Two cases of Legionnaire’s Disease have been reported in Silla, Valencia province, just a few kilometres away from Alcàsser where 10 cases were detected last Friday. A fountain there has been closed down as a precaution, but it was confirmed on Tuesday that two of the five patients who were admitted to hospital have now been discharged.
It’s understood that one of the cases in Silla is also under hospital treatment.
A possible common source of infection is under investigation.
ideal siesta should be exactly 26 minutes, according to a study from NASA which the US National Transportation Safety Board recently used as evidence to back up its recommendation for controlled naps for air traffic controllers. The NTSB said it would improve performance by 34% and alertness by 54%.
Europa Press lists some of the benefits of a short nap as fewer cardiovascular risk factors, less tension, higher concentration and a higher degree of alertness. The news agency quotes research carried out in 2007 which was published in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine which showed the siesta to be one of the best recipes for preventing cardiac problems.
Dr Gonzalo Pin Arboleda from Valencia’s Hospital Quirón sleep unit says a short siesta helps the human body to better withstand the day. It can be beneficial for adults, but is essential for children and older people. He said that children under the age of five need to nap for their physical and neurological development.
Dr Pedro Mayor from the Ruber Hospital in Madrid meanwhile recommends a siesta as it causes our muscles to relax and assists in a more efficient digestion after eating. He said that too long a nap could however alter our sleep cycle, and it should be no longer than 20 minutes.
25 year old British woman, named with the intials J.T., has fallen to her death from a hotel on Ibiza. It happened at 7am on Saturday when the victim was chatting with another woman on the adjoining third floor balcony and, for reasons which are still being investigated, lost her balance and fell to the street below, according to the Local Police in Sant Antoni.
The emergency services sent an ambulance to the scene, the Hotel Galera, in the central Calle Camí General. They found the victim with multiple injuries and she had suffered a heart attack. Attempts to reanimate her continued for 20 minutes but proved unsuccessful.
The police says that witnesses have indicated that the woman was not trying to cross to the other balcony, as in the often reported practice of ‘balconing’.
The Judicial Police of the Guardia Civil has taken over the investigation. They say one possibility is that the woman could have fallen over the balcony as she was leaning backwards as it is reported that she was having an argument with the occupants in the room above.
The Government has proposed a cross-party agreement which would result in an immediate ban on contact ads in both newspapers and magazines and online with the idea of doing away with the advertising of prostitution.
The Secretary of State for Equality has proposed that all parliamentary groups approve a modification to the Advertising Law, to prohibit any sexual services and the clubs which are dedicated to prostitution. The ban would apply to both female and male prostitution.
All political groups are reported to be in favour of the move to be brought in as soon as possible. Such adverts are an important channel of income for the newspapers, and even El País has as many as 700 ads on a working day, which bring the paper an income of over five million € a year. Newspapers 20 Minutos, La Razón and Público have already introduced a ban.
The initiative originally came from Bibiana Aido when she was Minister for Equality. She has now handed over her position at the Secretaria de Estado de Igualdad to Laura Seara who comes from being Director of the Women’s Institute, and who was named in Friday’s cabinet meeting.
Aido becomes an advisor for the United Nations Women’s Agency.
British tourist is in hospital with serious injuries after falling from a height of four metres at his hotel on the south of Tenerife.
It happened in the early hours of Thursday, at around 2.30 am, in a hotel in the Fañabé area of Adeje.
The 43 year old is reported to have suffered serious head injuries in the fall.
British holidaymaker has told how she stared death in the face during a horror boating accident in Ibiza.
Scot Suzanne Cassidy was sucked into the propeller blades of a speedboat which had just pulled her through the water on an inflatable doughnut ring.
The 26-year-old nursery worker only survived by grabbing on to the side of the boat and twisting her body round as the razor-sharp blades hacked into her leg.
Suzanne Cassidy was sucked into the propellers of a pleasure boat in Ibiza. She said she is lucky to be alive
Friends saved her life by pulling her aboard and helping her get to hospital as she started haemorrhaging blood from a wound near her knee which required several stitches. She also suffered a badly broken leg.
She is recovering after an emergency operation at Can Misses Hospital in Ibiza Town.
Her tibia was left sticking out of her right leg in the accident and the broken bone had to be pinned back together.
Glaswegian Suzanne, who only arrived in Ibiza 11 weeks ago to start a summer job in a bar, said: 'I'm just glad to be alive.
'I really thought I was going to die.
'I knew immediately the danger I was in when I felt my leg being sucked towards the propellers by the force of the engine.
'Somehow I found the strength in my upper body to twist myself around and away from danger.
'My friends pulled me back on board the boat and that's when I saw the blood.
'I could feel the throbbing in my leg where it was broken but I was running on adrenaline by that point and I didn't want to look at it so I only found out the bone had been sticking out of my leg after I came to from the operation.
'It was a four and a half hour operation. Friends have asked me how many pins and stitches they've put in my leg but I just don't know.'
Accident: Suzanne was saved by friends who pulled her aboard and got her to hospital quickly
The accident happened around 4pm on Sunday in a pretty cove near the party resort of San Antonio called Cala Conta.
Suzanne had jumped into the water to swim to a bigger boat anchored nearby after being dragged through the sea in an inflatable ring with friends.
She said: 'We'd gone out as part of celebrations for a friend's 30th birthday party with other pals and my boss at the bar I'm working at.
'Five of us had just finished our turn on the ring and we were doing a changeover with other friends who were waiting in the bigger boat so they could go out for their turn.
'It all happened so quickly. I don't know if our boat moved or I jumped into the sea too near the engine but I don't remember hearing any warning.
'I've been told I'll be in hospital for another four or five days and I'll won't be able to fly for a while.
'I'll probably head back to Scotland at the end of September when I was due to fly back anyway.
'The doctors have told me I'll walk again without a limp. And I love dancing so with time I'll be looking forward to dancing again."
Local Civil Guard officers have launched an investigation into the incident.
The owners of the boat involved in the accident were not available for comment.
Suzanne, who is working in Ibiza for the summer, was enjoying birthday celebrations on the island when the accident happened
Anthony Fraser, 39, was on a list of 10 wanted individuals, thought to be in Spain, published in February.
Crimestoppers said he had given himself up on Monday afternoon and the process to extradite him to the UK would begin.
He is suspected of being involved in importing two tonnes of cannabis to the UK from the Netherlands in 2009.
The arrest was made in relation to a joint Serious Organised Crime Agency and Metropolitan Police investigation.
He was the sixth person to be arrested from the batch of 10 suspected criminals revealed under Operation Captura.
Mr Fraser disappeared after cannabis with a street value of £5m was discovered at a storage unit in Grays, Essex, in a truck full of frozen chicken from the Netherlands.
Five people were subsequently convicted of drugs offences and jailed for between six and seven years at Southwark Crown Court.
Mr Fraser's grandfather, 87-year-old "Mad" Frankie Fraser, was an associate of the notorious Kray and Richardson crime families.
Eric ‘Lucky’ Wilson now faces up to 25 years behind bars for shooting Smith eight times in the face and body after a row erupted outside the Lounge Bar, in Riviera in June 2010.
Dubliner Wilson, 27, was arrested at his farm in Coin, less than 48 hours after the attack, and a search of the house found explosives, grenades and fake passports.
During the two-day trial a jury in Malaga was shown documents which suggested Wilson had also killed 11 people in Ireland.
He is due to be sentenced
Roddy Azar, 17, suffered a knife wound to the groin following an argument with a group of youths in Puerto Banus.
The private school pupil, whose dad is Spanish, had allegedly gone to the defence of his girlfriend and a female friend who were being insulted by the group.
The teen – who is expected to make a full recovery – was stabbed in the groin before being taken to hospital in Marbella.
A police spokesman stated: “Our understanding is an argument started after one of the youths said something to the victim’s girlfriend and a female pal that upset them.
“The British boy was stabbed during a brief fight. He fell to the ground feeling dizzy.”
Police are looking to question five people in relation to the incident.
15 year old British man has died after being stabbed in the early hours of Sunday in Lloret de Mar.
It’s understood the victim was not on holiday, but lived in the Girona town.
Police sources told El Mundo that it happened at about 4am in Calle Torrentó in Lloret de Mar.
The emergency medics, SEM, say he was taken to the Sant Jaume de Blanes Hospital in Girona where he died.
The judge has imposed reporting restrictions.
Cataluña is to ban prostitution on its roads before the end of the year. The Generalitat regional government will issue fines on both the roads it is responsible for, and on state roads, for both the prostitutes and their clients.
It’s being made possible via a modification of the 2009 ley de carreteras legislation which is part of the Omnibus laws.
The news was given by the Interior Councillor, Felip Puig, who said that they wanted to stop prostitution also in urban open spaces by changing municipal laws.
As if running amongst raging bulls wasn't mad enough, a reveller at Spain's Running With The Bulls festival entered the bullring naked and not surprisingly, the agitated bull took revenge by hitting him on his bum. The streaker who was teasing the bull wearing nothing but sneakers and a
red scarf was hit on his butt and flung into air by the angry bull. He literally became the 'butt of the joke' and suffered bruises to his face. He was later arrested for causing a public disturbance, reports Sun.uk.
In one of the World's most famous festivals, revellers voluntarily run with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain. The crowd pushes and sprints around in a bullring trying to avoid getting gored by an angry bull.
The crew of the Tenerife fishing boat, the Roque del Águila based in Los Cristianos, were sailing back home on Tuesday on board the Lanzarote boat, the Santuario Barquereño, after their own vessel sunk off Western Sahara on Saturday.
The Roque del Águila was fishing for tuna when the boat’s alarms went off and the automatic pumps went into action as water poured through a 20 centimetre hole in the hull. The auxiliary pumps were brought into play, but were unable to cope with the flow of water.
The crew managed to escape on the life raft before the boat went down, and were rescued by another Canary Islands boat which was fishing eight miles away.
The owner of the Roque del Águila told La Opinión de Tenerife that it’s thought the hole was caused by a swordfish which was hunting for prey amongst the shoal of tuna which surrounded the boat.
The National Police have asked for help from hotels in Benidorm in identifying a man who was recently found dead on a local beach. He was carrying no documentation, but is believed to be a tourist, possibly British, with signs of having drunk a large amount of alcohol before he died.
Diario Información reported on Tuesday that it has not yet been determined if he drowned or if he died of natural causes while in the water.
Police are currently checking passenger lists into Alicante for British nationals bound for Benidorm answering the deceased’s description. The body is that of a man in his 50s, with short red hair and a beard. He was wearing a blue O’Neill bathing costume, a short-sleeved polo shirt with blue and white stripes, white shoes and a Guinness watch. His height is around 1.75 metres.
Local hotels and hostals have been asked to report if any of their guests are missing or have been absent for longer than usual.
The beleaguered pound may mean less of us are heading abroad this summer but for those who can't live without their summer holiday fix, Spain remains the top foreign destination for Britons.
easyJet pinpointed Malaga in southern Spain as the most popular spot for those taking overseas breaks. The low cost carrier said other Iberian destinations including Alicante, Palma in Majorca, Faro in Portugal and Barcelona were also among their best selling routes.
Vamos! Malaga, gateway to the Costa del Sol remains hugely popular among British tourists
easyJet UK director Paul Simmons said: 'The sandy shores, blue seas and promise of sunshine keep Brits flocking to Spain year after year for a relaxing summer break.'
Meanwhile, travel organisation ABTA quoted figures from market research company GfK-Ascent MI showing that Spanish bookings were up 11 per cent this summer, with Portugal up 8 per cent and Greece up 2 per cent.
Spanish hotels, bars and restaurants have widely been seen to lower prices to keep attracting British tourists and counter the current exchange rate. Over the past four years, the pound has fallen by more than 20 per cent against the euro, pushing up the cost of favourite holiday destinations including France, Italy, and Spain.
ABTA said short-break city tours to Paris, Madrid and Rome had increased and there were good deals to be found in Tunisia and Egypt as well as Turkey - a direct impact of the Arab Spring, which has seen tourists reluctant to commit to Middle Eastern breaks.
The organisation also revealed that there was expected to be a 5 per cent rise in the number of passengers taking cruise trips from the UK this year.
Meanwhile, easyJet is expected to be hit by strikes in France today as workers take industrial action against pay conditions during illness or accidents. The budget airline’s cabin crew are preparing a 48-hour walkout in Lyon, Paris Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports.
British drivers in Europe will be hit with record speeding fines totalling £10million this summer as police try to curb appalling road accident statistics, it was claimed today.
Motorists are being advised to carry enough euros to pay on-the-spot fines or face being taken to cash machines by police in France, Germany and Spain.
Cars can be impounded in Italy and Belgium if the fine is not paid at once. France in particular is planning to get tough after a 20 per cent rise in fatalities in April. A new report from the Post Office today warns that thousands of British motorists will be caught in the crackdown.
Post Office research shows that a hard line is being taken against motorists with fines across the Continent averaging £53 per offence and drivers routinely being fined by police for travelling just six mph over the limit.
The faster you were going the harsher the fines. In Italy, says the Post Office, motorists excessively speeding can expect to be fined over £3,000. In France the maximum is £1,470 while in Germany it is £666 and in Spain £588. The minimum fine for speeding in Spain is £98 and in France £66.
In France, the Post Office warns, the authorities have abandoned a softly-softly "drive carefully" approach in favour of an outright clampdown against what they call "delinquent" drivers. Police are removing road signs warning of speed traps, banning speed camera detectors and cracking down on mobile phone abuse. Drivers in France also face 1,000 new unmarked radar speed traps.
Sarah Munro, the Post Office's head of travel money, said: "With more rigorous policing in France and other European countries, motorists driving in Europe this summer need to be extra cautious, ensuring they know the speed limits and then stick to them."
Although some police forces carry payment card machines, research for the Post Office's "motoring on the Continent" report found that drivers stopped in Italy and in parts of Spain, France and Germany are required to pay in cash.
The Post Office reached the figure of £10million by talking to motorists at Dover and Hull ferry ports and finding out what percentage had incurred speeding penalties abroad. With 6.4 million passenger cars leaving the UK by sea every year, the Post Office estimates 198,000 holiday motorists face speeding fines. Based on the average fine of £53.33, holidaymakers could contribute up to £10million in fines.
It happened at about 0345 on Monday morning in Edificio Los Delfines in Calle Mare Nostrum in the town. It’s a normal residential block, not officially used for tourists, but some flats are rented out to tourists in the summer.
The cause of the fall is unclear and being investigated, and the youth has been taken to the Son Espaces Hospital with multiple injuries and a reserved prognosis.
It’s understood he has undergone surgery.
The new leader of Castilla La Mancha said Monday that the Spanish region has a budget deficit more than twice as large as previously thought, raising new concerns over the true state of regional finances and helping to send Spain's risk premium to new historic highs.
Castilla La Mancha President Maria Dolores de Cospedal said her government will present Tuesday the first results of the audit she announced after being elected in nationwide regional and municipal elections on May 22.
"With the debts we've found unpaid as of June 30, the deficit is much higher than we were told," Ms. Cospedal said in an interview with Onda Cero radio station. "Tomorrow we will see the exact figure... but it will likely be much higher than 4%," added Ms. Cospedal, who is also the No. 2 national official of the opposition Popular Party.
The outgoing regional government of Socialist José Maria Barreda had said Castilla La Mancha had a budget deficit equal to 1.78% of local gross domestic product in April, well in excess of the 1.3%-of-GDP limit for 2011 set by the central government in Madrid for each of Spain's 17 regions.
Roberto Ruiz, UBS strategist in Madrid, said the news on Castilla La Mancha "fanned the flames" of worries over Spanish finances. Largely the result of increased investor unease over Europe's inability to solve Greece's financial problems, Spanish and Italian risk premiums—as measured by the spread of their 10-year government bond yields over the German benchmark—soared to new record highs Monday.
The yield premium investors demanded to hold Spanish paper surpassed three percentage points for the first time since the creation of the euro in 1999.
Spanish regions control over one third of spending and are essential to the country's plans to slash an overall public-sector deficit of just over 9% of GDP in 2010 to 3% in 2013. But so far they have made little progress in budget overhauls mandated by the central government in Madrid.
In addition, since a change in government in the wealthy but highly indebted region of Catalonia last year uncovered a much larger deficit than was previously acknowledged, the accuracy of regional accounts have been under suspicion.
The May 22 elections unseated the ruling Socialist Party of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero—undermined by a deep economic crisis—from six of the seven regions it governed. Ms. Cospedal and other incoming Popular Party leaders had promised to audit the accounts of the local governments.
Castilla La Mancha, which reported a 2010 budget deficit of 6.5% of GDP, the highest of all Spanish regions, was already known to have deep financial problems. And it is a relatively small region that accounts for just 3.4% of national GDP. Still, its revelation of a worse-than-expected deficit "shows a dangerous trend," Mr. Ruiz said.
Ms. Cospedal said she had sent a letter to Spanish Finance Minister Elena Salgado, asking her for an urgent meeting to discuss the "worrying state of Castilla La Mancha's finances."
The central government is due to call a meeting with all regions to discuss deficit-cutting plans by the end of this month.
For your average daredevil, risking your life once at the San Fermin Festival is enough. Then there are the veterans, who return year after year to run with the bulls, unable to kick their fix.
The tradition immortalized by Ernest Hemingway in "The Sun Also Rises" is the ultimate rush for this small club of regulars, who prepare obsessively for the electrifying and sometimes shocking dash through Pamplona's old quarter, held every year in the second week of July.
"First you're hooked by the tradition, then it gets you as a fan and, finally, you get to the point where it's an extreme addiction, where you need to be running with the bulls," said Juan Pedro Lecuana, a 38-year-old father of four who has been coming back every year since 1989.
At 8 a.m. sharp each morning from July 7-14, six half-ton fighting bulls are freed from a corral to rumble after thousands of runners down a fenced route of about 800 meters (875 yards), ending up in a bullring where they will face matadors and certain death by afternoon.
Most runners dash through the cobblestoned streets for about 50 meters (yards) before jumping out to safety.
For the humans, any slip-up could signal death, so preparing properly for an event that combines elements of hurdles and rugby scrum can never be taken lightly _ a lesson taken to heart by the veterans but often ignored by thrill-seeking tourists.
Fifteen people have been killed since record-keeping started in 1924 with Daniel Jimeno Romero the last in 2009.
Chicago-native Rick Musica has missed only four runs over 13 years. He watches hundreds of videos throughout the year to gain better insight into surviving the obstacle course.
"On one hand, you have this sheer exhilaration and on the other, sheer utter terror ... balancing those emotions is the key (and) it's not always easy. Actually, it's never easy," the 45-year-old Musica wrote in an email.
"To see these magical beasts thumping through the narrow streets is something that defies logic and something that is unlike anything I have ever done in my life. ... It is truly a celebration of life."
The dos and don'ts for the two- to three-minute dash are simple: don't yell at the animals, carry a rolled up newspaper for a handy distraction and, most importantly, if you fall don't get up. American runner Matthew Tassio, 22, did just that in 1995 and was immediately killed after being charged.
Being physically fit is important, and veteran runners fine-tune through various physical activities, from running to swimming in the month leading up to San Fermin.
Lecuano, who works in the auto industry, has suffered broken ribs, cuts, stitches. He'll remember his last July 11 not for Spain's World Cup victory but for his being gored in the leg. Being bedridden for two months meant added weight, and a harder return.
"Let's see what goes through my head on the seventh," Lecuano cautioned.
Peter Mulligan gets in the groove by dashing through the busy city streets around his Cherry Hill, New Jersey, home and avoiding pedestrians while glancing over his shoulder to mimic what he'll need to do in Pamplona. Looking back is nearly as important as forward, as well as practicing full-out sprints.
"It's like being chased by a Honda Civic," Mulligan said. "I try to run looking over my shoulder, to know what's coming _ keep my knees and feet in good shape."
Mulligan, a lawyer, has even visited ranches to observe the bulls, which he says gave him a better sense of their instincts.
"Once you do it you either never want to do it again or you want to come back every year for the rest of your life," Mulligan said over the telephone in an excited voice.
"We fell in with experienced people, people who really helped us out, gave us sound advice. We knew we couldn't just sit on sidelines as it's one of the few things in life you don't have to sign up for, there's no rules like everything here in North America."
Cesar Cruchaga, former captain of the Osasuna soccer club in Spain's first division, was only able to recently return to running after ending his professional career. Like Lecuana, his first run was at age 15.
"It's a very different feeling to scoring any goal ... so intense it beats any game of football I played," the Pamplona native said.
"That sensation that death is so near _ there is nothing comparable to that."
