months in prison for misappropriation after living in a house free of charge for se v e r a l m o n t h s an d then st e a l i n g f r o m th e owners. In May, he arrived at a frien d ’s h o m e a n d, in tears, asked her husband to find him a place to stay. The couple allowed him to stay in a property in the El
M arg e n are a o f Tijo la, w h ich b e lo n g s to the woman’s father. H e s ta y ed th e re u n til October, when he left with € 1 , 1 0 3 w o rth o f ite ms from the house, including ele c tric a l eq u ip ment, white goods, a mattress, a gas bottle and other items of furniture. Some of the items have been recovered by the Guardia Civil and returned to the owner.
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NEWS
New roundabout to improve danger road RESIDENTS had been asking for an overhaul of the area
SITE VISIT: Mayor Domingo Fernandez and Councillor Emilio Perez inspect the work.
THE mayor of Huercal Overa, Domingo Fernandez, went to see the new roundabout on the AL-8103 between the N340 and Abejuela via Urcal. He was accompanied by Councillor for Districts, Emilio Perez, and explained that the project had been carried
out with funds from the provincial government at a total cost of €120,000. The road was considered to be dangerous and local residents had requested improvements to the entrance to the area. He also said improvements were be-
ing made to all areas within the municipal boundaries based on the suggestions from local residents. Safety, he added, was one of the most important matters, and the roundabout would make it safer for pedestrians and drivers. It has also been finished by the estimated date.
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NEWS
PARENTS of children at the San Luis Infant and Primary School in Almeria have been complaining of deficiencies and lack of safety. However, they say that despite their letters, the education department has done nothing to improve the school, which opened in 1981. There are 500 children between the ages of three and 12 at the school. They were even more infuriated when a corporation worker was sent to clean the
windows just days before the general elections, as they say that if it hadn’t been for the elections, nothing would have been done, which is why they decided to take their complaint to the press. For the past month, there has been no caretaker at the school, as he is on sick leave and has not been replaced. He is reportedly the only person who knows where the cesspit is located. Parents complain that the school is not on the general sewerage
network, despite the number of children increasing every year. They have problems with bad smells, insects and blockages. Parents also complain that there is absolutely no maintenance carried out within the building, the airconditioning doesn’t work, there is gym equipment stored with electric meters, there are no proper disabled toilets, there are holes in the toilet doors, damp throughout the building, missing tiles, no insulation on windows in classrooms, no heating, no blinds to keep out the sun, holes in the playground, no indoor gym and possibly one of the most important problems, no fire alarm. If there is smoke or a smell of burning, the caretaker is supposed to run downstairs and ring a bell. The school is located in a cul-de-sac and the gates to the playground from outside can only be opened with a key.
PHOTO ADOLFO OLMEDO.
Parents make their feelings known
PERFORMANCE: Sensi Falan singing in verse.
Local poets work set to music LOCAL singer Sensi Falan performed recently in Vera to present her latest album ‘Vivir el Verso’. The work includes musical versions of 13 poems by poets linked to Almeria and comes with a 48-page book which has been published by the Institute of Almeria Studies and includes illustrations by local artist Victor Garcia. Juan Goytisolo, winner of the Cervantes Award and a fan of Sensi Falan, asked her to include two of his texts in the album.
Huercal Overa leads the way for health plan ACTIVITIES and programmes carried out to inform citizens HUERCAL OVERA has been chosen as a leading town within the Local Health Plan at a regional level. This is thanks to the different activities and programmes which have been carried out in the town over the past months to transmit the values of the Local Health Plan and its
methodology within the Andalucian Public Health Days. Representatives of the ‘Grupo Motor’ led by Councillor Monica Sanchez attended a meeting for the Local Network of Health Action held in Granada, to explain to the whole of Andalucia what the plan means for Huercal Overa. The Health Plan for 20152019 was approved at a plenary meeting and a video was presented including information from different local groups who spoke of the importance of the plan for the town. Thousands of local residents have seen the video on social networking sites. Sanchez said that the town hall was proud of how locals
WORKING FOR HEALTH: Members of Grupo Motor. were participating and proving that health matters to them and that they want to work towards preventing anomalies. Activities will continue to be
carried out to prevent health problems and within a few months, an evaluation of the effects of the project will be carried out.
NEWS
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Royal Pages visit for local schoolchildren CHILDREN filled in letters to tell the Three Wise Men what they wanted SCHOOLCHILDREN in Huercal-Overa have been visited by the Royal Pages to the Three Wise Men. They were accompanied by the local Councillor for Education, Belen Martinez, and the Councillors for Commerce, Monica Navarro, and Urban Development, Manuel Buitrago. The Royal Pages brought the children letters which they can fill in to tell the Three Wise Men what they would like to get on January 6, as well as giving them a small gift. The letter encourages their parents to shop locally in order to boost local commerce. The Councillor for Commerce pointed out that the council was carrying out a campaign to encourage people to shop in the town for their Christmas presents because it is a time of year which brings large amounts of money to businesses. The Councillor for Education said that the children were excited about the visits from the Royal Pages and had sung traditional carols which they were preparing for their Christmas party.
VISITORS: The children sang traditional Christmas carols.
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Patio project RESIDENTS of Velez-Blanco will soon be able to see the refurbished Patio of Honour at the castle, according to the Junta de Andalucia. The patio is currently at the New York Metropolitan Museum, and an agreement has been reached to restore the patio of the castle in VelezBlanco. This will also contribute to mining activities within the local marble sector, and will allow the Macael Marble brand to become internationally renowned. The aim is to link the brand to Almeria’s history.
The Mayor of Velez-Blanco, Antonio Cabrera, says it will be an important step for the whole area, and that it will be a huge boost for tourism. The Metropolitan Museum allowed for the patio to be scanned several years back, and the measurements have allowed for an identical replica to be created. In 2009, experts met in the town to discuss how to work on the project. The castle was purchased by the Junta de Andalucia in 2005 from the Marquis of Valverde.
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Promotion for the coast of Almeria ALMERIA Provincial Government has created a new Provincial Tourism Council to promote the coast of Almeria. Meetings will be held in February and June, and will include members of the Provincial Government, representatives of the involved town halls, business associations such as Asempal and Ashal, the Spanish Airport Authorities (AENA), the port authorities, the Junta de Andalucia, union representatives, banks such as Cajamar and Unicaja, the Chamber of Commerce and the Catering School.
Representatives of the Tourism Council will attend fairs to promote the area, as well as creating promotional advertisements for the radio, press and specialised magazines, workshops, professional day, press trips and promotion on the internet and social networking sites. They have already taken part in 21 promotional events in Holland, Finland, Ireland, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Portgual, Germany, Italy, France, Sweden and the UK. They have also promoted the area in other parts of Spain.
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NEWS
Library holds ‘Women in Science’ exhibition AIMS to promote gender equality in the province TH E G a brie l Es pina r M unic ipa l Public Library in Huercal-Overa is holding an exhibition of ‘Women in Science’ until December 30. The exhibition, organised by the Almeria Provincial Government, aims to promote gender equality in the province. The Mayor, Domingo Fernandez, and the Councillor for Equality, Bele n M a rtine z , e xpla ine d to high school students visiting the exhibition the importa nc e of pa ying homage to the many women who, despite having extraordinary minds, were almost invisible in a society dominated by men who refused to admit that women could be just as brilliant. The exhibition includes images
MAYOR: Domingo Fernandez spoke to high school students. and information on Caroline Lucretia H e rs c he l, Sophi e Ger m ai n, Mary Anning, Florence Nightingale, M a rie C urie , Henr i et a Swan Le a vitt, R ita Levi - Mont al ci ni ,
Chien- Shiung Wu, Hedy Lamarr, Rosal i nd El si e Fr ankl i n, Evel yn Boyd Granville, Frances Elisabeth Allen and Jane Goodall amongst others.
Ecological products increase THE area dedicated to ecological products in Almeria has increased by 20 per cent compared to last year. It now covers a total area of more than 46,775 hectares which is 5 per cent of the total in Andalucia, according to the Department of Agriculture, Fishery and Rural Development. Almeria is also the first province for the number of businesses involved with ecological products, with 19 per cent of the total in Andalucia. There are 2,685 including pro-
ducers, makers, sellers and importers, the Junta de Andalucia announced. Almeria is the main producer of ecological vegetables, over an area of 1,948 hectares and there are 175 companies involved with such products, most of them sellers of fruit and vegetables, as well as packers and sellers of dried fruits and makers of canned products and juices, and finally olive oil producers and packers. The Councillor for Agriculture, Carmen Ortiz, visited a producer of ecological
goods in Benahadux, and said that demand for such products was constantly increasing. She also said that the Programme for Rural Development will provide €201.58 million to help ecological producers, and they will be given priority for modernising or improving their facilities. One of the main aims is to increase local consumption of ecological products, as currently only 1 per cent are consumed in the area.
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NEWS
Dog owners demand changes DOG owners in El Ejido have collected signatures to request an area for their pets. Residents in the town complain that the only dog park is very small and are demanding that it be enlarged, or that other areas be created for them to walk their dogs and let them run around in safe surroundings. They suggest an area near the Parque CaĂąada de Ugijar. The existing Parque CaĂąada is only 500m2 and is located behind El Corte Ingles, and lo-
cals say it is not very well kept, is lacking basic facilities such as benches or a fountain, and it also needs more bins. They also complain that it needs more lighting and an area for potentially dangerous dogs. There are people who come from Balerma or Balanegra to let their dogs spend time in the park and dog owners have created a Facebook page called Derecho Animal El Ejido. With the help of dog groomers, vets and other animal-related businesses, a group of 20 of the owners has collected more than 550 signatures to demand improvements for facilities in the town. The Councillor for Health, Luisa Barranco, has said that measures were already taken to clean the park and repair damaged furnishings, such as fences and bins, which have been ruined by vandals on several occasions.
INAUGURATION: Of the Marego Garden in Campohermoso.
Help given to local businesses COUNCIL supports those who improve the local economy THE Mayor of Nijar, Esperanza Perez, and the Councillor for Agriculture, Manuel Moreno, attended the inauguration of the Marego Garden in Campohermoso. The garden centre was created by Manuel Redondo in 2006 and now employs six people who are dedicated to providing plants and seedlings as well as garden products.
They have now branched out further and will include flower arranging for weddings and other special occasions. Esperanza Perez attended the inauguration almost 10 years ago and said that the town hall supports local businesses which contribute to improving the local economy, provide work for residents, and maintain the economy.
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Promoter appeals court ruling THE promoter of the Marinas de Aguamarga urbanisation has appealed the ruling of the Supreme Court of Justice. The court ruled that the land on which the 350-housing development, which also includes a planned 300-room hotel, is not fit for building purposes and that it has special protection as it is located within the Cabo de Gata-Nijar Natural Park. The company believes that there has been a violation of state legal territorial planning laws. The court also denied them compensation for damages. The company was requesting €24.6 million as they are the owners of the property. In 2012, the Andalucian High Court of Justice ruled that the Junta de Andalucia regional government’s decision to change the classification of the land was “arbitrary” and “lacking in reasons” when the company appealed the declaration of the land as under special protection and unfit for building in the Plan for Urban Development of 2008. The court considered that there was no explanation of why the 45 hectares of land fell into the category of B1 when the local council had issued building permits.
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The importance of road safety CLASSES for occupational centre users
LIFESAVING LESSONS: Posters and photos were distributed to the participants. THE Virgen del Rio Occupational Centre in Huercal Overa took part in road safety classes organised by the Council for Citizen Safety. This gave them an interest in road safety and taught them the importance of their behaviour
when they are on the road, how important it is to follow the highway code and their roles as pedestrians, cyclists or drivers. Mayor Domingo Fernandez and Councillor for Social Services, Monica Sanchez, accompanied them during part of the
classes and were able to witness how aware the participants became of how dangerous it can be to not follow road safety rules. The classes are due to be extended to local schools.
NEWS
Volunteers help the poor in Almeria CORPORATE volunteers have donat ed m or e t han €12,000 through La Caixa t o hel p t o pur chase basi c food and hygiene products f or f am i l i es i n need i n Almeria. The manager of Catholic charity Caritas, Jose Luis Aguilar Gallart, Director of La Caixa business department in Almeria, Jesus Vega Lopez, and President of the Almeria Volunteers’ Association, presented the Food 2015 cam pai gn wi t h La Caixa. It aims to be the followup to the Food Bank’s Great Collection in Almeria which took place in November and resulted in 400,000 kilos of food being collected.
High quality of care at El Toyo recognised EL TOYO High Resolution Hospital in Almeria has once again obtained the Certificate for Quality from the Health
Department. The hospital has been open for 10 years and was the first one in Andalucia to be award-
ed the certificate, based on its measures to ensure the safety of patients and the continuity and accessibility of care. The hospital underwent the scrutiny of the Andalucia Health Quality Agency for the second time and the efforts of the 180 healthcare professionals who work there have paid off, as they have been awarded for the quality of the patients who come to the hospital from Almeria City and towns such as Carboneras and Nijar. The hospital passed more than 62 per cent of the 280 quality standards in the official manual. It had especially high marks for constant improvement, training, promotion, preventive healthcare and safety. One such strategy is aimed at the carers of dependent patients who are assigned a member of the administrative staff so that they always deal with the same person.
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A helping hand for those in need Gabinete de prensa Excmo. Ayuntamiento de Vera
Exhibition marks 20 years of cancer care
VERA EXHIBITION: The association tries to help families in Almeria province who have children with cancer. AN exhibition has been organised in Vera to mark the 20th anniversary of the ARGAR association for children with cancer of Almeria. Entitled ‘20 years with the Almeria society,’ the Association of Parents of Children and Teenagers with Cancer in Almeria and Province, ARGAR, the exhibition is being held at the Convento de los Padres Minimos in Vera, having started in Almeria City. The President of Argar, Estefania Mendez, who took over in the position from her mother, Juani Garcia,
said that the exhibition is to thank the people of Almeria for their collaboration and involvement with the cause. She said that institutions, companies and private citizens have always supported the association and that without their help they would not have been able to do as much as they have. The association attempts to help families in Almeria Province who have children between birth and 18 years old with cancer in all posible ways and collaborate with Torrecarde-
NEWS
nas Hospital, giving them counselling and social care, a place to stay, help with their schooling and financial support if they need to travel to other provinces for treatment which isn’t available in Almeria. The local councillor for Culture, Isabel de Haro, said that the council will help parents as much as they can, and especially the brave children who fight to overcome cancer. She said that Vera was proud to hold the exhibition which will remain open until December 31.
By Sam Croft THE Christmas season is here and many of us are already stuffing ourselves full of turkey, red wine, and Quality Street chocolates. But it’s important not to forget that there are people out there with nothing at all to eat during the holidays. We have compiled a list of soup kitchens in different parts of the south of Spain. All of these services are free and open year-round, but keep in mind that some of them have specific requirements or ask for specific documentation, so it’s best to have a quick check before you go. In Costa Blanca: La Sal de la Tierra, Alicante: Located on Calle Alcala Galiano, 85. Serves lunch from 1:30pm-2pm from Monday to Friday. In Almeria: La Milagrosa, Almeria: Located on Calle Alcalde Muñoz, 18. Serves lunch from 11:30am-1pm Monday to Saturday. In Mallorca: Palma de Mallorca: On Calle Felicia Fuster, 3. Lunch served between 1pm and 2pm. In Malaga and on the Costa del Sol: Alberque Municipal Gongora, Malaga: Open 24 hours a day. Those in need can go and have an interview with a social
worker. Located on Calle Donoso Cortes, 2. Angeles Malagueños de la noche, Malaga: Open daily and featuring breakfast from 8am to 9am, lunch from 1:30pm2:30pm, and dinner from 7pm8pm. Located in the Plaza de la Religiosa Felipense Dolores Marquez. Emaus: Emaus is a chain of soup kitchens open from 9pm3pm Monday to Saturday and including holidays. There are four locations in the Malaga Province: In Torremolinos, on Calle Cruz, 5, in Estepona on Calle El Naranjo, in VelezMalaga on Calle Esperanza, 15, and in Antequera on Calle Cordoba, 29. There are also two locations in the Granada Province: In Guadix on Calle Puerta Alta, 12, and in Baza on Calle Anta, 16. Remember if you are feeling depressed or lonely this Christmas, if you ever feel that things are getting out of control or there is just too much, or if you have an emergency you need to talk to someone about, you are not alone. You can call Samaritans in Spain on a freephone number open 24 hours a day, including Christmas, with a team of experts ready and willing to help you. The freephone number is 900 525 100 and all calls will be in confidence.
Events to boost commerce SEVERAL events have been organised by the business owners at the Plaza de Abastos Kilometro 0 in Huercal- Overa to boost commerce this month. The activities started earlier in the month with a Christmas sweets workshop which was held in the Gastronomy Class which allowed children to get their aprons on and earn a diploma for their cooking
skills. The association said there are plans to repeat the experience. Another event held to encourage people to visit the area and do their Christmas shopping was the Dia de la Empanada (Pasty Day) which was held to raise money from the Alzheimer’s Association and the Virgen del Rio care home.
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Council announce new plans for Vera VERA Town Hall held an event to inform business owners of an Integrated Sustainable Urban Development (DUSI) Programme for the town. The event was organised by the Council for Commerce and the programme will be carried out by the Levante Almeriense Community of Municipalities. Vera has presented proposals towards creating a Smart City, with a cycle lane, improvements within the town and beach area, as well as refurbishments of some local districts. The projects will be discussed at meetings with local organisations and residents’ associations.
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Early Care Programme for children approved THE services will be provided by the town hall NIJAR Council approved plans to develop an Early Care Programme for Children. This will be carried out with the collaboration of the Junta de Andalucia Regional Government’s Health Council, and the services will be provided by the town hall. It will be available for children who have developmental problems or who are at risk of having them. The centre to deal with these problems will be funded by the regional government. During a plenary meeting, Mayor Esperanza Perez complained about the number of unexplained bills left by the former team in office. She has asked them to explain what the bills were for,
APPROVAL: Services will be available for children who have developmental problems. and prove that the providers actually performed the services for which they were paid.
Until then, she said, the companies will not be paid which could lead to some of
them having to close and local families losing their livelihood.
NEWS
Big plans for VelezBlanco THE Junta de Andalucia wants Velez-Blanco to become a quality tourist destination. The territorial representative for Culture, Tourism and Sport, Alfredo Valdivia, met with the local Mayor, Antonio Cabrera, and the Councillor for Culture and Tourism, Dietmar Roth, as well as local business owners. The aim of the meeting was to inform them of what is being done to turn the town into an attractive destination. Valdivia informed of the grants which are available to support the tourism sector, both for businesses and for town halls. One plan in the town is to create a ‘Taste Route’ in the region and promote the local lamb dishes. He also spoke of the meetings held with the Andalucia Lab, a tourism innovation centre which is part of the Council of Tourism and Sport, and the creation of a website called ‘In your hand’. The Andalucia Lab provides assessment and training services regarding social networking and new technologies which can help to promote tourist activities.
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NEWS FROM OUR FIVE OTHER REGIONS
COSTA DEL SOL
Nature reserve collects food PRESERVES, canned food, oil, milk, juice, sugar, flour and hygiene products were all welcomed VISITORS to the Serra Gelada Nature Reserve donated about 50 kilos of food to the Social Volunteer Association of Alfaz del Pi between mid-November to mid-December. The associ at i on, whi ch i s r esponsible for managing the Food Bank, had provided a list of appropriate donations. Preserves and c a nned f ood, oi l , m i l k, br ot h, juice, sugar, flour, cocoa powder, c oc oa but t er, per sonal hygi ene products and nappies were all welcomed. President of the organisation, Carmen Soto, thanked everyone for the contributions received.
GOOD WORK: Social Volunteer Association helpers.
COSTA BLANCA SOUTH
MALLORCA
AXARQUÍA
COSTA BLANCA NORTH
Cemetery expansion Anniversary party
Centre closed
Raising funds
THE new cemetery in Alicante will include an enclosure for the Muslim and Jewish community. The areas are part of the expansion plans for the cemetery to ensure the needs of burials are met for the next 75 years.
THE municipal group of PP and New Generations in Nerja have criticised the closing of the Youth Information Centre located on Calle Cristo during the month of December. The centre was also closed in August and September.
LAST Thursday, XIC students joined other schools to help raise funds for Todos Juntos Javea. Everyone had an enjoyable evening singing carols, drinking hot chocolate and spreading the Christmas spirit through the Old Town.
New football pitch
Charity Christmas
TORROX Mayor Oscar Medina has announced that in 2016 he will move ahead with the construction of a football pitch in El Morche. He said that Torrox Town Council is going to allocate €1.8 million to build the football pitch in the industrial area of Santa Rosa.
THE Brotherhood of Christ of the Sea of Alicante held its annual campaign to collect food for charities who will distribute to those in need. Non-perishable food was donated at Basilica of Santa Maria.
Christmas cheer TRAMS between Alicante City and Benidorm, San Juan and San Vicente ran until 3am last weekend. The service was extended so employees attending Christmas parties did not need to drive home.
Multilingual uni THE Generalitat intends students to leave university speaking English and another foreign language as well as coofficial Spanish and Valenciano, said the director general for Linguistic Policies.
Growing artichoke NEW facilities have been opened for the collection and distribution of the Vega Baja artichoke, with growers calling for a ‘designation of origin mark for the crop,’ which is a growing market.
Stolen copper THIEVES removed copper cabling totaling 41.9 kilometres from the Valencian Community’s railways during 2015, revealed Spain’s track operator Adif. Only Cataluña has lost more.
THE Es Garrover Foundation in Inca celebrated their 10th anniversary with a party in the cultural centre, Fàbrica Ramis of Inca last week. The foundation works for the social and employment integration of people with mental health problems.
Men arrested THE Guardia Civil arrested four men suspected of robberies in Magaluf and Palma Nova. It is believed they might also be the perpetrators of other crimes under investigation. The same men were arrested for similar offences earlier this year.
Santa Claus in Inca ONCE again Inca enjoyed the special visit of Papá Noel last weekend with hundreds of children lining the streets in the centre of the town. The children were then able to deliver their letters to Santa in the main square.
Former prior accused FORMER prior of Lluc monastery, Antoni Vallespir, has been accused of sexual abuse, supposed to have occurred in 2012. His lawyer, Jaime Campaner, requested that the accused not be judged socially before the investigation is completed.
NEWS
Rural theft reduced THE Sub delegate of the Malaga Government, Miguel Briones, said that there has been a 37.2 per cent decrease in criminal offences in rural areas of the province in the last two years.
Torrox breakwater THE Ferrara Beach, in Torrox-Costa, will finally stop suffering the predation from the rough weather that comes in from the east. For more than three decades storms have often left this strip of the Axarquia beach practically without sand. Now, Construcciones Tejera SA of Almeria has been given the goahead to construct a semi-submerged breakwater in the eastern zone of the beach.
For more local news from our five other regions see www.euroweeklynews.com
Bonfire logo THE Hogueras Bonfire Federation in Alicante has announced a contest to create a new look for the fiesta celebrations which will be used as brand recognition and to promote the Hogueras.
False information A PROSTHETIC from privatised Denia hospital costs 139 per cent more than one from state-run Gandia hospital and 108 per cent more than Villajoyosa.
Beetle drive THE tomicus beetle has attacked 500 pines in the Sierra Helada national park but is under control, the regional authorities maintained. Owners of land on the Benidorm side of the park must deal with their trees themselves.
Rooftop drama A MAN was injured on December 19 when he fell through the roof of an industrial warehouse in Marbella. The man had climbed onto the roof in an Elviria industrial estate to retrieve a ball, Emergency Services reported.
Local shops BENALMADENA’S Commerce councillor Ana Scherman announced last week that the town would be running a campaign to encourage Christmas shopping in local commercial areas. “The campaign, which includes posters and radio advertising, will promote the advantage of the wide range of shops in the area and easy parking,” she said.
Estepona fire TWO people needed treatment after inhaling smoke at a fire in a home in Estepona on December 19. The fire broke out at about 5pm in a first floor flat on Calle Terraza.
Fuengirola accessibility THE works of improving the accessibility in the Sol y Sol Pasaje de Fuengirola, in the area of the Plaza de la Hispanidad, have concluded, according to the local councillor of Works and Infrastructures, Jose Sanchez, after carrying out an assessment visit.
Rat control BENALMADENA Health councillor Alicia Laddaga has been on an inspection visit to the Fidelio animal refuge, which as reported by EWN last week had been suffering from an invasion of rats coming from the bullring, and found that the problem had indeed been solved.
EWN top for all the news from Spain.
NEWS
24 - 30 December 2015 / Costa de Almería
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RUSSIAN P RESS
Shopping for souvenirs DURING meetings in Moscow
JOHN KERRY: Met with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. US Secretary of State John Kerry went shopping for souvenirs on December 15 during meetings in Moscow to meet with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. They discussed a wide range of important issues, including the Syrian crisis and the current situation in Ukraine.
Trump fan RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin has commended Donald Trump for wanting to strengthen relations with Moscow and described him as the “absolute front-runner in the presidential race.” However, with the same breath, Putin said he was ready to work with whoever becomes the next US president.
Olympic dope probe THE World Anti-Doping Agency has arranged to pay a visit to Russia on January 10 for a meeting with the Russian Olympic Committee after all top executives of the Russian Anti-Dop-
Trade deals CHINA and Russia signed more than 30 trade deals - including one regarding Russian oil giant Rosneft and China Petrochemical Corpthat - covering the financial, energy, high-tech and manufacturing sectors, following a meeting between Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in Beijing on Thursday, December 17.
ing Agency resigned in light of accusations of covering up doping by Russia’s leading athletes last week.
Investing in high streets RUSSIAN company Sistema Capital Partners, the real estate private equity platform launched earlier this month, has led a consortium acquisition of a portfolio of German high street retail properties for a total of €125 million.
“Cancerous NATO” A SPEAKER of lower house of Russia’s parliament Sergei Naryshkin wants the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation to dissolve, calling it “a cancerous tumour for the whole European continent,” while meeting with members of the Serbian parliament. NATO could be dissolved in several stages, Naryshkin explained.
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GERMAN
Airline profits SWEDEN: Airline SAS has reported a return to profitability sending its shares flying on the Stockholm stock exchange. SAS said net profit was 956 million kroner (€102 million) in the 12 months to October.
Top searches SWEDEN: Google has revealed what Swedish people searched for the most during 2015, with everything from ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ to the ‘worst pizza in history’ making the top 10. Murdered teenager Lisa Holm was the most searched-for person.
Crisis stabilising SWEDEN: The Prime Minsiter has said he believes the refugee crisis in Sweden is stabilising and that he has high hopes that those granted asylum will have the “best opportunity” to start a new life.
No white Christmas WARMEST December in 70 years A WHITE Christmas is highly unlikely in the UK this year as weather forecasters are predicting the warmest December in 70 years caused by bands of tropical air from the Atlantic coming in from the south west.
Stripping ninja A MAN claiming disability living allowance saying he struggles to get out of bed, has been caught out by investigators who discovered he was working as a dancer called ‘the stripping ninja’ at parties across the UK.
Shopping savings A WOMAN from Leicestershire has got herself £574 (€790) worth of Christmas goods for less than £5 thanks to saving up coupons, supermarket points and money-back promotions throughout the year.
BRITISH PRESS
Hover board concerns
Many millionaires
Bath time
DENMARK has been named the world’s fourth best country to live in after leaping six places in the UN’s annual human development report. Denmark is only beaten by Norway, Australia and Switzerland.
Best country NORWAY has been ranked the world’s best country to live in for the 12th year in a row by the UN development programme.
THE birth rate in Germany has risen to a quartercentury high. It was apparent in August that a mini baby boom was under way, when the government released figures showing that 715,000 babies were born in 2014, 33,000 more than in 2013.
Military fight
THE UK now has over 600,000 property millionaires, with property valued at £1 million or more rising by 14 per cent.
DENMARK is on track to reduce carbon emissions by 40 per cent by 2020 according to new statistics, putting its new right-wing government on track to hit the national target it recently abandoned.
Fourth best
Birth rate
SONNENFINSTERNIS, or solar eclipse, was the most searched term on Google in Germany this year ahead of ‘plane crash’around the time of the Germanwings tragedy and ‘Paris’ after November’s terror attacks.
TRADING Standards said 15,000 of the 17,000 hover boards examined since October 15 had been seized. It comes as leading UK retailers such as Argos and Amazon.co.uk are recalling products following cases of them catching fire and for having a non-compliant UK plug.
On track
DENMARK: A Danish comedian who posted a photo of himself naked in the bath with his two year-old daughter, has hit back at criticism saying “a father in the bath with his daughter is not paedophilia.”
PRESS
Google search
credit 360b / Shutterstock.com
PRESS
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EUROPEAN PRESS SCANDINAVIAN
NEWS
THE German military has joined attacks on Daesh for the first time, after the German government voted to take part in the international military campaign against the radical jihadist group.
Rabbit breeder A 10-YEAR-OLD Bavarian boy has been crowned Europe’s Youth Rabbit Breeding Champion. Breeding rabbits is in the family; his father was youth champion and his grandfather has won a range of titles.
Top team AMSTERDAM: Planning to ban from the city next year as they are seen as a nuisance.
Beer bikes tourist attractions A PETITION was signed by 6,500 people earlier this year AMSTERDAM is planning to ban the ‘beer bike’ tourist attraction from the city next year. The beer bikes are mobile bars mainly pedalled by tourists and widely seen as a nuisance by locals. A petition against the beer bikes earlier this year was signed by 6,500 people.
Not Dutch ALMOST half of the Moroccans and Turks living in the Netherlands said they do not feel Dutch and youngsters in par-
DUTCH PRESS ticular feel alienated, according to a new report.
Caring supermarket STAFF in two branches of supermarket chain Albert Heijn in The Hague are
taking part in a project to ‘keep an eye’ on elderly clients and if they appear lonely will ask them if they would like a chat with a care volunteer in the store.
Sports champ WORLD champion sprinter Dafne Schippers, 23, has been named as Dutch sportswoman of the year, the first athlete to take the title since1992. She won the 200 metres gold medal in the world championships in Beijing this year.
FIGURES show Borussia Dortmund draw bigger crowds than any other football team in the world. In the 2014/15 season, despite finishing in seventh in the league, Dortmund had an average of crowd of 80,410 at its matches.
Cash grab POLICE are searching for a gang who used a rocket launcher to rob a truck transporting money in Dortmund. They reportedly blocked the truck on the road and used an angle grinder to open the truck’s back door and steal the money inside.
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UK unemployment rate still dropping THE number of people out of work fell to 5.2 per cent By John Smith IN figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) it was shown that the UK unemployment rate fell to 5.2 per cent in the three months to October. This was the lowest jobless rate since the three-
is the number of job vacancies in the UK jobs market at the end of October 2015, and is the highest level recorded since in 2001.
OFFICE: Company headquarters in Madrid.
Coca-Cola workers turn back clock By John Smith WORKERS in the Coca-Cola factory in Fuenlabrada Madrid will work to rule on December 21 and 28 in support of their demands. According to a union spokesman, Juan Carlos Asenjo, they will work manually as they did 50 years ago with no use of machinery. As the Coca-Cola compa-
month period to January 2006, and compared to 6 per cent unemployment just one year ago. There were 31.3 million people in work, 505,000 more than a year ago, and the number of people out of work fell by 110,000 to 1.71 million between August and October.
It’s a great day for film making in this country and it clearly shows the force is with us,’ said George Osborne on the day of its premier about the fact that the latest Star Wars movie was filmed in Britain.
Photo Credit Luis Garcia Wikimedia
Quote of the Week
747,000
ny targets its Christmas advertising at the ‘good old days’, this appears to be a most appropriate if somewhat ironic action by the workers. There have been a number of disputes with workers at this plant over the years, and also with the Madrid Council which refused to allow the company to film a commercial.
BUSINESS EXTRA
Fake toys and games WITH the publication of a list by the EU of the member states which see the greatest number of sales of counterfeit toys and games, Spain is near the top, beaten only by Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary and Romania. According to the report, the purchase of these fakes costs Spanish industry nearly €170 million a year.
App from La Caixa LA CAIXA BANK has launched a new app allowing payment via a mobile phone, similar to those available in the UK. Apart from making payments, it will be possible for customers to check their accounts and to view their balances.
Opera singer tax evasion charges DUE to her illness, Spanish opera singer Montserrat Caballe was allowed to attend a hearing concerning tax evasion via video from her home, and without any press attendance at the court. She accepted that she had avoided paying over
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€40 million is the amount in bank accounts which have laid dormant in Switzerland since 1955, and if not claimed within the next 12 months it will revert to the State.
STAT OF WEEK
business & legal
EWN
€500,000 of tax in 2010 by registering her domicile as Andorra, even though she was living in Barcelona and was fined €240,000. She was also sentenced to six months in jail, which will effectively act as a suspended sentence.
The figures released also detail the number of foreigners working in the UK, and the number of EU citizens working increased by 324,000 to 2.02 million, whereas workers who were neither EU nationals or Britons were stable at 1.2 million.
IBEX 35
-2.34%
C LOSING P RICES D ECEMBER 21
Boy predicts bankruptcy PEPE BALTA, a secondary school student from Barcelona had to produce an economic project for his school in 2014, and chose Abengoa as the company to review. In his 18-page paper on the company, he apparently pointed out major problems with the company’s financial position and wrote “If it does not act soon, there is a strong risk Abengoa will go into bankruptcy.”
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E W N 24 - 30 December 2015 / Costa de Almeria
www.euroweeklynews.com
LONDON - FTSE 100
FINANCE, BUSINESS & LEGAL
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C LOSING P RICES D ECEMBER 21
PRICE(P) CHANGE(P) COMPANY Anglo American 285.98 7.33 Associated British Foods 3,291.50 -35.50 Admiral Group 1,645.50 -9.50 Aberdeen Asset Management 289.70 2.40 Ashtead Group 1,104.50 -5.50 Antofagasta 420.25 3.95 ARM Holdings 1,032.00 13.00 Aviva 507.50 3.50 AstraZeneca 4,411.50 40.00 BAE Systems 494.15 1.65 Babcock International Group 980.75 4.25 Barclays 218.75 1.15 British American Tobacco 3,689.50 23.00 Barratt Developments 608.50 4.50 BG Group 919.20 11.20 Berkeley Group Holdings 3,591.00 37.00 British Land Co 792.00 9.00 BHP Billiton 724.40 7.20 Bunzl 1,850.00 9.00 BP 340.68 1.38 Burberry Group 1,201.00 13.00 BT Group 459.55 1.25 Coca-Cola HBC 1,501.00 1.00 Carnival 3,695.00 47.00 Centrica 212.10 0.10 Compass Group 1,141.50 9.50 Capita Group (The) 1,185.50 2.50 CRH 1,922.00 14.00 Dixons Carphone 480.20 3.10 DCC 5,532.50 32.50 Diageo 1,818.00 10.50 Direct Line Insurance Group 405.00 0.20 Experian 1,163.50 -2.50 easyJet 1,706.50 20.50 Fresnillo 663.25 4.25 GKN 295.85 -0.35 Glencore 83.32 2.46 GlaxoSmithKline 1,337.00 3.00 Hikma Pharmaceuticals 2,203.00 11.00 Hargreaves Lansdown 1,473.00 6.00 Hammerson 600.00 5.50 HSBC Holdings 530.95 1.75 International Consolidated Air 588.75 0.25 InterContinental Hotels Group 2,553.50 30.50 3i Group 469.95 3.25 Imperial Tobacco Group 3,486.75 23.75 Intu Properties 315.80 1.70 Inmarsat 1,108.00 1.00 Intertek Group 2,714.50 -0.50 ITV 274.40 10.60
% CHG. NET VOL 2.63 3,906.22 -1.07 26,339.00 -0.57 4,619.24 0.84 3,807.37 -0.50 5,587.12 0.95 4,104.12 1.28 14,343.47 0.69 20,390.57 0.92 55,240.09 0.34 15,582.70 0.44 4,923.48 0.53 36,498.90 0.63 68,350.32 0.75 6,012.53 1.23 31,009.92 1.04 4,856.80 1.15 7,991.94 1.00 15,147.78 0.49 6,168.77 0.41 62,040.46 1.09 5,284.62 0.27 38,211.21 0.07 5,465.90 1.29 7,885.28 0.05 10,546.01 0.84 18,796.14 0.21 7,856.25 0.73 15,670.41 0.65 5,493.62 0.59 4,852.00 0.58 45,449.44 0.05 6,072.00 -0.21 11,525.06 1.22 6,696.93 0.64 4,856.13 -0.12 4,881.54 3.04 11,794.40 0.22 64,915.21 0.50 4,359.45 0.41 6,958.25 0.93 4,662.73 0.33 103,263.93 0.04 12,001.48 1.21 5,957.24 0.70 4,538.48 0.69 33,144.06 0.54 4,155.92 0.09 4,981.29 -0.02 4,380.97 4.02 10,619.03
COMPANY PRICE(P) CHANGE(P) Johnson Matthey 2,645.50 26.50 Kingfisher 326.85 2.85 Land Securities Group 1,181.00 10.00 Legal & General Group 263.15 1.35 Lloyds Banking Group ORD 71.77 0.73 London Stock Exchange Grp 2,710.00 12.00 Merlin Entertainments 440.65 -0.85 Marks & Spencer Group 452.45 1.05 Mondi 1,338.00 14.00 National Grid 920.10 5.70 Next 7,255.00 -20.00 Old Mutual 174.40 2.60 Provident Financial 3,285.00 45.00 Prudential 1,497.25 8.25 Persimmon 1,961.00 16.00 Pearson 754.50 6.00 Reckitt Benckiser Group 6,150.00 22.00 Royal Bank of Scotland Group 295.80 1.80 Royal Dutch Shell 1,458.75 -4.75 Royal Dutch Shell 1,466.00 -3.00 Reed Elsevier 1,167.00 8.00 Rio Tinto 1,885.00 22.50 Royal Mail 443.40 0.40 Rolls-Royce Group 574.00 -2.50 Randgold Resources 4,045.00 14.00 RSA Insurance Group 428.55 0.45 SABMiller 4,057.00 8.50 Sainsbury (J) 256.45 1.25 Schroders 2,929.50 19.50 Sage Group (The) 590.75 0.75 Shire 4,403.50 -16.50 Sky 1,088.50 8.50 Standard Life 377.40 3.00 Smiths Group 930.50 6.50 Smith & Nephew 1,160.50 -11.50 Sports Direct International 568.50 -1.50 SSE 1,486.00 1.00 Standard Chartered 554.75 3.15 St James's Place 978.25 4.75 Severn Trent 2,130.00 -1.00 Travis Perkins 1,938.00 11.00 Tesco 145.50 2.05 TUI AG 1,224.00 12.00 Taylor Wimpey 197.05 1.45 Unilever 2,839.25 18.25 United Utilities Group 918.50 4.00 Vodafone Group 212.18 0.88 Wolseley 3,668.00 17.00 WORLDPAY GROUP PLC ORD 3P297.85 -0.15 WPP Group 1,521.50 11.50 Whitbread 4,411.00 20.00
% CHG. 1.01 0.88 0.85 0.52 1.03 0.44 -0.19 0.23 1.06 0.62 -0.27 1.51 1.39 0.55 0.82 0.80 0.36 0.61 -0.32 -0.20 0.69 1.21 0.09 -0.43 0.35 0.11 0.21 0.49 0.67 0.13 -0.37 0.79 0.80 0.70 -0.98 -0.26 0.07 0.57 0.49 -0.05 0.57 1.43 0.99 0.74 0.65 0.44 0.42 0.47 -0.05 0.76 0.46
NET VOL 5,366.80 7,553.38 9,257.26 15,557.70 50,703.90 9,369.63 4,475.69 7,440.26 6,428.73 34,209.67 11,121.55 8,463.14 4,761.30 38,281.98 5,962.24 6,139.86 43,769.65 18,922.00 56,997.25 35,849.63 13,024.11 26,200.30 4,430.00 10,599.50 3,754.06 4,352.74 65,439.18 4,902.20 6,577.25 6,356.65 26,151.01 18,565.39 7,372.63 3,647.74 10,482.27 3,411.25 14,747.03 14,043.50 5,087.50 5,068.78 4,794.99 11,671.81 7,109.63 6,363.77 36,206.39 6,235.87 56,021.34 9,494.68 N/A 19,709.04 7,980.17
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US dollar ..................................................................1.08546 Japan yen..................................................................131.787 Switzerland franc.................................................1.07979 Denmark kroner.....................................................7.46110 Norway kroner......................................................9.52742
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DOW JONES C LOSING P RICES D ECEMBER 21
COMPANY MMM 3M AXP American Express AAPL Apple BA Boeing CAT Caterpillar CVX Chevron CSCO Cisco KO Coca-Cola DIS Disney DD E I du Pont de Nemours and Co XOM Exxon Mobil GE General Electric GS Goldman Sachs HD Home Depot IBM IBM INTC Intel JNJ Johnson & Johnson JPM JPMorgan Chase MCD McDonald's MRK Merck MSFT Microsoft NKE Nike PFE Pfizer PG Procter & Gamble TRV Travelers Companies Inc UTX United Technologies UNH UnitedHealth VZ Verizon V Visa WMT Wal-Mart
PRICE CHANGE %CHANGE VOLUME 146.92 -1.93 -1.30% 5.7M 67.87 -1.70 -2.44% 17.9M 106.03 -2.95 -2.71% 96.5M 139.58 -5.98 -4.11% 10.0M 65.11 +0.21 +0.32% 13.5M 89.81 -0.73 -0.81% 20.2M 26.27 -0.45 -1.68% 36.7M 42.50 -0.99 -2.28% 24.6M 107.72 -4.29 -3.83% 28.4M 63.40 -1.83 -2.81% 14.3M 77.28 -0.68 -0.87% 28.8M 30.28 -0.27 -0.88% 83.1M 175.49 -7.12 -3.90% 6.7M 130.29 -1.06 -0.81% 9.8M 134.90 -1.85 -1.35% 10.0M 33.87 -1.04 -2.99% 41.3M 101.95 -1.69 -1.63% 15.0M 64.40 -1.88 -2.84% 23.8M 116.66 -0.84 -0.71% 11.2M 51.64 -1.02 -1.94% 21.1M 54.13 -1.57 -2.82% 84.7M 128.52 -1.70 -1.31% 6.9M 31.99 -0.34 -1.05% 66.6M 78.13 -2.16 -2.69% 21.3M 110.13 -3.14 -2.77% 5.1M 92.34 -1.53 -1.63% 8.7M 115.82 -3.40 -2.85% 7.6M 45.56 -0.54 -1.17% 31.6M 76.32 -2.37 -3.01% 16.3M 58.85 -0.13 -0.22% 16.3M
NASDAQ C LOSING P RICES D ECEMBER 21
COMPANY
PRICE
CHANGE NET / %
Most Advanced $ 10.36 $ 13.50 $ 3.64 $5 $ 7.45 $ 10 $ 3.14 $ 8.66 $ 12.20 $ 5.60 $ 15.20
2.01 ▲ 24.07% 2.50 ▲ 22.73% 0.65 ▲ 21.74% 0.74 ▲ 17.37% 1.03 ▲ 16.04% 1.34 ▲ 15.47% 0.39 ▲ 14.18% 1.04 ▲ 13.65% 1.43 ▲ 13.28% 0.63 ▲ 12.68% 1.70 ▲ 12.59%
$ 7.21 $ 4.42 $ 4.05 $ 8.62 $ 15.42 $ 13.73 $ 30.38 $ 81.96 $ 3.15 $ 68.4268 $ 22.66
2.22 ▼ 23.54% 1.11 ▼ 20.07% 0.53 ▼ 11.57% 0.97 ▼ 10.11% 1.704 ▼ 9.95% 1.51 ▼ 9.91% 3.28 ▼ 9.74% 8.64 ▼ 9.54% 0.30 ▼ 8.70% 6.2212 ▼ 8.33% 2.02 ▼ 8.18%
Vanguard Natural Resources LLC ReWalk Robotics Ltd Nexvet Biopharma plc Empire Resorts, Inc. Daily 2X VIX ST ETN Velocityshares Golar LNG Partners LP Kopin Corporation InVivo Therapeutics Holdings Corp. Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc. TerraForm Global, Inc. Providence and Worcester Railroad Company
Most Declined Mirna Therapeutics, Inc. Acacia Research Corporation Hovnanian Enterprises Inc Etsy, Inc. CIM Commercial Trust Corporation YRC Worldwide, Inc. GLOBAL BLOOD THERAPEUTICS, INC. Core-Mark Holding Company, Inc. Zions Bancorporation 3X Inverse Silver ETN Velocityshares Werner Enterprises, Inc.
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E W N 24 - 30 December 2015 / Costa de Almería
www.euroweeklynews.com
FINANCE, BUSINESS & LEGAL
Great results for fishing industry Photo Credit Mark Yuill Shutterstock
By Steve Walsh AT the annual EU Fisheries and Agricultural Council meeting in Brussels, which has just finished, British fishermen received some very good news about quota increases according to Fisheries Minister George Eustice, who called the latest agreement a ‘great result’. The actual quota increases were: The English Channel: Plaice 100 per cent. The North Sea: Cod 15 per cent and haddock 47 per cent. The Celtic Sea: Hake 20 per cent. The Western Channel: Sole 15 per cent. A number of quotas remained the same and there were cuts of 55 per cent in Irish Sea sole and 9 per cent in Bristol Channel plaice, but with the increases and the number of days UK fishermen can be at sea remaining the same as for 2015, the industry was generally pleased with the results. Mr Eustice said: “I entered these discussions with the firm belief that
BRITISH FISHERMEN: Received some very good news about quota increases at an EU meeting in Brussels.
any decisions need to support a profitable fishing industry, sustainable fish stocks and a healthy marine environment, and the significant quota increases we’ve achieved for iconic species like North Sea cod demonstrates the success of this approach. “We still have more to do to reach maximum sustainable yield (MSY) for all quota species by 2020, and to deliver the full discard ban by 2019, but already fishermen are benefitting from the action we’ve taken in recent years to recover stocks. “By fighting for the fishing industry, and making a clear case for the need for more sustainable fishing, we have got a good deal and shown we can get what we need in Europe.”
Amazon allocated plot in Barcelona for € 30 million
THE companies that own Domino’s Pizza in Australia and the UK have agreed to set up a joint venture operation to buy Germany’s biggest pizza chain. Joey’s Pizza has 212 stores across Germany with annual sales of €143 million, and the country is the world’s fourthbiggest pizza market with the purchase worth around €78 million. The joint venture will be two-thirds owned by the Australian company, with the remainder owned by the UK Domino’s Pizza Group, which already operates in Germany. Profit margins on pizzas are known to be very high as they are simply cooked dough with relatively inexpensive toppings, so as long as the market remains firm, this should generate significant income for the companies involved.
THE Catalan Land Institute (Incasol) announced that it has allocated a 150,808 m2 plot of land known as Mas Blau II, to Amazon for which it will charge €30 million. “The land is located a few minutes from the El Prat airport in one of the most important economic
Photo Credit Steve Jurvetson flickr
Domino’s aim to dominate
This acknowledges our commitment to the Catalan and Spanish economies.
and industrial areas of Barcelona,” said a statement. Amazon will be allowed to build up to three storeys high. The statement continued: “The main permitted use is logistics, along with the ‘complementary’ offices, shops and restaurants.” In response Amazon said in a carefully-worded statement: “We are
JEFF BEZOS: The founder of Amazon.
pleased that Incasol has awarded Amazon with a plot in El Prat de Llobregat to keep expanding our European Fulfilment Network, and acknowledges our long-term commitment with the Catalan and Spanish economies through continued investment and job creation. Legal due diligence is currently ongoing and thus we cannot comment any further at the moment.” In the meantime, Amazon UK has warned all customers about possible exploding hoverboards. In an email, the firm told buyers of these hot Christmas sellers that if they have purchased hover boards with ‘noncompliant UK plugs’, that they should dispose of them safely and they will receive a refund. This has been prompted after Trading Standards seized 15,000 unsafe boards being brought into the UK, many of which had faulty cables, chargers or plugs that could catch fire or explode.
FINANCE, BUSINESS & LEGAL
www.euroweeklynews.com
24 - 30 December 2015 / Costa de Almería
EWN
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US chemical giants Dow and DuPont in merger agreement THE rush of American companies to take others over or to merge continues apace. The latest announcement comes from the two US chemical behemoths Dow Chemical and DuPont, with the merged company expected to be called DowDuPont worth an estimated $130 billion (€119 billion). It appears that as both companies are worth roughly the same amount of money and this will be a share deal, there are significant tax advantages for each company and their investors. As this type of deal is almost unheard of it will attract a great deal of interest from fiscal authorities as well as tax advisers. Assuming the merger is allowed, it is planned that the new company will be owned equally by existing shareholders in the two companies. Three new companies will then be created within two years of the merger, and these new companies should be con-
Credit RevalationDirect Wikimedia
By John Smith
sidered as being tax free entities. Shareholders are hoping to save $3 billion (€2.75 billion) per annum. In addition, DuPont has announced that it plans to cut about 10 per cent of its staff. Some cynics have commented on the fact that as the US tries to climb out of its financial crisis, US conglomerates appear to be doing all that they can to avoid paying taxes, which are the backbone of any economy.
Both companies are worth roughly the same amount and this will be a share deal.
DUPONT: Headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware.
With both companies having reasonable sized operations in Spain, it will also be interesting to see if their merger has any knock-on effect on the Spanish economy, especially if jobs are to be lost or head offices merged.
OPINION & COMMENT
www.euroweeklynews.com
24 - 30 December 2015 / Costa de Almería
EWN
Enoch Powell was never a racist credito Allan warren on Wikimedia commons
MERELY a realist, he was of course absolutely correct LEAPY LEE SAYS IT
OTHERS THINK IT “WHOLE areas, towns and parts of towns across England will be occupied by sections of the immigrant and immigrant descendant’s population. It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre. “They will find their wives unable to obtain hospital beds in childbirth. Their children unable to obtain school places. Their homes and neighbourhoods changed beyond recognition. Their plans and prospects for the future defeated for reasons they cannot comprehend; and in pursuance of a decision by default on which they were never consulted, they will find themselves made strangers in their own country,” - Enoch Powell, 1965. This highly intelligent politician was subsequently hounded out of mainstream politics by his peers, who scoffed his vision and warnings of the future. Under accusations
ENOCH POWELL: Intelligent politician who was hounded out of mainstream politics. of racism, he was soon banished to a lonely position in Northern Ireland. There, out of sight and hearing, his brilliant mind was wasted in the mire of violence and political strife that was engulfing
Ireland at that time. I personally remember him utterly destroying David Frost in a TV interview. At one point Frost asked him why he was against black people. Powell’s answer was that he had never discriminated
against someone because of their colour and challenged Frost to cite one occasion when he had actually done so. A blustering Frost couldn’t come up with one example. The fact of the matter was that Powell was never a racist, merely a realist. He was of course absolutely correct and we are now experiencing most of the situations he warned of all those years ago. The words of a Don McLean song come to mind. ‘They did not listen, they’re not listening still, perhaps they never will.’ In fairness, they do finally seem to be listening. Unfortunately they’re about 40 years too late. I’ve been called a few things in my time but the missive I received this week just about took the whole tin. This ‘gentleman’ referred to me as follows. Uneducated. Purile. Lickspittle. Forelock tugger. Knee bender. Quisling. Halfwit. Moron. Wow! Sticks and stones Señor. Sticks and stones! Keep the faith Love Leapy Leapylee2002@gmail.com
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E W N 24 - 30 December 2015 / Costa de Almería
www.euroweeklynews.com
OPINION & COMMENT
The magic of the Thursford Christmas Spectacular
OUR VIEW Credit Elliott Brown flickr
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THE ambience is pure enchantment and it simply has to be experienced first-hand Colin Bird A weekly look Each week, Colin brings his slightly off-thewall view of the world to the pages of EWN in his own irreverent style.
EVEN under a leaden sky on a December day, the vast flatness of the Norfolk countryside is inescapable. Someone once wrote that the Norfolk dialect was a language encapsulated in its landscape, with long vowels and wide horizons, summing up the county and its people. Norfolk is familiar to us during the summer months, with its endless skies and fantastic light so beloved by painters, who are as numerous as the wild fowl in the coastal wetlands. But what could possibly entice someone here on such a bleak winter’s day? Seven miles beyond Fakenham and almost without warn-
YEARLY EVENT: It is perhaps Christmas’ best kept secret. ing to the unwary, we turn into a country lane, indicating Thursford village. With barely room for two vehicles to pass and with no street lighting, this surely is heading into the back of beyond. The only clue to the uniniti-
ated that something interesting lies ahead, is the procession of car tail lights and a discernible glow in the sky. Then after a bare half mile we enter a massive floodlit car park where fluorescently clad stewards are busily directing
the flow of cars and coaches. Enter the magical world of the Thursford Christmas Spectacular. To most people, the name Thursford will elicit looks of incomprehension, and yet during November and De-
cember almost 130,000 regularly attend this event with many returning year after year. It is perhaps Christmas’ best kept secret and yet paradoxically, the biggest and most spectacular of all Christmas shows. It would take more space than I have available to adequately describe this spectacle. The ambience is pure enchantment and it simply has to be experienced first-hand. Not all the content is necessarily pure Yuletide, but the genius of John Cushing, Thursford’s producer and director, is to tie the whole package together with a festive ribbon and deliver a wonderfully balanced and awesome Christmas feast of a show. Everyone should witness this Christmas masterpiece once before they die. Do it soon, you are not looking well!
The letter ‘i’ inspires confidence THERE is a sudden torrent of companies using the letter to name their products
WE have all become used to the iProducts produced and marketed by Apple and indeed, they have spread all over the world so there is probably no country except perhaps North Korea where residents can’t buy at least one of their ubiquitous products. What is interesting is the number of companies who are adopting the ‘i’ as part of their business name. You can now find iStorage, iFurnishing and just the other day, the iFilmmaker festival in Marbella. What does the ‘i’ stand for? There are a number of theories, one of which goes back to the launch of the iMac in 1998, when Steve Jobs explained: “iMac comes from the marriage of the excitement of the Internet with the simplicity of Macintosh. Even though this is a full-blooded Macintosh, we are targeting this for the number one use that consumers tell us they want a
Credit John Karakatsanis flickr
By John Smith
APPLE: The new iPhone 6 plus.
ENERGY: Solar panels.
Mixed messages SOMETIMES life can be quite confusing and the actions of politicians and major companies throughout the world seem to add to that. No sooner has Britain confirmed its agreement to the Climate Change Compact in Paris, than the government has drastically cut subsidies to homeowners who wish to install solar panels in an effort to reduce pollution. The power producers certainly appeared to have plenty of economic strength, when they persuaded the Spanish Government to introduce new taxes on those using solar power, as they were worried about reduced profits. Moving on and despite the glut of crude oil on the market and its undeniable effect on the climate, the British Parliament has just voted to allow fracking for shale gas 1,200m below national parks and other protected sites. Fracking is not totally safe as enormous amounts of water are used, and the water is contaminated by the layers of earth it is pumped through as well as the fracking chemicals. Brazil has banned WhatsApp as it allows poorer people to make free calls without having to sign up for expensive contracts. It is surely coincidental that the current President of the Chamber of Deputies has been identified as a lobbyist for the telecommunications industry. In the USA, companies are almost fighting to merge so they can avoid tax, or at least delay paying it whilst paid lobbyists in Washington appear to be accepted as part of the political landscape.
computer for, which is to get on the Internet, simply and fast. And that is what this product is targeted for. “The letter ‘i’ also means some other things to us. We are a personal computer company, and although this product is born to network, it also is a beautiful stand-alone product. We are targeting it also for education. They want to buy these. And it is perfect for most of the things they do in instruction. It is perfect for finding tremendous sources of information over the Internet. And we hope as you see the product it will inspire us all to make even better products in the future.” The ‘i’ continued to be used and a freelance copywriter Vinnie Chieco is credited with coming up with the word iPod, based on his viewing of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey which contained a reference to a pod. When the lawyers at Apple went to register the name, they discovered that another company, also involved with the internet owned it but was prepared to sell it Now we on. want to Now it is clear that the simple addition hear your views. of an ‘i’ in front of any products seems to inspire confidence and recogniYOUR PAPER - YOUR VOICE tion in a customer’s mind although - YOUR OPINION perhaps we will see a time when the www.euroweeklynews.com letter ‘i’ itself becomes protected.
OPINION & COMMENT
LETTERS
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24 - 30 December 2015 / Costa de Almería
EWN
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YOUR PAPER - YOUR VOICE - YOUR OPINION
Letters for Your Say should be emailed to yoursay@euroweeklynews.com or make your comments straight on our website: www.euroweeklynews.com
Personal experience leads to a different conclusion I REPLY to a recently published letter from Ron, ‘Ungodly ways’. First of all the commandment is‘Thou shalt do no murder, thou shall not kill in his name,’ is nonsense. Jesus Christ died rather than call on ‘Twelve Legions of Angels’ or “If my kingdom was of this world my disciples would fight, but my kingdom is not of this world.” Pre-Darwin, it was only natural to try to explain our existence. Although his theory is seriously flawed, he leaves us with life as a random and temporary burst between aeons of nothingness. Personal experience leads me to a different conclusion. D R Griffiths, Orihuela Costa, Alicante
Photographs for possible publication should be sent by email with a full caption to: photonews@euroweeklynews.com
Overflowing with bottle-tops
Good and bad in every nation
Ban the hawkers! AS a newcomer to Spain, I would like to pass comment on the roaming hawkers who enter the restaurants to try and sell their merchandise. It is frustrating, to say the least, to try and enjoy a meal, whilst the hawkers continually interrupt the tables. I have seen them work as a team, warning all the other streetsellers in advance of approaching police officers and then giving the all-clear once the threat has passed. They actually laugh at them once they have gone! I have also witnessed some Germans having a meal being called racists because they bought nothing from a hawker. The goods being sold are of an inferior quality and some of them are plain junk. If this practice could be halted, on a continuous basis and restaurant owners prevented their entry, we, as paying guests, would stay longer and enjoy the experience, thus spending more. By the way, we are enjoying Spain, immensely!!! Michael Agliotti, Torrox Costa
people before formulating policies, not making bad and unpopular decisions and later conning the electorate into voting for them ‘or else’. Geoff Brooks, Via website
AS a good, caring, and charitable member of the community here on the Costa del Sol, when I was told that the collecting of bottle-tops and ring-pulls from cans would raise money for charity, I started in earnest. Pretty soon all my friends and family (thinking it was a wonderful idea) began giving me all the ring-pulls and bottle-tops they could find. Well! That was a while ago, and now my house is full to the brim with shiny can rings and multi-coloured plastic. I have thousands of them and no idea how to give them to charity. The breeding collection is bursting out of the doors. Can somebody please tell me who to call for collection? Anne Lee, Coin, Malaga
Science has lost its way
Burning waste peril
GOOD article, Nora. S c ie n ce to d a y s e e ms to ha ve lost its way because no-one can come out and say it IS so. Everything is listed as ‘may’, ‘could’, ‘possibly’ and the like. Scientists today never take the time to be absolutely sure of their test results. And if it isn’t pure lies, it’s conjecture. Roy Peters, Via website
RE: Floods and droughts to hit Spain The first easy action to be taken in the Comunidad Valenciana, Costa Blanca, is STOP burning waste in the open air! Why not make compost or recycle the green waste instead of burning it, polluting the atmosphere with toxic gases and poisoning all the inhabitants and millions of tourists? They even burn next to hospi-
tals, schools, etc... they are, like many others, not aware of the toxic gases produced by these burnings. Berger Micheline, Via website
Tactical voting THE establishment encouraging tactical voting in order to cling on to power at any cost will not keep them in their ‘bubble’ forever, either in France or the UK. They must start to listen to the
WITH reference to Leapy Lee’s writings, before we all get carried away with Islamophobia, let us consider the recent comments of a British soldier who lost his leg during a roadside bomb explosion near Basra. He says on FaceBook and reported by the BBC….. “Yes a Muslim blew me up and I lost a leg. “A Muslim man lost his arm that day, wearing a British uniform. “A Muslim medic was in the helicopter that took me from the field. “A Muslim surgeon performed the surgery that saved my life. “A Muslim nurse was part of the team that helped me on my return to UK. “A Muslim taxi driver gave me a free ride, when I went for my first beer with my dad, after I came home.” Also read Muhammed Ali’s comments condemning so-called Islamic jihadists. There are good and bad in every nation and religion. The bad ones will lose eventually, they always do, history has proven this. Leo, Via website
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E W N 24 - 30 December 2015 / Costa de AlmerĂa
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TV LISTING
THURSDAY 8:10pm
24 DECEMBER
9:00pm 9:30pm 10:05pm 11:05pm 11:45pm 12:30am
FRIDAY 25 DECEMBER
5:35pm 5:45pm 6:15pm 7:15pm 8:30pm 9:45pm 10:45pm 11:25pm 12:25am
SATURDAY 26 DECEMBER
SUNDAY 27 DECEMBER
MONDAY 28 DECEMBER
8:00pm 8:30pm 9:00pm 9:30pm 10:00pm 11:00pm 11:20pm 11:30pm 1:05am 8:30pm 9:00pm 9:30pm 10:00pm 11:00pm 11:15pm 11:25pm 12:00am
9:30pm 10:05pm 11:05pm 11:20pm 11:30pm 1:00am
2:00am
TUESDAY 29 DECEMBER
8:00pm 8:30pm 9:00pm 10:00pm 11:15pm 11:30pm 11:40pm 12:10am
WEDNESDAY 30 DECEMBER
8:30pm 9:00pm 10:00pm 11:00pm 11:15pm 11:25pm 11:55pm 12:35am 1:35am
Pointless Celebrities Christmas Special Would I Lie to You at Christmas EastEnders Peter Kay: 20 Years of Funny Walliams and Friends Not Going Out BBC News BBC News Stick Man Doctor Who Strictly Come Dancing Call the Midwife EastEnders Mrs. Brown's Boys Michael Mcintyre's Big Christmas Show BBC News Dickensian EastEnders Still Open All Hours Dickensian And Then There Were None BBC News The National Lottery Live Match of the Day The Guardian Dickensian Still Open All Hours Dickensian And Then There Were None BBC News BBC London News Catherine Tate's Nan Miranda Hart - My What I Call Live Show
7:30pm 8:00pm 8:30pm 9:00pm 10:00pm 11:00pm 12:30am 2:10am 7:30pm 8:30pm 9:00pm 9:50pm 10:50pm 11:20pm 12:20am 6:30pm 7:20pm 8:20pm 9:00pm 10:00pm 11:00pm 11:30pm 12:15am 6:25pm 7:10pm 9:00pm 10:00pm 11:00pm
1:15am 3:10am
Miranda And Then There Were None BBC News BBC London News Match of the Day Lewis Hamilton: Making History - F1 2015 Review Weather for the Week Ahead
5:30pm 6:30pm
Celebrity Mastermind EastEnders Holby City David Beckham: For the Love of the Game BBC News BBC London News Peter Kay's Car Share Mrs. Brown's Boys
5:55pm 6:55pm 8:30pm 9:00pm
A Question of Sport Antiques Roadshow Great Barrier Reef with David Attenborough BBC News at Ten BBC London News Catherine Tate's Nan Mrs. Brown's Boys Comic Relief 2015: Thanks a Billion! Weather for the Week Ahead
7:00pm 9:00pm 9:30pm 10:00pm 11:50pm 12:50am 1:50am
10:00pm 11:00pm 11:30pm 1:15am
4:00pm 5:00pm 5:50pm 6:50pm 8:30pm 9:00pm 10:00pm 11:00pm 12:00am
To the Manor Born Dad's Army University Challenge MasterChef: The Professionals The Great History Quiz: The Tudors The Scandalous Lady W Dial M for Murder Simply Nigella World's Sneakiest Animals Dad's Army The Two Ronnies Christmas Show Darcey's Ballet Heroes QI We're Doomed! The Dad's Army Story Gambit Don't Panic! The Dad's Army Story We're Doomed! The Dad's Army Story Dad's Army Top Gear A Gert Lush Christmas Abz on the Christmas Farm Backchat Looks Back Kinky Boots Porridge Deep Impact Dragons' Den Gorilla Family and Me U2 - iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE - Live In Paris Telstar: The Joe Meek Story Countryfile Final Score The Clare Balding Show What Women Want University Challenge Only Connect Behind the Candelabra Two Doors Down Dragons' Den The Apprentice
6:40pm 7:45pm 8:00pm 9:00pm 9:30pm 10:45pm 11:45pm 12:00am 6:00pm 7:00pm 7:15pm 7:45pm 8:45pm 9:45pm 11:45pm 12:45am 1:00am 2:20pm 4:40pm 6:40pm 7:00pm 8:00pm 9:00pm 11:05pm 12:10am 6:45pm 7:00pm 7:30pm 8:30pm 9:30pm 11:30pm 11:45pm 12:45am 7:45pm 8:00pm 8:30pm 9:00pm 9:30pm 10:00pm 11:00pm 11:15pm 1:45am
All Star Mr and Mrs ITV Evening News Emmerdale Coronation Street The Abba Christmas Party Through the Keyhole ITV News Christmas Carols on ITV Paul O'Grady: For The Love of Dogs ITV Evening News You've Been Framed! Emmerdale Coronation Street Downton Abbey Our Cilla ITV News Dr. No Jurassic Park Midsomer Murders ITV News and Weather The Nation's Favourite Disney Song Surprise Surprise Peter and Wendy The Jonathan Ross Show ITV News and Weather
5:55pm 6:25pm 7:00pm 8:00pm 9:00pm 10:00pm 11:00pm 12:00am 4:35pm 4:45pm 6:45pm 9:00pm 10:00pm 12:00am 1:05am 6:25pm 6:35pm
7:30pm 9:00pm Christmas 10:00pm 12:05am
ITV News and Weather You've Been Framed! Jekyll and Hyde Jekyll and Hyde Harry Price: Ghost Hunter ITV News and Weather Through the Keyhole Rugby Highlights
6:55pm 7:00pm
ITV Evening News Emmerdale Coronation Street Countrywise Coronation Street John Bishop's Gorilla Adventure ITV News at Ten and Weather The Holiday Jackpot247
5:25pm 7:30pm 7:35pm 8:05pm 9:00pm
8:00pm 9:00pm 10:00pm 11:10pm 12:10am
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Natural World Finding Neverland University Challenge Gareth Malone's Great Choir Reunion Stephen Fry: A Life on Screen QI Albert Nobbs Race to Super Bowl 50
3:30pm 5:30pm 7:30pm 7:45pm 8:00pm 8:30pm 11:10pm 11:25pm 1:05am 4:00am
Midsomer Murders The Queen ITV News London ITV Evening News Emmerdale The Amazing Spider-Man ITV News American Pie Jackpot247 The Jeremy Kyle Show USA
5:35pm 7:10pm 7:30pm 8:00pm 9:00pm
Atlantic: The Wildest Ocean on Earth Flog It! Natural World Alice in Wonderland University Challenge Top Gear Charlie Brooker's End of Year Review 2015 A Gert Lush Christmas Mock the Week
7:30pm 7:45pm 8:00pm 8:30pm 9:00pm 10:00pm
ITV News London ITV Evening News Emmerdale Coronation Street Big Star's Little Star It'll be Alright on the Night ITV News at Ten and Weather American Pie 2 Jackpot247
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The Snowman The Snowman and the Snowdog Hollyoaks Jamie's Night Before Christmas My Crazy Christmas Lights 8 Out of 10 Cats Rude Tube Gogglebox
8:55pm
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Alternative Christmas Message Scrooged Home Alone 2: Lost in New York Gogglesprogs Alan Carr: Chatty Man 8 Out of 10 Cats Very British Problems at Christmas
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Channel 4 News The Secret Life of Children at Christmas Britain's Favourite Children's Book Inside Lego at
6:05pm 8:05pm
7:05pm 9:50pm 10:40pm 12:05am
9:05pm 10:00pm 11:30pm
Big Fat Quiz of the Year Rude Tube
1:30am
Channel 4 News Celebrity Fifteen to One Million Pound Motors Walking the Himalayas Homeland 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown The Inbetweeners 2
3:25pm 5:45pm 8:00pm
Mirror Mirror Channel 4 News Hollyoaks A Frozen Christmas The World's Most Expensive Food Gogglebox Tattoo Fixers David Blaine The Omen The China Syndrome
7:55pm
Gulliver's Travels Channel 4 News Hollyoaks Inside Lego at Christmas The Supervet at Christmas 8 Out of 10 Cats Big Fat Quiz of the Year Kingdom of Heaven Chalet Girl Freaky Friday Sunshine on Leith Channel 4 News Hollyoaks Gogglesprogs What Britain Bought in 2015 24 Hours in A and E The Millionaire Party Planner Fast Five
8:55pm 9:00pm 10:00pm 12:55am
8:50pm 9:00pm 10:00pm 11:00pm 12:00am
5:40pm 7:10pm 8:00pm 9:00pm 10:00pm 11:45pm 2:15am
9:00pm 10:00pm 11:50pm 2:10am 4:10am 5:00am 5:25am 5:45am
Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly: Ol' Blue Eyes is Back Happy Holidays with Bing and Frank Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special Christmas with the Double Acts Morecambe and Wise Live! 1973 Michael Buble's Christmas 2015 Britain's Favourite Christmas Songs Chas and Dave's Xmas Knees-Up Britain's Favourite Abba Songs Sinatra at 100 - An All-Star Grammy Concert One Chance Christmas Makes You Laugh Out Loud Chas and Dave's Xmas Knees-Up Football League Tonight Most Shocking Christmas TV Moments Can't Pay? We'll Take it Away!
6:00pm 6:15pm 6:30pm 7:00pm 7:30pm 8:00pm 12:00am 12:25am 1:25am 7:00pm 7:30pm 8:00pm 9:00pm 10:00pm 11:00pm 1:30pm 4:00pm 6:00pm 8:30pm 9:00pm 11:00pm 12:30am
The Searchers Escape to Victory World's Strongest Man 2015 5 News Weekend On Benefits: Cashing in for Christmas Most Shocking Celebrity Moments 2015 Autopsy: The Last Hours of Robin Williams
10:00am
World's Strongest Man 2015 5 News Building the Ice Hotel The Frank Sinatra Story Sinatra Live in New York Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly: Ol' Blue Eyes is Back
11:30am 12:00pm 12:30pm
What the Dambusters Did Next Loch Lomond: A Year in the Wild World's Strongest Man 2015 Snowtrapped Flowers in the Attic Erin Brockovich Super Casino
6:30pm 7:00pm
Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Snow Big Driver Needful Things Super Casino On Benefits: Cashing in for Christmas Michaela's Wild Challenge Divine Designs House Doctor
6:30pm
11:30am 1:30pm 2:00pm 2:30pm 5:15pm 8:00pm 12:00am
1:30pm 4:00pm 6:00pm 8:30pm 12:30am
7:30pm 8:30pm 11:00pm 12:00am
7:00pm 7:30pm 8:00pm 11:15pm 11:30pm 11:45pm 12:15am 12:30am
Football Gold Football Gold Barclays Premier League World Premier League Football Gold NFL NFL: Dwight Freeney Interview NFL Highlights NFL Hard Knocks Ronaldo Special Barcelona's Strikeforce Special La Liga Goles y Goles y Goles Soccer AM Christmas Special Christmas Cricket Special Cricket Football Fight Night Review of 2015 Football Jamie Vardy- Record Breaker Fight Night Review of 2015 SNF: Match Choice SNF: Match Choice
The Sunday Supplement Goals on Sunday Premier League Premier League Football Football World Darts Championship Football League Goals Premier League Premier League Goals on Sunday Football Gillette Soccer Special FL72 World Darts Championship Football Gold SPFL Round Up Fantasy Football Club Highlights Football League Goals Football Football League Goals Sky Sports Originals: The Sir Alex Ferguson Interview Pl 100: Robbie Fowler Premier League Pl 100: Steven Gerrard Football Football Football Gold Premier League Football Gold Premier League 100 Club
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E W N 24 - 30 December 2015 / Costa de Almería
Why on earth are toll roads odd amounts? Mike Senker
In my opinion Views of a Grumpy Old Man I DECIDED to go to Gibraltar to watch the snooker of which I’m a great fan. I set off on my journey and as I got on to the road down to the delightful A7, which used to be the N340, I remembered someone once said to me it was the most dangerous road in Europe. My reply was: “How? It’s a pretty straight road! The raving lunatics that use it are the danger.” The lorry drivers that sit up your rear end because you are not going as fast as they want. Plus the morons that pull out of the slip roads at 20 kilometres an hour. This is the road which used to have a speed limit of 120. That got changed to 80, for some reason to do with making people save fuel and lives. They did this by putting new stickers of the 80 speed limit on the existing road signs and then, pretty quickly, changed them back! In some areas they couldn’t peel the new stickers off so then had to put new ones, all very confusing and a waste of money!
Anyway, I’m going on my merry way and then in front of me is the sight that is the bane of most driver’s lives here, the four abreast cyclists! They are all lycraed up as if they are on the Tour de France but, seriously, why four abreast? I do my normal cursing and sit behind them for two miles until I can get past. I finally get on the main road and decide to go on the toll road. I love that road. It’s like having your own personal highway and the reason it’s always empty is because most of the time the toll charge is ridiculously high, and you never know how much it’s going to be from one week to the next. Of course, I make the mistake of going through the wrong bit. The bit that you have to put the exact coins in and, of course I don’t have the exact amount. So the €3.10 toll now costs me €4! For someone like me that is a shopaholic money waster, paying 90 cents more is like being robbed at gunpoint!! Why on earth is it an odd amount? Why can’t it be €3 or €4? If anyone knows, please let me know at mikesenker@gmail.com. Actually, let me know what makes you grumpy and we can compare notes! In the meantime I’m going to try and have an ungrumpy Christmas and, if I don’t, you’ll be hearing all about it!
www.euroweeklynews.com
OPINION & COMMENT
LEGALLY SPEAKING
Alcohol and drugs tests out in force AS part of a new series, we answer some common driving questions, kindly provided by members of the Guardia Civil based in Torrevieja, Costa Blanca, who set up the N332 website and Facebook page to help break down barriers.
BEST ADVICE: Zero consumption before getting behind the wheel. ALCOHOL and drugs tests out in force this week Throughout this week in the run up to Christmas, there will be a focus on one of the main contributors to road traffic incidents, alcohol and drugs. The Guardia Civil will be out in force with plans to conduct at least 25,000 alcohol and drugs tests each day. The main goal is to detect and deal with habitual offenders, who get behind the wheel on a regular basis whilst having consumed alcohol or drugs. The latest figures extracted from the most recent data available suggests that there may be around 12,000 drivers who meet this continually dangerous criteria. So far this year, more than 84,000 drivers have tested positive, risking not only their
own but the lives of many innocent victims, who all too often leave the scene of the carnage facing a life dealing with serious injuries and, on numerous occasions, leaving the friends and families of loved ones having to deal with their death. According to the annual report of the National Institute of Toxicology, 39.09 per cent of deceased drivers displayed the presence of alcohol or drugs in their blood. The figure rises to 40 per cent when pedestrians are analysed. Even the smallest amount of alcohol or drugs can affect driving ability and so, despite Spain having considerably lower maximum limits than countries such as the UK, the best advice is always zero consumption before getting behind the wheel.
For more news and articles visit www.n332.es or search N332 on Facebook.
Can they lock fire doors? I LIVE in an apartment complex of more than 200 units on nine floors. There are eight entrances with elevators and stairwells to the roof and underground parking areas. There are no notices of an evacuation plan and by order of the President, all fire doors to the roof and to parking areas are permanently locked. If you want something changed in your Community, put the issue on the formal Agenda for the AGM, discuss it, and vote on it. In the case of locked fire exits, we find a con-
An exit to the pool area is also locked after 11pm to prevent use of the pool by holidaymakers. This leaves only one exit door for 27 or 36 apartments. Our Administrators have raised my safety concerns with the President but he is adamant the fire exits are locked at all times. Is there an alternative course of action? L.T. (Costa Blanca)
David Searl You and the Law in Spain
flict between safety and security.
A locked exit is useless in an emergency but too many doors can allow access to unwanted persons. You may find that local building regulations require the doors to be open.
Send your questions for David Searl through lawyers Ubeda-Retana & Associates in Fuengirola at Ask@lawtaxspain.com, or call 952 667 090.
TIME OUT
24 - 30 December 2015/ Costa de Almería
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Famous quote
This week
MADDOCKS’ VIEW ON LIFE
‘
The term ‘serious actor’ is kind of an oxymoron, isn’t it? Like ‘Republican party’ or ‘airplane food.’ Johnny Depp
in history 1 - 1st Christmas, according to calendar-maker Dionysus Exiguus 352 - 1st definite date Christmas was celebrated on Dec 25th 640 - John IV begins his reign as Catholic Pope 1066 - Duke William of Normandy (‘William the Conqueror’) crowned king of England 1170 - Assassination inside Canterbury Cathedral of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury 1492 - Christopher Columbus’ flagship the Santa María runs aground and sinks on Hispaniola 1568 - Uprising of Moriscos in Granada 1741 - Astronomer Anders Celsius introduces Centigrade temperature scale 1758 - Return of Halley’s comet 1st sighted by Johann Georg Palitzsch 1777 - Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island, is discovered by James Cook 1818 - Christmas carol ‘Silent Night’ composed by Franz Xaver Gruber is first sung at St Nicholas parish church in Oberndorf, Austria 1893 - Henry Ford completes his first useful petrol fuelled engine 1914 - Legendary ‘Christmas Truce’ takes place on the battlefields of WWI between British and German troops. Instead of fighting, soldiers exchange gifts and play football. 1922 - BBC broadcasts first British radio play ‘The Truth about Father Christmas’ 1927 - Stalin’s faction wins All-Union Congress in USSR, Trotsky expelled 1963 - Walt Disney’s ‘The Sword in the Stone’ is released 1966 - Jimi Hendrix writes ‘Purple Haze’ backstage at the Upper Cut Club 1968 - Frank Sinatra 1st records ‘My Way’ with lyrics were written by Paul Anka 1975 - Eldrick Tont ‘Tiger’ Woods, was born in Cypress, California.
Women’s wit
‘
If I make a fool of myself, who cares? I’m not frightened by anyone’s perception of me. Angelina Jolie
World of English
‘
If lawyers are disbarred, and clergymen defrocked, does it not follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged and drycleaners depressed?
“ MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL - AND YOU THERE - ALL ALONE! “
Kakuro
for next 7 days
Costa de Almería weather
Fill all the empty squares using the numbers 1 to 9, so that the sum of each horizontal block equals the ‘clue’ on its left, and the sum of each vertical block equals the clue on its top. No number may be used in the same block more than once.
TODAY VELEZ RUBIO
TOMORROW ALBOX
HUERCAL OVERA
VELEZ RUBIO GARRUCHA ALBOX MOJACAR HUERCAL OVERA ALMERIA
RETAMAR GARRUCHA ROQUETAS
MOJACAR
RETAMAR
ALMERIA
ROQUETAS
ADRA
Alicante TODAY: Fri Sat Sun -
Benidorm
CLOUDY MAX 18C, MIN 10C MAX MIN
18 9 S 18 11 Cl 17 9 C
Mon - 18 9 Cl Tues - 19 10 S Wed - 18 11 S
CLEAR MAX MIN
Fri Sat Sun -
19 10 S 19 10 Cl 19 9 C
MAX 19C, MIN 11C Mon - 19 11 S Tues - 19 11 S Wed - 18 11 S
Fri Sat Sun -
16 8 C 16 8 S 17 9 C S Sun,
19 9 C 19 10 Cl 17 10 Cl
MAX MIN
Mon - 19 9 C Tues - 19 12 Cl Wed - 19 9 C
Madrid
CLOUDY MAX 17C, MIN 9C MAX MIN
MAX MIN
Mon - 16 9 C Tues - 16 9 C Wed - 17 10 Cl Cl Clear,
TODAY:
Fog,
18 11 S 18 10 C 18 10 C
TODAY:
CLOUDY MAX 19C, MIN 7C MAX MIN
Fri Sat Sun -
19 8 C 18 7 Cl 18 7 C
CLOUDY MAX 15C, MIN 2C
16 2 S 15 4 C 14 3 C C Cloudy,
TODAY:
MAX MIN
Mon - 14 4 C Tues - 15 5 C Wed - 15 4 C
MAX MIN
Mon - 19 9 C Tues - 18 8 C Wed - 19 8 C
Sh Showers,
CLOUDY MAX 20C, MIN 7C MAX MIN
Fri Sat Sun -
20 8 S 19 9 C 19 7 C Sn Snow,
UK NATIONAL LOTTERY
UK THUNDERBALL
IRISH LOTTO
Saturday December 19
Saturday December 19
Saturday December 19
EURO MILLIONS
LA PRIMITIVA
EL GORDO DE LA PRIMITIVA
MAX MIN
Mon - 18 11 C Tues - 19 11 Cl Wed - 18 11 C
Murcia
MAX MIN
Fri Sat Sun -
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Mallorca
MAX MIN
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CLEAR MAX 18C, MIN 9C
TODAY:
MAX MIN
Mon - 18 11 S Tues - 19 12 S Wed - 18 12 S
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TODAY:
MAX MIN
Barcelona TODAY:
18 11 S 17 12 C 18 11 C
Bilbao
Almeria TODAY:
MAX MIN
Fri Sat Sun -
Malaga
CLOUDY MAX 18C, MIN 11C
TODAY:
MAX MIN
LAST WEEK’S SOLUTION
MAX MIN
Mon - 20 7 S Tues - 21 8 S Wed - 21 9 S Th Thunder
LOTTERY
ADRA
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Friday December 18
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BONUS BALL
THUNDERBALL
BONUS BALL
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LUCKY STARS
5
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REINTEGRO
42
0
REINTEGRO
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Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, and Distributed by Paramount Pictures. Starring: Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rhames, Sean Harris, and Alec Baldwin. This time: Tom Cruise (Ethan Hunt) finds himself on the run from the CIA as his team takes on their most impossible mission yet, eradicating the Syndicate - an International rogue organisation as highly skilled as they are committed to destroying the IMF.
Javier Arenas, December 28, Politician. Javier Arenas is a Spanish politician who has held a senior position in the PP for many years under both Prime Ministers and is a past president of the party.
58
Barry Chuckle, December 24, Comedian, 71 British comedian who with his brother Paul forms the duo, the Chuckle Brothers whose act is aimed at children but is secretly watched by adults as well. Jorgie Porter, December 25, Actress, 28 Originally known as an actress in Hollyoaks, Jorgina Alexandra Porter has become a celebrity at large appearing in a number of TV reality shows, culminating in I’m a Celebrity in 2015. She said after that she ‘fancied’ former dragon contestant Duncan Bannatyne. Martin Cooper, December 26, Inventor, 87 Entrepreneur and inventor known for his work with the Motorola Company in the USA. He is credited with inventing the first mobile phone in the 1970s. Salman Khan, December 27, Actor, 50 Indian film actor, producer and television personality who has had huge success with a string of Bollywood hits. He is said to be one of the most popular and commercially successful actors of Hindi cinema. Ted Danson, December 29, Actor, 68 Best known for his role as bartender, Sam Malone on the television show, Cheers, he has had other starring roles in TV and film over a long career. Jeff Lynne, December 30, Musician, 68 Singer with the Move and founder of Electric Light Orchestra as well as member of the Traveling Wilburys alongside Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty.
Funagram
Just Joking
Unscramble the name of a famous film often shown on TV at Christmas time (four words): ALLOW UNDER FIFTIES
Two cannibals are eating dinner and one says to the other, “I hate my mother-in-law.” The other replies, “Well, just eat your noodles, then.”
Unscramble the name of a single that was a UK number one at Christmas time (three words): IT MENTIONED WALES FUNAGRAM SOLUTION: IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, MISTLETOE AND WINE
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Hexagram
The purpose of the Hexagram puzzle is to place the 19 six-letter words into the 19 cells. The letters at the edges of interlocking cells MUST BE THE SAME. The letters in the words must be written CLOCKWISE. The word in cell 10 (DANCER) and one letter in four other cells are given as clues.
ATTEST BANTER CAMERA CHEERY CHEESE DANCER (10) DISTAL EARTHY EFFORT ELDEST
GAMBOL HEATER PANDER RETINA RETURN SCURRY SERENE VORTEX YEARLY
LAST WEEK’S SOLUTION 1 Creaky 2 Chalet 3 Strain 4 Shrift 5 Letter 6 Careen 7 Closer 8 Events 9 Hollow 10 Centre 11 Quaver 12 Billet 13 Astute 14 Lingua 15 Russet 16 Sulfur 17 Beaten 18 Strict 19 Chaste
PISCES (February 20 - March 20) One thing is certain, when you come through this week’s restless planetary antics, you won’t be totally the same Piscean who walked in. ARIES (March 21 - April 20) Education, media, creative and social connections are given star merit. The solar eclipse in your own sign bursts with vitality and success, more so for an array of bold moves, replacements and makeovers covering your personal affairs. TAURUS (April 21 - May 21) Stand by for a week of whoosh and whirl. More importantly, try to avoid getting tongue-tied or dogmatic on Tuesday and Friday. Promising potentials appear, especially if you spruce up your competitive streak. GEMINI (May 22 - June 21) Throughout this fortunate week,
CAPRICORN
(December 22 - January 20)
Hard-working, enterprising and selfsacrificing are just some of the words that describe your zodiac sign. It will be these qualities that count. Friday will boost your powers of persuasion, but you won’t have too much to complain about if you follow this lucky trend into next week’s encouraging tide. whatever else you decide, refuse to discard your hopes and wishes. As a Gemini, you like to have two strings to your bow of life, which gives you an alternative option, especially if the going gets tough.
EURO WEEKLY’S SPACE FOR YOU TO TAKE A BREA
12-Star Quiz TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS All the questions or answers contain an ‘item’ mentioned in the song The Twelve Days of Christmas 1. Rosie was a 1968 UK top 10 hit single for which English busker/one-man band? 2. What name is often applied to politicians who advocate peaceful or conciliatory policies, especially in foreign affairs? 3. In which allegorical and dystopian novella, first published in 1945, are the hens among the first to rebel against a large Berkshire boar named Napoleon? 4. Which British sitcom, originally broadcast on BBC One from 1989 to 1998, then revived on ITV in 2014, starred Pauline Quirke, Linda Robson and Lesley Joseph? 5. Endemic to Colombia, the gold-ringed tanager is a species of what? 6. Which British 1978 adventure film about a group of mercenaries in Africa, starred Richard Burton as Colonel Allen Faulkner, Roger Moore as Lieutenant Shawn Fynn, Richard Harris as Captain Rafer Janders and Hardy Krüger as Lieutenant Pieter Coetzee? 7. With which sport would you principally associate the Sydney Swans? 8. According to the nursery rhyme Sing a Song of Sixpence, where was the maid and what was she doing? 9. Which group of ladies were ‘in the mood for dancing’ in 1980? 10. What colour are the benches (seats) in the UK House of Lords? 11. What was the name of Doctor Who’s travelling companion played by actress Billy Piper? 12. Which famous actress used ‘thespian words’ to tell a group of street drummers to be quiet while still dressed in her stage costume as Queen Elizabeth II outside the Gielgud Theatre in London in May 2013? Not a lot of people know that… every year since 1984, a group of economists at PNC Wealth Management have figured out how much it would cost to actually buy all the things on the ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ list.
YOUR STARS AQUARIUS (January 21 - February 19) Eager Mars meets affluent Jupiter and enriches your financial forecast. It might show a foretaste of money to come, or on-stream benefits. If you intend to make alterations to your personal and home interests, you'll cope with both offbeat and upbeat activities.
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VIRGO (August 24 - September 23) Even if the opposite to what you want happens, it could prove useful. One clue to this week’s planetary crossword puzzle is ‘What word could also mean success?’ Check it out, and make it work for you. LIBRA (September 24 - October 23) The solar eclipse in your opposite sign of Aries intensifies your willpower. Before you say ‘go,’ find out where you stand. It might pay you to leave things be for a little longer to see if things begin to change.
CANCER (June 22 - July 23) A vivid star pattern portends a frantic personal and social diary. Ensure that any tight planning is carefully handled, especially if you hope to fit in everything you would like to say. Don’t allow Monday or Wednesday’s tensions to spoil opportunities for settling something important.
SCORPIO (October 24 - November 22) The planets mobilise your streak of Scorpio daring, but don't stretch your limits. Your most effective weapon against personal and work-related pitfalls is your ability to be objective. Your desire to make specific situations and conversations work needs to be combined with your faith that they will work. Even if a different approach is required, try it and see.
LEO (July 24 - August 23) Pave the way for any ambitious schemes you may have, rather than actually starting them. With your ruler the Sun eclipsing your kindred fire sign, determined Aries, you are now more likely to get the support and affection you need from the powers that be or someone who thinks the world of you. Loosen up on Tuesday and Thursday.
SAGITTARIUS (November 23 - December 21) The main gist of the solar eclipse in fiery Aries and the link between plucky Mars and your ruler friendly Jupiter will stir surprises. Whether you create the right atmosphere all round depends on how you interpret other people’s views. Stick to crisp, simple but sensitively tuned answers, then no one can accuse you of not trying.
1. DON PARTRIDGE, 2. DOVES, 3. ANIMAL FARM, 4. BIRDS OF A FEATHER, 5. BIRD, 6. THE WILD GEESE, 7. AUSTRALIAN RULES FOOTBALL, 8. IN THE GARDEN HANGING OUT THE CLOTHES, 9. NOLAN SISTERS/THE NOLANS, 10. RED, 11. ROSE TYLER, 12. Dame HELEN MIRREN
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Nonagram How many English words of four letters or more can you make from the nine letters in our Nonagram puzzle? Each letter may be used only once (unless the letter appears twice). Each word MUST CONTAIN THE CENTRE LETTER (in this case H) and there must be AT LEAST ONE NINE LETTER WORD. Plurals, vulgarities or proper nouns are not allowed.
TARGET: Average: 8 Good: 10 Very good: 14 Excellent: 18
LAST WEEK’S SOLUTION dirt doty moot mort omit riot root rort tidy tiro tori torr trim trio trod troy tyro dirty droit motor rooty rotor toroid torrid DORMITORY
25 Adele BUCKING the trend of downloading music, released on 20 November 2015, 25 hit the ground running at number one in more than 20 markets and broke firstweek sales records in many countries, including the United Kingdom and United States. In the US, the album sold 3.38 million copies in its first week of release, Nielsen SoundScan have said that 25 is the biggest seller since they began tracking point-of-sale music purchases in 1991.
AK, BE INFORMED AND ENJOY A CHALLENGE
Crossword
Enjoy filling in the following puzzles and check the answers in next week’s edition
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LAST WEEK’S SOLUTIONS
CRYPTIC
Quick
Cryptic
Across: 1 Silver, 4 Pagans, 9 Haste, 10 Amnesia, 11 Mischief, 12 Bait, 14 Serene, 16 Deters, 19 Rash, 20 Atheists, 23 Grimace, 24 Agree, 25 Yields, 26 Detest.
Across 1 Something chewed, filled with brilliant yellow sauce (7) 5 Brad’s worried about poets (5) 8 Euphoria apparent when a family member loses his head (7) 9 Boy gets the French serving spoon (5) 10 Wash thoroughly inside disc rubber (5) 11 A gentle style getting stylish (7) 12 Cedar’s nuts are divine (6) 14 Get the hang of being a teacher (6) 17 A very old bounder, old fruit! (7) 19 Saint gets everything to come to a standstill (5) 22 Many young men have nothing inside them (5) 23 Report about art near building (7) 24 American money, it’s said, has a nice smell (5) 25 Wine cartels are corrupt (7)
Down: 1 Schemes, 2 Lists, 3 Elephant, 5 Arno, 6 Assuage, 7 Scant, 8 Hades, 13 Serenade, 15 Respite, 17 Suspect, 18 Steel, 19 Rugby, 21 Serve, 22 Rand.
QUICK Across:
Down 1 Mating game? (5) 2 There’s a step, but you’ll have to look hard by the sound of it (5) 3 Being friendly, I blame a manager (7) 4 One may waltz about in European river (6) 5 Beautiful French girl is involved in libel legislation (5) 6 Brilliant at drain moving (7)
Code Breaker
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7 Guard rank surrounding lieutenant (7) 12 Small charts for the horses (7) 13 Capone is in work producing a hymn (7) 15 European nation curtailing an American test (7) 16 Tooth can return for an alcoholic drink (6) 18 Possession as fixed (5) 20 Come to a vigil (5) 21 Fifty seek mixed vegetables (5)
Each number in the Code Breaker grid represents a different letter of the alphabet. In this week’s puzzle, 11 represents F and 25 represents T, so fill in F every time the figure 11 appears and T every time the figure 25 appears. Now, using your knowledge of the English language, work out which letters should go in the missing squares. As you discover the letters, fill in other squares with the same number in the main grid and the control grid.
Across 7 Ceremonial procession (6) 8 Concepts (6) 9 In this place (4) 10 Action of bringing something into existence (8) 11 Very small distance or space (7) 13 Deal with (5) 15 Beam (5) 17 Arrives at (7) 20 Arrange systematically (8) 21 Precipitation falling from clouds in the form of ice crystals (4) 23 Coned shaped utensil (6) 24 Moves on ice in a gliding fashion (6)
Down 1 Cook with dry heat (4) 2 Ships of the desert (6) 3 Round stone fruits with juicy yellow flesh (7) 4 Acknowledged as a supposition (5) 5 More substantial (6) 6 Citrus drink (8) 12 Funny (8) 14 Let go free (7) 16 Gains knowledge or skills (6) 18 Nonchalant (6) 19 Written accounts of money owed (5) 22 Domesticated bovine animals as a group (4)
1 Hose, 3 Dreadful, 9 Shrinks, 10 Heals, 11 Improvements, 13 Accent, 15 Rescue, 17 Nevertheless, 20 Alike, 21 Betting, 22 Entitled, 23 Asks. Down: 1 Hospital, 2 Scrap, 4 Rested, 5 Achievements, 6 Frantic, 7 Last, 8 Announcement, 12 Messages, 14 Chemist, 16 Stable, 18 Exits, 19 Make.
ENGLISHSPANISH Across:
English - Spanish The clues are mixed, some clues are in Spanish and some are in English.
1 Shops, 3 Fresa, 7 Rosada, 9 Agua, 10 Calabacin, 13 Aula, 14 Anchoa, 16 Abrir, 17 Adios. Down: 1 Sure, 2 Pea, 4 English, 5 Abad, 6 Cambiar, 8 Smaller, 11 Paja, 12 Ears, 15 Cod.
CODE BREAKER
Across 1 Trineo (4) 2 Manger (7) 6 Abeto (3) 7 Bread (3) 8 Vixen (5) 9 Flor de pascua (10) 13 Regalo (4) 14 Nuevo (3)
Down 1 Dormir (5) 2 Premios (6) 3 Espíritu (6) 4 Berry (4) 5 Temprano (5) 6 Diversión (3) 10 Gold (3) 11 Duende (3) 12 Hostería (3)
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Star Wars: The Force Awakens Visual Dictionary
TO accompany the release of the new Star Wars film: The Force Awakens, the definitive guide to the characters, droids, aliens, and creatures of Star Wars: The Force Awakens™. Beautiful photography and clear, authoritative text by Lucas film insider Pablo Hidalgo names and explains all the details of costumes, weapons, and accessories. It also includes three exclusive, specially commissioned cutaway models produced by Industrial Light and Magic model maker John Goodson. A must for all Star Wars Fans. books@euroweeklynews.com
WHETHER you’re doing that last minute shopping, trimming the tree, or heading out to a Christmas party, you’re bound to be bopping along to the perfect soundtrack that will get you in the festive spirit. But which ones are the best? There’s so many to choose from. When it comes to deciding what’s going to have you rocking around the Christmas tree at, ‘the most wonderful time of the year’, it’s the oldies that are the goodies.
2. All I Want For Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey The super-sexy Mariah Carey, with a vocal range so high it’s a good chance she can converse with bats, wrote and produced this song herself, and released it just in time for Christmas 1994. It was an instant hit and has since become what Rolling Stone calls ‘Holiday Standard.’ It has since reportedly earned more than €45 million in royalties. 3. Fairytale Of New York by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl Quite possibly one of the best Christmas songs ever made! Yes, Shane MacGowan is totally out of tune, and yes he looks like he just fell out of bed in 1987, with an empty bottle of supermarket cider, but it works! It kind of reminds you of granddad getting a bit tipsy after crimble dinner and trying to sing. If a Christmas pudding could sing, this is what it would sound like. 4. Santa Baby by Eartha Kitt The sexiest Christmas song ever written. Eartha Kitt purrs more than sings in this 1953 yuletide hit including the classic line: ‘been an awful good girl’ with an eyebrow raised. Now a firm festive favourite, the song is about a high priced
App of the Week Facebook for Windows Phone Even though not actually made by Facebook, the official Facebook app for Windows Phone is finally out of beta. If you were using the beta app before this release, that app will keep getting updates, but this new ‘official’ release will be more stable. To be honest, this app still isn’t perfect it’s missing simple things like the ability to reply to a specific comment in a thread.
Play on Words
1. White Christmas by Bing Crosby First performed on Christmas Day, 1941 White Christmas was written by Irving Berlin while reminiscing about an oldfashioned Christmas setting. the Guinness book of Records states that the version sung by Bing Crosby is the best-selling single of all time, with estimated sales in excess of 100 million copies worldwide.
Sudoku
KNIGHTXMAS
TIM
WHITE CHRISTMAS: Best-selling single of all time. fantasy Christmas list to Santa. 5. Winter Wonderland by Doris Day The 1964 version by Doris Day is the firm winner for many; however, others see it as a little sweet, whereas Perry Como’s version is more robust. This song conjures the Christmas of all our dreams, one of snowflakes falling gently on our eyelids, curling up in front of crackling log fires and romance. 6. The Christmas Song by Nat King Cole You can practically smell the roasting chestnuts before the intro ends. This Christmas Song is smoother than ironed silk and more than deserves its place among the best Christmas songs of all time. Written in 1945 by Mel Torme, it’s regarded by BMI as the most-performed Christmas song ever. 7. Merry Christmas Everybody by Slade Personally, this one and Wizzard’s hit sum up Christmas memories perfectly. In 1973, Top of the Pops was at its height, the whole family for dinner and not a
worry in the world. But I guess that’s just a generation thing, however! As Noddy tells us, ‘it’s Chriiisssstmaaaaas.’ 8. Driving Home For Christmas by Chris Rea If you’ve ever lived half a country away from your family and have packed up the car with presents to head home for Christmas through the snow, the ice and the M25, you must appreciate at least the spirit of this 1986 song. 9. Jingle Bell Rock by Bobby Helms Chances are this 1957 stalwart either makes you think of Lethal Weapon or Mean Girls. Either way, it’s an ear worm. The song’s title and some of its lyrics are a parody of the old Christmas standards… Long may they reign! 10. I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday by Wizzard Definitely a must on anybody’s list, this 1973 blockbuster has to be one of the best Christmas songs of all time. The crazy Roy Wood and his loony costume were the epitome of a fun-filled Christmas holiday, and probably always will be.
Boggled How many English words can you find in the Boggled grid, according to the following rules? The letters must be adjoining in a ‘chain’. They can be adjacent horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Words must contain at least four letters and may include singular and plural or other derived forms. No letter may be used more than once within a single word, unless it appears twice. No vulgarities or proper nouns are permitted.
TARGET: Average: 27 Good: 35 Very good: 51 Excellent: 62
SCORING: 4 letters: 1 point • 5 letters: 2 points 6 letters: 3 points • 7 letters: 4 points 8 or more letters: 11 points
LAST WEEK’S SOLUTION sixth sift sifts dish fish fist fists foist foists fiat stem stir staid stair stamen test tent tents sent oats titan tans tang tame tames tamest nest nests naifs name aids aria arias atria attest ants ante amen astir mesh maid maids mats matte mans manse mane manes mange mast gnat gnats gent gents gems gums raid ratio trait traits trio sitar said sans sane sanest sang same smug star strait fats fang fair fame fames fast fume
Word Ladder WARM
LAST WEEK’S SOLUTION
Fill the grid so that every row, every column and every 3X3 box contains the digits 1-9. There’s no maths involved. You solve the puzzle with reasoning and logic.
Christmas songs
EURO WEEKLY’S SPACE FOR YOU TO TAKE A BREAK, BE INFORMED AND ENJOY A CHALLENGE
Answers:Tiny Tim, The night before Christmas.
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HOME BACK
Move from the start word (WARM) to the end word (HOME) in the same number of steps as there are rungs on the Word Ladder. You must only change one letter at a time.
WARM WORM WORE WOVE (TORE) HOVE (TOME) HOME
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PAINKILLER manufacturers have been accused of misleading consumers by selling pills that claim to tackle different ailments, but actually all have the same active ingredients. The case was brought to public attention when the maker of Nurofen was ordered by an Australian court to stop selling pills that claim to help certain ailments but are chemically identical. Many brands use similar tactics, all being paracetamol or ibuprofen based, but then being marketed to target certain pain such as back or joint pain or migraines. Which? magazine said research showed many products had the same active ingredients ‘despite vastly different
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Manufacturers under fire for misleading public
NUROFEN EXPRESS: Adverts under investigation. marketing, packaging and pricing.’ The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is now investigating whether a Nurofen Express advert was misleading as it implied the product directly targets head muscles.
Health Food Shop & Community Centre Are you looking for inspiration? You’ll be surprised at the range of natural & organic products available to inspire you.
In the Community Centre Kids Karate, kids Gymnastics Art classes, Pilates, Yoga, Tai-Chi, Salsa-size Spanish lessons and health screening
C/Malaga s/n, Albox, Almeria, Tel: 639 089 170 Mon-Fri 10am-6pm Sat 10am-2pm email: alboxgirasol@hotmail.com
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HEALTH BEAUTY
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It’s Christmas…Time to get off the treadmill and relax a while FitFoxy
Looking Good, Staying Trim
WHEREVER you may be and whatever you are planning to do this Christmas, be sure to allow yourself a little indulgence. If you have been taking care of yourself throughout 2015 and putting your body through its paces whether it be long-distance running, gym workouts or high intensity exercise classes, etc, it’s time to STOP and TAKE A DEEP BREATH… Now give yourself permission to physically and mentally unwind, enjoy your family and friends and take a little time out without feeling any guilt. There are a lot more elements to fitness than just the physical aesthetic aspect, and in order to have a healthy balance in our lives, we need to attempt to nurture all of them. In order to build and maintain a healthy body, you need to maintain a healthy mindset. If you are a creature of habit as I am, this can some-
CHRISTMAS GOODIES: A little indulgence can do you good. times be difficult, as quite often you will have formulated a rigid routine into your normal daily life. Generally I train five days a week and take weekends off. My diet is clean during the week and I don’t drink any alcohol unless it is the weekend or a special occasion arises. Alas, this is all going to change in the next week or so as I am quite partial to the odd tot of Baileys, box of chocolate liqueurs, mince pies, Christmas pudding and brandy cream... should I go on? I am also fully aware that I’m likely
to be around two kilos heavier by the time we hit New Year, but that’s fine by me; otherwise, what would my New Year challenge be? Your body will thank you for the rest and recuperation and you will be charged up to start 2016 with a full tank of enthusiasm, I assure you. And if you do not believe me... Well I’ll be here to inspire you back into shape in 2016, so watch this space! And have a great Christmas FitFoxy XX
HEALTH & BEAUTY
Functional foods SPANISH researchers claim to have developed a way of incorporating vitamin C into sausage. Agro Tech researchers from the Centro Empresarial de la Rioja have developed a microencapsulation technique, which allows the introduction of supplemental vitamin C in raw cured sausage, and they believe it opens the door to getting more vitamin-rich foods. However, so far the incorporation of functional food ingredients have not always beneficial, because sometimes these substances are degraded in the process of digestion. But in this case, researchers say they have used apple fibre as a coating to prevent the pH in the stomach acting in a negative way on essential components.
Having a baby later could be better for your health NEWS items and studies are continually telling women not to leave having children too late in life for risk of infertility and complications. But now, a new study offers older women a ray of hope, saying those who delay motherhood are more likely to enjoy better health in their 40s. It found that women who give birth for the first time between the ages of 25 and 35 report having better health by the age of 40 than women who have their first child between ages of 15 and 24. It is the first study in the USA to find that having your first child in young adulthood is associated with worse health years later. Each woman who took part in the study gave birth between the ages of 15 and 35 and were interviewed every one or two years from 1979 through to 2008. The women rated their own health at age 40 on a scale from poor to excellent.
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Ask The Doctor
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Arthritis issues
SPECIALIST: Doctor Luis Perez Belmonte. AS the cold weather is on its way, which often seems to worsen arthritis issues, we decided to ask the doctor about that this week. What is arthritis and when does it usually appear? Arthritis is the term we give to inflammation of the joints. Not all joint pain has to be arthritis; in fact, most joint pain is due to other causes which are not really arthritis. The reasons it can appear are varied and it can be caused by many things ranging from autoimmune inflammatory conditions, systemic illnesses to trauma, etc. Therefore, the moment it appears depends on the type of arthritis. Joint pain can be influenced by weather changes, diet, exercise and other factors meaning it can worsen in the winter. What are the most common symptoms? Arthritis causes joint pain along with swelling in the joints and surrounding areas which can lead to redness, increased temperature, stiffness and is also sometimes related to fevers and a general feeling of being unwell. It can affect any
joint in the body. How is it diagnosed? Diagnosis is initially reached by examining the patient’s medical history and listening to a specialist. This is followed by blood tests, x-rays of the affected joint and sometimes analysis of liquid from within the joint although this depends on the area and whether it is safe to draw off liquid. Are there any good treatments? The usual treatment involves resting of the joint and use of anti-inflammatory medications to reduce the pain. Sometimes the joint can be injected with medication and in severe cases surgery is an option. What about diet? Diet is important for almost all ailments. In this case it is of importance especially for those who suffer secondary arthritis due to gout. These patients should avoid products high in uric acid such as red meat, seafood and alcohol. Is exercise helpful? Exercise should be avoided while the pain is at its worst but added gradually to daily life as swelling reduces.
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VISIT WWW.EUROWEEKLYNEWS.COM/FEATURES/RESTAURANTS R2-D2 & C-3PO: Part of Star Wars.
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OCIAL CENE
The Force Awakens, (a new hope) AN adventure featuring the original trilogy’s triad has now been unleashed By Steve Walsh BEING fortunate enough - and of a certain age - to be in the cinema queues back in 1977 when Star Wars A New Hope first erupted onto the big screen enthralling Sci-fi fans all over the world, and being a ‘First Weekender’ and devout fan whose love of the Star Wars saga has been dwindled over the years with each successive tepid episode of the ‘prequel’ trilogy, I purchased my tickets and waited in line with an apprehensive renewed hope! I should have had faith in the force! I wasn’t disappointed. Beyond all expectation I found myself riveted to my seat within 15 minutes undergoing emotions lost to me since the 1970’s. Has JJ Abrams succeeded? You’d better believe it! But how did he do it? Well, It would be virtually impossible take a look at JJ Abrams’ challenge in
STORM TROOPERS: Soldiers from the Star Wars universe. breathing life back into the Star Wars franchise without comparing it to either the original trilogy or the prequel trilogy, since Abrams obviously made The Force Awakens with both of them blatantly in his face… And rightly so! So let’s compare: The Force Awakens is a stunning, loving homage to the original trilogy, and does everything correct in the same ways that the original ‘Holy Trini-
ty’ films did things correct. And in doing so, avoids all of the grind, drudgery, woodenness and struggle for story in the prequel set of films. It clearly and unreservedly sets out to establish itself as a nostalgic throwback to what made the adventure story so great and lovable in the first place, and my word does it succeed. Star Wars: The Force Awakens, is
set three decades after the fall of the Empire and the death of Vader, where the story of Luke Skywalker continues. Having turned his back on teaching the ways of the Force after his young Jedi students were destroyed, Skywalker has vanished, and in doing so has become a mythical figure to others in the galaxy. Being sought by members of the Resistance, and by a new dark force, The First Order, finding Skywalker is imperative to them both. So a new adventure featuring the original trilogy’s triad, joined by new heroes and villains, has now been unleashed. How could it possibly live up to the original? The series, that was created in 1977 by director George Lucas about young farm boy Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and space pirate Han Solo battling the Dark Side of the Force, is considered by a few to be the greatest piece of cinematic art ever created, by many to be the best Sci-fi story ever told, and by most to have fallen asleep with the prequels, has now awoken, been reborn, and is most certainly, A New Hope!
SOCIAL SCENE
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24 - 30 December 2015 / Costa de Almería
Home-made kart racing COUPONS can be used by the winners to buy school or sports equipment CUEVAS DEL ALMANZORA Town Hall has organised a home-made kart race on December 27. Children from 10 years old and adults can take part in the event which will leave from the Marques de los Velez Castle at midday. Registration at the town hall until December 23 or at
the starting line on the day of the race. There will be cash prizes for adults and coupons for the winning children which can be used to buy school or sports equipment. The town hall has set up a location where people can build their karts, as well as assessment.
KART RACE: The town hall has set up an area where the karts can be built, as well as assessed.
Mojacar Anglican Church THE An g l i c a n C h u rch of M o j a c a r, Al h a m b ra and L l a n o s h e l d a n Autum n Fa y r e in late No v e m b e r a n d raised €3,800 for church funds. The Church would like to thank shopkeepers and memb e r s wh o d o n a ted raffle prizes. On December 12 they held a Carol service in the P a r q u e C o m e r c ia l Moja c a r t o h e l p r a i s e funds for their mission Proje c t s: Asa d i s Lo s Gallardos, Heshima in Tanzania, the Anglican Diocese in Peru and the Butterfly Children. The y r a i se d € 1 4 2 which will help towards their t a rg e t o f € 1 , 0 0 0 per project. The Anglican Church of Mojacar would like to which everyone a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
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SOCIAL SCENE
Urcal Fat Boys n’ Birds 2015 DECEMBER 11 saw the culmination of this year’s annual c h a r i t y d r i v e b y the Ur c a l Fa t B o y s an d Birds. The event saw the members c a r r y o u t a se v en week ‘slimathon’ in aid of The Residencia Virgen del Rio in Huercal-Overa (the state care home for the elderly). Funds were raised in the form o f ‘ f i n e s’ f o r th e members, donations from memb e r s and t h eir suppo r t e r s a n d b y th e sale o f r a ff l e t i c k e ts . Also a ‘ f o o d b a n k ’ w as created. The culminating event was h e l d a t Ta b e rn a Amazir, Urcal, and consisted of a raffle, live music from ‘Naghar’ (a Spanish group from Aguilas) and a d i sc o b y Ste v e King. The evening was a great
success and thanks must b e g iv e n to th e p eo p le who very generously donated raffle prizes - which included members of the Club, but especially the prizes from Cruzcampo, an d M ig u el an d h is family from the Taberna Amazir. Congratulations go to all the raffle winners. Once all the donations and food stuffs had been collated, a small group of members and supporters visited the Residencia on December 15 and presented th e m w ith a to tal of €2,008 and 10 large sacks of foodstuffs. T h a n k s g o to M a ria Dolores from the Tourist Office for her assistance b u t ma in ly th a n k s g o to the residents of Urcal fo r all th e ir g e n ero u s s u p p o rt fo r th is w o rthy cause.
LOCAL MARKET: There are many selling fruit and vegetables.
What to do after Christmas dinner! Go for a long walk THERE are markets all around Almeria selling food or household items IF you need to get out of the hustle and bustle of the Christmas mayhem for a couple of hours, or simply need to walk off that Christmas dinner, a stroll around the market might be just what the doctor ordered. Some markets in Almeria this week are:
Albox General Market, Every Tuesday: Car Boot Sale. Every Saturday at Bar International 9am-1pm. Alfacar General Market, Every Wednesday Alhama de Granada
Market, Every Friday Almeria General Market, Every Friday Almerimar Los Llanos Market, Every Saturday and Sunday A range of local businesses, both English and Spanish are there every weekend.
€17,000, a record total THE Mojacar Branch of the Royal British Legion is delighted to announce their record total for Poppy Appeal for 2015 of €17,000. They would like to thank all the shopkeepers, bars who held quizzes, and all the public who helped or contributed.
T h i s w a s a n n o u n c e d a t t h e B r a n c h ’s Christmas lunch held at The Bistro, Vera Playa where a wonderful meal and entertainment by Kay Francis and Nadine were enjoyed. The Branch would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year.
Almuñecar General Market, Every Monday and Thursday Antas Outdoor Market, Every Monday Flea Market,Every Sun Vendors €5. Tel: 692 281 888. Arboleas Car Boot Sale, Every Sunday, Saturday 09:00-13:00. Tel: 950 069 157/636 373 761. Baza Car Boot Sale, Every Saturday 10:00-13:00. Further information Tel: 663 656 146. Weekly Market, Every Day Bedar General Market, Every Wednesday Calahonda General Market, Every Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat
WINTER OPENING HOURS FROM 2nd DECEMBER
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ALBOX & SURROUNDING AREAS
FESTIVE WARES: A wide variety of stands were set up.
Christmas market LOCAL residents were helped with their shopping ALBOX Council held a Christmas market on Plaza San Francisco La Loma from December 18 to 20. A wide variety of stands
were set up displaying all shorts of festive wares which helped local residents no end with their Christmas shopping.
ALBOX & SURROUNDING AREAS
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Entrepreneur group meets with Ciudadanos councillor for talks ASSOCIATION offers business owners technical advice THE Board of Directors of the Association of Entrepreneurs and Professionals from Albox-Valle del Almanzora (AEPA) met recently with Andalucian Ciudadanos councillor Marta Bosquet to talk about important issues in Albox. The meeting took place in the AEPA headquarters located in Albox. Central themes discussed were solutions to illegal housing and the need to reinvigorate local tourism. Many of the entrepreneurs shared similar priorities, like the construction of an access road to the industrial estate of Albox. Others issues tackled included the importance
of increased activity and urbanisation in industrial estates of Albox and the finalisation of the Almanzora Motorway. The Ciudadanos Councillor also said that her party had proposed grants to selfemployed people and smalland-medium-sized businesses and that those earning under the minimum wage would not have to pay registration costs. President of AEPA Martin Martos said that the meeting was a positive one and that AEPA thanked the councillo r fo r h e r in te re s t in t he economic situation of business owners in Albox and
Almanzora. AEPA is an association open to the professionals of Albox and the Valle of Almanzora that offers business owners and self-employed people technical advice, and helps them to cut costs and acquire business advantages.
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ALBOX & SURROUNDING AREAS
Red Cross campaign ready for collection THE headquarters of the Red Cross in Macael, which provides service to all the north of the province, has launched its campaign with the slogan, “There are many toys, one way of helping, get your solidarity in shape.” The campaign’s goal is to improve the quality of life of children and youth in difficult social situations by providing toys and games, but also by encouraging their personal development. There are two collection points in Albox. The Asamblea
local de Macael will operate from December 21 to December 23 and from December 28 to December 30, from 9.30am to 12.30pm. Meanwhile another pick-up point will be located on Calle Antonio Machado 11. It will be open from December 21 to December 23, in the morning between 10am and 12pm, and in the afternoon between 6pm and 8pm. The campaign aims to provide one toy for all of the children between birth and 17 years of age who currently use Red Cross services.
Ceramic nativity scene LOS PUNTAS, as they are known throughout the province, have set up their traditional ceramic nativity scene, the same as the one they made in 2014. The work is being shown to the public in the pottery shop located on Calle San Leonardo, and can be visited from December 14 onwards between 9am and 2pm and 4pm and 9pm. Schools and associations are also invited to see the nativity scene. Many local schools have planned school trips over the next few weeks.
WORK STARTED: To improve the surfaces of the service and
Roadworks to im
INCREASE of traffic in the area has left t THE Public Works and Housing Department has begun roadworks to improve the surfaces of the service and access roads to the industrial estate in Arboleas. The area is currently being used by motorists as a detour because of the roadworks on the A-334 motorway.
ALBOX & SURROUNDING AREAS
access roads to the industrial estate.
mprove access
the roads in a poor condition Public Works and Housing Territorial Delegate Joaquin Jimenez explained the increase of traffic in this area has left the roads in poor condition, so the Junta de Andalucia regional government has decided to refurbish the surfaces. The roads will be reinforced with a bituminous mixture, and then any road signs in need of restoration will be fixed up.
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Social action projects moving forward WILL offer assistance and support FOUR projects led by Almeria groups including one by El Saliente disabled association in Albox have been selected for inclusion in the 2015 Programme of Grants to Social Initiative Projects. The La Caixa Social Work, the Cajasol Foundation and the Junta de Andalucia regional government will be able to use the projects to offer assistance and support to groups in vulnerable situations in the community. Government Delegate of the Junta in Almeria Gracia Fernandez recently met with the directors of the Business Department of Caixabank, Jesus Vega and Antonio Garcia to sign the agreements, which will result in financial aid adding up to €82,880. The Programme of Grants to Social Initiative Projects is a regional project that hopes to support initiatives that improve the lives of Andalucians
in the midst of the current economic situation. The 2015 programme takes into account five distinct areas of focus: disability and dependence, socio-labour integration, poverty and social exclusion, social action and interculturality, and temporary residential resources. During the presentation of the selected projects in Almeria, Gracia Fernandez reminded the audience that “the collaboration of public administrations, private entities and citizen groups is vital to combat the situations of social exclusion, which unfortunately have been growing as a result of the economic crisis that is still going on.” Fernandez went on to give thanks to La Caixa Social Work and the Cajasol Foundation for their collaboration with the Junta and their support of important social initiatives.
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ALBOX & SURROUNDING AREAS
Albox children’s park will open in January WILL feature a sculpture of Fofo, the popular TV clown
NEW PARK: The work is well on its way and will open to the public soon. CONSTRUCTION work on the new Payaso Fofo children’s park in Albox has entered into its final phase and is nearly finished. The park will open its doors to the public at the beginning of January 2016. The project, which was carried out by the Town Planning
and Public Works Departments under the guidance of Provincial Plans, has come with a budget of more than €150,000. The space was financed 55 per cent through the Albox Town Council and 45 per cent through the Provincial Administration.
The work is well on its way with more than 95 per cent of the project finished. The only things left to do are the remodelling of a small garden area, the construction of a kiosk-bar and the refurbishing of a sculpture dedicated to Fofo, the popular clown from TV.
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Looking after plants over Christmas MANY people are busy with festive preparations, but don’t forget the plants need care too Dick Handscombe
Gardening Corner By Spain’s best known expatriate gardening author living in Spain for 25 years.
AT this time of year many expats are busy with the preparations and enjoyment of two weeks of Spanishstyle festivities stretching from Nochebuena (Christmas Eve), to Los Reyes (The Three Kings), with the Año Nuevo (The New Year) in the middle, but at the same time there are three sets of plants that need some care. Firstly, those plants in window boxes or pots to cheer up the front of the house. Typically these are poinsettias, cyclamens, mini roses, mini Christmas trees, crotons, kalenchoes, azaleas, chrysanthemums, pansies and violas. Many of these will have been grown in hot houses and until a few days before delivery to garden centres were used to almost continuous tray or drip feeding. So plant all of these in a moisture retaining compost mix and water them once or twice a week to keep the compost damp, especially if they are placed where they will receive sun for most of the day. If you have a box of the very useful TerraCottem water retaining soil/compost improvement gel make use of it.
TIPS: On how to care for your house and garden plants.
Secondly, do visit the greenhouse and/or cold frame every few days as these can get warm on sunny days and cuttings and seedlings can irreversibly dry out. Also sprinkle around a few ecological snail pellets because snails do look for winter shelter, and just one snail can cause havoc eating the
leaves of favourite cuttings for its Christmas lunch. Thirdly, emergent seedlings in the vegetable garden may still have shallow roots so don’t let these dry out. Fourthly, newly purchased house plants, especially flowering ones, will need watching and timely watering. These will often have been used
to a hot house with a high humidity but although living spaces in the house will be warm from log stoves or central heating the air will be dry with little humidity. So check the dampness of compost every two days and if it is starting to dry out give the plant a watering and also spray the leaves with a fine jet
water sprayer. ‘Amaryllis enjoy sunny windowsills’ ‘Hyacinths enjoy cool rather than hot conditions’ Christmas gifts may be any of the plants listed earlier plus bulbs. These are best placed on a regularly used covered terrace and if brought inside, restrict the hours in a hot room. Lastly, if tender potted plants have been kept on open or covered terraces, or around the front porch for a Christmas effect, do now give them protection from the possibility of freezing winds and heavy frost during January, February and early March. ‘My annual temporary winter plastic greenhouse’ I line a metal gazebo with a large sheet of plastic hoisted up over an old plastic table top, and tied back with lengths of wood to create a secure temporary green house for around 50 plants. In fact the cold house gets quite warm, so the door is opened up once a week and if things are drying out the inside is lightly hosed with a fine jet of water. Happy year end best wishes to all our readers and do keep all those plants alive. © Dick Handscombe www.gardenspain.com December 2015.
HOMES & GARDENS
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Photo by castielli, wikipedia
WILTING supermarket basil on the windowsill is one of life’s great consistencies, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Few realise that a pot of basil is not one plant but actually a tight gathering of around 20 odd seedlings, which makes it look full and vibrant. Ultimately, however, the seedlings will start to fight one another for space and nutrients, soon leaving them all wilting in an apt metaphor for the human race. To solve this puzzle, take out the clump of plants and divide into four, weed out the weakest seedlings and keep just five strong ones per clump. Plant each of the four clumps in their own individual pot with a soil-based potting mix. Generously dowse them in water, and leave them in a prime spot in the sunlight and reap the rewards later.
Photo by "Leif k brooks, Wikipedia Portobello mushrooms".
How to save your own basil
MUSHROOMS: Grow from spores, not seeds.
PLANT: Basil is made up of 20 odd seedlings, which make it look full and vibrant.
Magic mushrooms GROW your own, the results are certainly worth it By Matthew Elliott
Going over the top WHEN it comes to decorating the home at Christmas, just how much is ‘too much’? With windows sparkling from the Christmas lights, mistletoe hanging in doorways, table tops decorated with poinsettias, and a tree in the corner, some would say this was sufficient, however that someone isn’t Shirley Kline. For some, holiday decorating consists of putting up as much glitter, flashing lights, red and white, and seasonal delight as possible… With a few singing Santas to boot. In the house of Shirley Kline in St Josephs, Missouri, for instance, you will find a blindingly extravagant display including 50
Christmas trees… yes 50! The Klines have at least one Christmas tree in every room of their home, even the bathrooms. Shirley visits estate sales throughout the year purchasing ornaments, Christmas knick-knacks and related decorations continually adding to her extensive collection.
“We have over 50 Christmas trees this year,” she says. It seems like it gets a little bigger every year. The trees range in size starting with the main tree standing at nine feet tall, and the smallest tree in the home dropping down to six inches in size. Shirley proudly states each tree even has its own theme.
NO, not the hallucinogenic variety, but you really can work magic in the kitchen by growing your very own mushrooms, and adding a nutrient packed, fat-free addition to your culinary repertoire and gardening skills. Distinct from the plant kingdom, mushrooms grow from spores, not seeds, and don’t require sunlight to thrive. In fact it’s quite the opposite, mushrooms grow best in dark, cool and moist conditions, with some
species preferring humidity too. The best locations in the home are in the basement or even underneath the kitchen sink, while for those seeking a challenge, many species can be grown outside on the underside of a log. If you are growing inside, you can buy pre-packaged mushroom kits that come with a growing medium and spawn, this is a good way to kick out your mushroom adventure before moving onto growing without a kit, and entering the kaleidoscopic world of substrates and saw-
dust. There are many varieties of mushroom you can grow, with each adding a different international flair to your cuisine. An added bonus is that, unlike picking them wild, you can be sure you haven’t accidently plucked a poisonous one. Popular and easy to grow mushrooms include Enoki, Portobello, Oyster, Shiitake, Maitake, and steadfast button mushrooms. Each will require a different growing process, but the results are certainly worth it.
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PETS PAGE www.euroweeklynews.com Phot by yvan leduc
Your dog and new baby CHANGES in your pet’s routine should be introduced before your child arrives
David THE Dogman Listen to David on TRE every Saturday 10am to 11am Costa del Sol (Gibraltar/Sotogrande) 98.7fm (San Roque to Calahonda) 91.9fm (Calahonda to Motril) 88.9, Costa Calida 92.7fm Costa Blanca (Torrevieja to Elche) 105.1fm (Elche to Calpe) 88.2fm, (Calpe to Gandia & Ibiza) 104.6fm, (Denia to Valencia) 95.3fm Mallorca 103.9fm
GRADUALLY introduce changes in your dog’s routine as soon as you know a baby is on the way. If a dog does not connect the changes with the baby’s arrival, it has less reason to be jealous. Here are a few changes to introduce. 1. Your dog should not be the centre of attention at all times, and should not sit on your lap, (if at all) only when invited by you. 2. Get your dog used to being away from you, sometimes in another room, or an indoor kennel, never in the nursery. 3. Take a refresher course at a training school, and think about practice walks with the pram, it can be trickier than it sounds! 4. Check with your vet about canine hygiene and worming. When your baby is born your dog may be left for hours while you are in hospital, or upset by the excitement if you are at home. Arrange for someone the dog knows to look after and walk them. It is an old wives’ tale that letting your
CHANGES: If introduced early mean your dog has less reason to be jealous. dog drink breast milk or play with dirty nappies will help your dog and baby to become friends, but sending home a blanket that the baby has slept on may help your dog to get used to the baby’s scent. When you come home let someone else hold your baby while you greet your dog, introduce them later when he is calm. Do not try to keep your dog and baby completely apart, you won’t be able to keep it up! Teach them both to interact calmly and gently, no licking by the dog or grabbing by the child. Never ever leave dogs alone with babies or young children. Shut your dog out of the room or pop the baby in a secure playpen. This applies every time you use the bathroom, answer the door
or phone, or have a meal. It is not a matter of ‘trust’. Toddlers can accidentally injure or alarm dogs (eg by falling on them) and startled dogs may react impulsively, lashing out or biting. Your dog may have to wait in the queue for love but they still need you. Always having the baby nearby when giving him attention encourages your dog to accept having the baby around. The most tolerant dog needs peace and quiet sometimes, a place it can escape to without being followed (eg the bed). Allow the child to go there at other times to prevent it becoming an exclusive area which he feels entitled to defend. When your baby starts to crawl and walk teach your dog to step back out of their way in doorways and on stairs.
INSECTS: In China and Japan they are eaten.
Creepy crawlies FEAR of them is a very human trait By Matthew Elliott REVULSION and fear of insects is a very human trait, with millions of years of evolution teaching us to instinctively recoil at the sight of a creature that might bite, sting or spread disease. But in China and Japan insects are eaten, kept as pets and even venerated as an essential part of the environment. So if you’re looking to overcome a fear, do something a little different, or employ a useful creepy crawly to do some helpful housework, you might consider insects as pets. Believe it or not, some of them are quite beautiful. Consider the Monarch or Black Swallowtail butterflies, which are very easy to rear and would make a colourful addition to any garden. Or the pest-controlling, male-devouring praying mantis, that is nothing if not interesting to watch. Ladybirds and crickets are other possibilities for eager explorers, while an ant colony is a fascinating option.
PETS
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Don’t dress your animals up in Christmas gear By Matthew Elliott
MAKAI: Posing with dog walking charges, his family is travelling the world together.
Benefits of hosting pet-friendly families WHEN choosing a pet-sitter it goes without saying that you need to look for experience, and someone who has an affection and will cherish your animals. But does it have to be just one pet-sitter? Have you considered hosting a pet-friendly family who have experience pet-sitting? There are advantages. Originally from Canada, Makai and his parents started travelling the world about nine months ago. Both parents have portable careers and decided to pack up and find a way to make an extended adventure as a family. The way they make this affordable is they housesit and pet-sit as they go from place to place. Makai loves the pets, he is good with animals and both he and his parents now have
nearly a year’s solid experiences of caring for all kinds of domesticated pets from dogs, cats and rabbits to hens and donkeys. For most of the day time hours they manage his schooling online and the break times are spent with the animals. The routine is a regular structure to their day, and they flex according to the pet owners’ requests regarding the pet-specific requirements. Their favourite house-sitting assignment to date was to care for two small dogs on the Costa Almeria in Spain. They had two adorable dogs to care for and were only a five minute walk from the beach during May and June. What an ideal introduction to life in Spain.
To find a pet-sitter go to www.HousesitMatch.com or call Lamia on +44 (0)1865 521508
THE RSPCA has warned pet owners against dressing their favourite animals up in Christmas gear, as it can scare and upset them. Dr Samantha Gaines, a pet behaviour and welfare specialist at the RSPCA told the BBC: “For some dogs a costume can be worrying, or scary, especially if there a r e bits o n the costume that the dog isn’t used to that are flapping around.” She added that because dogs use their ears, tails, and eyes to communicate with other animals and their owners, they will likely feel vulnerable if those parts are covered up or their movement hindered. The charity, which focuses on animal welfare, has al-
A Yorkshire terrier is Britain’s oldest dog at 117 years old NAMED Jack, he is the eighth oldest dog in the world AT 117 dog years Jack the Yorkshire Terrier from Hartlepool has roared into the record books as the oldest dog in Britain, and the eighth oldest canine across the whole world. Celebrating his 26th birthday (in human years) on December 16, Jack is still in fine form, despite suffering from arthritis, and is still a cheeky chappy according to owner Ray Bunn. Now some of you may be
Celebrating his 26th birthday (in human years) this month, Jack is still a cheeky chappy according to his owner. wondering how 26 human years adds up to Jack’s epic 117, after all isn’t the ratio seven to one? Actually this peculiar rule of thumb is far from accurate
because dogs age quicker than humans in their early days, and slower in their later years. Smaller breeds also tend to live longer than their larger cousins. To give you an idea of what this means, smaller dogs like Jack will be 15 in dog years in their first human year, about 26 in their fifth human year, and 56 in their 10th. Old Jack, however, is off the charts, which usually stop at around 16 human years. So
congratulations Jackie boy. Long may you rove.
Photo by Sadie Hart, via flickr
THE RSPCA said it can scare and upset your pets v
DRESSING UP: Hinders your pet’s communication. so made a plea for pet owners to be responsible over Christmas, saying that last year they received almost a thousand calls on Christmas Day alone over neglect and abuse.
In lighter news they also revealed a survey which suggested three-quarters of pet owners would rather spend the festivities with their pet than their motherin-law.
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FEATURE
When Papa Noel visited Mojacar! He loved both roses and women Ric Polansky Ric Polansky moved to Mojacar in 1969 as a pioneer developer. He reads extensively and has travelled in South America panning gold and looking for El Dorado.
WHEN I arrived in Spain back in ‘69, being the brother of the owner of the company I was immediately elevated to head ‘go for.’ It was reputedly one of the best jobs in the company. No special pay and any trips I had to put in my own gas. But, since no one else wanted the task I quickly figured out they wouldn’t know how much time it took to accomplish the endeavour. So off I went in that proverbial ‘cloud of dust’ wherein I could take my own time which included sampling tapas and wine in abundance. The downside of being a ‘go for’ was being on call 24/7. Very late one Christmas feast night I was instructed to pick up a possible client arriving on a tourist liner in Alicante the next morning at seven. No bed for me. Nor details supplied to me about the circumstance. “You will recognise him right away. He will be the most unusual
HARRY: Dressed flamboyantly and was outspoken on any issue that differed from his views.
passenger you’ve ever met.” So off I drove with a few cold bottles of beer for company, to find Alicante, then a harbour and then a strange bloke by the name of Wheatcroft. Soon I realised the dilemma I was in. I had a name and would have to run and ask s ome 3,000 dis e mba rking passenger s bounding down the ramp. I surmised the situation. He was coming for a week, he would therefore be totting luggage. Within moments I spotted him. He had more facial hair than a Yeti. In England they were known as Dundreary whiskers, but I didn’t know that then. I began to feel sorry for myself, envisioning the long four hour drive home discussing nothing consequential with Sasquatch and wife. But what a story he had to tell: He refused
to fight in WWI, being a conscientious objector and was promptly sent to prison wherein he contracted tuberculosis. Fortunately on death’s door step he was released. A wealthy personage bequeathed him a small plot of land to use so that he could live in the sun. Nottingham wasn’t the exact place I would have chosen, but it was there that he began to do a business growing roses. He got healthier and jumped to the head of the queue at the famed botanical garden soci et i es by l endi ng speci al nam es and colour to his unique plants to make them even more memorable. Harry dressed flamboyantly and was outspoken on any issue that differed from his views. He also loved beautiful things; roses and women. Doss and he visited us on my request for two years straight staying with us. He is most remembered amongst our family by the quote from son Luke. A fellow childhood classmate had announced the pending visit of their Grandmother and Grandfather. Not to be outdone Luke retorted: “Oh ya, well we got Papa Noel with us for a week.”
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OPINION & COMMENT
Stromare
Spare a thought for the events of December 20, 1973 Cassandra Nash A weekly look - and not entirely impartial reaction to the Spanish political scene
AS Spain digests its Christmas Eve dinner and politicians digest the election results, spare a thought for December 20, 1973. That was when the car of Spain’s Prime Minister Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco was blown up in Calle Claudio Coello in Madrid. He was returning home after Mass as he did each morning in his official car, a black Dodge, and his unvarying routine made him an easy target. The attack was carried out by ETA’s five-strong Txikia commando and took more than a year to set up. The choice of Carrero Blanco
SANTOÑA (CANTABRIA): The monument to Carrero Blanco in his birthplace.
was an obvious one, he had been a close adviser to Franco since 1941, when he came to the dictator’s notice after writing a report advising against entering the Second World War on the side of the fascist Axis. The admiral was made a minister in 1951, became vice-prime minister in 1967. He was named prime minister six months before his assassination. The aging dictator, who boasted that all loose ends were ‘tied up and well tied up,’ trusted that on his death Carrero Blanco would ensure that the Movimiento, Spain’s only political organisation, survived after Prince Juan Carlos was proclaimed King. So what was in Franco’s mind when he began his Christmas speech that year with the phrase: ‘No hay mal que por bien no venga?’ Using the equivalent of
‘It’s an ill wind that blows no good’ generated inevitable conspiracy theories. How could the ETA commando spend a year in Madrid setting up the plot to kill Carrero Blanco without detection? Why did Henry Kissinger, the US Secretary of State, visit Madrid two days previously? Better still, Carlos Arias Navarro, the former Interior minister who replaced Carrero Blanco as prime minister, was nominally in charge of providing him with protection, and should have uncovered the plot, it was suggested. Two years later, Franco was dead and Arias Navarro would be in office for only a few months more. He was replaced by Adolfo Suarez who, together with Juan Carlos I, steered Spain to democracy. But that’s another story.
Grim reality as Snow White’s seven ‘dwarfs’ are given the heigh-ho... PANTO bosses in Leicester are replacing them with ‘friends’ Nora Johnson
Breaking Views Nora is the author of popular psychological suspense and crime thrillers and a freelance journalist. To comment on any of the issues raised in her column, go to www.euroweeklynews.com/3.0.15/nora-johnson
“ONCE upon a time in the middle of winter, when the flakes of snow were falling like feathers from the sky, a queen sat at a window sewing . . .” Thus begins the tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Unless you live in Leicester, where this year the pantomime is Snow White. Just Snow White. A Christmas panto where she’ll have ‘friends’, possibly seven, but definitely no dwarfs. ‘Dwarf,’ a spokesman for the venue explained to a local paper, ‘is not a term that people feel comfortable with.’ Hmm. So, politically-correct panto bosses have given Snow White’s seven ‘dwarfs’ the heigh-ho... by replacing them with ‘friends’. This is the result
LONELY: No dwarfs for Snow White in Leicester this year. of daft, left-wing political correctness, and the people of Leicester have every right to feel short changed. Is no one going to stand up for all those in society who are vertically challenged? And what about the Christmas concert, when children were ordered to change the traditional lyrics of the Christmas song about the little donkey said to have carried the pregnant Mary
to Bethlehem because they were ‘too religious’. Instead of ‘Little donkey, carry Mary’, the youngsters were told to sing ‘carry Lucy’ for fear of offending non-Christians. Next, we’ll have the race for the first Church of England vicar to tell some tiny toddlers Santa doesn’t exist, and the first local council to erect in the town square an edgy ‘seasonal, inclu-
brand it a ‘winter concert’, which will not feature any religious songs. He’s also, reportedly, not allowing two mothers to teach Christmas carols to the children during lunch breaks. This in Italy, a primarily Roman Catholic country! Ah, with all this PAISAN HOMHUAN / Shutterstock.com talk of political correctness, it’s already beginning to feel like Christmas. And a sure sign that Santa’s sive, celebratory installation’ instead of already having his sleigh valeted at baby Jesus in his crib. Kwik Fit. Happy Christmas! All this amid news that an Italian Nora Johnson’s thrillers ‘Landscape headmaster has banned Christmas conof Lies’, ‘Retribution’, ‘Soul Stealer’, certs and carols in his school near Mi‘The De Clerambault Code’ lan in the name of multiculturalism. He (www.nora-johnson.com) available triggered protests from parents and from Amazon in paperback/eBook media flak by opting to postpone the (€0.89;£0.79) and iBookstore. All annual Christmas concert for primary profits to Cudeca charity. school pupils until January, and re-
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Motoring shorts
Top Gear may have new rival ITV have come into the fray of motoring shows with the announcement that they are about to launch a show to rival Top Gear. The Drive, as it will be called, will see celebrities lined up against one another on the track, where they will compete against the clock to become the top driver. The winners will then fight it out to be the series champ in a grand finale. One of the stars who has signed for the new show is former model and TV presenter Melinda Messenger. She told The Daily Star she wasn’t always the best driver: “On my first driving lesson I almost took a slip road to the motorway by mistake, which resulted in lots of shouting. The instructor asked me to swap seats.” A source said: “Think Top Gear’s ‘Star in a reasonably priced car’, and that’s Drive. But ours is more like stars in a very expensive car.”
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Clarkson Quote of theWeek
MOTORING www.euroweeklynews.com
That Zonda, really! It’s like a lion in orange dungarees. Kind of fierce, but ridiculous all at the same time.
Some might say...
Saying goodbye to a legend
CAR: An iconic offroader.
ONE of the most recognised vehicles By Steve Walsh A ONE-OF-A-KIND Land Rover Defender sold for a record £400,000 (€549,224) at a prestigious charity auction at Bonhams, from which all proceeds are being donated to Land Rover’s humanitarian and conservation partners. This is thought to be the most valuable production Land Rover ever to be sold at auction. As the world bids a fond farewell to the classic Land Rover Defender, fans of the
iconic offroader are clicking like mad to see a new film celebrating one of the world’s most recognisable vehicles. The film was commissioned to celebrate the global automotive icon and to promote the charity auction of the Defender 2,000,000, which took place at Bonhams headquarters in London on December 16, where it sold for £400,000 (€549,224). The film is called ‘From production to auction, the Defender 2,000,000 journey’, and marks the event as Land Rover ambassadors and well-known
fans of Defender visited the Solihull production line to help build the Defender 2,000,000. Funds from the sale of this vehicle will be going to Land Rover supported charities, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the Born Free Foundation. FOND FAREWELL: To the Land Rover Defender.
You can see the film by following this link: http://www.landrover.com/above-and-beyond/celebrate-defender/2-million-vehicles.html
Mercedes launch stunning Cabriolet EVEN with it being remarkably mild for the time of year, the weather isn’t exactly idyllic for opentop motoring. Odd then that Mercedes should decide now to launch its stunning new AMG S65 Cabriolet. The new Mercedes-AMG S65 Cabriolet packs
the largest engine available through AMG. The 6.0-litre, 12-cylinder engine is good for 631 horsepower and 738 pound-feet of torque, all of which is sent, very quickly indeed, to the rear wheels by way of a seven-speed automatic transmission.
Not that you have efficiency in mind after reading that sentence, but you’ll be happy to know that the engine comes equipped with stopstart technology to spare a small amount of fuel. So, by owning this car you will be helping the environment as well!
MOTORING
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24 - 30 December 2015 / Costa de Almeria
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SPORT
José departs, Foxes top do United booed off, Test retu ACTION-PACKED line-up of sport for the festive period Tony Matthews International Sports A former player and now the world’s most prolific author of football books with almost 150 published since 1975, Tony is also the sports correspondent for Spectrum Radio and lives on La Pilica in the Sierra Cabrera Mountains overlooking Turre. Costa de Almeria
TRADITIONALLY over the Christmas period, millions of supporters attend various sporting events – and 2015 will be no different to any other year with football, cricket, rugby and horse racing among the many pastimes which will be well attended from now until the end of the month.
WORLD CLUB CUP CHAMPIONS: Fifth trophy for Barcelona.
FOOTBALL – Over the festive season, there are full programmes of Premiership, Championship, Leagues 1 and 2, Scottish and Conference football matches. • On Boxing Day, PL leaders Leicester visit Liverpool before taking on Manchester City who start their holiday fixtures with a home game against lowly Sunderland. • High-placed Arsenal travel to Southampton and then play in-form Bournemouth at The Emirates; Manchester United (booed off after losing at home to Norwich last Saturday) go to Stoke before welcoming Chelsea, who sacked José Mourinho last Thursday, seven months after winning the title,
and placed former boss Guus Hiddink in temporary charge. The reigning champions start the festive season with a home game against in-form Watford who walloped Liverpool 3-0 last Sunday. • Bottom club Aston Villa play West Ham (H) and Norwich (A), Newcastle entertain Everton and then visit WBA while Sunderland also have to play at Anfield. • The top Championship games on December 26/28 are firstly Blackburn v leaders Middlesbrough, BrentfordBrighton (whose record 21match unbeaten run ended last weekend), Derby-Fulham and Hull-Burnley, followed by Brighton-Ipswich,
Leeds-Derby, MiddlesbroughSheffield Wednesday and PNE-Hull. In Leagues 1 and 2, the top matches are Bradford City-Burton, Coventry-Port Vale, Oxford-Exeter and Walsall-Peterborough, while in Scotland it’s Hearts-Celtic, Rangers-Hibs and AnnanClyde. • Tottenham Hotspur will have a new ground by August 2018. The capacity will be 61,080 (bigger than The Emirates) and will cost £400m, with another £275m being spent on adjoining facilities, including 600 flats, a museum, medical centre, numerous shops and restaurants. • Barcelona won their fifth trophy of 2015 by
lifting the World Club Cup, defeating River Plate 3-0 in Yokohama. • Ex-Fulham star, Coventry City manager, football innovator and BBC Match of the Day presenter Jimmy Hill has died aged 87. He gave me a trial with Sky Blues in the mid-1960s. RIP CRICKET – The first Test between South Africa and England starts in Durban on Boxing Day… the second Test between Australia and the West Indies will commence in Melbourne… and New Zealand face Sri Lanka in Christchurch. RUGBY UNION – Dylan Hartley will captain England in the 2016 Six Nations tournament and over the
holiday period, the top Aviva PL games are Exeter-Sale and Leicester-Newcastle, followed by Bath-Worcester, Harlequins-Gloucester and WaspsSaracens. TENNIS - Andy Murray, who is retaining Amelie Mauresmo as his coach, may pull out of the Australian Open in Melbourne next month, if his wife goes into premature labour. Heather Watson has split with her coach Diego Veronelli and Roger Federer will partner Martina Hingis in the mixed doubles at the Rio Olympics next summer. HORSE RACING – My tips for the King George VI Chase at Kempton Park on Boxing Day are Silviniaco
SPORT
24 - 30 December 2015 / Costa de Almeria
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ogs, urns
Mickey Mouse at Aguilon
INSPIRING: Andy Murray voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
Conti and Cue Card with Don Poli the outsider CONGRATULATIONS – Last Sunday Andy Murray was crowned BBC Sports Personality of the Year; Team of the Year was GB’s Davis Cup tennis squad; gymnast Ellie Downie was Young Sports Personality for 2015; Kiwi rugby star Dan Carter took the ‘Overseas’ top prize; NI’s soccer boss Michael O’Neill was Coach of the Year and jockey Tony McCoy was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Other awards went to Damien Lindsay (unsung hero) and young Bailey Matthews (Helen Rollason award winner). CHRISTMAS FOOTBALL FACTS • In 1955, Numancia and Lugo drew 6-6 here in Spain. • Lee Holmes was 15 when he made his debut for Derby in 2002. • Newcastle scored 16 goals against Merseyside clubs
RIP: Football innovator Jimmy Hill.
THURSDAY December 17, and the 19th Hole Golf Society returned to Aguilon Golf Course to play a Four Ball Waltz and Mickey Mouse Ball competitions. For some, the complexity of scoring two competitions was all too much and returned cards reminiscent of how lines used to be written whilst in school detention. The Brian (Dee) Lowden team of Don Harbron, John Ball and Mike Palmer, managed to win the Waltz with a very respectable score of nett 109, with Chrissie and Pete Dow, Gary Grey and Tony Mackay in close second place with 108 points, and only losing the Mickey Mouse ball in the water on the 18th. Chrissie kindly donated all the prizes for the Nearest the Pin holes, in celebration of her recent birthday. Brian Hunt had an interesting round, he found it more satisfying to hit almost every palm tree on the course rather than the fairways - each to his own! In the Mickey Mouse Competition only one team managed to nurture it all the way round. Nigel Greenwood’s team of Geoff Smith, Bob Tagg and Billy the Ghost, returning Mickey with a score of 26 points. Other Results: Nearest the Pin 3rd, Ron (The Rocket) Curtis 8th, Pete Dow 12th, Ralph Hunter 16th, in Two, Syd Walker 17th, Tony Mackay Twos 14th, Ralph Hunter 17th, Brian Hunt The 19th Hole Golf Society plays each week at various courses in the area, their home course is Aguilon which they play fortnightly. To join or come and play ring the secretary on 610 340 653 or email: gs19thhole@hotmail.co.uk. in 1933, beating Everton 7-3 and Liverpool 9-2. • In 1927, Luton led Northampton 5-0 at half-time in a League game; final score Luton 5 Northampton 6. • In 1962,
Oldham beat Southport 11-0 - the biggest ever Fourth Division win. • 20,851 fans saw the last League game played on Christmas Day when Blackpool beat Blackburn 4-2 in 1965. • Leicester were bottom of the PL 12 months ago; now they’re top! And with that I would like to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas
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Badgers special round of golf at Alboran DAVE WRIGHT produced a special round of golf at Alboran on Wednesday 15. The weather was perfect and Dave made the most of the conditions by showing a new level of consistency throughout the round. He not only won the Stapleford competition with 35 points from Tony Rowbot t om and Wendy England respectively with a battling 34 points, but also won a hat-trick of nearest the pins and walked away wi t h al l t he wi nni ng prizes. Well done, Dave. The rest of them all still had a great day. Results: 1st, David Wright, 35 points 2nd, Tony Rowbot tom, 34 on count back 3r d Wendy Engl and 34, points on count back Nearest the pins: 9th, 12th and 15th all went to Dave Wright to finish off a special day. For further information about Badgers call Mike Daily on: 664 876 995.
The last but one Stableford of year VILLARICOS held their penultimate Stableford competition of 2015 on a near perfect Aguilon GC on December 8. In such conditions they make a special mention to Ken Lee who found trees to be magnets and was in 16 bunkers in 18 holes, his return of 14 points being his lowest in 11 years of golf in Spain!
Nearest the pin prizes went to Chris Tyler on the 3rd, and Ron Drewe on the 14th. Chris also managed to take the Division 1 award with 32 points, from runner-up Tom Tannant. Division 2 went to Jim Laing on 31, from Penny Craig on 30. The final of the seasonlong Matchplay singles was between Mick Gardner and
Chris Tyler. Mick started very well winning three of the first four holes, Chris played the middle of the course well, however, dropping just two shots to the course between holes 6 and 13. This proved to be decisive as despite a birdie on 14, Mick could not find his best golf, Chris finally winning 5 and 3.
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Dylan Hartley will captain England in the 2016 Six Nations tournament. He was dropped from the World Cup after being banned for a head-butt. Costa de Almería’s best guide to local sport
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Texas Scramble with a twist
FREE kick and string involved MARINA PHOENIX held their Christmas Competition last week: a Texas Scramble with a free kick, throw and a piece of string to add to the entertainment. In addition, there were various pin prizes on 10 holes and a ‘halfway house’ for refreshments. The winners with an impressive nett 54.2 were Les Armfield, Don Atkins, Kathy Morris and Stan Dyson. A tie
on 54.4 went on countback to Ali Mahmud, John Lally, José Urroz and Rosalie Fardon, followed in third by George Waghorn, Alan Morris, Derick Dale and Pat Waghorn. Monday’s Individual Stableford saw José Urroz score 36 points to win the day. Les Armfield was second (34) on countback, from Jim Budd (34). The ladies’ division was a
success for Margaret Budd (34), followed by Isobel Jones (33) in second, and June Nicol (32) third. There were nearest the pin prizes for June Nicol (5th) and Les Armfield (17th). Marina Phoenix play Mondays (individual) and Thursdays (team game). To join them for a €25 green fee, ring Jim on 950 162 727/600 353 670 or Rosalie 950 397 117/ 697 512 882.
IN FESTIVE MOOD: Marina Phoenix held their Christmas Competition.