Future uncertain for emblematic Huercal Overa building

The council of Huercal Overa has decided not to go ahead with the compulsory purchase of the Cuatro Torres building in the town. The plan to buy the building was initiated in 2001 but due to obstacles presented by the present owners and the fact the council no longer needs it for the use it intended to put it to, i.e. as an administrative building for the cultural activities in the municipality (these activities are now carried out in the offices of the town's new thatre) the decision has been taken to abandon the purchase process.

The Palacete de Cuatro Torres building is an impressive piece of nineteenth century architecture situated in the centre of the town directly in front of the town hall and its abandonment has led it to fall into a state of disrepair generally lamented by the town's inhabitants.

Wi-Fi installed in Valle del Este

The Valle del Este residential complex which covers an area of about 108 hectares has become a Wi-Fi internet hot spot. Now it is possible to connect to the internet in any of the more than 1,300 homes, 142 hotel rooms or 18 golf holes which make up the course. The system has been developed jointly by Sistelec and Ingenova and consists of several exterior SkyPilot nodes installed around the complex. The wireless network has several features such as the capability to support converged voice, data and video, permitting broad band internet and VoIP and Video IP functionality, traffic prioritization and the creation of Virtual LANs for dedicated services.

Turtles hatch successfully on Cabo de Gata beaches

In a project being carried out by the regional ministry for the environment and the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC – Higher Council for Scientific Research) 250 Loggerhead turtle eggs collected from the Cape Verde archipelago off the west coast of Africa were buried in three nests on beached in the Cabo de Gata natural park. Of the 250 eggs 247 hatched, a result which has been hailed as a resounding success by the scientists as normally less than half of this type of eggs hatch on the Cape Verde beaches from which they were collected.

After they hatched the young turtles were immediately captured to be taken to marine centres in Malaga and Cadiz where they will be kept in semi-freedom until they are a year old at which time they will be brought back to the beaches in Almeria to be released. The aim of the experiment is to see if the turtles will then return to these beaches to lay their own eggs when mature thus perpetuating the repopulation of the species in the sea off the coast of Almeria.

Loggerhead turtles (Carreta carreta), known in Spanish as tortuga boba (daft turtles), can reach weights of more than 100 kilos in as little as five years and it has been reported they can grow up to 364 kilos in weight and 1.1 metres in length. It is estimated they live 30 to 62 years in the wild.

Government cuts solar energy subsidies

The Spanish governments decision to cut back solar energy subsudues, a move which came into force on Octber 1^st, may actually help the solar energy sector in Andalucia. The government has decided to reduce by 27 per cent the tariffs paid for electricity generated in photovoltaic plants – something which should drive investors to the areas with most sunshine hours and therefore more cost efficient energy production, i.e. Andalucia. The new energy quotas will also favour rooftop installations over 'solar farms' on the ground.

The Spain has the second most powerful photovoltaic energy production sector in the world after Germany and the new regulations are aimed at making the sector profitable without relying on government subsidies by the year 2015 as well as saving the treasury a lot of money. The tariff paid for electricity generated by solar plants on the ground or on rooftops was 44 cents per kilowatt hour which will fall now to between 32 and 34 cents per kwhour. The annual photovoltaic power quota has been fixed at 400 megawatts; 265 for rooftop installations and 135 for ground installations. In the year 2007 alone 634 megawatts of potential photovoltaic power generation was installed. The higher quota for rooftop installations is intended to promote this kind of system as they are more efficient, producing energy close to where it is to be consumed thus avoiding losses derived from transporting the energy. The lower subsidies should also encourage research and development in the sector as cheaper panel production costs and greater efficiency will lead to higher profits.

World’s third largest photovoltaic plant opened in Almeria

The president of the Junta de Andalucia, Manuel Chaves, has inaugurated a photovoltaic power generation park in Lucainena de Las Torres. The plant has a generating potential of 23.1 megawatts peak making it the third most powerful in the world after the Solarpark "Waldpolenz" in Germany and the planta solar Fuente Alamo in Murcia. The plant has about 135,000 generation cells covering an area of 450,000 square metres and has meant an investment of 140 million euros for the German company New Energy Invest GmbH. The park had to be officially open and registered with the Spanish authorities before the end of September to guarantee that the electricity generated would be bought at the subsidised tariff of 41.75 cents per KW hour, as the government reduced the price paid for energy generated by this type of installation to 31 cents per KW hour on October 1^st.

The plant should generate 35 million KW/H per year which is the electricity consumed by about 9,000 average households. The coal fired power station in Carboneras has a generating potential of 860 MW, about 40 times that of the new photovoltaic plant, which results in the emission of some 6,300,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, meaning the new park could be thought of as avoiding the emission of more than 150 million kilos of CO2 into the atmosphere each year.

European Union encourages language learning

Ever considered learning Bulgarian? What about Maltese or Irish? When it comes to languages, the European Union offers plenty of choice: 23 official languages and more than 60 others widely used. But for all that linguistic diversity, only about half of EU citizens can hold a conversation in a second language. And that's a big problem in today's global economy.

A new policy paper from the European Commission calls for an EU-wide approach that starts from the position that learning other languages is a lifelong process – not one that ends with school. The goal is to create opportunities to learn languages later in life, in vocational and continuing education programmes, for example. Ideally Europeans would learn at least two languages besides their mother tongue. Foreign language skills are vital to a cutting-edge economy. According to an EU-commissioned study, many small and mid-sized firms are losing business because of communication barriers. Recruiters say they have a hard time filling jobs requiring foreign language skills.

The demand isn't just for English. With companies doing business around the world, there's a growing need for other languages, including Russian and German (for Eastern Europe), French (Africa) and Spanish (Latin America). Within the EU, the problem has become more pressing with the addition of 12 new member countries in recent years – more than doubling the number of official languages.

To promote the learning of foreign languages and the art of communicating between them, this year the European Commission is holding a translation contest for 17-year-olds. Any secondary school in Europe can apply - by registering by October 20th. Shortly afterwards, the schools that will participate in the contest will be randomly selected by the Commission. By November 12th, the selected schools must submit the names of up to four pupils, together with the language pairs they have chosen for the contest. The pupils are free to choose any pair from among the EU's 23 official languages. For best results, however, professional translators normally translate into their mother tongue or strongest language (the one they feel most comfortable in). The translations will be evaluated by professional translators at the European Commission and the winners invited to Brussels in 2009 for an award ceremony where they can meet each other as well as some of the EU translators.

More information at;

http://ec.europa.eu/translation/contest/

Almeria company present flexible solar panels

Solmeraya was formed only six months ago as a 'spin-off' company of the University of Almeria, with a 200,000 euro loan from the Agencia de Innovacion y Desarrollo de Andalucia (IDEA) (Andalucia Innovation and Development Agency), a regional government agency, as part of a government initiative to provide funds to commercialise new technologies developed in Spanish universities.

The product which Solmeraya is promoting is a second generation technology of photovoltaic cells which are flexible and weigh less than a tenth of traditional solar cells. The idea is to use these specially adapted cells in the agricultural sector to make covers for the small reservoirs dotted around the Almerian countryside, to put on barns and storage buildings and to even to be used to cover parts of greenhouses. Their use as water deposit covers has the added advantage of keeping the temperature of the water down, avoiding evaporation and the formation of algal blooms.

The company is has announced that its research is now in its last phase and they plan to start production by the end of October from provisional premises in Almeria, with plans to move to the new PITA (Almeria Innovation and Technological Park) soon. They already have two orders from companies in Almeria.

Solar cooking but no sun

The 'Cheff Tour 2008' which started with the summer solstice in June came to Padules last week to promote Almerian chefs, gastronomic tourism, healthy cuisine and 'ecological' cooking using solar ovens (when the sun shines). Padules was the fourth destination for the tour this year after passing through Tabernas, Almeria and Vera during the summer. The tour is organised by Castillo de Tabernas olive oil producer, the Asociacion de Cocineros Reposteros Indalo de Almería 'CRIA' ( the Indalo Almerian Association of confectioners and pastry cooks) and Silestone, one of the biggest manufacturers of artificial stone for kitchens in the world.

Sergi Arola, one of Spain's leading avant garde chefs whose skills won two Michelin stars for La Broche restaurant in Madrid, participated in the Almeria edition of the tour and has spoken of the enormous potential of solar cooking in Spanish cuisine.

The mayor of Padules, Antonio Gutierrez, said that the initiative had awoken expectation, curiosity and interest among the town's inhabitants and that traditional Alpujarra cooking is already an important tourist reference which could benefit from the use of clean and renewable energy and that restaurants in the Alpujarra are contemplating the installation of solar ovens, which, with the magnificent meteorological conditions of the area with a high number of hours of sun throughout the year, could lead to the creation of special dishes and could become a new tourist attraction for the area.

Albox parents want new home for music school

The parents and teachers students at the Conservatorio elemental de Musica de Albox, the Albox
elementary music conservatory, have complained to the town's mayor, Jose Garcia, about the unacceptable conditions the children have to study in after the council promised to move the conservatory this year. They claim that the mayor said last December that the conservatory would be housed in the new multiple uses building in the town for the 2008-2009 academic year. The mayor has responded to the parents, telling them that the new building is not suitable for use as a conservatory as it is not soundproofed and does not meet necessary safety requirements for this function.

The conservatory is currently housed in a building which is more than thirty years old and, according to teachers and parents, has not been maintained. They claim that it has problems with damp, that the electrical installation doesn't work with sockets that need to be hit to make them work and that the toilets are broken. The mayor himself has said that the building is in a lamentable state but that adapting the new multiple uses building so it could be used for teaching music would be very costly.

Turre to make new school bilingual

The Turre town council voted last week to start to take the steps necessary to make the town's new school bilingual in Spanish and English. The move is seen as something the town will benefit from given that a large proportion of its residents are British, and it will also allow the town to help meet the national ministry of education's target of closing the gap in foreign language skills between Spain and the rest of Europe.

Heavy rain leaves Mojacar residents cut off

Heavy rains over the weekend resulted in about fifteen people who live in the part of Mojacar known as Cuevas Negras being unable leave their homes when their only access road was flooded. The local police and council workers took three hours to solve the problem and clear the water from the road and repair the damage caused.

The Turre fire fighters were called out to Garrucha to pump water out of a house which was flooded by the rain and to help clear the water from a road next to the beach in Vera which was also flooded by the rainfall.

Albox to Fines motorway stretch to open in December

The provincial delegate for public works, Alejandra Rueda, has announced that the 7.9 kilometres of new motorway between Albox and Fines should be finished this December. This will be the first section of the 'marble motorway' to be opened to traffic after more than three years of construction. When complete the new motorway will be more than 90 kilometres long and will connect the A-7 motorway with the A-92N motorway which runs between Puerto Lumbreras and Guadix.

Bullet holes lead to drug arrests

The Guardia Civil in Huercal de Almeria were called in to investigate the appearance of bullet holes in the wall of a house in the town, one of the holes inside the bedroom of the home. Upon studying the trajectories and angles of the bullet impacts the investigating officers determined that the shots had possibly come from the house behind the one affected and decided to interview its inhabitants. On approaching the house the agents thought the shots had come from they observed a man leave the property carrying a bag of rubbish. After stopping and identifying the man the Guardia Civil inspected the bag he was carrying and discovered several shell cases of a calibre similar to that of the bullets recovered earlier. On questioning the man he claimed to know nothing of the contents of the bag. The Guardia Civil went on to examine a car belonging to one of the inhabitants of the house the shots had come from which was parked in the street. Inside they found two plastic bags containing what later turned out to be about 200 grammes of cocaine as well as 100 grammes of hashish and several pistol cartridges. With this evidence the Guardia Civil obtained a warrant to search the house where they found another smaller quantity of cocaine and 33 9mm cartridges. Three men were arrested.

Mystery fish deaths in Cuevas rowing canal

Seprona, the Guardia Civil nature protection service has had to recover more than twenty tonnes of fish which had appeared dead and floating on the surface of the Cuevas del Almanzora rowing canal. Samples of the fish recovered have been sent to the Almeria environmental office of the Junta de Andalucia to be analysed in order to discover what caused their death.

The rowing canal was constructed for the Mediterranean Games which were held in Almeria in 2005. It cost 12.8 million euros to construct and was ceded by the Junta de Andalucia to the Cuevas town council last year.

Macael campaigning for motorcycle safety

The risk of being killed in a motorcycle accident is 17 times higher than in a car accident and the most important piece of protection for motorcyclists is the crash helmet. This is the message that the local police in Macael are trying to transmit in the safety campaign currently running in the municipality. The age group which is most resistant to wearing a helmet is that composed of 14 to 16 year olds, whose habitual excuses include the fact that wearing a helmet is uncomfortable or unattractive or that they forgot it or lost it.

As part of their campaign the Macael police have bought a number of helmets which they are giving to young people who have been stopped (and fined) for riding a motorcycle or moped without the minimum obligatory protection. The helmets are given freely with the police making clear to the youngsters that if they are stopped again for the same offence the fine will be considerably higher. The town council has also started a publicity campaign with radio advertisements which highlight the consequences failing to wear a helmet can have.

Arboleas marijuana find

Local police patrolling in the Los Cojos area of Arboleas spotted a marijuana plantation in a derelict animal corral. Further investigations in collaboration with the Guardia Civil led to the discovery that the plants were being watered by means of a drop irrigation system with the pipes leading to a neighbouring house. The owner of the housed was interviewed leading to the arrest of her seventeen year old son. Twelve plants with a total weight of 66 kilos were seized.

Lucainena de las Torres says no to noisy motorists

The Lucainena de las Torres town council has approved a new set of by-laws which will give the local police power to control noise pollution caused by motor vehicles. The byelaws make it illegal to circulate in the town without an exhaust pipe or with silencers which are inefficient, incomplete, inadequate or deteriorated. They also prohibit the use of musical equipment installed in vehicles with an exterior noise level of more than fifteen decibels. The town council has gone even further and has prohibited vehicles from emitting electromagnetic disturbances, gases or other contaminants in the town's streets. Fines for any of these offences range from thirty to three hundred euros and the local police can now also impound those vehicles the owners of which refuse to comply with the new emission controls.

Muchas Gracias, Bob Oppenheimer

Palomares is to hit the big screen soon in a Hollywoood production. The producer of Saving Private Ryan, Mark Gordon, is to start work soon on a new project for Miramax films called 'Muchas Gracias, Bob Oppenheimer'. The film centres on an American serviceman in the 1960s who is sent on an appeasement mission to a fishing town in Spain after a U.S. military plane crash results in the accidental detonation of four hydrogen bombs; in addition to his role with the locals, the serviceman also embarks on a relationship.
The project draws from the story of Palomares, where in 1966 an American B-52 bomber crashed and released more than 1,000 tons of nuclear material.

This will not be the first Hollywood production which makes reference to the Palomares incident.
While serving on the salvage ship USS Hoist during operations to recover the bomb which fell into the sea, navy diver Carl Brashear had his leg crushed in a deck accident. His story was the inspiration for the 2000 Cuba Gooding, Jr. film Men of Honor.

Cantoria march draws media attention

The march held last week in Cantoria was attended by more than three hundred people and drew wide media interest. It was held to draw attention to the situation in Cantoria where around 23 homes have a threat of demolition hanging over them and to the situation in the rest of the Almanzora valley area where planning irregularities have left many home owners in precarious situations. The marchers carried banners with slogans such as 'Justice Please', ' we are innocent victims' and 'a good government should protect the innocent' and their circuit of the town took them past the town hall where they delivered a petition to the mayor asking for the restoration of basic services to those homes without in the area. The march was reported sympathetically in the provincial and national press.

One killed and five injured in road accident in Turre

In an accident involving two cars on the A-370 Turre to Los Gallardos road one person was killed and five were injured, four of them seriously. The accident happened at about six in the afternoon on Monday and fire-fighters from Turre were on the scene almost instantly. One of the cars involved was carrying two occupants and the other four and according to eyewitnesses one of the cars caught fire after they were involved in a head on collision. Four intensive care ambulances and a helicopter attended the scene and the injured were taken to the Hospital de la Inmaculada in Huercal Overa. According to emergency services the person killed was an elderly woman.

Expert’s report declares Macenas built on protected land

    More evidence has been presented to the judge studying the case brought by the environmental protest groups Salvemos Mojacar and Salvemos Macenas against the macro-development next to Macenas beach in Mojacar. According to Salvemos Mojacar the report presented last week shows the development is built in the LIC (Lugar de Interes Comunitario) protected area of the Sierra Cabrera and affects several protected habitats. The legal action brought by the protest groups asks the court, presided over by the same judge who declared the Macenas hotal building licence illegal, for the paralysation of construction work until the case has been heard and that irrigation of the golf course be stopped due to it being watered with water destined for human consumption.

The company building the complex has reiterated that it has all the necessary permissions and licences to build in the area and has highlighted its efforts to respect the environment. Among the environmental protection measures it has taken are the installation of its own waste water treatment plant that will treat all the waste water produced by the resort. The plant features the latest biomembrane technology and will produce recycled water ideal for watering the golf course and green areas when the apartments are completed and have people living in them. The Macenas project also affected about half of the world's population of sea lavender (Limonium estevei) a critically endangered endemic species of the province of Almeria, of which there were only 11,500 remaining examples. The plants affected by the works were transplanted to a reserve area by scientists in an effort to preserve them although Salvemos Mojacar claims the plants moved since died.

Who was to blame for child abuser’s release?

In a case that has caused enormous debate in Spain somebody is being sought to take the blame for an error that could have contributed to the death of a five year old girl in Huelva. The girl, Mari Luz Cortes, went missing one afternoon and it wasn't until 54 days later that her body was found floating in the estuary near her home. A man was later arrested for her murder and when it was discovered that the accused man had more than one conviction for child abuse, including against his own daughter, and was not in jail despite having been sentenced to prison the public outcry was overwhelming.

The man,
Santiago del Valle Garcia, now in prison awaiting trial for the murder of Mari Luz sexually abused his own daughter in 1998. The judge in that case took four years to find him guilty and sentence him to two years and nine months in prison, the defence appealed and it took another three and a half years before the prison sentence was confirmed. When the court tried to contact Santiago del Valle to execute the sentence he had moved and was declared 'whereabouts unknown'. He was actually living in Gijon with his wife where he was accused and condemned of abusing another young girl, in this trial the first sentence was taken into account but as it was still under appeal he was only found guilty of a first offence and so avoided jail but was ordered to present himself to the court on the first and fifteenth of each month, something he did diligently even while he was supposedly being searched for by the court he had been condemned to prison by and something he did only days before the death of Mari Luz.

The blame for this mess has been laid at the doors of the court in Seville where he was originally condemned. The judge in the case was found guilty of a 'falta grave' (serious misdemeanour) in his handling of the situation and was fined 1,500 euros. Now the judicial secretary of the court involved is to go before a disciplinary hearing in Almeria accused of negligence in allowing the delays in the execution of the sentence. The judge who will preside is Juana Alfonso Rodriguez who is the sister of Pilar Alfonso, the judge of the case looking into illegal construction in Zurgena.

Raising awareness of Alzheimer’s

Several events were held around the province as part of the World Alzheimer's day like for example the giant paella organised by the Huercal Overa Alzheimer's Association in the Plaza de la Constitucion last Sunday, asking for a contribution of five euros for a plate of paella ad a glass of wine to rtaise funds for the organisation which provides support for sufferers and their families.

The Torrecardenas hospital in Almeria capital revealed that in the first six months of 2008 the hospital attended to 1,200 patients with disease, 400 of whom were new cases and that a study carried out by the hospital and the University of Almeria put the incidence of the diseases in the province at 2.5 cases per one thousand people. Alzheimer's is a progressive, degenerative brain disease which affects memory, thinking, and behaviour. It usually appears in people over 65 years old although it can affect younger people as well. Its causes are not entirely understood yet but it is characterised by the formation of amyloid plaques on certain structures within the brain which interfere with their functional activity.

Although there is no known cure for Alzheimer's the onset of its effects can be delayed which is why early diagnosis is important. There exist various tests which are designed to detect the disease in its earlier, more subtle, stages and on detection treatments can involve therapy or pharmaceuticals. It was announced earlier this month that transdermal patches for treating the disease would become available in Spain later this year.

Tragic accident turns into drug investigation

Last weekend lifeboats and aircraft spent several days searching for a young man lost at sea off the coast of Carboneras. The alarm was raised when a fishing boat pulled another man from the water who told them he and his friend had tried to swim to shore when the motor of the boat they were in broke down. The situation was widely reported partly due to the fact that the missing man was the son of a local politician, the spokesman for the Popular Party in the town.

The plot thickened when it was discovered the boat the men abandoned had been reported stolen the day before the incident and the suspicions of the Guardia civil were heightened by inconsistencies in the different declarations given by the survivor. Now, as a result of the investigations carried out, there have been three arrests, including the man saved, for participation in an attempt to land hashish, for omision del deber de socorro which is the crime of not coming to the aid of someone whose life is in danger and for the theft of the boat.

Spanish man arrested for bringing immigrants

    A Spanish man was arrested and 14 Moroccans were detained to await their return to their country after the boats they were travelling in were spotted near Garrucha by a fishing boat and later intercepted by the authorities. The men were travelling in two small boats which were being sailed in parallel with one another, one with nine occupants including the Spanish man and the other with six. On being brought into Garrucha harbour the men were taken to the town's Guardia Civil installations but an unspecified number of them managed to escape. The Guardia Civil chased the escapees and one of the town's primary schools was told to lock its doors and close all its blinds to avoid the fleeing men from hiding there. The men were eventually found and taken back into custody.

The Spanish man assumed to be the 'patron' or skipper of the boats used will be charged with helping illegal immigrants to enter the country. Spain's president, Jose Luis Zapatero, has recently announced that one of the measures to be taken to try to reduce the numbers of Africans trying to enter the country will be the introduction of much more severe sentences for those found guilty of transporting people illegally into Spain.

Three marijuana finds in one day

    The Guardia Civil in Tabernas and Fiñana made three arrests and seized more than a hundred kilos of marijuana plants on the same day last week. The first was the arrest of a nineteen year old man who was stopped while driving along a forest track and several plants were discovered in his car. Subsequent investigations led officers to an area known as 'Los Baños' in the municipality of Senes where they discovered a marijuana plantation and arrested another man identified as Juan Jose C.F. aged 47.

In a separate investigation Guardia Civil officers patrolling in Montagon in the municipality of Abla discovered a plantation in an abandoned greenhouse, with an irrigation system set up to water the plants. The officers followed the water pipes to where they came out of a nearby garage where there were also parked two cars. More investigation led to the arrest of a 40 year old man and the seizure of more than 100 kilos of marijuana plants.

The subject of cultivation of marijuana is one laced with controversy as Spanish law only prohibits its cultivation when there is an intention to promote, favour or facilitate the illegal consumption of the plant cultivated, that is to grow it for later distribution. The quantity perceived by judges to be for personal consumption varies widely.

Weeks of work on parade in Laujar

    The procession announcing the start of the Fiestas de Nuestra Señora de la Salud (Our Lady of Health) in Laujar de Andarax this year featured Betty Boop, the European Cup, and Pocoyo (a popular children's TV character). These were three of the themes of the town council's procession floats and all made with the collaboration of a group of around fifty locals under the direction of Francisco Lopez, a self taught expert in float fabrication. The mayor of Laujar, Emilio Romero, is one of those who participated during the month the floats took to make and he explained that the tradition dates back to the beginnings of the last century. Apart from the municipal floats there are always several made by other groups in the town who all compete for the cash prizes awarded to the best.

The floats are all made from a wooden framework covered with newspaper and cardboard and finally decorated with coloured paper. There are always two children's characters; this year Betty Boop and Pocoyo, a float reflecting recent events; this year the European Cup to celebrate Spain's victory and the other is the one where the queen of the fiestas is carried and this year is decorated with a giant blue and white flower with the town's coat of arms. Apart from the cash prizes; 150, 100 and 50 euros for the top three, each of the teams making a float receive a ham as a gift for their participation.

Unfavourable opinion of Jews and Muslims on increase in Europe

That ethnocentric attitudes are increasing is one of the discoveries of a survey of almost 25,000 people in 24 countries around the world conducted by the Pew Research Centre as part of their Global Attitudes Project. Since its launch in 2001 the Global Attitudes Project has conducted a series of worldwide public opinion surveys on an array of subjects, from people's assessments of their own lives to their views on the current state of the world and important issues of the day.

Great Britain stands out as the only European country included in the survey where there has not been a substantial increase in anti-Semitic attitudes. Just 9% of the British rate Jews unfavourably, which is largely unchanged from recent years. The survey shows that 46% of the Spanish rates Jews unfavourably, 36% and 34% of Poles and Russians respectively have a negative opinion also. Opinions about Muslims in almost all of these countries are considerably more negative than are views of Jews. Fully half of Spanish (52%) and German respondents (50%) and a quarter of British (23%) rate Muslims unfavourably. In Europe views about Christians have remained largely stable in recent years, although anti-Christian sentiments have been on the rise in Spain – about one-in-four Spanish (24%) now rate Christians negatively, up from 10% in 2005.

When asked about their own religiousness the survey shows a clear relationship between wealth and religiosity: in rich nations fewer people view religion as important than in poor nations. In the current survey, people who live in the poorest nations almost unanimously say religion is important to them, while the citizens of Western Europe and other wealthy nations tend to say it plays a less significant role although Americans – who tend to be religious despite their country's wealth – continue to be a major exception to this pattern.

Three killed one lost in pipe-laying accident

Three workers were killed, one lost at sea and four others injured in an accident off the Almeria coast on board the vessel laying the gas pipeline destined to transport natural gas from Algeria to Almeria. The accident aboard the Saipem 7000, the second largest crane ship in the world, apparently happened due to a mechanical failure resulting in a length of pipe, 12 metres long and weighing twenty tonnes, being dropped by a crane and crushing the workers beneath it. Three workers died in the accident and three others were taken by helicopter to Torrecardenas hospital in Almeria where they were admitted to the intensive care unit with multiple injuries, the fourth man's injuries were only minor. An exhaustive search was launched for a man lost overboard but was called off after the area had been combed with no sign of him.

The Saipem 7000 arrived in Almeria earlier this summer to lay a 120 km. gas pipeline from Beni Saf in Algeria to Almeria at a cost of 900 million euros. It was originally built as a semi-submersible crane vessel capable of lifting and installing offshore structures up to 14,000 tonnes in weight. In 1999, the vessel was converted to accommodate a "J" Lay Tower and pipe handling equipment for laying pipelines in deep water. The tower is the largest in the world with a height of 135 meters, while the overall weight of the complete pipe-laying facilities is 4,500 tonnes. 

Algarrobico construction company announces appeal

The company which built the polemic hotel on the Algarrobico beach in Carboneras, Azata, has announced that it is going to appeal against the court ruling made public at the beginning of the month which declared the building licence for the 22 floor, 411 room hotel illegal. The construction company insists, despite the court's ruling, that all the steps taken since June 1999 when they bought the land where the hotel is built have complied scrupulously with the legislation in force at the time. Antonio Baena, the spokesman for Azat, has told the press that the company still believes in the project, which was supported and promoted by the public administrations.

The regional minister for the environment, Cinta Castillo, has also commented on the sentence saying that she feels enormous satisfaction at the sentence annulling the building licence but that the judge's ruling that the case should be studied by the public prosecutor as there were clear indications of collusion to act illegally or pervert the course of justice does not form part of the verdict but is instead the opinion of the judge and is an opinion she does not share.

Cantoria cut off for two days

The municipality of Cantoria was left without telephone and internet for two days after a digger working on the new motorway cut through the fibre optic cable which connects the town. The construction company carrying out the work has been criticised for not contacting the council or offering any explanation for what happened. The lack of telephone line meant that the town council, the town's banks and a large number of the town's businesses were unable to carry out their usual functions due to their dependence on internet.

Marijuana not tomatoes

    The owner of one the greenhouses which make up the sea of plastic you see from the motorway past Almeria has been arrested for his cultivation of marijuana on an industrial scale. The man, identified only by his initials J.E.V.A., Spanish, aged 40, was arrested in connection with the discovery of a plantation in the Santa Maria del Aguila area of El Ejido. The Guardia Civil say they found growing in a greenhouse 500 cannabis Sativa plants which had a total weight of approximately 3,000 kilos. There were also two greenhouses used for drying the plants and preparing them for sale. A luxury car was seized at the time of the man's arrest and the Guardia Civil are continuing investigations looking for the accomplices who must have been involved in an operation of this scale. Spanish law does not consider the possession of small quantities of marijuana for personal use a crime, although it is illegal to consume or be in possession of any quantity in any public place. Cultivation of marijuana for its sale or distribution is considered a serious offence punishable with several years' imprisonment.

Hertz open office in Almeria

One of the biggest car rental companies in the world, Hertz, has opened a car rental office in Almeria airport. The general, commercial and operations director of Hertz España, Jaime Soriano, told the press that the one of the company's obligations was to provide service any place it was demanded and that the Almeria airport was growing and currently receives more than a million passengers a year, a sufficiently positive indicator for the company to decide to provide its services there.

Hertz was founded in 1918 and was until fairly recently a subsidiary of the Ford Motor Company, it has over 5,100 rental locations all over the world and  this year its second quarter worldwide revenues were 2.3 billion dollars, up 4.6% year-over-year.

Electric company checking for fraud

The electricity generation and distribution company Sevillana-Endesa is currently carrying out a campaign of fraud detection in the coastal towns of Almeria. The campaign involves the company's Unidad de Control de Perdidas No Tecnicas (non-technical loss control unit) or CPNT which localises metering anomalies and frauds and, once detected, normalises the power supply and negotiates with the customers the conditions of payment for the electricity not billed. The CPNT always works more during the summer because of the number of holiday homes on the coast.

The fraud detection plan last summer dealt with 426 cases of fraud, with a deviation of 5.9 million kilowatt hours worth 571,699 euros. In the whole of 2007 they dealt with 847 cases, with 9.4 million unbilled kilowatt hours worth 1.1 million euros.

Garrucha to ‘semi’ pedestrianise main street

    The Garrucha town council approved in a recent meeting how they are going to spend the 530,000 euros they have been given as part of the Provincial Plan of the Almeria government. The money is to be used to turn the Calle Mayor in the town into a pedestrian area or at least semi–pedestrian, plans are under way for its semipeatonalización. This means widening the pavements along the street, placing benches and planting trees and improving the traffic which regularly grinds to a standstill in the town.

The contract for the works will be tendered out by the provincial government as they are footing the bill as part of their twelve million euro Provincial Plan. Once a company has been contracted the works will take six months to complete.

Beware – stressed out teenagers

If a teenager living near you has been appearing more nervous than usual or has bigger than usual bags under the eyes and other signs of exhaustion it might not be as a result of their social life but of their cramming. For three days this week 777 young people who have been attending 50 different schools and colleges around the province have been taking the selection exams for the University of Almeria admissions for this academic year, their last opportunity to gain a university place for themselves this year. They are taking the pruebas de selectividad in five centres around the province; one in the university itself (where 392 students are sitting the exams) and the others in Aguadulce (104 students), El Ejido (146 students), Huercal-Overa (95 students) and Albox (40 students).

The university entrance examinations are taken simultaneously in all of Andalucia and consist of two parts, the first a general paper on three subjects studied by all baccalaureate students: a commentary on a philosophical or historical text, an analysis of a text in Spanish, and an analysis of a text in a foreign language. The other part is specific to the type of baccalaureate course the student has been studying, e.g. science and technology or humanities.

The majority of students take these exams in June at the end of the academic year. This June 2,037 students took the selectividad exam in Almeria of whom 93 per cent passed.

Mojacar ex-mayor loses slander case

Carlos Cervantes Zamora, ex socialist mayor of Mojacar, lost the case brought against him in 2004 for slandering the environmental group Salvemos Mojacar. The legal proceedings were started by the group after Carlos Cervantes referred to members of the association as manipulators and shameless and 'canalla', which could be roughly translated as riff-raff, in press meetings and interviews with the local media. The comments were widely published in a provincial Spanish language newspaper at a time when the ecologists had just founded the group and the negative image diffused by the media could have seriously prejudiced the association.

This is the second time the ex-mayor has been condemned for the same case. The first hearing was held in 2006 and Carlos Cervantes was condemned in his absence as he did not attend the trail. The sentence was later ruled invalid due to the accused not having been informed of the hearing date correctly. The case was next heard in June 2007 but the hearing was annulled due to the judge being the same as in the first trial. The trial was heard a third time in the provincial court in Almeria in February this year, again the accused did not attend but his lawyer did, and no denial was made of the accusations, the lawyer instead tried to argue their justification without success.

Salvemos Mojacar asked for 30,000 euros damages and that Carlos Cervantes be fined 8,000 euros. In the judge's sentence the environmental group were awarded 2,000 euros damages and the defendant was ordered to pay a fine of 1,000 euros and condemned to costs. Salvemos Mojacar has stated that it will use the money awarded to it towards the costs of the court cases they are currently fighting against Playa Macenas in Mojacar, Mundo Aguilon in Pulpi and the PORN(Plan de Ordenacion de Recursos Naturales – natural resource plan) in the Cabo de Gata natural park.

 

Lubrin Gastronomic fair

    The residents of Lubrin are currently organising their Feria de Alimentacion Rural or rural food fair which has taken place a since the year 2000 as part of the celebrations for the day of the Virgen del Rosario, one of the town's patron saints, celebrated on October 7^th. This year they are also organising an Artisans' market to coincide with the celebrations and which will take place on the weekend of October 11^th and 12^th.
There will be various stalls, a bar with wine tastings and tapas of local products like lamb and kid, local cheese and vegetables. The market will be held by the church and spaces are being made available for stallholders to camp overnight or leave their vans.

    For more information either for stallholders or visitors you can contact Mary Richards at the Oficina de Turismo Municipal Lubrín, telephone Tuesday – Saturday 10.30-13.30 and at other times on the mobile number 607 702 622 and by Email at turismolubrin@hotmail.com.

The Municipal Tourist Office can also arrange visits to Lubrín with a meal, tapas route or a taste of our local products, for groups and individuals.

Brits meet with Almeria planning chief

Brits meet with Almeria planning chief

    Members of the Abusos Urbanísticos Almanzora No (AUAN) committee, accompanied by their legal and planning representatives met with Luis Caparros, the Almeria housing and territorial planning delegate and Jose Ortiz Mallol, Director General de Inspección de Ordenacion del Territorio y Urbanismo, the head of the Junta de Andalucia organisation which was set up to control and prosecute planning irregularities.

    In a statement after the meeting Luis Caparros said that the Junta de Andalucia and the town councils of Zurgena, Albox, Cantoria, Arboleas, Partaloa, Albanchez and Lubrin were to collaborate in drawing up plans for local inspections which would detect properties outside planning regulations and that individual files would be drawn up specifying the exact legal situation of each of the properties. He went on to add that the Junta had an obligation to collaborate with the justice system and that it would comply with any court decisions regarding the affected properties. The regional delegate said that the general plan for inspection of housing, town and territorial planning was awaiting its approval in December and that the provincial government had promised its total and permanent collaboration on the plan. He warned that those irregular properties that had problems, that is those without basic services or outside consolidated urban nuclei, would have no solution.

    In a statement issued by the AUAN, a local organisation which is campaigning to bring about the proper legalisation of the estimated 5,000 cases of land and houses in the Almanzora Valley currently considered to be "illegal", said that the meeting was both constructive and cordial but no detailed information on the mechanics of a solution appears to be available at this time despite the representatives of the Junta re-iterating their determination to provide a solution to the complex situation of illegal houses within the law and with respect to the rights of the homeowner, regardless of their nationality.

Property sales down 40 per cent from last year

    Figures have just been released for property sales in the province of Almeria for the first half of the year and they show a dramatic decrease compared to the same period last year. The figures for new homes in urban areas, second hand homes in urban areas, building plots and properties with land in rural areas all show a decline: The sale of fincas rusticas, properties in rural areas, is the market sector which has slowed the least with 3,903 sold in Almeria in the first semester compared to 4,320 last year, a decrease of 9.7 per cent. The sale of 'solares' or building plots seems to show a certain optimism for the future with 1,554 sold in the first six months of 2007 compared with 1,395 this year, a reduction of 10 per cent, a sign that property developers are continuing to invest in possible long term prospects. The number of new homes sold from January to June this year totalled 5,382, the same period last year registering 6,322 sales, 15 per cent less this year. As for the sale of second hand homes there has been a drop of 45.5 percent from last year's first half sales; 3,119 in 2008 and 6,859 in 2007. The total number of homes in urban and rural areas, business premises, and plots sold up to the end of June this year was 23,755, the total for the first six months of last year was 39 ,558, a 40 per cent drop this year. We have no figures on the number of estate agents which have closed.

President announces rescue package for housing

     The socialist president of Spain, Jose Luis Zapatero, has announced a package to help the housing industry survive the crisis presently affecting it. In a move which is aimed at helping the property constructors and promoters rather than individual homeowners or buyers the president unveiled two important projects. One was the approval of real estate investment companies, quoted on the stock market, which will enjoy special tax breaks and will hopefully provide an impulse for the rental market and encourage investment in the property sector. The second was the provision of a new line of state loans to construction companies which will allow them to use borrowed money for purposes other than construction on the provision that unsold homes those companies possess are made available on the rental market for a specified period.

    The move comes at a time when the European Union is predicting zero growth in Spain for the last months of the year although Zapatero himself was more optimistic with government forecasts slightly higher than the EU figures. The credit line which will be made available will start at three billion euros although this could be increased in the future. It will be administered by the Instituto de Credito Oficial, which is part of the ministry for the economy and works to help Spanish companies become more competitive. The president said that the measures should work towards providing liquidity for companies which have accumulated large stocks of property. Unemployment in Spain has recently risen to more than 2.5 million, more than ten per cent of the workforce and inflation stands at around five per cent.

Police find bale of hashish on beach

    The local police in Berja had a surprise whilst on a routine patrol by the Balanegra beach in the municipality of Berja. There on the shore they spotted a bale which had been washed up by the tide, they recovered it and on later inspection at the police station they discovered it was a bale of hashish weighing about fifty kilos. The investigation remains open while police try to discover where the drugs came from.

Reports of the end of the world have been greatly exaggerated

    The European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN (Centre Europeen de Recherche Nucleaire)    successfully steered a stream of protons finer than a human hair around a 27 kilometre circuit that has cost 630 thousand million euros and has taken nine years to construct. They were able to accelerate the particles close to the speed of light within a total vacuum at a temperature of minus 271.3ºC – colder than outer space. Founded in 1954, the CERN Laboratory sits astride the Franco–Swiss border near Geneva. It was one of Europe's first joint ventures and now has 20 Member States.

    The Large Hadron Collider, or LHC is a particle accelerator which has been installed in a tunnel 27 km in circumference which housed a previous machine, the Large Electron Positron collider, LEP. By studying collisions at higher energies than ever before, physicists working with the LHC will make further progress in understanding the mysteries of how our Universe is made and how it came to be. A particle accelerator is a device that uses electric fields to propel electrically charged particles to high speeds and magnetic fields to contain them. There's a good chance that you have spent a good portion of your life staring at a particle accelerator (perhaps making some progress in understanding the mysteries of our universe) as the good old fashioned cathode ray tube you have in your TV – if you haven't moved on to plasma - has one behind the screen.

    The aim of the six experiments to be conducted with the LHC are varied; two will be actively searching for signs of the Higgs boson, a key undiscovered particle that is essential for the Standard Model of particle physics to work. The Standard Model of particle physics predicts the existence of a particle, known as the Higgs boson, which gives mass to other particles. Currently, the mechanism by which particles acquire different masses is unknown, and finding evidence for the existence of the Higgs boson would solve this fundamental mystery of nature. The experiment which has led to predictions of the end of the world is the ALICE experiment, in which the LHC will collide lead ions to recreate the conditions just after the Big Bang under laboratory conditions - a nanosecond of intense heat and pressure that will convert energy into matter and 'create' new particles. The worry of some is the possibility that a tiny black hole could be created which could then expand to swallow the earth. The scientists at CERN argue that nature is continuously creating LHC-like collisions when much higher-energy cosmic rays collide with the Earth's atmosphere, with the Sun, and with other objects such as white dwarfs and neutron stars. If such collisions posed a danger, the consequences for Earth or these astronomical objects would have become evident already. Actual collisions of particles in the LHC are a treat we may have to wait a year for.

    The World Wide Web was invented at CERN by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 to help particle physicists around the world to communicate. No one at the time could predict the enormous impact it would have on our concepts of information, knowledge and spam mail. Now, to deal with the enormous amount of data that will be generated by the LHC, CERN is leading work to create a "computing Grid" that will harness vast amounts of computer power through networks across the world transforming the internet into a giant global supercomputer. At the moment the grid is relatively small; the processing power of roughly 100,000 home computers, distributed around the world and connected by a fibre optic 15 Gb per second internet connection. This is about 15,000 times faster than a standard home connection and you could download two high definition feature lengths films every second – but it's still not enough to transfer all of the data that will become available.

    There is no doubt that the LHC will be in the news on a regular basis in the future and we can only hope it will inspire a new generation of physicists and other scientists. We can only begin to imagine what may be discovered. The LHC was built to help scientists to answer key unresolved questions in particle physics. The unprecedented energy it achieves may even reveal some unexpected results that no one has ever thought of!

Many happy returns for Google

    You know your company's done well for itself when its name gets a dictionary entry, to 'google' something is now accepted English and it was first heard just ten years ago. In September 1998 Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google Inc. with four computers and a working capital of 100,000 dollars. Now both of them are worth billions - the world's richest people under forty - and the company made a net profit of almost 900 million euros in the second quarter of this year (the first quarter was even more profitable – even Google is feeling the pinch). From the humble garage beginnings which are almost obligatory for hi-tech companies to nineteen thousand employees in offices all over the world and a dominance of computer searches and advertising that even has Microsoft worried.

    It's not all been plain sailing with criticism aimed at the company for its retention of what could be sensitive information about the 650 million people who make use of its search engine (Google have just announced that from now on they will only keep search histories for nine months), concerns about the company monopolising internet searches thus controlling the flow of internet traffic and advertising and the scandal of the 'Great Firewall of China' when Google bowed to allow Chinese government censorship of its searches – at the time a search for Tiananmen in Google would not bring up references to the Tiananmen Square massacre.

    Now you can walk the streets of the U.S.A., Australia, Japan or France with Google's Street View, look for your swimming pool with Google Earth, see supernovae and galaxies forming with Google Space, watch videos of just about anything you can imagine and a lot more you could never imagine on Youtube. You can now even browse the internet with Google's new web browser 'Chrome', a minimal design that remembers where you go and what you search for (if you want it to) to make browsing an intuitive experience although I always find it disconcerting when my computer seems to know what I'm thinking about.

    And the future? Google on a phone, or any other mobile device that can connect to the internet, near you soon, and on your internet connected TV, fridge, dishwasher… With Apple's 3G I-Phone, with built in GPS and an accelerometer, and Google Street View the view turns as you do, detecting your movements and moving the scene on the phone screen to correspond, highlighting shops or whatever you might be looking for. Or you could just look up and see it for real.

    

Andalucia to introduce ‘dignified death’ law

    In what will be a pioneering law in Spain the Junta de Andalucia have started the project which will become the law for a dignified death. It will give patients the right, within the limits of national law, to end their lives by deciding not to receive treatment. The law will also oblige all medical institutions, public and private and including those run by religious orders, to respect the wishes of their patients. Doctors and other health professionals must respect their patients' decisions, without imposing their own opinions, be they religious, personal, moral or professional.

    In a survey of opinion on health care in Andalucia last year 93 per cent of those surveyed agreed that everyone has a right to die with dignity. The law will guarantee that patients receive all the clinical information on their case whenever they want it with a comprehensible prognosis and diagnosis to help make their decision. Palliative care will be available in terminal patients' homes whenever possible if the patient wishes. These patients are also guaranteed an individual room in hospital and can be accompanied by their family at all times if they want.

    The Andalucian law will not cover euthanasia as it does not come within the region's legal competence however the Spanish government has announced it is planning legislation allowing 'assisted suicide' which should become law sometime next year.

Phishing fraudsters caught in Andalucia

    The Guardia Civil, in an operation carried out in the provinces of Cadiz, Malaga and Jaen, has disbanded a criminal gang estimated to have stolen 1.5 million euros this year. The bank details of more than 12,000 people in Spain, the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom were recovered.

    The operation was started at the beginning of the year when Guardia Civil in Algeciras detected the purchase of large numbers of lottery tickets on the internet with false credit cards. Those buying the tickets made themselves difficult to detect by redirecting their purchases through computers in the U.S.A. and Australia but after several months of investigation the Guardia Civil were able to track them down and searches were made of several homes in Andalucia.

    The lottery tickets had been bought with false credit cards made using data obtained through a method known as phishing; e-mailing massive numbers of people with mails pretending to be from banks or other financial institutions and asking for credit card or account information and passwords, often sending users to falsified web pages where they were asked to enter or change passwords or the 'secret questions' used online to confirm users' identities. Once the information was obtained it was used to make online purchases or to bet on the lottery, betting around 1.5 million euros in just five months and netting prizes worth 130,000 euros. Among the things seized during the searches were seven computers, five hard drives, false passports, cds and memory sticks with computer programmes used in the scam, card 'readers' and manuals and instructions for reading the magnetic bands of credit cards and cloning cards. Four arrests were made although the Guardia Civil have not ruled out more arrests being made in the next few days.

Algarrobico building licence declared illegal after three years

    The environmental group 'Salvemos Mojacar' took the Carboneras town council and the construction company, Azata del Sol, to court in September 2005 asking that the building licence awarded by the council allowing the construction of an enormous 411 room hotel be revoked and that building work, which started in May 2003, be halted. The court case started almost three years ago to the day by the environmental group has finally finished with the judge giving sentence in a document running to 22 pages. Work on the hotel was paralysed in February 2006 and since then various legal processes have been started at regional and national levels. The situation was brought to the attention of the Spanish public by Greenpeace, which made the Algarrobico case a national environmental cause with questions being raised in Spanish parliament.

    In the sentence the judge ,Jesus Rivera Fernandez, who presides over the provincial contentious-administrative court number 2 in Almeria capital was unequivocal in his condemnation of the conduct of the Carboneras town council and perhaps more significantly that of the Junta de Andalucia regional government. The sentence declared the building licence to be void ipso jure or as a matter of law and ordered the council of Carboneras to revoke it which indirectly implies to take steps leading to its demolition. It also reaffirmed the existing precedents regarding the 100 metres from the sea going inland which cannot be constructed on (and was in this case) and blames the Junta and the town council for the violation of this law, the sentence also highlights the fact that the town council were completely aware of the existence of this regulation beforehand. The judge also ruled that there is no right to compensation according to coastal law, with the only indemnification due being the cost of construction and not the anticipated value of the unfinished building. The ruling stated that the construction was undoubtedly built in an area protected as being a 'natural area of general interest' and considered that the regional ministry of the environment illegally altered the planning map defining the protected area (it had claimed a cartographic error in its defence of this accusation due to the map consulted when studying the planning application being difficult to read) – "giving an appearance of legality to what was manifestly illegal". The sentence also confirms that the existence of the hotel is incompatible with the recently approved re-classification of the land it is on as C3, non-urbanisable.

    The part which has given most satisfaction to the ecologists is the judge's ruling that the crime of prevaricacion, something with no direct equivalent in Anglo-Saxon law but which is equivalent to collusion to act illegally or pervert the course of justice has been committed on the part of the Carboneras council and the Junta. As a result the sentence orders that declarations be taken from those involved and the case referred to the public prosecutor's office.

    There exists a right to appeal within fifteen days from the notification of the sentence.

Cuevas to get ‘Desert Museum’

    The town council of Cuevas del Almanzora has voted in favour of a project which will be unique in Europe. The council has agreed to cede 30,000 square metres of council property in the area known as El Zorzo for the creation of the 'Fundación Museo del Desierto y de la Aventura Joel Lode'.

    Joel Lode, born in Nantes, France, has lived in Cuevas for eight years and participated in the creation of the Desert Springs golf course. He is a member of the International Organization on Study of Succulent Plants, part of the UNESCO Botanical Commission and has spent more than thirty years travelling the deserts of the world studying succulents and cacti. He is the author of several books including an encyclopaedia of deserts and another on cacti. The desert museum will be home to his collection of 14,000 plants representing more than 4,000 species of cacti and succulents valued at more than 180,000 euros.

    The museum will consist of a desert garden with plants distributed according to their geographic origins, allowing visitors to take a botanical journey around the world, a greenhouse and museum of the deserts which will display the objects collected by Joel in his travels including poisoned arrows from Kalahari tribesmen, prehistoric stones, Australian aboriginal objects or baskets made by Papago Indians. As well as the botanical garden and museum there will be a library with books dedicated to the subject, a photo library with more than 30,000 transparencies, a museum of the cactus with hundreds of objects dedicated to these curious plants, a greenhouse dedicated to cultivation of cacti for sale to the public, a gift shop, restaurant and parking.

Protest march in Cantoria

    Residents of Cantoria are organising a protest march at midday on September 18^th in their town to highlight the situation many in the area find themselves in due to planning irregularities which have gone unchecked in the past. With demolition orders having been issued on four properties in Las Terreras in the municipality and another 19 homes in the El Fas area facing the threat of demolition feelings are running high in the town. The owners are taking all the legal measures available to them but there is little optimism as to the possible outcome. The owners of the houses in Las Terreras are waiting for a decision from the provincial high court on whether the process against their properties should continue with no mention of compensation being made by any official involved in the matter. Those involved in the El Fas case still don't know what the fate of their homes will be but at least the judge in their case has admitted their right to some form of compensation from the promoters who have been charged as alleged perpetrators of planning abuse.

    All this comes at a time when the Priors, whose house in Vera was demolished in January, are waiting for their case to go before the Constitutional Tribunal after the application for it to be heard there was admitted and the European commission announces its decision to take Spain to the European court of justice for the 'land grab' law in Valencia which allows developers to expropriate rural land from owners.

Almeria to use its rubbish for power generation

    The Almeria city council has given the go ahead to Cespa, part of the Ferrovial group of companies, to spend 15 million euros on modernising the city's rubbish plant and adapt it for the production of energy from organic waste. The council has also extended the company's contract to collect the city's rubbish, originally awarded three years ago, from fifteen to twenty years. The council pays Cespa 4.5 million euros per year for rubbish collection and disposal.

    The modernisation of the plant will involve the automation of rubbish classification and separation, the construction of a new area for the recycling of recovered plastic sub-products and the enclosure of the area where the organic waste undergoes a biological fermentation process, called biomethanisation, from which biogas is obtained. It is estimated that 1.5 megawatts will be generated from this biogas, 20 per cent of which will be used to power the plant and the other eighty being sold to the power company Endesa. The automation of the plant will mean a reduction in the number of workers needed there but part of the agreement with the council was that these workers would not lose their jobs but instead be transferred to other jobs in the company.

    Works are due to begin at the end of this year and should be completed by the end of 2009.

New road in Mojacar a step closer

    The new road that we have been hearing about for years which is to provide an alternative to the beach road came a step closer last week. The mayoress of Mojacar, Rosa Maria Cano, met with representatives of the Junta de Andalucia regional government to discuss the project and ways it could be completed as soon as possible.

    The road, which is the continuation of the A-1203 which connects the Turre-Garrucha road with the roundabout on the road up to Mojacar Pueblo, will run from the roundabout to join the Paseo del Mediterraneo at some point past the Hotel Indalo. The road is included in no less than three development plans for the area and a budget of 13 million euros has been allowed for the construction of its 5.7 kilometres. At the moment studies are being made in preparation for the declaration of environmental impact which is the next stage in the planning of the road. The provincial delegate of the regional ministry for the environment, Clemente Garcia, told the mayoress that the ministry would do all it could to speed up the process so that work could start as soon as possible.

Albox man arrested for robbery

    A man, identified by the Guardia Civil as Ricardo R.H. aged 22, was arrested for robbery with violence and intimidation in Albox. The robbery took place in a shop in the town where, according to an employee of the shop, the accused entered around 9.40 in the evening just a few moments before closing time when the days takings were being counted. When greeted the attacker ran at the employee, pushing him back, grabbed the takings and ran out of the shop. The employee reported the crime to the Guardia Civil who immediately started a search in the town. They found the man within the hour drinking in a bar in the town. When the Guardia Civil searched him they found 500 euros in fifty euro notes hidden in his underwear and when he was taken to the local police station he confessed to having been responsible for the robbery. The man had previous arrests for similar crimes and drug related offences.

Unrest and violence on the streets of Roquetas

    In what seems to have started as a dispute between drug dealers the streets of Roquetas have become the focus of national attention as Guardia Civil in riot gear try to calm groups of angry African immigrants.

    The disturbances were triggered by the murder of a 28 year old Senegalese man, stabbed to death during a fight in the neighbourhood known as Las 100 Viviendas in Roquetas de Mar, the majority of the residents of which are Gypsies. Groups of African men went on the rampage; burning rubbish bins, erecting burning barricades and trying to set fire to several homes in the area, one of which was that of the man who is supposed to have committed the murder. They also attacked emergency services attending the scene, throwing stones and bottles at fire-fighters, an ambulance crew and Guardia Civil. One Guardia Civil officer was hospitalised for serious injuries to his ear which occurred when the car he was driving was hit by a stone from a catapult. The crew of an ambulance also suffered injuries as a result of the glass from the windows of the vehicle they were in being broken by stones.

    The mayor of Roquetas,
Gabriel Amat Ayllon, has said that the disturbances are just 'isolated incidents' and has played down the racial aspect of the violence although comments from Africans in Roquetas have been published in the Spanish press saying that they have taken to the streets to obtain justice for their murdered compatriot because 'without justice another Gypsy will kill another black and, again, nothing will happen'.

    The dead man, identified by the initials O.K., was married with two daughters and had lived in Spain for at least three years. According to the Almeria Acoge, a charity organisation which helps immigrants in Almeria, the victim was trying to mediate in a fight between two others.