Protests Spread in Morocco's North Rif Mountains

Anti-government protests in Morocco's impoverished northern Rif mountains are spreading after a second village clashed with police resulting in serious injuries and 10 arrests, reported the state news agency. For the past 10 days, there have been demonstrations in the small village of Beni Bouayache following the arrest of a local activist. On Sunday they spread to the nearby town of Imzouren. The state news agency said a number of police were injured when they stopped a protest march at Imzouren headed for Beni Bouayache. The report said some injuries were grievous without further details. Chakib al-Khayari, an activist with the Rif Association for Human Rights, said 20 policemen had been injured in Sunday's clashes, but he didn't have figures for the locals wounded. "We don't know the number of wounded because they can't go to the hospital for fear of arrest," he told The Associated Press by telephone. Morocco's Rif mountains, which parallel the Mediterranean coast, are one of the poorest parts of the country and have been historically marginalized with little government investment. On March 2, plainclothes police snatched Bachir Benchaib, a leader of the local chapter of the February 20 pro-democracy movement, as he was leaving the mosque following evening prayers. The state news agency described Benchaib as a violent gang-member implicated in robberies and other criminal activities. In subsequent days, supporters demonstrated for Benchaib's release, blocking the road to the port city of Al Hoceima, 280 miles (450 kilometers) northeast of Rabat, and carrying out sit-ins in front of the police station and government buildings. Starting Wednesday, police began dispersing demonstrations with tear gas and water cannons and carrying out a campaign of arrests. Clashes with security forces generally now take place at night, said al-Khayari, who estimated that some 24 people had been arrested. He predicted that the protests, which have included demands for more electricity and water in their village, would continue. "They want their rights and a better life," al-Khayari. "They have nothing in this region." The Rif mountains were once an independent republic in the 1920s, until the region was reconquered by the French in 1926. After independence from France, the region revolted against the new Moroccan central government in 1958, before the rebellion was crushed. The people are primarily from the Berber ethnicity, North Africa's original inhabitants with their own language, and during demonstrations they waved flags from the Rif Republic as well as the flag of the North Africa-wide flag of the Berber movement.

Naked cyclists in Spanish city protests

 

Thousands of naked cyclists took to the streets of Madrid, A Coruña, Valladolid and other cities across Spain on Saturday to demand greater use of bicycles and more infrastructure for cyclists. The cyclists say they feel ‘naked’ in the heavy traffic of the cities and that they were showing their ‘fragile bodywork’ to demand greater respect from other road users.

525 hectares affect by fire at Tossa de Mar

 

Fire fighters brought a fire on the Costa Brava under control on Saturday after it had affected some 525 hectares. The famous local Tramutana northerly wind complicated matters, and dozens of residents had to be evacuated from their homes in Tossa de Mar and Llagostera. The fire started on Friday and was out by Saturday afternoon after firemen opened a firebreak by the road which goes between Sant Grau and Tossa de Mar so they had better access to the fire. Airborne resources, three helicopters and four planes, were key in the controlling of the fire on Saturday after land based equipment was using during Friday night. The cause of the Girona fire, and of the four fires in the Pyrenees which are now extinguished is being investigated.

44 year old British angler, named as Andrew Latham, has died while out fishing for carp at the Amadorio dam

44 year old British angler, named as Andrew Latham, has died while out fishing for carp at the Amadorio dam inland from Villajoyosa. He died instantly last Wednesday morning, at about 1130am, when his fishing line hit a power cable after he lifted his rod above his head after catching a fish. A fellow anger called the emergency services, when he saw the body floating in the reservoir, but they were unable to revive the Briton. Spanish police say they are treating it as an accident. It’s not yet clear whether Andrew Latham was a resident of Spain or on holiday.

British man falls to his death in Benidorm

 

42 year old father of four, Tyrone Jones, known as Ty, has died trying to climb into his apartment after locking himself out on the last day of his holiday. He had been visiting Benidorm for two weeks with a friend. The motor trader from Exeter in Devon fell off a four metre wall and suffered fatal head wounds. Reports indicate the top bricks of the wall were loose. His grieving relatives report that he must have been lying on the ground for up to five hours before he was seen. His parents flew out to Spain when they heard about the tragedy and Ty was on life support in hospital. His organs have been donated to save the lives of three other people, with use being made of his kidneys, pancreas and liver.

Nicolas Sarkozy threatens to pull France out of Schengen zone

His call came as the French centre-Right threw its full firepower behind their candidate in Villepinte, near Charles de Gaulle airport, in a huge, glitzy show of force designed to breath new life into his flagging campaign. Hailed like a prizefighter, Mr Sarkozy climbed the huge white stage to the strains of his campaign anthem and an amended slogan: "Strong France with You". Actor Gérard Depardieu lent some star power to proceedings, along with Mr Sarkozy's wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and her predecessor as First Lady, Bernadette Chirac. Days after telling France that he would give up politics if he lost the forthcoming elections, Mr Sarkozy told supporters "I have lost none of my desire to act" before launching into a series of protectionist proposals for France and Europe. These included suspending France's participation in the Schengen visa-free zone signed by all 27 EU states bar Britain and Ireland if its rules were not revised to fight illegal immigration in the coming 12 months.

Helicopter rescue for crew of ship aground

 

Coast guards in Italy have used helicopters to rescue the crew of a cargo ship after it ran aground on a reef off Sicily in stormy seas. All 19 crew members were ferried to shore by helicopters after the captain of the Gelso M gave the order to abandon ship. Weather conditions are deteriorating in the area near the city of Syracuse on Sicily's south-east coast. There were no reports of any cargo aboard the Italian-flagged vessel. Coastguard spokesman Cosimo Nicastro said four helicopters had been used to airlift the crew to safety, and all of them were well. Helicopters were needed for the evacuation because the ship's position on the reefs had made it impossible for the crew to lower lifeboats or for rescue vessels to approach. The ship's double hull meant there was a low risk of pollution but the environment ministry was alerted nonetheless, AFP news agency reports. Rescue service sources quoted by the agency suggested that, given the weather conditions, the captain had been sailing too close to the coast. The incident comes two months after the cruise ship Costa Concordia hit rocks off the island of Giglio on Italy's west coast, capsizing with the loss of 32 lives.

Abusing your embutido is prejudicial for your health

 

It has been revealed that those who eat more than 20 grams of chorizo or other embutidos a day could see symptoms and in severe cases suffer a chronic obstruction to the lungs, known as Epoc. It’s thought that the cause of the problem comes from the nitrates which are added as preservatives. The warning comes from CREAL, the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology, who have published their study in the European Respiratory Journal. They say that more than 18,000 people die from Epoc each year.

German man arrested after Málaga lawyer's body found in the boot of his own car

It's now been established that robbery was the motive of the fatal attackThe lawyer's car where his body was found in the boot -The body of a lawyer, named as Salvador Andrés Reina, has been found in the boot of his car in Málaga. The lawyer had vanished in strange circumstances in Málaga last Friday and his body was found on Thursday, in the boot of his own car, parked by the bus station in the city. Police say the man’s body shows evident signs of having suffered violence, having been stabbed several times. A 50 year old German man, named with the initials P.R.B. has been arrested in connection with the case. He was arrested before the body was recovered on Thursday morning. Questioning has revealed that he had pretended to be a client, and killed the lawyer to rob him of 1,200 € which the lawyer was forced to take out of his bank. The lawyer’s family raised the alarm with the police on Friday morning last week after Salvador Andrés failed to return home as normal the previous night. They noticed that he had taken a large amount of money from the account, and this was very strange behaviour for a happy married man with two children. The German’s face was captured on a security camera, which has led to his arrest. The Málaga Lawyers College issued a statement which said that Salvador Andrés Reina ‘had been assassinated when meeting his obligations as a lawyer, attending to his office, when a unknown man turned out not to be a client, but a thief and a killer’. The College expressed its sympathies to the family, his companions and friends, and thanked the police for their ‘very intense’ work in solving the case and detaining the suspect.

Spain's 2 big unions call for general strike March 29

Spain's two main unions on Friday called a general strike for March 29 to protest the new conservative government's labor reforms and austerity cuts. It will be the first general strike against the government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, which won elections last November and took office late last December, in the midst of Spain's deep economic crisis. The last general strike, in September 2010, was against the then-Socialist government, which also had initiated austerity measures. That strike slowed industry and transport, but much of the country went to work and many analysts saw it as a kind of a draw between the government and unions. Since then, the economic crisis has deepened. Spain's jobless rate is nearly 23 percent overall, and nearly 50 percent for youth. Nearly 5.3 million Spaniards are out of work. Union protests across the nation last month drew large crowds, which analysts say emboldened the unions to move ahead with a general strike. The government says the latest labor reforms are needed to bring flexibility to the workplace and to simplify the rules for employers. But unions say the effect will be to make it easier and cheaper to fire workers. The two main unions -- the Socialist-leaning General Workers Union and the Communist-leaning Workers Commissions -- held separate meetings Friday and then announced the general strike for March 29, a date Spanish news media have been reporting for days as the likely date for the strike. Rajoy, at a recent European Union summit, was reported by Spanish media to be overheard, via an open microphone, telling another EU leader that the labor reforms would cost him a general strike. The reforms were approved first as a decree law, with immediate effect, and the unions called on the government to make amendments as the bill moved through parliament. But the conservatives have a commanding majority in parliament and on Thursday approved the reforms unchanged. The government says the labor reforms make up only a portion of the elements needed to spur an economic recovery. It predicts a 1.7 percent decline in the economy this year. The government also has demanded reforms in the banking sector with the aim of getting credit flowing again and to clean up the books of lenders stuck with huge uncollectable debts left over from Spain's real estate and construction boom that went bust, precipitating the economic crisis. The unions earlier called a round of protests for this Sunday, which coincides with the eighth anniversary of the Madrid train bombings terrorist attacks that killed 191 people.

Top Italian mafia chief arrested in Jerez

 

Guiseppe Polverino has been controlling his business interests in Italy from JerezThe Guardia Civil, in collaboration with the Italian Carabinieri, have arrested a Camorra mafia chief and his deputy in Jerez. Giuseppe Polverino is the boss of the Naples Camorra and was with his deputy, Raffaelle Vallefuoco, when they were found by the Guardia Civil who were carrying searches of several properties the Mafia chief was known to have in Jerez. Documents found indicate that the 56 year old Polverino controlled his ‘business interests’ in Italy from Jerez. Many fake documents were found along with dozens of mobile phones. Polverino has been on the run since 2006, and was on the list of the top 30 Italian most wanted. The Italian judiciary thinks he has been controlling an economic empire worth 1 billion €.