A credit card cloning gang from valencia has been broken.The gang had defrauded 400,000 euros from innocent people.The gang had had a highly technical laboratory at its disposal in the city.They cloned stolen credit cards at this “laboratory”.

National police discovered that the gang of six men would set up micro cameras at machines around the city.They copied the magnetic strips and the card users pin numbers.

This was a highly sophisticated and hierarchical gang who would send the money amassed in valencia back to gang members in Romania.

When they raided the flat in valencia they arrested five Romanians and one Spaniard.They discovered over 400 stolen identities.

The classic British company Burberry is to close its factory in Barcelona.They design and manufacture clothing specifically for the Spanish market.They focus on the middle to higher end of the market.This will mean that over 300 people will be out of work and that it will cost the company between 50 and 70 million euros in redundancy money.

Tourism is a strange and wonderful thing and when travel first began it was to enable people to experience new cultures.Then in Spain particularly,they turned many Spanish towns into little bits of England with their “full English breakfasts” and other things “English”.Now the British tourist is saying what many have been saying for years,they don´t want it to be like this.When they come to Spain they want to experience the Spanish culture not what the Spanish think the Brits want.Many tourists in a recent survey say they prefer Turkey ,Greece or Egypt where they don´t pay lip service to the few Brits who like to experience “home” when they are abroad. Let us hope that the Spanish Tourist office listens to the result of this survey.

In 2008 a Lorca man attempted to murder his wife in Murcia.As he couldn´t take the sight of blood it saved the life of his wife.He fainted when he saw what he had done and a neighbour was able to snatch the knife away.He was arrested and now stands trial for attempted murder.his wife spent two weeks in hospital recovering from the wounds he inflicted.

The famous soccer player Geoff Hurst is alleged to have been affected by a property corruption scandal in Marbella,Andalucia.It seems that he has been swindled on the ourchase of a property in Marbella.This has been reported in a British court.

According to a leading national daily newspaper Hurst,who is now 68 left the purchase of the property to a friend and financial adviser,Hurst is now saying that his friend lied about the 2.2 million euro contract to purchase a plot of land between 2003 and 2004.Hurst and others agreed to purchase the land to build chalets but later discovered that the land was protected  and that licenses had been given illegally.

Hurst is alleging that his friend knew that the transaction was illegal but went ahead so that he could pocket the large commissions on each of the chalets. In the meantime the land has changed hands and the new owners do not accept the contracts signed by the investors.The friend and financial advisor of Hurst made the investors pay for the land up front and made no mention on the commission he would get on each of the chalets.

In 2005 the Spanish government banned  smoking in most workplaces  but still permits it in many bars cafe´s and restaurants.There is still a lot of secondary smoking going on in Spain.However the number of cancer related deaths in Spain has dropped by 1500 a year since the introduction of the smoking ban.Not all of the data is due to the introduction of the law.So says a new study from the Spanish Epidemiology Society( SEE).

They say that the law has helped but that consumption of cigarettes was already going down.They think only 600 of these saved lives is actually due to the law.They do sy that they feel the data is conservative because it was only based on deaths caused by heart disease and lung cancer whereas there are many other fatal illnesses caused by smoking.What the law has done is reduce the contamination of people to second hand smoke.They feel the majority of lives saved is down to those not having to smoke “passively”.If the government now has the courage to move forward with its ban of smoking in all public enclosed spaces then it could see the prevention of 1000 deaths in the bar/ restaurant industry.

It appears that 70% of non-smokers and 50% of smokers view the law as favourable.The research indicates support for the total ban in all public places.The government is saying that the legislation is taking longer than expected but will develop through the course of the year.

The concession given to Marina Greenwich SA by the Valencia regional government to enlarge Campomanes port in Altea has been annulled by the Supreme Court in Valencia.The change has come about because the ammended plan for the project did not include a new environmental impact plan.

The environmental impact plan carried out for the original 1999 project was not valid for the ammended 2002 project plan.The Supreme Court has ordered work to stop straight away.Altea´s Town Hall has made the suggestion that the contractors make a restoration of the area to its original state.

The decision was made in a response to an appeal by environmental protection groups Ecologistas en accion,Greenpeace and World Wildlife Spain.It appears that these groups made an appeal in 2005 and it was rejected by the regional government ,which in their estimation was illegal as the two submissions for the port were quite different.The ruling also says that the fact that the regional government issued the same report for the two projects was wrong.When the regionañl government displayed the new 2002 plans and an environmental report they did not indicate that it referred to an earlier project.