Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has called a general election for November, four months earlier than expected.

He said this would enable a new government to confront Spain's economic problems from January.Hours earlier, a credit rating agency warned it might downgrade Spain's rating due to weak growth prospects.The opposition has demanded an early vote since May, when Mr Zapatero's Socialist Party lost in local polls."Early elections are what the majority of the electorate wanted, so this is good news," said Mariano Rajoy, the candidate of the main opposition...

elBulli, the beachside Spanish restaurant repeatedly crowned the world's best, will close Saturday

elBulli, the beachside Spanish restaurant repeatedly crowned the world's best, will close Saturday after pushing the boundaries of cuisine for more than two decades under chef Ferran Adria.credits|htmlspecialchars`" height="275" src="http://media.zenfs.com/en_GB/News/AFP_Gastronomy/000_dv630703.6a050135209.w400.jpg"...

Bristol schoolboy breaks his neck on holiday

17 year old Bristol schoolboy is waiting for a spinal operation at the Arrixaca Hospital in Murcia, after breaking his neck diving into a swimming pool while on holiday with friends.Craig Nurse had the accident on Thursday last week, and friends jumped in to rescue him after he knocked himself unconscious.His mother and father have flown out to Murcia to be at his bedside.It was hoped the surgery could take place earlier this week, but the Bristol...

Man arrested for aggressive behaviour to gay couple in a Madrid restaurant

53 year old man who is accused of assaulting a gay couple he saw kissing in a Madrid city centre restaurant spent Sunday night in police cells and has been charged with causing bodily harm.The suspect was eating in the restaurant with a companion at lunchtime on Sunday when he allegedly threw a glass of water at the couple after seeing them kiss. He is reported to have shouted at them, ‘Do you not have any shame? It’s a lack of respect that I should...

Ibiza-Manchester flight diverted to Mallorca after engine catches fire

plane which took off from Ibiza for Manchester on Thursday morning had to make an emergency landing in Palma de Mallorca after one of its engines caught fire.AENA Spanish Airports said in a press release on Thursday afternoon that the aircraft landed safely and none of the 180 passengers or crew were injured.The emergency alert for the Jet2 Boeing 738, flight EXS170, went out 26 minutes after takeoff from Ibiza and emergency services were standing...

In the hills outside Madrid there is a striking symbol of four decades of dictatorship.

The Valley of the Fallen is the vast monument General Francisco Franco commissioned to commemorate his victory in the Spanish Civil War.Seventy-five years after that war began, there are finally plans to change this landmark.At its heart is an enormous basilica, scooped out of the hillside. Franco himself is buried behind the altar, beneath a gravestone decorated with fresh flowers.The Valley has long been a rallying point for the far right in Spain,...

Spanish Workers Scramble to Learn English in Economic Crisis

Around the world, many workers are scrambling to learn English to find jobs and stay competitive in the economic crisis. An English learning boom is perhaps most pronounced in Spain, which has long lagged behind the rest of Europe in terms of English proficiency. With Hollywood movies dubbed in Spanish and a brisk trade with Latin America, Spain has not had the need to learn English - until now. Globalization and now a recession, though, have sparked...

British woman Jodie Nieman dies in Ibiza

20-year-old British woman has died while on holiday in Ibiza.Jodie Nieman had been at the Space nightclub in the Playa d'en Bossa resort on the island's south east coast when she fell ill.An ambulance was called in the early hours of Wednesday.The woman, of Croydon, south London, was taken to the Can Misses hospital, suffering a cardiac arrest but died shortly after she arrived.She had been staying in an apartment in the resort with a group of female...

Six Spanish banks fail European stress tests

As many as six Spanish banks have failed the European stress tests, including five savings banks and one medium-sized bank, ABC newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources.The European Banking Authority (EBA) will publish stress test results for 91 of the region's top lenders on Friday afternoon.Spain's Economy Minister Elena Salgado said on Monday some banks had failed the tests as generic provisions - cash put aside by the banks to cover...

Birthday dad now accused of Spanish police murder

A suspected terrorist arrested over a plot to assassinate the King of Spain celebrated his daughter’s birthday just days before his "ordinary life" ended.Eneko Arronategui was known as Cyril Macq by neighbours in Arbury.But unknown to them he was also suspected of being one of Spain’s ‘most wanted’, on the run for as long as 14 years.On Thursday he was arrested for a raft of alleged offences including murdering a Spanish policeman and attempting...

The clouds over the initial public offerings of Bankia and Banca Civica are getting darker.

The clouds over the initial public offerings of Bankia and Banca Civica are getting darker. The two caja savings banks, who have to raise equity to meet new capital requirements, already faced investor scepticism over their real-estate exposure. Now they also have to battle the storm over the country’s sovereign risks.Fears of Spain following Greece, Portugal and Ireland into a bail-out increased on Thursday after the Greek situation remained unresolved...

Credit Suisse Group (CS) said it is hiring three bankers for its Spanish private banking arm, in a bid to bolster its business with Spain's wealthy.

The Zurich-based bank is hiring former M&G Valores analyst Mariano Alierta Sancho and former Caixa and Morgan Stanley (MS) private banker Rocio Ceron Sanchez as client advisors, as well as UBS AG (UBS) banker Veronica Lopez-Ibor Vega-Penichet for the fund management arm of its private bank in Spain.The positions are new ones, a spokeswoman for the bank said."We continue to be proactive about monitoring the size of our business relative to client...

Spain's heavily indebted professional soccer clubs need a new management model that is better suited to the current period of economic stress,

Spain's heavily indebted professional soccer clubs need a new management model that is better suited to the current period of economic stress, secretary of state for sport Albert Soler said on Wednesday."We have arrived at a moment when we must reassess whether our soccer model is valid," Soler said in a speech to the Spanish soccer federation's (RFEF) general assembly."I want to urge those responsible to adjust the management (of clubs) to the times...

British pensioners and holiday home owners are finding themselves trapped as buyers hunt for a bargain.

‘There are bargains everywhere, although the market seems to be bottoming out,’ says Kim Brown, a partner in the international payment specialists Smart Currency Exchange, talking about prices for holiday and retirement homes in Spain.‘There are a lot of British owners who want to come home [to the UK] and they are now prepared to drop prices just to get out. But some cannot. Much depends on the value of their loan.’ In other words, prices are such...

200 chanting protesters gathered in a Madrid neighbourhood on Wednesday, preventing the eviction of an unemployed woman and her two children, one of whom is disabled.

The demonstration was part of a new wave of protests sweeping Spain, in which groups gather at unemployed people's homes to block their eviction, raising pressure on politicians to help a million Spaniards struggling to pay their mortgages.The movement gathered steam in May as part of the "indignados" (indignant) protests against the government's spending cuts, failure to revive the moribund economy, and the European Union's highest unemployment...

Spanish police rescued a 48-year-old Dutch woman who had disappeared 18 days ago while hiking in southern Spain.

A group of mountaineers discovered Mary-Anne Goossens trapped near the resort town of Nerja and alerted authorities. She was airlifted to a nearby hospital where she is stable and doing well, a hospital spokesman said.Goosens, mother of two, was rescued from the bottom of a ravine and survived by drinking water from the banks of the ravine, Spanish media s...

Tourist attacked outside York Minster

The South African was hit repeatedly over the head with a rock or cobble after a stranger struck up conversation with him at around 8.30pm on Friday, police said.Witnesses dialled 999 and the pair were found in the Deans Park area.The victim was taken to York District Hospital for treatment to a serious head injury and damage to his hand. He has since been released from hospital and his injuries are not believed to be life-threatening.North Yorkshire...

1 dead, 4 injured in Spain arms factory explosion

An explosion at an arms factory in central Spain used mainly to dismantle cluster bombs killed one person Saturday and wounded four others, one of them seriously, an official said.Two rescue helicopters were deployed to the factory just outside the town of El Gordo in Castilla-La Mancha, 175 kilometers (110 miles) west of Madrid, and a wounded person was flown to Getafe hospital in the capital, a regional Interior Ministry spokeswoman said on condition...

Married couple defraud their wedding guests in Ciudad Rodrigo

A newly married couple has been arrested in Ciudad Rodrigo, Salamanca, after they defrauded the wedding guests.They asked the guests for their personal data and DNI identity cards using the excuse that Valladolid Ayuntamiento wanted them to formalise the wedding, and then used the data and other falsified documents to obtain mortgage credits. The Gaceta de Salamanca reports that the Guardia Civil think that as many as 100 people have been defrauded...

12 Spanish football clubs are to lose their category in the league and will be relegated because they have been unable to pay their players.

They teams are Alicante, Castellón, Cultural y Deportiva Leonesa, Ejido, Palencia, Rayo Vallecano B and Universidad de Las Palmas GC, which now all fall to the Third Division. Benidorm, Cerro Reyes, Unión Estepona, Jumilla and La Muela fall even further from the third and lose the category of being in the national league, and return to their regional competitions.It comes as part of the General Rules of the Spanish Football Federation which says...

Spain: Libya war may be al Qaeda weapons source

Spain's interior minister says he and EU colleagues are worried that Libyan army weapons are being trafficked and possibly sold to al Qaeda's affiliate in North Africa.Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb, or AQMI, is a growing threat that could conceivably spread outside its home of the Sahel region of Africa.He briefed reporters Thursday during a break in a meeting with colleagues from five other EU countries and U.S. Homeland...