Spanish village gets ready for street parties for British royal wedding

The local council has authorised 5 street parties in the small Almería village of Arboleas, where half the population is BritishKate Middleton with Prince William - EFE Thousands of street parties are planned in the UK on Friday to celebrate the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton, and a small village in southern Spain is also organising its own celebrations.Arboleas in Almería province has less than 5,000 inhabitants, and around half of them are British. The local British residents of the village have been preparing for their own street parties since January, when they applied to the Town Hall for permission to have their roads closed off to traffic.Europa Press reports that parties will be held in five separate districts of Arboleas, starting from 5.30 pm after everyone has had...

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Waking upside down and naked inside a bin and being chained to a police car are just some of the situations Britons have found themselves in while on stag or hen parties abroad, it has been revealed.

Waking upside down and naked inside a bin and being chained to a police car are just some of the situations Britons have found themselves in while on stag or hen parties abroad, it has been revealed.One partygoer ended up being thrown into a canal in Amsterdam while another fell off a hotel balcony and spent weeks in hospital, the Foreign Office (FO) said.It added that around one million Britons are planning to travel abroad for pre-wedding parties in 2011 but some 169,000 would not have travel insurance.Top destination this year is Riga in Latvia while Barcelona and Marbella in southern Spain are other popular spots.Phil Lord, from the FO, said: "Stag and hen dos are all about having a great time but the celebrations can come to an abrupt end if things go wrong."Cultural differences mean...

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This process is neither more nor less than a process of pure and simple corruption

The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Francisco Jiménez Villarejo has begun its final report at the trial of the case 'Minutes' , on alleged irregularities in the requests made ​​by the city of Marbella the lawyer José María del Nido in the audit process of the Court of Auditors and has ensured that in this case was a situation "really unusual" and there was "confusion between public and private, which is one of the factors for the emergence and development of corruption." "This process is neither more nor less than a process of pure and simple corruption," he sa...

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The founders of Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars and Absolute Poker could face up to 20 years in jail if found guilty of breaching US anti-gambling and money laundering laws.

US investigators said the websites, two of which are registered in the UK, had “concocted an elaborate criminal fraud” to trick and bribe banks into “massive money laundering and bank fraud”. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) seized the companies’ bank accounts and took control of their US websites, which now display an FBI warning about the illegality of online gambling. It is against the law for US citizens to gamble online, but many Americans have continued to bet via foreign websites operating illegally. Analysts said the DoJ probe was “great news” for British gambling companies that have not sought to circumvent US laws because authorities...

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Christy Kinahan is out on bail in Spain as authorities build a drug and money laundering case. He is believed to be Ireland's biggest ever crime boss.

 Christy Kinahan remains the top suspect for the murder of The Don nearly one year ago. As the first anniversary of Eamon Dunne's murder approaches, gardai now believe that Kinahan's gang contracted a north inner city crew to kill the gang boss. Detectives are set to arrest a number of suspects as they build a case against a hitman from the Cabra area. A ruthless group of young inner city gangsters are believed to have carried out the professional hit after receiving logistical support and advice from two of Kinahan's own cronies. Dunne (34) was shot dead on April 23, 2010, as he sat drinking in The Faussagh House pub in Cabra, north...

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Prince and the Duchess of Cornwall arrived in Rabat amid continuing protests against the country's undemocratic regime, and paid their respects at the Mausoleum of Mohammed V, where the late king and his son Hassan II are buried.

The Prince and the Duchess of Cornwall arrived in Rabat amid continuing protests against the country's undemocratic regime, and paid their respects at the Mausoleum of Mohammed V, where the late king and his son Hassan II are buried. The reign of Hassan II, who died in 1999, was marred by the deaths of hundreds of people who protested against his regime, including more than 300 people who were killed during demonstrations and 174 who died in custody. Morocco is in the middle of a "peaceful revolution" after the present king, Mohammed VI, promised to give up his executive powers, including the right to choose the prime minister and other ministers,...

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Spain has no need of an international financial rescue, according to Dominique Strauss-Kahn

Spain has no need of an international financial rescue, according to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)."I don't believe that the Spanish government needs any type of financial aid," he said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais.The comments will be seen as a vote of confidence that austerity measures imposed by Madrid could be working.The IMF is a key body monitoring Europe's debt-laden economies."We have not received any request for help from the Spanish government," Mr Strauss-Kahn said."I believe that the policies that the Spanish government has implemented, as much on the fiscal side as in the reform of pensions, the labour market or in banking, are the correct policies," he continued."And what I see is that over the last few months, Spain...

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Newly-formed Bankia, Spain's biggest savings bank, said it would create a separate unit for holding risky assets such as repossessed land ahead of a stock market listing expected later this year.

The move echoes that of Barcelona-based La Caixa, which said in January it would hive off its real estate assets into an unlisted company before reversing its banking business into its already listed Criteria (CRIT.MC) unit. [ID:nLDE70R0AJ]Formed from the merger of seven regional banks including heavyweight Caja Madrid, Bankia plans to go public with a net book value of 12 billion euros ($17 billion) and assets totalling 270 billion euros.Spain's government has given savings banks -- or "cajas" -- a deadline to raise their solvency ratios to tough new minimum levels by either by getting private capital on board or accepting state funds.Spain is under pressure to reassure markets on the solvency of its financial system, even more so after Moody's cut the credit ratings of seven banks in euro...

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James Tomkins, 61, lived in exile under an assumed identity on the Costa del Sol, Spain,fugitive murderer who killed a young father in front of his children in Essex before fleeing to the "Costa del Crime" has been jailed for life.

A fugitive murderer who killed a young father in front of his children in Essex before fleeing to the "Costa del Crime" has been jailed for life.James Tomkins, 61, lived in exile under an assumed identity on the Costa del Sol, Spain, after the "brutal execution" of 24-year-old Rocky Dawson.Mr Dawson was shot several times in the back as he put the children, aged two and six, in his Fiat Punto on the drive of the family's home in Hornchurch in 2006.After several years on the run, Tomkins, who was named as one of Britain's 10 most wanted criminals in 2008, was traced to near Marbella and extradited.He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 33 years at Woolwich Crown Court, the Metropolitan Police said.Mr Dawson was gunned down as a dark-blue Land Rover Freelander vehicle drove...

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El Corte Inglés department store in Málaga has been fined for recording people walking past its building in the street

El Corte Inglés department store in Málaga has been fined for recording people walking past its building in the street, and by nearby parked cars. Expansión newspaper says the images, by which it is easy to identify the passing people, were generally kept for seven days. On appeal, the National Court has ratified an earlier fine issued for more than 60,000 € imposed on the company by the Spanish Data Protection Agency, considering damage had been done to those walking by. The court considered the company knew the restrictions on recording people in the street, but did nothing to stop doing so. The case was brought before the Data Protection...

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Junta de Andalucía has been hit by a new resignation, just hours after Luis Pizarro resigned from his position as Councillor for Government and Justice in the regional government Cabinet.

Pizarro was considered as the PSOE party’s number two in the region for many years and was right hand man to Manuel Chaves during the time he was President of the Junta. Chaves is now Minister for Territorial Policy and 3rd Deputy Prime Minister in the Zapatero Cabinet.Pizarro decided to go after the regional government decided to replace its delegate in Cádiz, Gabriel Almagro. Pizarro’s successor at the head of the government and justice department was announced on Tuesday as Francisco Menacho, and it was at a departmental meeting after Menacho had officially taken possession of his new duties that the department’s deputy councillor, José Antonio Gómez-Periñán, presented his resignation to his new boss.Gómez-Periñán is a member of PSOE’s provincial executive in Cádiz and was appointed by...

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Sony Music denounces the Partido Popular

It comes after the party has used a Lady Gaga song in an election video without permissionPhoto PP Despite supporting the Ley Sinde internet copyright law, the Partido Popular finds itself being asked questions about plagiarism by Sony Music for using a Lada Gaga song for part of its election campaign without permission or payment of copyright. The Tarragona branch of the party has removed the video from the PP website, but it remains across You Tube and in other locations. ‘Vota la PP, confía en él, Alejandro, Ale, Ale, Alejando’ are the new letters to the Gaga track, Alejandro, in support of the Mayor of Teruel, Alejandro Fernández. El...

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The judge in Instruction Court Three in Madrid has admitted for consideration the private prosecution brought by some 5,000 people affected by the illegal air traffic controllers walk-out on December 3

The judge in Instruction Court Three in Madrid has admitted for consideration the private prosecution brought by some 5,000 people affected by the illegal air traffic controllers walk-out on December 3 and 4 2010.The people are being represented by the Crenades & Calvo-Sotelo lawyers.The judge has accepted that the controllers who were working at the time should be identified and questioned as indicted. She has asked for the Spanish Airport Authority AENA, to send all the documentation relating to the closure of Spanish airspace at the time, as well as that related to its reopening.Those affected are also expected to file a claim for responsibility against AENA itself, as well as the controllers. The total claim for costs incurred and moral damages is estimated to reach more than 10 million...

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