The Duchess of Alba with her new husband Alfonso Díez outside Dueñas Palace in Seville.

 Photograph: Javier Diaz/Reuters

She is a frizzy-haired 85-year-old eccentric and hugely wealthy aristocrat with a squeaky voice and an impossibly long name. He is a lowly civil servant 25 years her junior. Today the two were married, prompting a frenzy of excitement in this southern Spanish city.

Crowds formed outside Seville's Dueñas Palace – just one of several regal residences the Duchess of Alba owns around Spain – as she, her family and a few friends gathered for a small ceremony for her marriage to Alfonso Díez in the palace's private chapel.

The billionaire duchess, who has been known to ask the media for money in the past, allowed in just two news agencies – for free.

"She is an amazing woman. She does whatever she wants and doesn't give a damn what people say," said 18-year-old tourism student Ana Trigo, as she fought for space on the pavement outside the Dueñas's imposing gates. "I know she's got lots of money, but that's just the luck of birth isn't it?"

A neatly groomed priest, a flamenco singing troupe, innumerable bunches of roses, sunflowers and carnations, and at least two bullfighter guests made their way into the palace complex as security guards pushed back the crowd of gawping, shouting Sevillanos.

"I've written a paso doble and want to sing it for her," said composer Vicente Tarrancón, who travelled the 300 miles from Alicante with an electric piano and a violinist but who remained firmly outside the palace gates.

Onlookers mostly were not disturbed by the duchess's inherited wealth, estimated at up to €3.5bn (£3bn), even though one in five Spaniards are currently unemployed and the economy is heading towards a double-dip recession.

Apart from her palaces, the duchess owns huge tracts of land all over Spain and has a collection of paintings that include works by Goya and Velázquez.

"She gives a lot of money to charity and employs a lot of people. And she repaired the church of the Christ of the Gypsies," said housewife Mari Luz González. "She's wonderful."

Cries of "Guapa!" or "Good-looking!" welcomed the pallid duchess when she appeared dressed in a pink wedding dress with a green ribbon around her waist at the palace gates with her new husband. She responded by dancing a few flamenco steps.

Most people, however, seemed to be taking a tongue-in-cheek attitude to the duchess's latest romance and using it as an excuse to indulge in Seville's favoured pastime of partying. At least one onlooker had dressed in a bridal gown. Another came disguised as Spain's monarch, King Juan Carlos, who was reportedly petitioned by the duchess's children to see if he could dissuade their mother from remarrying.

"Let's face it, the scandal is not that he is younger, but that she is so old," said Margarita Ruibal. "It's not every day you hear of someone of that age getting married."

An unemployed man who called himself Buti came dressed as a yoghurt carton to protest at the €40 a day paid to farmworkers. "Here they are, living it up in their palaces while 300 families a day lose their homes in Spain," he said.

The duchess's attempts to stop her six children from squabbling with her husband-to-be over money – by making her will public before the marriage – failed to appease them all, prompting the duchess to call one daughter-in-law "lying, wicked and covetous" on a television gossip show.

The daughter-in-law and her husband were among the few guests who turned down the wedding invitation. "Alfonso doesn't want anything. All he wants is me," the duchess said earlier this year.

Newsstands, meanwhile, displayed the front cover of Interviú magazine – which showed topless pictures of the duchess taken three decades ago on an Ibiza beach. The publicity-loving aristocrat was said to be formally furious, but privately delighted, by the flattering figure she boasted when she was a mere fifty-something. The magazine said it had held on to the pictures for 30 years so as not to upset the duchess, but thought them now worth publishing.

Local shops were selling duchess-themed "I love DQS" T-shirts featuring her trademark frizz of white hair. The regional CanalSur TV station beamed live coverage into the city's bars, where unemployed men sold postcards of the Virgin Mary statues that populate Seville's churches.

The duchess, whose full name is María del Rosario Cayetana Victoria Alfonsa Fitz-James Stuart y de Silva, boasts 49 inherited aristocratic titles – at least 20 of which allow entry into the select club of Spanish Grandees. She also claims the title of Duchess of Berwick and boasts blood ties to the British royal family and Winston Churchill.

Twice widowed, her last husband Jesús Aguirre, who had previously been a leftwing Catholic priest, died in 2001

Change of Heart for Maurice Boland

 

 Maurice Boland, is set to launch a new radio station later this month after formally leaving Heart FM. The controversial DJ posted a statement on his Facebook page this morning (Wednesday) thanking the station for its support during his ‘short but enjoyable stay,’ but announced he had a new project in the pipeline. “Let me assure you that my absence on the airways will be only short lived. I’m delighted to announce that along with an exceptional team of top class broadcasters, I am developing a new radio project,” he said. He later told the Olive Press: “I am really excited to be setting up a new radio station. “It will be similar format to before with news and current affairs and I have a great name and fabulous studios. “But I haven’t really released any information about it yet. I put it on Facebook as so many people had been calling and emailing me asking where I had gone as I had disappeared off Heart so I was forced to reveal something,” he added. Boland refused to confirm the name of his new station but sources believe it will be an online station called Eye Talk Europe. It comes after the disgraced Irish entertainer returned to the airwaves in April after his close relationship with a 16-year-old girl was exposed. He was forced to lie low for nine months after having his contract terminated at Talk Radio Europe (TRE), as exclusively revealed at the time by the Olive Press. The broadcaster, 62, had set out to help the teenager forge a musical career but their relationship had evolved and he later admitted to making a ‘terrible mistake.’

Peter Bibby on the run while other boiler room crooks get jailed

 

Seven crooks who ran an £8million boiler room scam flogging worthless shares in a supposedly successful bio-diesel enterprise have been jailed for a total of 39 years. Worldwide Bio Refineries was portrayed by coldcallers as a fantastic investment, turning vegetable waste into fuel, but it was a dormant company with just £20 in its bank account. The Serious Fraud Office says: "The share-selling was undertaken by salesmen working from a number of boiler rooms in Marbella and Barcelona although many of them used false names and claimed to be calling from offices Frankfurt, Stockholm or Amsterdam. "The business prospects of the company and the bio-diesel market were inflated by WBR's directors and the salesmen, who claimed that substantial international business was being done and that the business's shares were valued at £110 million. "Investors believed that their investment in a successful bio-diesel enterprise would net them significant short term returns, bolstered by claims that WBR was to be floated on the stock market which would result in a significant increase in share value. These claims were bogus. "The reality was that the UK bio-diesel plant produced no output and, with only limited imports coming from a Singapore plant, WBR was not being managed with any intention of it becoming a growing commercial success generating profits from sales of bio-diesel. WBR was simply a vehicle for fraud." At Ipswich Crown Court, Dennis Potter of Singapore, born April 1939, was jailed for seven years. Redmond "Ray" Charles Johnson of Tyne and Wear, born September 1944, got three years. From Marbella, Steven John Murphy, born in February 1976 and Greg Pearson, born August 1973, both got six years inside. From Hertfordshire, Paul Daniel Murphy, born in September 1973 got six years and Lee Eliot Homan, born in July 1972, got five years and six months. Peter Bibby from south London, born in September 1967 is on the run. He was sentenced in absentia to six years. Serious Fraud Office director Director Richard Alderman said, "I am very pleased with the sentences in this case which reflect the callous way the criminals preyed on their victims." Potter and Johnson were associates of Alternative Diesel Investments, run by Robert Alan Scott and an earlier "completely fraudulent" operation.

64% Of Moroccan Men Are Reunited With Their Wife

 

Sánchez-Domínguez states that “Moroccan men show strong endogamic tendencies and use marriage as a way of being reunited later on with their partner within Spain. The most common type of behaviour consists of a Moroccan single man coming to Spain. After a certain amount of time, he returns to Morocco where he gets married to a Moroccan woman and then returns to Spain without his spouse. Later on, he is reunited with his wife within Spanish society. Some 64% of Moroccan immigrant men have employed this strategy. According to experts, religion as well as geographical proximity to Spain are key factors in explaining this phenomenon. Exogamy is an indication of an immigrant’s level of social integration. Those who have higher tendencies towards exogamy are Argentineans and Colombians. According to the researcher, linguistic and cultural proximity means that the number of marriages with the Spanish population is very high “because they see each other as equals.” Furthermore, it was observed that Brazilian, Dominican, Cuban and Colombian women display a high percentage of marriage with Spanish men within just a year of arriving in Spain. This is a phenomenon known as “imported brides”. Sánchez Domínguez highlights that “in general terms, endogamy decreases according to the amount of time that an immigrant spends in a country, which, in turn, is a clear indication of integration. On the other hand, endogamy is higher amongst immigrants with less educational attainment and exogamy is more prevalent amongst immigrants who have a university education.”

Spanish Women Marry Immigrants With More Qualifications

 

A team at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) has studied the marriage strategies of immigrants in order to determine the nature of endogamic (between people of the same nationality) and exogamic partnerships (between people of different nationalities) in Spain. The preliminary results indicate that, unlike Spanish men, Spanish women prefer immigrants with more qualifications. “It caught our attention that human capital was more important in determining outmarriage amongst Spanish women but this is not the case in Spanish men. In other words, it seems that Spanish women prefer to get married to an immigrant man who has a higher educational attainment. However, this preference does not exist amongst Spanish men when it comes to getting married to an immigrant woman,” explains María Sánchez-Domínguez, investigator at the UCM and co-author of the study that was published in the International Sociology Journal. The researcher and her team gathered data from the National Immigrant Survey of Spain (2007), which was carried out by the UCM’s Population and Society Study Group (GEPS) and Spain’s National Statistic Institute (INE). The survey acts as a unique source of information and can be used to understand the characteristics of immigrants in Spain since 2007. Sánchez-Domínguez points out that “although it is from 2007, the survey contains both information on the current situation of those surveyed as well as their migration history. It is the only source of information that we can use to study the marriage strategies of immigrants and link them to integration processes. It is useful not just in understanding immigrant marriages in Spain but also those marriages that took place in the country of origin. From these data, in an initial study, researchers analysed endogamic marriages in Spain and the relationship between marriage and migration strategies. The expert’s main conclusion was that Moroccans are more prone towards endogamy, followed by Romanians and Ecuadorians.

Strictly star Chelsee Healey says she loves showing off her £3,000 boob job

 

As a teenager Chelsee Healey was afraid to take her top off even in front of a boyfriend. 

But, fast forward a few years and with a £3,000 investment in her appearance, the Strictly Come Dancing star is happy to flaunt her chest on national television. 

Chelsee, 23, is among stars on the show who've come under fire for wearing skimpy outfits during their performances. 

Thrilled: Chelsee Healey was ashamed of her 'droopy boobs' before she went under the knife

The actress, who appears on Waterloo Road, flew to a Marbella-based surgery to have her cosmetic procedure.

 

More...

• So is all that flesh Strictly necessary? Stars told to cover up as judge Len Goodman calls show 'celebrity job centre'
• 'Bonza, you beauty!' Jason Donovan blows the competition out of the water on second night of Strictly

 

And she raided her trust fund to pay for the operation, which boosted her chest from a C-cup to a 32DD. 

She told Now magazine: 'I'd hated my boobs for as long as I can remember. I'm naturally outgoing, but in this area I lacked self-esteem. By the time I was 19, I was desperate to change. I took £3,000 from a trust fund my dad had set up for me. I knew I'd never be happy until I got the shape I wanted.'

Ashamed of her saggy boobs, it wasn't until her friends pushed her to go for it in 2007 after a holiday to Puerto Rico, that Chelsee finally went to Spain and under the knife.

Proud of her assets: Chelsee Healey pushes her chest out at the Inside Soap Awards - she spent £3,000 on her 32DD boobs

Now over the moon with her new chest, she is often seen wearing low cut tops.

She told Now: 'I'm thrilled with them. They're round, firm and perfect and now I'm happy to show them off.'

However, Chelsee has come under fire on the BBC dancing show for her revealing outfits.

After receiving a few nasty comments on Twitter, she said: 'I was happy with the outfit, but if you come out dressed like that it can make a bad first impression.

Tiger Woods' most famous mistress got married Sunday in Las Vegas.

Rachel Uchitel's two-year nightmare is over.

Tiger Woods' most famous mistress got married Sunday in Las Vegas.

The chapel wedding took place two years, almost to the day, after Woods' last outing in Sin City before his world -- and reputation -- unraveled six weeks later. The golf great was spotted celebrating at Tao Las Vegas' star-studded four-year anniversary and Lavo's one-year anniversary.

Uchitel, a former host at Tao, was in Marbella, Spain, at the time, orchestrating some of Woods' activities.

Her decision to invite Las Vegas night-life regular Ashley Hollingsworth Samson to Marbella led to Samson's $25,000 paycheck from The National Enquirer for going public with Uchitel's romance with Woods.

Uchitel and boyfriend Matt Hahn, a former Penn State football player, got married on impulse Sunday while in town to attend the wedding of their friends.

The Uchitel-Hahn wedding took place at the Little White Chapel, where Britney Spears married childhood friend Jason Alexander over New Year's weekend in 2004. Bruce Willis and Demi Moore tied the knot there on Nov. 21, 1987.

Uchitel and Hahn, with 12 friends, danced into the chapel at 11 p.m. to Beyonce's hit "Single Ladies," according to TMZ.com. After the wedding, they departed to Katy Perry's "Waking Up in Vegas."

It was anything but an all-night celebration for the newlyweds. They were back at her grandmother's by midnight, according to TMZ.

Spain Regions Race to Sell $1.3 Billion Property This Year

 

Catalonia and Andalusia, two of Spain’s largest and most indebted regions, are trying to sell $1.3 billion of real estate by the end of the year as the country tries to slash its budget deficit and keep borrowing costs from ballooning. “We put the cream of the crop in the portfolios to ensure the sales are completed,” Jacint Boixasa, director of assets for Catalonia, said in interview in Barcelona. “Our target is to sell 550 million euros ($742 million) of real estate by year- end, which is relatively little time.” Spanish regions, which control more than a third of public spending, will play a pivotal role in the nation’s effort to cut its deficit to 6 percent of gross domestic product this year from 9.2 percent in 2010 as the country tries to avoid following Greece, Ireland and Portugal in requiring a bailout. In August, Moody’s Investors Service put Spain’s credit rating on review for a downgrade, citing the worsening finances in the regions. Catalonia is trying to find buyers for 37 properties including the Barcelona stock market on Paseo de Gracia, Spain’s fourth-most expensive commercial street, as well as the Catalan Agriculture Ministry on Gran Via. Jones Lang LaSalle and Madrid- based real-estate consultant Aguirre Newman are advising the government on the sales. Andalusia hired BNP Paribas SA to help raise at least 400 million euros selling 76 properties including the cultural department in Granada and youth centers in Malaga, according to the region’s treasury department. The government will pay around 30 million euros a year to lease the buildings after the sale

Greenpeace has revealed how Spain is “repeatedly and systematically overlooking illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing by its huge fleet throughout European waters and beyond”.

 

Greenpeace has revealed how Spain is “repeatedly and systematically overlooking illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing by its huge fleet throughout European waters and beyond”. The report, titled Ocean Inquirer, takes as a case study one Galician family whose companies have received over €16m in subsidies from European taxpayers to fund a long list of criminal activities. Greenpeace states that the Vidal family’s many ships have been found conducting IUU fishing for decades, right around the world, and been prosecuted in the US, the UK and in the Pacific and the Spanish government have promised on numerous occasions to investigate and put an end to these abuses. But Greenpeace claims that what they have actually done is fund them - with our money. Spain has the largest fishing fleet in Europe, maintained with billions in subsidies - more than double the amount of subsidies received by any other EU nation. Greenpeace has accused the Spanish fleet of exploiting the CFP to infiltrate the fleets of other European nations and take their fishing quotas. If Spain, and Europe, continue with business as usual, it is predicted by the EU that less than 10% of our fish stocks will be at sustainable levels by 2022. Greenpeace’s case study of the Vidal family documents their long history of illegal fishing, their prosecutions and convictions and their frequently successful attempts to avoid justice, and Spain’s continuing failure to deal with an issue which has been raised with them on numerous occasions. It also reveals new evidence on Vidal’s latest business venture, an alleged fish oil factory in Galicia. This factory is not currently operational, many months after its claimed opening date, and yet Greenpeace says it has already earned the Vidal family another €6.5m - in EU subsidies. Greenpeace oceans campaigner Ariana Densham said, “According to some estimates, up to 49% of the global catch is IUU, and this is one of the reasons why our over-exploited fisheries are in such rapid decline. The fact that in Europe this theft of fish is being subsidised by taxpayers’ money, that we’re actually paying pirates to steal our fish, destroy one of our oldest industries and devastate the marine environment, shows just how corrupted the CFP is.” Greenpeace is calling for a full EU investigation into subsidies given to the Spanish fishing industry, and for all future subsidies to be given to legal, transparent and sustainable fishing practices, consistent with the CFP’s stated objectives. In response to this report, European fisheries commissioner Maria Damanaki stated that “The serious allegations are already under investigation by the European Commission and being followed up with the Spanish national authorities. We are establishing all facts in order to pursue breaches“.

Sheikh Abdullah Ben Nasser Al-Thani's work on La Bajadilla Port in Marbella delayed

 

DELAYED La Bajadilla Port in Marbella has still not begun, because four months after the work was assigned, the contract has not been signed. There are three appeals against Sheikh Abdullah Ben Nasser Al-Thani’s project, which was due to be completed in 2015. One is from the Marbella Marina International Consortium, which was on competition with the temporary union created by Marbella Town Hall and Qatar Sheikh and Malaga CF owner, Al-Thani. His proposal to expand Marbella’s port and marina was chosen over theirs, but they believe that the decision was “unfair”. They haven’t directly asked for the process to be stopped, but bringing a case against the decision makes this automatic, regions such as Andalucia must have a specific tribunal to regulate relationships between public administrations and the companies chosen to carry out work, as the Junta de Andalucia does not have one, the Andalucian Supreme Court of Justice will rule in this case, and a judge will decide if the work can go ahead, even if the case continues at the same time. In any case, it appears the contract will not be signed this year. Al Thani’s project conceives a circular port with space for 1,221 yachts and a cruise stop, as well as a 45,000m2 commercial and leisure area with a five-star hotel. It aims to create around 3,000 jobs.

35 towns in Malaga spend more than they make

 

101 towns in Malaga province, 35 ended last year with budgetary deficits for spending more than they were making. Changes to the Constitution which were approved by PSOE and the PP in early September in congress in order to limit the deficits of public administrations could mean that many towns will find themselves in a sticky legal situation. The text states that “local administrations” must have “budgetary balance” by 2020, but seeing the figures for the province, which is not an exception in Spain, for 2009 and 2010, this will not be easy. The numbers could be even worse than it initially appeared, as Atajate, Carratraca, Cortes de la Frontera, Gaucin, Genalgualcil and Parauta have not yet handed in their figures for either year, while others, which although the Tax and Economy Ministry’s records show their budgets were balanced, admit that they ended the year with empty coffers and no money available in banks and payments to face. Many cases have only come to light after the elections when new parties have taken over. Malaga city has a debt of €735m, the highest in the province and the fourth worst in Spain behind Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia. The second worst figures are seen in Benalmadena, with a debt of €87m, although the worst deficiency is in Cuevas Bajas, with a difference of €800,000 between what was spent and what was taken in 2010.

Spain's first ever retirement home for gay and lesbian residents.

A landscaped, luxury home is envisaged

A short train ride from central Madrid is a scruffy plot of land covered in weeds and surrounded by wire fencing. In just a couple of months work is expected to start to transform the site into Spain's first ever retirement home for gay and lesbian residents.

Spain has been at the vanguard of Europe in terms of gay rights in recent years, but activists say reforming laws has been easier than changing attitudes.

"Gay old people have to go back in the closet when they enter retirement homes," explains Federico Armenteros, who runs the December 26th Foundation in Madrid.

It is named after the date in 1979 when the law used during Gen Franco's dictatorship to imprison homosexuals - or to send them for "cure" with electric shocks - was repealed.

"For many years, a lot of people believed that homosexuals were sick and sinners," Mr Armenteros says.

"That is more pronounced among older people, and hard to change,"

So the foundation has been working on a solution.

'Insulted and alone'

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

I have to make myself as invisible as possible - go back in the closet - so they don't notice me”

Jose Maria Herreras

It has formed a co-operative, recruited architects and designed a luxury, landscaped retirement complex - complete with 115 apartments, gym, spa and restaurant.

There is space for yoga, Tai Chi and dance classes - and plans to house archive material for the first research centre on the history of the gay rights movement in Spain.

Designed to be "gay-friendly", the Foundation says the home will be open to anyone regardless of their sexuality.

Jose Maria Herreras describes it as a dream come true.

He looks relaxed, sitting at street cafe in Chueca - the gay heart of Madrid. But Jose is 65 and lives in a retirement home. He says his life has been miserable ever since the other residents discovered he was gay.

"They started to steer clear of me and insult me," he explains.

"They called me 'queer' and it made me feel awful. My room has two beds but no-one wants to share with me. So I'm alone and it's bad.

"I have to make myself as invisible as possible - go back in the closet - so they don't notice me. And I spend as much time outside the home as possible."

For now the site of the home is just wasteland

Gay rights activists believe that experience is widespread.

Predominantly Catholic Spain was among the first countries to legalise gay marriage and adoption.

Gay pride celebrations in Madrid are among the best-known and most extravagant.

The formerly run-down neighbourhood of Chueca now has a thriving gay scene including clubs, saunas, bars and bookshops.

But four decades of Gen Franco's right-wing dictatorship meant that change came late to Spain and has spread slowly.

'Anti-camp law'

"We only started fighting for our rights in the 1980s," explains Mili Hernandez, who opened Madrid's first gay and lesbian bookstore, Berkana, in 1993.

"Until 1979 there was a law that [they] could take us to jail just for walking on the streets and being a bit camp."

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

I think we should go to the homes and ask for our rights”

Mili HernandezSpanish gay rights pioneer

The 1980s Aids epidemic was another setback for equal-rights campaigners.

"Now we have [some] of the best laws in the world for homosexuals, but we didn't have enough time to change mentalities," Ms Hernandez says, and points out that there are still very few high-profile, openly gay role models in the country.

"We're still in the closet," she says.

The bookstore owner sympathises with the problems of gay pensioners in care but she would prefer a different approach.

"I think we should go to the homes and ask for our rights. Ask for a double room, and tell them we are gay. We should try to insist."

But plans for the alternative home are already well advanced.

"It's too tough to make people who are suffering now wait until society changes and the discrimination ends - when people whisper about you and call you names, and won't enter your room," argues Federico Armenteros.

"These things are shrinking but unfortunately they exist."

He and his partner have already signed up for an apartment.

"I'll be living in a quality place, with people who respect, understand, love and care for me," Mr Armenteros says.

"Usually, when you end up in a home you're just another number. But this is something completely different."

'Social need'

A flat at the new complex should also work out considerably cheaper than the average retirement home.

How the home should look eventually

That is largely because a sympathetic local mayor has granted a low-cost 75-year lease on the land.

The co-operative system means members will cover 40% of the home's costs in advance while remaining funds will be sought from the banks.

For the architects who have drawn up the plans - for no charge, so far - the project makes sound sense.

"This is a project which will actually happen - that's important because we've done a lot of unnecessary building in Spain," says chief architect Julio Touza Sacristan, walking the plot with his sketches and artist's impressions.

But he also got involved because he saw a social need for the residence.

"I'm not sure everyone would like to be associated with such a project," he says.

"We're not as modern as we think we are in Spain but we think this is really necessary."

For Jose Maria Herreras, the place cannot be built quickly enough.

"This is somewhere where everyone will be equal," he says. "It's a totally different home where we won't have to hide who we are. We will be people. I will be free again."

Spain judge frees 5 suspected of financing terror

 

Five Algerians suspected of financing al-Qaida's North African branch have been freed by a judge who said there was no significant evidence against them. The judge ordered the men to stay in Spain, report to judicial authorities twice a month and declare any change of address. The men are being investigated on suspicion of providing logistical and financial support to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM. The arrests took place Tuesday in the northern Basque and Navarra regions. Mohamed Talbi, Hakim Anniche, Mounir Aoudache, Abdelghaffour Bensaoula and Ahmed Benchohra have not been charged. National Court Judge Fernando Grande-Marlaska said Saturday that there was no evidence the men had sent "significant sums to Algeria" or that the recipients were "persons related to terrorist activity." The five men had also been under investigation on suspicion of maintaining contacts with radical Islamists in France, Italy and Switzerland. Police seized a large amount of documents and computer material as part of their probe. AQIM operates in Algeria and emerged in the 1990s from armed groups fighting the Algerian government after the army stepped in to cancel the 1991 elections in a bid to stave off a victory by an Islamist political party. The group declared allegiance to al-Qaida in 2006, changed its name and renewed a campaign of bombings and kidnappings across the Sahara. AQIM is currently holding four French hostages, and French officials have called it the biggest terror threat to France and its interests. Dozens of suspected radical Islamic militants have been arrested in Spain since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in New York and Washington, and again after the 2004 commuter train bombings in Madrid.

EU subsidies fuel Spain’s ravenous fleet

 

Decades of overfishing have left Europe’s fish stocks in peril and its fishermen in poverty. It’s an impasse paid for by EU taxpayers. Yet a proposed revision of the EU’s fishing law, hailed as sweeping reform, is rapidly losing momentum. A look at the industry’s biggest player - Spain - shows what officials are up against. Billions of euros in subsidies built its bloated fleet and propped up a money-losing industry. All the while, companies systematically flout the rules while officials overlook fraud and continue to fund offenders, an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has found. “Spain has earned its bad reputation,” said Ernesto Penas Lado, director of policy and enforcement at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries. “The problem is others don’t have the reputation and deserve it just as much.” Spain may not be alone. But as the EU’s most powerful fishing fleet, it is the starkest example of a failed EU policy, critics say. The Spanish fishing industry has received more than €5.8 billion (more than $8 billion) in subsidies since 2000 for everything from building new vessels and breaking down old ships to payments for retiring fishermen and training for the next generation, an fresh analysis by ICIJ shows. Subsidies account for almost a third of the value of the industry. Simply put, nearly one in three fish caught on a Spanish hook or raised in a Spanish farm is paid for with public money. ICIJ’s analysis is the first in-depth look at just how much public aid Spain has received for fishing - primarily from EU taxpayers, but also from Madrid and regional governments. The country has cornered a third of all the EU’s fishing aid since 2000, far more than any other member state. The central government doles out even more for things such as low interest loans and funding for its largest industry associations, which in turn lobby the EU for more industry subsidies, records show. Since 2000, the sector has avoided paying €2 billion in taxes on fuel to the Spanish Treasury. Public monies also fund a surprising range of services. More than €82 million ($114 million) has been spent to promote the fishing sector through advertising and at trade shows. After fishing vessels were hijacked by pirates in the Indian Ocean, Spain in 2009 changed its law to allow vessels to hire private security forces onboard, and then it helped foot the bill to the tune of €2.8 million. The root of the problem, regulators say, is that out-of-control subsidies encourage countries to build up already oversized fleets that are rapidly depleting the seas. “Fish are not an unlimited resource,” said fisheries economist Andrew Dyck of the University of British Columbia. “When the public purse is the only thing propping this industry up, we are paying for resource degradation.” The EU Commission itself recently concluded that “too many boats continue to chase too few fish.” It blamed the situation, in large part, on subsidies. Fish, not human rights One of the most controversial forms of public aid pays for foreign fishing licences. With its own waters increasingly empty of fish, the EU buys rights to the fishing grounds of developing countries such as Morocco, Mozambique and the Ivory Coast. Green groups, fishing experts and some EU politicians have criticised the agreements, saying European fishermen take advantage of poor countries that often lack knowledge and resources to protect their fish stocks. And key agreements cost more than they return on the value of fish. This is the case with Morocco, where each euro invested returns only €0.65 in value added, according to a study funded by the EU. The Spanish industry has received more than €800 million ($1.15 billion) in foreign licenses over the past decade — about two-thirds of the EU licences overall, according to the ICIJ analysis. The agreements have the support of Carmen Fraga Estévez, the European Parliament’s most powerful legislator on fisheries issues. A sharp-tongued politician with an encyclopedic knowledge of the industry, Fraga served as fishing secretary in Spain and has held a seat in the parliament’s committee on fisheries - which she now chairs - for 17 years. Her loyalty to the industry appears to be so deep that when she had to choose between human rights and fish, she voted for the latter. “The fisheries committee has to discuss fisheries issues, not human rights,” she was quoted in the press as saying when in 2009, the committee for the first time voted down a fishing agreement. Days before the vote, 157 civilians died after Guinea’s totalitarian regime opened fire on pro-democracy protesters. The agreement would have handed the Guinean government €450,000 ($639,000) a year for fishing licences. Fraga Estévez declined requests for interviews from ICIJ. Spanish member of the European Parliament (MEP) Josefa Andrés Barea said the subsidised foreign fishing licences are vital. When Spain entered the EU in 1986, very few Spanish vessels were allowed in the Union’s waters. So fishing in foreign waters was - and still is - the only way for many ship owners to make a living. And if Spain isn’t fishing, she said, less savory global players will scoop up the catch instead. "There's a fundamental problem here, which is that major [fishing] powers like China will be there if we're not. And they don't have any rules,” Andrés said. “They're much more predatory than we are." Fewer fish, poorer fishermen EU waters are among the world’s most exploited. Scientists say three quarters of assessed fish stocks are overfished. Eels once served as a delicacy are so depleted scientists doubt they can recover despite a Europe-wide rescue plan. Irish Sea Cod, Baltic Sprat and West of Scotland herring are all dwindling. The trend stretches across the globe. In 2006, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that 75 percent of the world fish stocks were fished to the very limit of - or beyond - sustainable levels. In its latest report, from last year, that figure had risen to 85 percent. “Europe has a long and dark history of overfishing,” said Boris Worm, one of the world´s most renowned marine biologists, working at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada. In a 2003 study, Worm showed that industrialised fishing has, since 1950, emptied the oceans of nine out of 10 fish longer than 20 inches such as salmon, cod and halibut. Fewer fish mean fewer - and poorer - fishermen. Across the EU, the sector often costs taxpayers more than it produces. According to a recent report by the environmental group Oceana, at least eight countries received more money in public fisheries aid in 2009 than the value of their landed fish. The fishing industry was the only segment of Spain’s economy that shrunk in the 2000s. The northwestern region of Galicia more than anywhere else in Europe relies on the industry - and the subsidies - to stay afloat. Yet the area lost a third of its fisheries-related jobs in the decade leading up to 2006. In the Galician port of Vigo on the Atlantic coast, more fish pass across the docks headed for consumers’ plates than in any other port in the world. Coastal towns are riddled with signs boasting subsidised fishing projects. Politicians include the sector as a central theme in their campaigns. The industry’s power was propelled by the 1960s push for industrialisation by the fascist Franco regime. Franco himself was an avid fisherman and a Galician by birth. “Economically the [fishing] industry is between the tomato and the potato. But politically it is more important than any other industry,” said EU’s head of fisheries control Valérie Lainé. The sector “has always been protected by the government - without the industry, Vigo would be dead, Galicia would be dead.” The powerful Galician industry group ARVI, which boasts of its close ties to lawmakers, acknowledged that fishing would not be viable without public funding. In a recent position paper, it encouraged politicians to support subsidies to modernise outdated vessels, fish in foreign waters and build new on-shore cold storage. Meanwhile, subsidies steadily flow to the region, but sometimes only make things worse. Víctor Muñiz has relied on fishing for decades. He used to own vessels, as did his father before him. Not anymore. Now they operate a fish processing plant in the Galician town of Meaño. The factory was renovated in 2009 with EU subsidies to process and freeze up to 300 tons of fish per hour; it was expected to employ 100 people. But the brand new machinery stands silent. “There should be 10 trucks with mackerel here,” Muñiz said in a bitter tone as he walked through the 8,000 square meter plant in April. But within 20 days of the start of the season, most vessels had already scooped up their entire mackerel quota. Muñiz said the quota is too low, but his major frustration is that too many factories like his were subsidised in the first place. “You present a €2 million project, and they give you 60 percent. You’ve told them how much fish you're going to produce and what kind. Somebody should have told the processing plants: ‘No, sorry, this is the quota for mackerel.’” Policy in a shambles By 2006 it was clear that EU’s fishing policy was in a shambles. Fleets were bloated. Stocks were crashing. Researchers commissioned by the EU drafted a series of reviews of the community’s fisheries law - the Common Fisheries Policy, which will govern the fleet for at least a decade. One little-known document is informally called the “Frankenstein report” because of its damning conclusions. It lays the blame squarely on influence-driven subsidies: The sector would be broke without them. Swedish Green Party MEP Isabella Lövin said the key problem of the EU fisheries policy is that it was “modeled after agricultural policy. You provide fertilizer and farming equipment, you get more vegetables. So they used the same model in fishing - you increase the number of boats, you get more fish. But it doesn’t work that way,” she said. “You end up with less fish.” Subsidies over the past decades built a bloated EU fleet that plundered fish stocks. Efforts to reduce the capacity have focused on paying companies to break down old vessels. But that reduction has been undercut by subsidies given to modernise existing vessels, enabling them to catch more and more fish. According to the 394-page “Frankenstein report”, EU-countries need to cut capacity in half and severely restrict - and adhere to - quotas for fish stocks to recover. But Spanish Fishing Secretary Alicia Villauriz said policymakers must consider more than capacity. “You cannot make a statement saying: If you reduce the fleet everything will be more profitable. You'll also destroy a lot of employment.” Any transition, she said, would need to happen slowly. That the European fleet was bloated was nothing new - calls to cut it down began in the 1980s. But the aid kept rolling in to build new ships and modernise old ones. “The sector has managed to attract more financial resources than would be justified under normal conditions,” the “Frankenstein” report said. The EU researchers also found that groups set up to advise the Commission on a new fishing policy - largely made up of industry representatives - consider the platform “mainly as a channel for political influence, and secondly as a forum for discussion” of the new law. In short: They were lobbying for their interests instead of trying to find solutions. The EU-commissioned “Frankenstein” report concluded that EU policy did “not provide the right incentives for responsible fishing, or may even induce irresponsible fishing.” Turning a blind eye Protected stocks worth as much as €16.7 billion ($23 billion) are illegally traded worldwide every year - making the black market in fish more valuable than smuggling stolen art. Many of the players in the illicit trade set up shell companies in places that do not adhere to international conventions protecting the oceans. Spanish nationals register more vessels to “flag-of-convenience” countries than any other besides Panama, Honduras and Taiwan - which are themselves considered nations where a ship-owner can register their boats without having to adhere to strict tax or safety requirements, and can operate without oversight. It is rare for the commission to take a member state to court. The European Court of Justice - Europe’s highest court - has found Spain guilty three times of failing to implement EU fishing laws. Spain has refused to enforce catch limits, police its fleet or impose adequate punishment, the court ruled. One of Spain’s most widely criticised shortfalls is policing its port of Las Palmas on the Canary Islands off the Moroccan coast. Illegal shipments of fish plundered from West African waters regularly filter into the EU through the port, according to multiple investigative reports. Fishing secretary Villauriz said control in Spain is expensive because of the sheer size of its industry - more than 10,000 fishing boats, 3,084 miles of coastline and 47 major ports. “But that doesn't mean we're not taking care of our obligations in control matters” she added. The Spanish Ministry of Environment, Agriculture and Fisheries told ICIJ that inspections have nearly doubled since 2004 to 9,323 in 2010. That’s still far from the number of inspections other countries are carrying out - the United Kingdom logged nearly 50,000 inspections in 2004. But some things don’t appear to have changed. The number of inspectors in the port of Vigo - Europe's largest fishing port - remains the same as in 2003, when EU officials blasted Spain for the measly number of national inspectors at its ports. Today four inspectors oversee more than 700,000 metric tons of fish a year - that’s nearly 20,000 kilos of fish per inspector for every hour of every day of the year, including Christmas. Subsidised offenders Spanish officials, like those in many other EU countries, do not take into account whether its nationals have been involved in the illegal fishing trade before doling out public aid. Neither Spain nor the EU will make public information about offenders who have been fined for illegal fishing - also called Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing (IUU). But a sliver of insight can been gleaned from a database of appellate court rulings. ICIJ reviewed every court case adjudicated since 2000 in which subsidised companies unsuccessfully appealed fines imposed by the Spanish government. In more than 80 percent of cases in which the appellant could be identified, firms continued to receive subsidies after the court had upheld penalties, the analysis shows. There’s only one case in which the ministry of fisheries tried to prevent a company from receiving subsidies, according to ministry officials. That Spanish ship-owner so exemplifies the quagmire as to make it a near cliché. Government officials and international regulators have repeatedly targeted Vidal Armadores for its alleged involvement in a decade-old international network of pirate fishing vessels, court and law enforcement records show. Brussels demanded multiple times that Spain recover subsidies and “take action against” Vidal Armadores. At least through 2010, however, Spain and the EU continued to pay the firm — at least €8.2 million ($12 million) since 1996. Last year the government finally fined the company and cut off aid, but the case is pending appeal. In an interview with ICIJ, one of the firm owners, Manuel Antonio Vidal Pego, denied allegations of illegal fishing and said the company was entitled to the subsidies it received. Like Vidal Armadores has in the past, seafood giant Pescanova targets Patagonian toothfish - sold in the US as Chilean sea bass. Unlike Vidal Armadores, Pescanova is a member of an association that fights illegal fishing. In Spain, it boasts a trusted motto: “Lo bueno sale bien,” translated as “Good things go well.” But the company has its own troubles. Last year, Pescanova’s US subsidiary pleaded guilty to illegally importing $1.2 million worth of toothfish. While that case — nicknamed “Operation Toothless” — was pending, the US Department of Justice launched a second investigation into another allegedly illegal importation. The status of the second investigation is unknown. Pescanova is one of the Europe’s three largest seafood companies, with a fleet of around 100 boats fishing worldwide and annual sales of €1.53 billion (more than $2 billion). Yet, since 1995 the company has pulled in more than €175 million ($250 million) in subsidies, according to the ICIJ analysis. Pescanova repeatedly declined requests for interviews from ICIJ. “We've had 50 years of positive history,” said spokesman Angel Matamoro during a brief phone exchange. “I don't think you're asking about themes that will promote our image.” Regarding the US investigations, he said, “Whatever we had to say, we said it to the US court. The company follows scrupulously the law in every country it’s in.” One firm that broke the law and continued to receive aid is Albacora, one of the largest tuna companies in Europe. The company’s boat Albacora Uno last year was fined $5 million - the largest fine in US history - for illegally placing fishing gear in US waters multiple times during a two-year period. The boat was built with subsidies and used subsidised fishing licenses. And even after the US fined the firm, Spain granted Albacora €1.8 million ($2.6 million) worth of subsidies to fish in foreign waters. The Spanish ministry of fisheries told ICIJ it had fined Albacora but will not deny the company further aid. Albacora director Jon Uria said the 67 infringements were an “isolated” incident. The company was unaware of the infractions, he said, until the US government alerted executives. In his view, the fine was disproportionate to the offense. A radical reform? Javier Garat is the Spanish industry’s most visible and eloquent lobbyist. He was born into the family that co-founded Albacora. Garat is now a shareholder of the company, but he says that does not influence his lobbying. In his meetings with officials, he often requests subsidies for the sector. “That money has generated wealth,” he said. “It’s been used to modernise an obsolete fishing sector” so that today “we have better, more modern, more secure vessels.” Garat heads Spain’s powerful lobbying group Cepesca as well as the Europe-wide industry group Europêche — both of which operate with EU subsidies. In the halls of the ministry of fisheries in Madrid, the word is that Garat will be appointed Spain’s next fishing secretary following the November elections. Following closed-door meetings at the ministry in April, Garat and Spanish Minister of Environment, Agriculture and Fisheries Rosa Aguilar announced that the ministry and Cepesca were devising a “common roadmap to defend Spanish interests” in the overhaul of the EU fishing policy. After two years of deliberation, the European Commission presented its proposed legislation in July. No one but the commissioner herself appears satisfied with the draft. But the negotiations have just begun. Political alliances and lobbying will determine the final language to be voted upon before the law goes into effect 1 January, 2013. Garat called the reform draft “cowardly.” He said the commission succumbed to pressure from environmentalists and biased media “without taking into consideration the repercussions on the fishing sector.” In his view, the state of the fish stocks is not as “catastrophic” as commission officials appear to believe. Yet it seems the industry’s efforts have staved off its worst nightmares. Nothing came of ambitions to make overfishing a crime, as happened in the US under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, or to require quotas be consistent with what scientists say is biologically sustainable. There was no proposal on how to limit the oversized fishing fleet or to implement quotas in the fishing agreements with foreign countries. EU’s top fisheries official, commissioner Maria Damanaki, told ICIJ her proposal is “radical.” She said Brussels will stop directly subsidising the industry. “Now we are going to give money in a very prudent way and under very strict conditions,” she said. “And we are going to ask for paybacks in the case of illegal fishing.” Damanaki also highlighted proposed changes in the fishing partnership agreements. “We are going to call them sustainable fisheries agreements because we're going to fish only for the surplus — if there is any surplus,” she said. “Also, we're going to respect human rights in these areas.” Given the hype, Green party MEP Loevin said, “I had expected a clause on human rights.” But the human rights clause originally in the legislative text was missing from the final proposal. Loevin ran for office on a ticket pledging to change the fishing policy. She said the proposal is a lot less radical than she had hoped - especially as the coming negotiations will water it down even more. “The law can't allow for politicians to compromise with the environment when long-term environmental goals clash with short-term profit,” she said. Ernesto Penas Lado, director of the European Commission’s fisheries policy unit, said the mindset in Spain and among fishing nations globally is that no single country feels responsible for the fate of the fish in the sea. “It’s the tragedy of the commons,” he said. “Because the resources belong to no one, they belong to everyone.” In the EU, 27 countries have to come to a consensus on a common fishing policy. There’s no mentality of making a sacrifice for preservation, Penas said. “People think: Whatever I do not fish, my neighbor will.”

Spain's Gold Rush

 

Magdalena Gómez knows the solution to her hometown's suffering. Like roughly 20% of the adult population in Tapia de Casariego, the 27-year-old mother of two is unemployed. She has seen many of her neighbors, desperate for work, move away from this corner of northwestern Spain in search of opportunities in bigger cities. Which is why, even though she knows that a sizeable portion of Tapia is opposed to it, Gómez supports the construction of a new mine. "We don't have anything else here," she says. "We need that gold." There's a gold rush under way in northwestern Spain, and Tapia is just one of the places trying to figure out what to do about it. With gold prices skyrocketing, deposits that have lain untouched for decades, if not centuries, are suddenly looking awfully appealing to international mining companies. And with the Spanish economy in profound crisis, the jobs that those companies promise — even if they're not permanent — are looking just as irresistible. But as the controversy dividing the town of Tapia suggests, not everyone is convinced that the benefits are worth the risks.

Spain's fishy practices cast shadow on seas

 

Some quotes stay with you forever. One that's stayed with me came from Rafael Centenera, a general assistant director in Spanish fisheries ministry, when I interviewed him in Vigo, Europe's busiest fishing port, in 2007. "For sure we are friends of fish," he said. "But still more, we are the friends of fishermen." The reason these 16 words have stayed with me is that they encapsulate perfectly the approach to managing fisheries that has held sway for many years in most of Europe and indeed much further afield. What it implies is that a bit of restraint and conservation is fine - so long as it doesn't get in the way of fishermens' profits. What that stance implies in Spain has been laid out more clearly than ever in a new report from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). According to their analysis, Spanish fishing has been subsidised to the tune of 5.8bn euros ($7.8bn, £5bn) since 2000. Those subsidies have spanned the scrapping of old boats and the building of new ones, and just about everything in between. And the number is so high that one in every three fish landed by Spanish boats is paid for in subsidy, ICIJ calculates. European fisheries are a tangled business To anyone who's familiar with the issues, the findings won't come as any surprise; but it is nevertheless striking to have the scale of the subsidies laid out so starkly. Incidentally, on that same trip to Vigo, everyone connected with the industry claimed there were no subsidies, that everything had been ended. One skipper then undermined the case by telling me how little he had to pay for his diesel. The website fishsubsidy.org has also documented the scale of public support across the EU. The world's fishing fleets are just too big, a number of reports have concluded Among other things, it has produced a list of vessels that were first subsidised in renovation, and then in destruction. In one Spanish example, money was awarded to the boat Mikel Deuna Primero for modernisation. Just 17 days later, more money was allocated for scrapping it. The ICIJ report also mentions that fishermen found guilty of fraud or other offences have continued to receive subsidies. And this theme is taken up in another new report, this time from Greenpeace. It concludes that a single family of fishing barons has amassed about 16m euros in subsidies, despite a series of arrests and convictions for offences such as smuggling, illegal shark-finning and falsifying records. Maria Damanaki, Europe's fisheries commissioner who's leading moves to reform the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), says the accusations are being investigated. World leader Spain isn't the only country that supports its fishing industry with subsidies that in theory do not exist. Ernesto Penas Lado, director of policy and enforcement at the European Commission's Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, tells the ICIJ: "Spain has earned its bad reputation; the problem is others don't have the reputation, and deserve it just as much." But if European fisheries are to be put on a sustainable footing, Spain is the key nation. That's partly because it operates by far the bloc's largest fleet, and partly because it traditionally leads the process of political lobbying designed to ensure that authorities prioritise fishermen (at least, the big industrial companies that organise the lobbying) above fish in their hierarchy of friendship. But there's a huge disconnect here; because ultimately, keeping fishing at unsustainable levels is anything but friendly to fishermen. Fishing methods have moved on - but regulation appears stuck in the dark ages As the World Bank made clear a few years ago in its Sunken Billions report, the huge overcapacity of the world's fleets actually make the industry much less profitable, with about $50bn being poured into the sea every year. Cutting the overcapacity and allowing stocks to recover will in the end make for a financially healthier proposition. That's a reality that the authorities in Spain (and other countries) have routinely ignored. The situation has barely changed in years, with changes wrought in long-term management plans for species such as cod just a drop in the ocean. CFP reform - due to be completed in 2013 - is the biggest opportunity to put things right that there has been in years, and the biggest there is likely to be for many more. Yet pressure for reform from the "usual suspects" such as Greenpeace frankly appears unlikely to bring about major change, because the pressure has been there for years and has pushed governments only a small distance. So what might make a difference? One window of opportunity could be the financial mess in which Spain finds itself - not on the scale of Greece, but mentioned whenever the "who's next after Greece?" question gets asked. Some of its economic indicators are around the European average, but 20% unemployment is anything but - the highest in the bloc, in fact. If research is showing that cutting fishing capacity would increase revenues, why not demand Spain trims its industrial fleet as a condition for economic aid? If that brings just one of the World Bank's sunken billions into Spanish ports every year, that's one less billion the rest of the eurozone would have to find. The other window is surely provided by that unemployment figure. An industry that favours big industrialised fleets with a powerful lobby over small-scale, artisanal operations is inherently less sustainable from an ecological point of view, because fishermen who do not have the capacity to move somewhere else when stocks are depleted are more likely to look after their fishing grounds. It's also much worse socially. Globally, artisanal fishing snares less than half the world's total catch, yet provides 90% of the jobs. So a switch from large-scale industrialised fleets to small-scale localised effort would create employment, as well as increasing the chances of creating a more sustainable industry - which in turn means more profits down the line. Sounds like a way to be a better friend to both fish and fishermen; but don't hold your breath.

Police warn they may not be able to afford Tesco's £3m riot compensation bill

 

In total, the retailer has asked for nearly £3m in compensation from police forces around the country, following the riots that tore through some high streets in August. It is likely that this is the biggest request from a single retailer. The company is claiming under the Riot Damages Act, a piece of Victorian legislation that allows businesses and individuals affected by riot damage to claim directly from the police, rather than their own insurer. In the immediate aftermath of the civil disturbances, the British Retail Consortium urged small retailers to put in their claims to make sure their businesses were not harmed. However, the Greater Manchester Police Authority, which has been hit with 280 claims totalling £4.4m, has criticised Tesco for using the Act, saying there was no guarantee the police force would be able to afford all of the compensation. The force faces £134m budget cuts in the next five years. It added that J Sainsbury was one of a number of large companies that had chosen not to submit any compensation claims. Tesco has submitted more than 20 claims for compensation to Manchester police, including one for £40-worth of looted stock.

Brussels threatens to sue Britain to let in 'benefit tourists'

 

Ministers fear the move could leave taxpayers handing out as much as £2.5  billion to EU nationals, including out-of-work “benefit tourists”, a new cost that could wreck Coalition plans for welfare reform. The commission’s threat, on the eve of the Conservative Party conference, has raised the political temperature on Europe still further. In an outspoken attack today, Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, says the commission’s move is part of a “wider movement” by the “unelected and unaccountable” European authorities to extend their power over the UK. “This kind of land grab from the EU has the potential to cause mayhem to nation states, and we will fight it,” he writes in The Daily Telegraph. The commission is objecting to Britain’s rules on welfare, claiming they discriminate unfairly against foreigners. To claim benefits in Britain, EU nationals must pass a “right to reside” test. The commission says the test is too tough, and wants Britain to apply more generous EU-wide rules.

Legal warning to UK over benefits for EU nationals

 

The European Commission has threatened legal action against the UK, saying a test of eligibility for benefits discriminates against foreigners. It says it is easier for UK citizens to prove their "right to reside" - a test imposed by the UK for certain benefits - than EU nationals. The commission says it may refer the case to the European Court of Justice. Ministers say it is a "fundamental challenge" to the UK's right to decide its own social security arrangements. The Commission says it has been in talks with the UK for several years over the issue and is responding to a "huge number" of complaints from EU citizens living in the UK. Residence tests On Thursday it announced that it was giving the UK two months to explain how it was going to bring its legislation into line with EU law - prompting UK Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith to accuse it of a "land grab" and to pledge to fight it. A range of entitlements - including child benefit, child tax credit, state pension credit, jobseekers' allowance and employment and support allowance - are given only to those with a "right to reside" in the UK. Continue reading the main story WHAT BENEFITS ARE INVOLVED Child benefit Child tax credit State pension credit Jobseekers' allowance The Commission says there are already an EU-wide "habitual residence" rules which are strict enough and the UK is imposing an additional test, which indirectly discriminates against non-UK EU nationals. While UK nationals can easily prove their "right to reside" based on their UK citizenship, other EU nationals have their applications heard on a case-by-case basis, which it says breaches EU social security co-ordination rules giving all citizens equal rights. The Commission gives the example of a woman who moved to the UK and worked from April 2007 to April 2009 when she was made redundant. It says she had paid taxes and National Insurance but was refused claims for jobseekers' allowance. 'Very sound' It says UK citizens in other EU states do not have to meet similar tests and get non-contributory benefits. Laszlo Andor, Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs, said the EU's legal position was "very sound". Continue reading the main story “ Start Quote We are talking here.. about people who are inactive, people who are looking to come to the UK who are not going to work here” Chris Grayling Employment minister "The EU insists on the right of mobile workers to move from one country to another and, in certain places, they are entitled to benefits," he told the BBC. "We want to protect the rights of all EU citizens." Most people moving abroad already had offers of work or were looking for it, he said, rather than primarily wanting to take advantage of more generous benefits. "It may happen that some of them do not a find a job immediately. It is very important that, in these cases, the rights should be respected." He added that some people might choose to move to a country where benefits were higher but "since we have a European Labour market we have to accept this as a fact". But UK ministers fear taxpayers could be forced into handing out more than £2bn to EU nationals - including so-called "benefits tourists" - if the UK has to comply. 'Difference of opinion' Employment minister Chris Grayling, who met EU officials this week to discuss the issue, said there was a "very definite difference of opinion" between the UK and the Commission. "We are talking here, not about active citizens, not about people who are working but people who are inactive, people who are looking to come to the UK who are not going to work here." He said European law was "all over the place at the moment" and the UK had separately been told by the European courts to make disability benefit payments to a British citizen living in Spain. He said 13 EU states had proposed a "comprehensive review" of policy in the area in June and talks were continuing. Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, which campaigns for Britain's exit from the EU, said: "It is not discrimination but simply a system to ensure that benefits are only paid to those who are entitled to them."

UK pressure group set up to help Spanish property victims

 

While there are similar groups already in existence in Spain, this group is the first of its kind in the UK and aims to raise awareness and pressure the UK Government and MEPs into taking action. Many thousands of Britons are believed to have bought property in Spain and through the actions of various levels of Spanish government, property developers and banks, find themselves unable to enjoy the rights to these properties. The Protection of Property Purchased in Europe (POPPIE) is run by husband and wife team Chris and Angela Beattie, who have first hand experience of the issues that surround buying in Spain. In 2004 they spent €150,000 on an off-plan Andalucian villa that was supposed to back onto a golf course, hotel and villa complex. After a building delay of two years, the house was finally built, although the surrounding complex was not. Due to the developer not having planning permission to build their home, they remain unconnected to mains water and electricity supply and are unable to sell the property.

Treasure hunters eye huge shipwreck haul

 

When the SS Gairsoppa was torpedoed by a German U-boat, it took its huge silver cargo to a watery grave. Seventy years later, US divers said they are working to recover what may well be the biggest shipwreck haul ever. Florida-based Odyssey Marine Exploration on Monday confirmed the identity and location of the Gairsoppa and cited official documents indicating the ship was carrying some 219 tons of silver coins and bullion when it sank in 1941 in the North Atlantic some 490km off the Irish coast. That's worth about $200m today, which would make it history's largest recovery of precious metals lost at sea, Odyssey said. "We've accomplished the first phase of this project -- the location and identification of the target shipwreck - and now we're hard at work planning for the recovery phase," Odyssey senior project manager Andrew Craig said in a statement. "Given the orientation and condition of the shipwreck, we are extremely confident that our planned salvage operation will be well suited for the recovery of this silver cargo." Recovery is expected to begin next spring. After a tender process the British government awarded Odyssey an exclusive salvage contract for the cargo, and under the agreement Odyssey will retain 80% of the silver bullion salvaged from the wreck. The 125m Gairsoppa had been sailing from India back to Britain in February 1941, and was in a convoy of ships when a storm hit. Running low on fuel, the Gairsoppa broke off from the convoy and set a course for Galway, Ireland. It never made it, succumbing to a U-boat's torpedo in the contested waters of the North Atlantic. Of the 85 people on board, only one survived. The Gairsoppa came to rest nearly 4 700m below the surface, but Odyssey is insisting that won't prevent a full cargo recovery. "We were fortunate to find the shipwreck sitting upright, with the holds open and easily accessible," Odyssey chief executive Greg Stemm said. "This should enable us to unload cargo through the hatches as would happen with a floating ship alongside a cargo terminal." Odyssey, a world leader in deep-ocean exploration, recently conducted remotely operated vehicles from its main ship, the Odyssey Explorer, to inspect the shipwreck. It said it acquired still and video imagery from the site which were used to confirm the identify and evaluate the condition of the Gairsoppa.

The Teewave AR.1 uses Toray carbon fiber for its chassis, crash structures, body, and interior.

This concept sports car was built, from initial sketches to working prototype, in just nine months.

(Credit: Gordon Murray Design)

 

Creating a new car can take years of development, but Gordon Murray Design put together a running prototype electric sports car in just nine months. The Teewave AR.1 was commissioned by Toray Industries to show off its carbon fiber production.

Toray says that its process can make carbon fiber components in just 10 minutes. The Teewave AR.1 uses Toray carbon fiber for its chassis, crash structures, body, and interior. Other Toray materials make up interior surfaces and components of the car.

 

Gordon Murray Design opted for a modest electric powertrain in the Teewave AR.1, meaning sluggish acceleration.

(Credit: Gordon Murray Design)

 

Those light carbon fiber elements make the overall weight of the Teewave AR.1 just 1,874 pounds. The lithium ion battery pack for the car makes up 530 pounds of that weight.

Gordon Murray Design did not specify the supplier of the electric power train, but its specifications are fairly standard for new electric cars hitting the market. Range is listed as 116 miles using the New European Driving Cycle test procedure, and charging time is 6 hours.

The Teewave AR.1 does not push the boundaries of electric car performance. Its electric motor, driving the rear wheels, only produces 63 horsepower and 132 pound-feet of torque. That means acceleration of 11.4 seconds to 62 mph.

You won't be able to buy a Teewave AR.1 anytime soon. The car will be used by Toray to demonstrate its carbon fiber capabilities. But Toray says its carbon fiber components will scale from a car as small as the Teewave AR.1 to any other size of vehicle.

What this concept also demonstrates is how quickly a new car can, from sketches to a working prototype, can be built. Components such as the electric drive train and suspension are modular, while the carbon fiber can be formed from molds rather than the more time-consuming stamping process for steel, which involves more tooling.