A ride to the light-side TIME TO TAKE A TRIP TO THE COSTA DE LA LUZ
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about
Costa de la luz
LIGHT YEARS AWAY! a tour of The Olive Press takes de la Luz’s some of the Costa as the under-the-radar spots, coastal gem largely unheralded by girds itself for discovery British tourists
ALLURE: A Chiclana beach welcome (above) and the chapel of Santa Ana
P
highest point in ChiclaBy Walter Finch ERCHED upon thesits the round cupola of na de la Frontera Ana. the Ermita de Santa on one of the fabled dotted with stunning town, Huelva. The church is located in the sprawling de los is a beautiful coastline la Frontera and Zahara ‘seven magical spots’marshlands just south of It ill effects of towns, like Vejer de lodged among salty unscathed from the was Atunes, largely Cadiz. radar, tourism. long before the chapel international tourism the In the 9th century, an old watch tower from mass to dodge By flying under the built in 1733, it was scanned the horizon. the Costa de la Luz has managedMalaga, where of the Sevilla and where the town’s defenders for the telltale sight fate of neighbours has sent the cost of living They were looking huge tourist demand no is dreaded Viking longboat. Chiclana years later, airline Jet2 to Now, over a thousand – but the coast it used to spiralling. announcement by from So the recentof new routes to nearby Jerez has longer a frontier town itself for another invasion open a raft guard is preparing tourists! page the north… from Luz stretches from Tarifa in Continues on next sparThe Costa de la point, through the Spain’s most southerncity of Cadiz, and up into kling coastal fortress
seat Take a front row la Luz’s on the Costa de square most beautiful 02 +34 956 45 53 m www.garimbasur.co 32 – 11150 Plaza de España, Cádiz Vejer de la Frontera,
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Whitewash claims as former leaders who oversaw Spain’s biggest corruption scandal could avoid prison
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THEY oversaw the biggest public money fraud in Spanish history, syphoning €680 million into a pot of cash known as the ‘reptile fund’. Yet former Andalucia leaders Jose Antonio Griñan and Manuel Chaves could now see their convictions overturned. In an extraordinary judgement, the Constitutional Court has significantly reduced the sentences of 15 politicians who were convicted in the infamous ERE scandal.
Embezzled
The socialist politicians, who ran Andalucia for 23 years, famously embezzled the money into hidden accounts, which were used by friends, families and to pay off enemies. The slush fund - which was meant to help struggling businesses, create new ones or to help pay redundancies came from Brussels and Madrid. The most celebrated case saw the for-
By Walter Finch
mer Employment Minister and his driver set up two bogus companies, which were handed €350,000 each in grants. Javier Guerrero and his so-called ‘Cocaine chauffeur’ infamously spent much of the money on prostitutes, cocktails and drugs, after knocking off work at 2pm. “We Andalucians knew exactly what those funds were used for, and it was certainly not for the general interest or progress,” said PP minister Ana Mestre this week. “If they governed today, the PSOE would just do it all over again.” But this hasn’t stopped Madrid’s Constitutional court from significantly reducing the sentences of 12 of the convicted 15 politicians. Former ministers Antonio Fernandez, Francisco Vallejo and Jesus Rodríguez
will all walk free, while Carmen Martinez and Miguel Serrano will also be released. And, incredibly, the six year sentence handed to Griñan for his involvement in the 2000 to 2009 corruption scheme is to be overturned as well. A draft ruling, expected to be approved next week, will mean Griñan never sees the inside of a prison cell, PARDONED: Chaves and Griñan as up to now he has been oversaw €680m corruption scandal suffering from ill health. The same court could also allow fellow Antonio Sanz, a PP minister in the ex-president, Chaves, to see his nine- Junta, declared they would ‘still do year disqualification from public office everything possible to recover all the quashed. stolen money.’ The rulings, which were confirmed by “No matter how much the PSOE tries seven votes to four, were opposed by to erase its past of corruption, it will the four conservative judges, who ac- not be able to cover up the biggest case cused the court of granting ‘immunity’ of corruption in the history of Spanish to former PSOE officials. democracy,” he added.
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