Santander Bank profits soar after Abbey takeover

According to figures released by the Santander Bank yesterday, its purchase of Abbey last year has helped the group obtain a rise in profits of over 35 percent during the first six months of 2005.

In its report to the Comision Nacional de Mercado de Valores, which regulates the share market in Spain, the Bank of Santander has revealed that the net profit earned during the first semester of this year rose to 2,551 million euros, compared to 1,887 million euros in the same period last year.

According to the Santander Bank, this sharp rise in profits is largely a result of the takeover of Abbey, without which profits would have risen by just over 18 percent.

This is the first time that the real effect of Santander's purchase of Abbey can be properly measured because the accounts and financial results of Abbey are now totally integrated into the global accounts of the Santander Bank.

The Santander Group's positive results include a 28.7 percent increase in the profit margen of its banking activities, and a rise in loans which have doubled with respect to the same period last year.

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Spanish president visits site of fire

José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero visited the scene of last week's forest fire in Guadalajara yesterday and declared the area a catastrophe zone. While showing him around, the Mayor of Ablanque, which is one of the worst affected areas, was unable to control his grief.

A political row continues to surround the tragedy in Spain, and the government has received fierce criticism from members of the Popular Party and locals. During the funeral held on Friday for the 11 firefighters who lost their life during the blaze, government ministers attending the service received boos, whistles and jeers from people outside the church.

The Popular Party has demanded a full investigation into the management of the crisis, and last week a MP from the Popular Party had to be held back in the corridors of Congress when he tried to assault Perez Rucalcaba the Socialist government's Spokesman.

During his visit to the area yesterday, Zapatero told the Spanish media that this week he will hold a meeting with the mayors of all the villages affected by the fire and with members of the Castilla de la Mancha's regional government to design a plan on how to begin recovery work on the vast area land and forests destroyed by the blaze. The Spanish President also promised to improve resources available for preventing and fighting fires. On Friday the government passed a series of emergency measures, including a ban on smoking in the countryside until November although no explanation has been given on how the ban can possibly be enforced.

Homemade cathedral in Spain

A recent soft drinks television advert in Spain has bought hope to Justo Gallego Martinez and his dream to finish a project he started 50 years ago – a cathedral which he has built virtually single-handed mostly from recycled materials.

Justo Gallego, now in his late seventies, is a farmer and has no qualifications. He has built the cathedral in Mejorada del Campo, a small town just 20km from Madrid, on land he inherited from his parents, and has never applied for a building licence because the cathedral lacks plans with the official arquitect’s stamp of approval required by Spanish law in order for an application for planning permission to be successful. Justo says that the plans for the remarkable building exist in his mind rather than on paper.

Driven, in his own words, by faith in God and in his project, Justo Gallego gradually became quite a celebrity in Spain and abroad as the dimensions of his cathedral project became clear in the eighties and nineties. However given the sheer size of the project, and the fact that he had to build it largely alone because he lacked funds to hire helpers, in recent years it became doubtful whether or not he would actually live to see his cathedral complete. And even if he did, Justo was aware that authorities may demolish it as soon as he died because of the lack of official support from the town authorities. The cathedral, which draws thousands of visitors to the town, is not even mentioned in the official website of Mejorada del Campo.

The old man, who lived in a monastry when he was a young man for some years but was forced to leave before taking his vows due to ill health, has dedicated his cathedral to the Nuestra Señora del Pilar, Madre de Jesús and has bequeathed it to the Bishopric of a nearby town, Alcalá de Henares.

Until now, Justo funded his cathedral with money earned by renting out farmland and accepting donations from supporters (money) and local building companies (building materials). When he could afford to, he hired a helper, but otherwise had to rely on the collaboration of volunteers and members of his family who have helped him over the years to build 8000 square meters, including various cloisters, offices, a library and a 40-metre dome based on the design of the dome of St. Peters Cathedral in Rome.

This year his project has received an unexpected boost thanks to the latest advert of a popular energy drink. The advert uses Justo’s cathedral of an example of how to turn dreams into reality. The impact of the spot has been such that the company has set up a website through which Spaniards are able to donate money or simply express their support by posting messages on the site's forum. Viewers can also see the advert, by clicking on the link JUSTO EN IMAGENES in the MENU at the top of the page. For the first time since he started the project, Justo will at last be able to hire builders and buy materials and may fulfill his dream of seeing the cathedral completed. And, given the public interest generated, the local authorities may be forced to leave the cathedral standing once Justo Gallego is no longer around to protect it.

Forest fire in Spain kills eleven

The forest fire in Spain in which eleven fire fighters lost their lives this weekend is almost under control according to government sources this morning, and efforts are being made to recover the bodies of the eleven victims.

Forest fires are always a great hazard during Spanish summers, but the drought in Spain has further increased the risk of fires this year, and holiday-makers in rural and mountainous areas are being urged to act with even more caution than usual.

Experts have confirmed that Saturday’s fire in Guadalajara which, apart from killing the eleven firefighters has also destroyed over 8,000 hectares of land, was started when a group of people were having a barbecue. Today one of them has been summoned to declare before police, but so far nobody has been arrested. The President of the Regional Government of Castilla la Mancha has announced that his government will pass a law immediately to prohibit people from having barbecues in the Castilian countryside during the Summer months.

The fire has affected four villages and over 600 people were evacuated over the weekend. They are expected to be able to return to their homes today. Four roads remain closed, and three planes, three helicopters, 16 heavy vehicles and five groups of firefighters are still working in the areas where the fire is still burning.

The vice-president of Spain has called an emergency meeting this morning which will be attended by five ministers. Fernandez de la Vega visited the fire zone yesterday, and had to face boos and jeers from residents of one village who have criticised what they consider to be a lack of fire-fighting resources made available by the government.

Alleged Al-Qaeda leader in Spain assaulted in Spanish jail

Immad Yarkas, Al-Qaeda's alleged leader in Spain, is in hospital after being attacked on Friday by fellow inmates in the prison where he was awaiting the outcome of the trial held against him and two other suspects accused of planning the Madrid train bombings last year. Mr. Yarkas, alias "Abu Dahdah" is accused of 2,500 murders, belonging to a terrorist group and possessing counterfeit money.

According to reports in El Mundo, Immad Yarkas was attacked by a group of other prisoners at breakfast and was taken to hospital where he remains under observation with several facial fractures. Mr Yarkas was moved to Castellon when Europe's largest trial of suspected al-Qaeda members concluded in Madrid at the beginning of this month.

Despite the fact that he was under a judicial order to be kept isolated from other prisoners, Castellon’s prison lacks solitary confinement facilities for high-risk inmates which is why fellow prisioners were able to get close enough to first insult and then physically assault Mr Yarkas. According to the prison’s management, the prisoners who took part in the aggression have still not been identified and prison directors have opened an investigation.

Meanwhile, Immad Yarkas’s lawyer told reporters yesterday that he is considering suing the director of Castellon prison for failing to provide his client with the protection necessary for his physical well-being.

The Popular Party has asked Spain’s Interior Minister, Jose Antonio Alonso, for the resignation of the current Director of Prisons, Mercedes Gallizo. According to the shadow Interior minister, Gallizo made a serious mistake by allowing the main suspect in the trial against Al Qaeda in Spain to be sent to a prison with no solitary confinement modules.

If found guilty, the alleged leader of the Spanish cell of Al Qaeda could face a prison sentence adding up to 74,337 years. During the trial when he was given the right to make a statement, Immad Yarka denied any relation to Al Qaeda and the Madrid bombings, and he called the 10-week trial a “farce”.

Summer heatwave in Spain

Six regions in Spain are in red alert due to the extreme heat as the temperature in many places exceded 40ºC yesterday.

The current heatwave, which will make the effects of the drought in Spain even worse than they already are, has been caused by the arrival of air currents from Africa which have caused a rise in temperature throughout the Pensinsula, even northern regions such as Galicia, Asturias and Cantabria, according to Civil Protection.

The weather forecast is for the high temperatures to continue until the end of the week and the worst affected areas are in central and south-east Spain where temperatures will remain over 40 degrees until the weekend.

Civil Protection yesterday issued a statement advising people in Spain to try and stay in shaded, ventilated places, to drink plenty of water and eat fresh food and to wear light clothing and hats to protect themselves from the sun.

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Contaminated Spanish lettuces

Recent comments made by Spain's Environmental Minister, Cristina Narbona, and broadcast on national radio have been greeted with strong protests from horticulture farmers in Murcia, and yesterday the Agricultural Minister had to "correct" Narbona's original statement regarding the possible cause of contaminated products exported from Spain.

At the weekend Cristina Narbona was interviewed on Cadena Ser radio station, and confirmed what had been until then a rumour - that farmers in southern Spanish region Murcia were using untreated sewage to water their crops. Murcia, often described as the "market garden of Europe" is one of the worst hit regions suffering from the severe drought in Spain. Dry reservoirs, a booming tourist industry (where green golf courses contrast with their desertified surroundings) and the lowest levels of rainfall in the whole of Spain during the past few years have all contributed to the drought in this region.

The Spanish minister was defending the government's decision to supply Murcia with water taken from the River Tajo in Castilla la Mancha. The Regional Government of Castilla la Mancha, despite being in the hands of the Socialist party, opposes the decision of Spain's central government to divert water for agricultural as well as personal use, arguing that farmers in Castilla la Mancha are also suffering from the drought and it is unreasonable to expect them to "share" their water with farmers in Murcia.

Cristina Narbona in declarations warned that more and more farmers in Murcia, where vegetable and fruit crops are vital to the regional economy, would turn to the use of untreated sewage if clean irrigation water were not made available. She also said that the government had received "complaints about products from Murcia sold abroad that have generated health problems". El Pais, Spain's most popular newspaper, later published an article in which farmers admitted mixing sewage from their own homes with irrigation water.

Since then farmer union representatives and Murcian regional government members have criticised the minister's declarations, claiming that produce grown in and exported from Murcia is subject to the strictest quality controls, and a couple of isolated cases could not be used to generalise.

However, Finland and Britain have confirmed recent outbreaks of salmonella possibly linked to imported lettuces from the Murcian region.

Yesterday Spain's Agriculture Minister, Elena Espinosa, was interviewed on Cadena Ser. She confirmed that Finland had reported a case of salmonella detected in a batch of iceberg lettuces imported from Spain but said that it was too early to link the outbreak to contaminated water. She also corrected her cabinet colleague, saying that Narbona meant to say that in some areas of Spain, farmers were using "treated water", which was not the same as sewage. Espinosa said that this practice was authorised in Spain and controlled by regular chemical analysis carried out by regional government departments.

The results of the investigations into the cause of the salmonella will be ready in the next few days.

Madrid Olympics 2012 candidate

Queen Sofia of Spain and the Mayor of Madrid have travelled to Singapor where on 6th July this week the International Olympics Committee will vote the successful candidate to host the 2012 Olympic Games.

Spain desperately wants to host the 2012 Olympics, and most of the Spanish media seems oblivious to the fact that Paris and London are considered to be the favourites by much of the international press (USA Today is one example of many). At the end of last year Carlos Rovira, the most controversial member of Catalonia's Government, was forced to withdraw anti-Madrid bid comments because they provoked a boycott of Catalan Cava all over Spain.

A wide variety of well-known representatives of the Spanish political, business and sports scenes are backing the Madrid candidature by forming part of Spain's delegation in Singapore. Spain's President, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero will also attend the final presentation, arriving on 5th.

The Queen will participate in Madrid's final presentation before the IOC prior to the vote. This morning she told reporters "We have a good chance (of winning). The competition is fierce, but we have faith and intend to do everything possible to win". The Queen said that her contribution would be "to defend the expertise of Madrid in organizing cultural and sporting events".

The bulk of the Spanish delegation will arrive in Singapore on Tuesday. Members of the group from the sporting world include Madrid football star, Raul Gonzalez, NBA player Pau Gasol, athletes Fermin Cacho, Manuel Estiarte, Beatriz Ferrer Salat and Gemma Hassen-Bey, retired tennis-player Arantxa Sanchez and retired cyclist Miguel Indurain.

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