Costa Blanca South 27 April – 3 May 2023 Issue 1973

RECORD CROWDS

PILGRIMAGE: The biggest in the city’s entire history.

Anna Ellis

MORE than a whopping 330,000 people took place in the Santa Fez pil‐grimage in Alicante on Thursday, April 20.

The mayor, Luis Bar ‐cala, confirmed: “This is the most massive Santa Faz in our entire history, there are between 330,000 and 350,000 peo‐ple which is the most nu ‐merous so far.”

A ringing of bells an ‐

nounced the beginning of the pilgrimage from the Black Gate of the Co ‐Cathedral of San Nicolas to the Monastery of San ‐ta Faz.

The mayor added: “The people of Alicante have responded to the tradi ‐tion of going to the sec ‐ond most participatory and popular pilgrimage in Spain after El Rocio. It commemorates the mira ‐cle of the tear that oc ‐

curred on March 17, 1489.

The event took place without any major inci ‐dents.

There was the need for

28 medical assistances for injuries including fainting and two transfers to the hospital for one patient with heart problems and another with a fracture.

Image: Alicante City & Beach

World Earth Day

COINCIDING with the cele‐bration of World Earth Day on April 22, Aguas de Ali ‐cante has resumed the or‐ganisation of scientific bird ringing in the Parque La Marjal de Alicante.

With a total surface area of 36,700m2, La Marjal Park has become a real green lung for the city of Alicante.

The park offers an ideal habitat for more than 100 resident and migratory birds who find all the neces‐sary resources for their growth in the park.

All this, together with the vegetation present, has

SPORTING fans will be pleased to hear that Torrevie‐ja City Council has now con‐firmed that the repair works of the Six Blue Sports Court will go ahead with a budget of €845,223.

The tracks are located in Plaza de Europa, La Siesta, Los Altos, Torreblanca (next to the Ciudad del Mar public

made the park a highly at‐tractive recreational area for the citizens of Alicante, giving it great social value.

Aguas de Alicante consid‐ers citizen collaboration to be an essential part of envi‐ronmental and biodiversity conservation. So, as part of its environmental commit‐ment, scientific bird ringing

Six blue

school) and two in La Torreta III.

The councillor for Sports, Federico Alarcon, has con‐firmed the works should be completed within three months and will begin in May.

IDEAL HABITAT:

For more than 100 resident and migratory birds.

open to the public is for the company a fundamental tool for the study and con‐servation of biodiversity. Throughout the year, a variety of activities are car‐ried out in the park: or ‐nithological routes, activi‐ties with aromatic plants, workshops and games, among others.

The repair work on these outdoor sports courts in ‐cludes the renovation of the walls and perimeter fencing, the repair and repainting of the floors, the replacement of all sports equipment (basket‐ball hoops, goals and nets) and changing all the lighting to LED lights to achieve signifi‐cant energy savings.

Image: Aguas de Alicante

Happy birthday

MARIA JOSE MINGUEZ , the Alicante model who in the past has been linked to football player Maradona, has just celebrated her 30th birthday. Even though Maria Jose has enjoyed a consolidated international career that has taken her all over the world, she maintains a strong link with her homeland.

Cachopo

ASTURIAN chef, Jorge Luis Fernandez, who lives in Al‐icante has won the prize for the most popular ca‐chopo. The Cachopo Com‐petition is held every year in Oviedo. Cachopos from all over the world com ‐pete and Alicantinos have already won several prizes.

European record

PINOSO is feeling very proud as local athlete, Maria Jose Gaurdiola, has broken the European record for the five‐kilome‐tre walk. The athlete from Pinoso participated in the first day of the Iberdrola Division of Honour Athlet‐ics League, with her club San Sebastian.

Stop smoking

THE new drug that helps you quit smoking in 25 days is back in Alicante pharmacies after being out of stock for nearly two months. The shortage of the drug Todacitan, which helps you quit smoking in less than a month is back by popular demand.

Lovely La Mata

A SECTION of the seriously degraded boardwalk at La Mata seafront next to the Guardamar del Segura border has now been re‐placed by Torrevieja Council. The wooden slats on the path were so dam‐aged by erosion that they had cracked, making it dangerous for pedestri ‐ans.

Teach them young

ASPE Council has now launched an Environmental Education Initiative to pro‐mote sustainability and recy‐cling in the municipality’s schools.

As part of the council’s Envi‐ronmental Education Pro‐gramme, recycling bins will be provided to all the municipali‐ty’s nursery and primary schools, with the aim of pro‐moting responsible production and consumption practices and contributing to the mitigation of climate change.

In total, 100 blue bins for pa‐per and cardboard and 100 bins for packaging will be dis‐tributed in each of the class‐

rooms of the infant and prima‐ry schools. In addition, 18 brown bins for waste will be in‐stalled in the playgrounds, and 11 yellow bins in each school.

This action aims to make the separation and collection of dif‐ferent types of waste in schools more accessible and conve‐nient, thereby promoting a cul‐ture of recycling from an early age.

Aspe says it is not only about providing the appropriate means for recycling but also about educating and raising awareness among students about the importance of recy‐cling and responsible waste management.

Close to excellence Book fair success

THE Elche Book Fair which took place over the week‐end of Saturday, April 22 and Sunday, April 23 has been crowned a resound‐ing success.

The event registered a massive influx of the pub‐lic and enjoyed the partic‐ipation of 120 authors

The mayor of Elche, Car‐los Gonzalez, and the councillor for Commerce, Felip Sanchez, attended the event with the coun ‐cillor commenting: “We have had a great response from the citizens of Elche and other towns.

“A total of 120 authors

from the municipality and the rest of the country passed through the Fira de Sant Jordi to sign their works and interact with readers,” he added.

Workshops, story ‐telling, round tables, liter‐ary presentations and concerts were pro ‐grammed as part of the event promoted by the council with the collabo ‐ration of the 17 Muses collective, and in which the Institut d’Estudis Cata‐lans (IEC) and the Associa‐cio d’Escriptors en Llen ‐gua Catalana (AELC) also took part.

TORREVIEJA City Council now leads the ranking for the execution of the pro ‐vision of care service to dependency.

Among the municipali ‐ties with more than 50,000 inhabitants in the Valencian Community, the towns of Torrevieja and Orihuela in the province of Alicante, and Castellon de la Plana lead the list, all of them with more than 94 per cent execu ‐tion.

The councillor for Social Welfare, Inmaculada Montesinos, confirmed that the Torrevieja City

Police honoured

THE Regional Government of Elche has honoured 145 Local Police officers for their outstanding work in defence of public safety.

Seventeen Blue Badge Crosses, 93 White Badge Crosses, 32 individual public congratulations and three retire‐ment diplomas have been awarded.

Elche’s mayor, Carlos Gonzalez, con‐firmed; “These awards show the solem‐nity, gratitude, respect and the high value we place on the Local Police for their defence and protection of the

Lighting up

ORIHUELA Council has now completed the repair work for 40 luminaires in the Palmeral.

The work consisted of renewing the wiring sys‐tem, sanding and painting the lampposts and replac‐ing the lamps with LED de‐vices.

Hall Dependency Service is close to the qualifica ‐tion of excellence in de ‐pendency care.

One aspect to consider in the improvement of this municipal service was La Mata’s transfer to the city council.

This transfer has meant greater visibility and ac ‐cessibility, closer and more direct contact with users and identifying them in a more rapid way, the requests, documenta‐tion and the technical ori‐entations of resources. In short, a greater streamlin‐ing of procedures.

Using LED devices means the fight against climate change is en‐hanced through the re‐duction of the carbon footprint since the new lamps allow energy sav‐ings of 50 per cent com‐pared to the previous ones.

In addition, the new lighting makes it possible for birds to nest again in the area since some species had abandoned Palm Grove due to light pollution.

The works have been carried out with an invest‐ment of €32,000 by the Department of the Envi‐ronment and have a guar‐antee period of 12 months from receipt of these.

rights and freedoms recognised in our legal system.”

The mayor stressed that the awards given in Elche are “for fulfilling the con‐stitutional mandate which establishes that the mission of the police is to pro‐tect the free exercise of rights and free‐doms, and to guarantee public safety.

“The decorations, diplomas and dis‐tinctions are the expressions of the gratitude of society as a result of the dedication and generosity of the sacri‐fices made.”

RECYCLING: Raising awareness among schoolchildren.

Whopping extension

THE last steps are being taken to urbanise the 600,000‐metre extension of Elche Parque Em‐presarial.

The city council will have the urbanisation and reparcelling project practically 100 per cent drafted by May, with the final details finalised at that time.

The basic document will have to be reviewed by munic‐ipal technicians, but no sub‐stantial changes are expected beyond minor adjustments and corrections.

The mayor, Carlos Gonzalez, also confirmed that the new service for the maintenance, conservation and improve‐

ment of the 230,000 square metres of green areas in the enclave will begin.

The new contract will em‐ploy an average of between five and seven workers, three special vehicles and the neces‐sary machinery for work which includes, in addition to the ar‐eas of grass, ground cover and shrubs, the maintenance of

PROVERB OF THE WEEK

Town hall facelift

SANTA POLA has been awarded €2.8 million from the Eu‐ropean Union for the rehabilitation of the town hall build‐ing.

The councillor for Infrastructure, Trini Ortiz, confirmed: “With these funds from the European Union we are going to make Santa Pola a more efficient and sustainable city.

Among the 26

6,000 trees, of which 2,800 are palm trees.

“This new service is essential to ensure the proper conserva‐tion of the green areas of Elche Parque Empresarial and thus contribute to the flagship of the municipality’s industrial ar‐eas, and the paradigm of a modern and dynamic industri‐al park,” concluded Gonzalez.

“This is the future of our city and proof of this are the local energy communities that we are promoting and the bidding for the Santa Pola energy efficiency contract that will achieve economic savings and, above all, energy, and now the town hall building.”

Sustainable buildings are those that try to generate a positive environmental impact on their surroundings. That is, they seek to improve the quality of life in the loca‐tion in which they are built.

Buildings must be focused on sustainable use and, at the same time, promote the well‐being of its users.

The new rehabilitation projects of the Santa Pola Town Council must be adapted to these characteristics.

Farewell Pamela

THE expat world is in mourning over the loss of a true pillar of the community.

Pamela Dawson Tasker is a name that will undoubtedly be very familiar to many on the Costa Blanca. More than 40 years of tireless work with nu‐merous charities and activism in local affairs, politics and jour‐nalism made her an ubiquitous presence at events and in the media since she moved to the area from London in 1980.

A proud Alfaz del Pi resident, her list of honours includes re‐ceiving a British Empire Medal in 2014 for her charity work

and services to expats and an award by Alfaz Town Hall last year in recognition for her so‐cial work.

Pamela set up the Benidorm branch of the Royal British Le‐gion and became the local president of the Spanish Asso‐ciation Against Cancer, for whom she organised countless fundraising events.

She also worked closely with the British Consulate on a wide range of issues directly affect‐ing the expat community, wrote articles for the press and regularly appeared on local ra‐dio.

CREVILLENTE and Ori‐huela on the Costa Blanca South are among 26 East‐er celebrations now de‐clared festivals of interna‐tional interest.

Holy Week has recent‐ly been celebrated and is a very culturally impor‐tant festive period in Ali‐cante as well as all over Spain.

Throughout the coun‐try, incredible processions take place that are fol‐lowed by grand celebra‐tions where visitors can marvel at the artwork and enjoy the local gas‐tronomy.

The General Secretari‐at of Tourism of the Min‐istry of Industry, Tourism and Trade, Fernando Valdes Verelst, has awarded 26 celebrations with the distinction of Festivals of International Interest.

As well as Crevillente and Orihuela in Alicante, Sevilla has been declared of interest as well as Malaga and Granada in Andalucia.

Also included are Zaragoza and Teruel, in Aragon; Caceres, Badajoz and Merida in Ex‐tremadura; and, Ferrol and Viveiro in Galicia. Cartagena, Jumilla, Lor‐ca and Murcia in Murcia are named; as well as Leon, Cuenca, Hellin, Toledo, Valladolid, Zamo‐ra, Salamanca, and Castil‐la y Leon among others.

51% Amount of monthly salary you need to buy an iPhone 14 Pro Max in the UK.

“Don’t put too many irons in the fire.”

KACEY’S BAR in Playa Fla‐menca CC will be hosting a fashion show on Saturday May 13. Doors will open at 7.30pm and all money raised on the night will be donated to the Samaritans in Spain.

It promises to be a fabu‐lous evening with some real bargains to be had as all clothes and accessories will be sold for just €3 each!

There will be a wide selec‐tion to choose from, includ‐ing the items being show ‐cased by the models on the night.

The evening will be host‐

C.LAR.O is pleased to an ‐nounce that it will support the Popular Party of Ori ‐huela in the forthcoming municipal elections on May 28.

The decision was taken unanimously by C.LAR.O members in an Extraordi ‐nary General Meeting held on Thursday April 20.

In the event that they will head the municipal govern‐ment, the Popular Party has guaranteed the appoint ‐ment of a councillor for the Coast with competences, a

ed by TKO presenter Chris Dyson and will include the chance to win a drink‐laden hamper as well as other goodies.

Tickets are selling fast and there are only a small num‐ber still available. Tickets cost just €3.50 and cover en‐try, a glass of cava and nib‐bles.

All tickets are non‐refund‐able and available to pur ‐chase from Kacey’s Bar.

Liverpool friendly

Samaritans in Spain pro‐vides a confidential listening service to all English speak‐ers, of any age in mainland Spain and the Islands.

The Samaritans are avail‐able on the FREEPHONE number 900 525 100.

For details on how to offer your support and more in‐formation can be found by visiting the website: www.samaritansinspain.co m

Fashion fun Orihuela Unity

budget and a supporting team with C.LAR.O repre ‐sentation.

The President of C.LAR.O will be included as an Inde‐pendent in the list of candi‐dates of the Popular Party.

The group believe that the programme and re ‐forms which will be fi ‐nalised and presented in the coming days will receive broad support from the

population of the coast and its representative associa‐tions.

C.LAR.O is convinced that by joining forces and work‐ing together, the forthcom‐ing elections will result in a stable, cohesive and majori‐ty government which will promote the unity and inte‐gration of all parts of the Orihuela municipality, Cen‐tre, Pedanias and Coast.

THE Ciudad de Orihuela wom‐en’s football team played a friendly in Los Arcos with the women’s team from the Steven Gerrard Academy.

The players from the un‐der ‐ 18 category faced the former Liverpool player’s school team on Wednesday, April 26 as part of a post ‐season tour in the Valencian Community.

The friendly match was played at the Orihuela CF field.

This friendly match was or‐ganised by FutbolJobs, an em‐ployment platform for the world of football based in Ori‐huela, thanks to the good re‐lationship between the entity and the Steven Gerrard Academy.

Valentin Botella, CEO and founder of the company stat‐ed that “it is a source of pride to be able to bring a match from the Steven Gerrard Academy to the city, a leading football school in England to which one of the best English footballers in the world gives

his name.

“A few months ago I had the honour of being at An‐field, Liverpool’s stadium, where I was able to visit the

facilities and the way this academy works, and I was de‐lighted with the methodology they apply in training young people football players.”

TVs on terraces

ALICANTE City Council has confirmed that televisions will be allowed on terraces in bars and restaurants throughout the municipality, but there will be time restrictions for their use.

The screens will have to be located inside the premises, although they can look outside, they will not be able to have sound and they will have to be switched off from 1.30am until 7.30am.

FUTBOLJOBS: An employment platform for the world of football.

Image: CFF Ciudad de Orihuela

Pinoso’s plans Smart City

THE Rodriguillo will be re sponsible for starting the festivities on May 19 and 20, followed by the Ence‐bras the first weekend in June.

On June 24, there are scheduled festivities in Lel and, in Faldar, the festivals are on June 23, 24 and 25.

On July 1 and 2 it is the turn of El Cabezo then the hamlet of Ubeda on July 7, 8 and 9 and in El Culebron on July 14, 15 and 16.

In August, in addition to the Patron Saint fiestas from

August 1 to 8, fiestas will be held in La Caballusa on August 11, 12 and 13 with the pilgrim‐

THE joint work of the Alicante City Council and Aguas de Ali‐cante to move towards Smart Tourist Destinations was awarded on Thursday, April 20, at the Digital Tourist Congress 2023 in Benidorm.

In the category ‘Innovation in the management of tourist flows’, the candidacy ‘iOn‐Beach & Island’ has been awarded for the system developed for the occupancy control in the beaches of El Postiguet and Albufereta, as well as for the ca‐pacity control system of people and boats in Tabarca Island.

In addition, the information on the real‐time occupation of the Island of Tabarca, ‘iOn Island’, helps to know the load of

age on August 15.

Fiestas will be held in El Paredon on August 18, 19 and 20 and fi‐nally in Casas del Pino on August 25, 26 and 27.

The first week ‐end of September is the turn of Casas de Ibanez and on 7, 8 and 9 in the Barrio del Rocio.

In October, fiestas are in the Las Tres Fuentes district on 6, 7 and 8, and finally in the Santa Catalina district, from November 18 to 26.

ELCHE has now put a pro‐ject out to tender that would convert the Pont del Bimil ‐ Lenari into the first Smart City bridge in the community.

The works on the bridge will be co‐financed with European funds and will allow the warning of accident situations. The bridge will also have light warnings for speeding and warnings of possible traffic delays.

It is hoped the Smart City bridge will improve road safety.

The councillor for In ‐frastructures, Hector Diez, confirmed: “The government team has agreed to put out a con ‐tract, with an investment

Tourism award

the island, which helps to better design the tourist offer and urban services.

With this, Tabarca Island has become the first ‘smart is‐land’ in Spain.

Developed together with the Water Technology Centre and two innovative SMEs from the city of Alicante, these unique and innovative actions at a national level have boost‐ed the positioning of Alicante as a tourist destination, provid‐

of €310,000 and a com ‐pletion period of four months, in a bid to con ‐vert the Pont del Bimil ∙ Lenari into the first Smart City bridge in the Valencian Community with intelligent and digi ‐

tal elements.”

In addition, the new Smart City bridge will be able to coordinate with the surrounding traffic lights and will be capable of calculating the amount of CO2 in the air.

ing quality information to tourists and citizens 365 days a year.

Image: Pinoso Town Council

Receiving an award at the Digital Tourist Congress 2023.

Image: Aguas de Alicante

CITY BRIDGE: It is hoped the works will improve safety.

Image: Elche City Council

THE Rojales Pantomime Group will be performing a cracker of a pantomime in December called Snow White and The Seven Christmas Elves. Auditions have been held and the majority of the parts have been cast, however, there are still a few vacancies that need to be filled …

Backstage Crew… to help

ensure that all the props are in the right place on stage for the correct scenes and to assist the cast throughout the performance.

Cast vacancies... there are still just a couple of small parts still to be cast.

If you would like to be part of a fun group of ama‐teur thespians and think you could help the Group

please email them at ro jalespanto@yahoo.com so they can invite you to join them at their first rehearsal in Quesada on Wednesday May 3 and meet the rest of the cast and crew.

Pantomime is great fun so come along and enjoy yourself, plus you will be helping to raise money for some needy local charities.

PANTO CREW WANTED Learning languages

Anna Ellis

SEVENTY per cent of under‐20s in Alicante do not understand English at all which means that nearly 250,000 young people living in the province admit that they know nothing of the English lingo.

The region has the second worst figures at a national level which are only surpassed by Gali‐cia.

The news has been revealed by the latest data from the Survey of Essential Characteris‐tics of the Population and Dwellings carried out by the National Statistics Institute (INE).

Some 73.2 per cent of under‐20s in the re‐gion admit to not understanding English at all, which is the second worst figure in Spain, only surpassed by Galicia (73.7 per cent). As age in‐creases, the figure grows, with 81.5 per cent of people aged between 40 and 59 saying they know nothing about the English language.

The INE data confirms that millennials aged between 20 and 39 years of age are the ones who have the highest level of knowledge, al‐though they do not demonstrate a perfect command of the language either, as 68 per cent do not understand it.

Not the biggest

ON Thursday April 20

the Carp‐R‐Us stalwarts fished the Rio Segura at what is named the Bi ‐gastro section of the river, but is actually at Jacarilla. Very strong winds had been fore ‐cast but it was simply tranquil.

End pegs, for whatev‐er reason, tend to do best. Paul Burton who lives local to the venue drew peg 1 at the up ‐stream end of the match section. He used his well tested pole ‐feeder method with corn and groundbait to catch carp throughout most of the match.

They weren’t the biggest carp but his 5.74kgs was enough to win the match quite comfortably. Paul fished the venue last weekend and caught, after about a half hour of playing it, what is

Crescendo success

thought to be the largest carp yet to come out of this venue, a carp of just over 20 lbs (9 kgs+).

Second on the day was another local, Willy Moons, who using his usual method feeder approach, this time with pellet, weighed in 3.88kgs. Club President, Roy Dainty, had two carp for 1.40kgs and third place.

Every angler around Torrevieja knows Terry Screen, ‘Mr Fixit’ as he has become known for his expert skill in re ‐pairing rods and poles.

Unfortunately, Terry has been quite ill this year and recently spent several weeks in Torre ‐vieja University Hospi ‐tal. He now awaits an operation. I am sure ev‐ery angler wishes him a full and speedy recov ‐ery.

Anna Ellis CRESCENDO International

Choir performed three suc‐cessful concerts in April, pro‐viding free musical entertain‐ment for people in the Costa Blanca area and raising mon‐ey for various causes.

Most recently, Crescendo International Choir per‐formed at La Siesta Evangeli‐cal Church in La Siesta Urb, Torrevieja, on Monday, April 17. A retiring collection at this concert raised €376 for the church’s charity work.

On Saturday, April 15, at Santiago Apostol Church in Benijofar, Crescendo Choir gave a free concert in the evening, after the regular mass. More than €250 was raised to help the town hall’s

social services department buy food for people in need in the Benijofar area.

At the start of April, Crescendo Choir gave a Satur‐day evening concert at Salt Church in Los Montesinos. At this event, €420 was raised through the red bucket collec‐tion after the event.

Half of this money went to Salt Church for its own use and half went to Crescendo Choir to help it continue giving free concerts as the music di‐rector and the pianist are paid professionals. Member dues also help cover this expense.

For more details about the choir or upcoming events, head to crescendo‐choir.com You can also follow the group on Facebook at Crescendo‐

Torrevieja. Or if you have questions, email info@ crescendo‐choir.com.

The choir would be delight‐ed to have more singers, es‐pecially basses.

This international group sings a variety of songs rang‐ing from musicals to spirituals, from pop to classical, mostly in English or Spanish. Re‐hearsals take place at Rincon de Miguel in Los Montesinos on Mondays between 5.45pm to 8.00pm.

All singers are welcome!

Gastrofest Santa Pola

SANTA POLA is holding a gastronomy event from May 5 until May 6 on Plaza de con‐stitución (playa de Levante) called Gastrofest where you taste the gastronomy of the area, and enjoy live music by the sea. More details about the event are to follow and you can keep an eye on the website www.turismosantapola.es for more information.

North Americans

TOURISM with visitors from North America has begun to take off in the province as they account for almost 2 per cent of tourists arriving in Ali‐cante in April.

The HOSBEC Hotel and Catering Business Association has released the closed data of this first half of the month, in which the Costa Blanca has reached an average occupancy rate of 75.3 per cent, while in Benidorm hotels sold 79.2 per cent of their places between April 1 and April 15.

Crescendo International Choir performed a concert at the Catholic Church in Benijofar in April.

Image: Crescendo Choir

How are your savings protected?

With the global banking industry back in the news again, this is a good time to look at what bank guarantees are in place in the event of institutional failure.

Spain banks

Under an EU directive, each EU country provides a bank deposit guarantee of €100,000. In the event a bank fails, your national deposit guarantee scheme (Fondo de Garantía de Depósitos de Entidades de Crédito (FGD) in Spain) will refund your savings, up to the €100,000 limit. Savings above this could be lost if your bank fails.

Deposits are covered per depositor, so joint accounts have €200,000 protected. The guarantee is per banking group, not per bank account or even per bank – some banks with different names form part of the same group, so be careful.

Under certain circumstances (eg, after selling a property) you may be

By Jon Pemberton, Partner, Blevins Franks

Spain aims to make the payable amount available within ten working days, reducing to seven from 2024.

UK banks

In the UK, accounts in regulated banks are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. The amount protected is currently

and banking institution.

The FSCS aims to pay compensation within seven days, though more complex cases will take longer.

UK offshore centres

Banks in the Channel Islands and Isle of Man are not covered by the UK scheme, even if divisions of UK banks. You rely on their local guarantee schemes, which offer lower levels of protection.

The Isle of Man’s Depositors’ Compensation Scheme (DCS) provides compensation up to £50,000 per person for covered banks, with no time limit for payment. The amount of compensation paid and timing will depend upon the size, asset quality and profile of the failed bank and amount of funding contributed. There is no standing fund for the DCS. It is funded if and when required by contributions from participating banks and the Isle of Man Treasury, capped at £200

also £50,000, capped at £100 million in any five-year period. They aim to pay compensation within three months of a bank failure.

Protecting your savings

Many savers with larger cash deposits spread them out over more than one bank.

Others have opted to move capital into arrangements which provide a higher level of investor protection than banks can offer. For example, with investment bonds issued by Luxembourg regulated insurance companies, your investment assets are protected should the insurance company fail.

Luxembourg provides very robust protection for life assurance policy holders, the strongest in Europe. The cornerstone of its ‘Triangle of Security’ investor protection regime is the legal requirement that all clients’ assets are held by an independent custodian bank approved by the

balance sheet. If the bank fails, these securities remain in segregated client accounts – 100% of your securities are protected. This does not include cash deposits, but cash held in monetary funds are treated as securities. In any case, ensure you have adequate diversification across different investment assets. This reduces risk as well as increasing potential for improved returns.

As always, your savings and investment decisions should be based around your personal objectives, circumstances, time horizon and risk profile. Take personalised advice on asset protection and a suitable tax-efficient investment approach for you in Spain.

All information contained in this article is based on our understanding of legislation and practice, in the UK and overseas at the time of writing; this may change in the future.

Keep up to date on the financial is-

Anna Ellis THOUSANDS of young people gathered to‐gether to attend the Santa Faz Healthy Festi‐val on San Juan Beach on Thursday April 20.

The mayor of Alicante, Luis Barcala, con‐firmed that: “Santa Faz is a party without al‐cohol for young people. We celebrated the day with a party, musical and raffles.

“Thank you for what you are contributing and for having fun with responsibility, today Alicante is an example outside our city,” the mayor added.

The Local Police had a large presence throughout the day. They seized 180 litres of

Healthy festival The City You Want

alcohol and received 97 reports of alcohol consumption.

The Civil Protection and Red Cross carried out 74 health calls that were mostly minor and had three transfers to the hospital. They attended 27 lipotimias, 21 cuts and sprains, hypotension and falls on the road, as well as 13 trauma due to blows and bruises.

Alicante Local Police carried out more than 1,500 breathalyser tests among the young people in attendance and gifts such as balls, shovels, hats, and tickets to different sport‐ing matches were handed out if they gave a zero reading.

ELCHE City Council has now launched their photo con‐test on Instagram entitled The City You Want.

The deadline for entries is May 14 and each partici‐pant can send a maximum of three photographs.

Each entry must consist of a photograph and an ex‐planatory text of no more than 50 words.

Entries must be sent through Instagram by pri‐vate message to @elx_agendaurbana and

will be published as a post on this account, as long as they comply with the rules.

Elche councillor, Patricia Macia Mateu, confirmed: “The aim is to listen to young people, the main users of the social network, who do not take part in other more formal mecha‐nisms.

“Participation is carried out via Instagram, and is

done by means of a photo‐graph accompanied by a brief explanatory text.”

The councillor added: “All the photographs must show ways to advance to‐wards the values pursued by the Elche Urban Agenda: economic prosperity, sus‐tainable environment, a so‐cially supportive and shared city, and a territori‐ally balanced city.”

Sánchez to visit the White House

SPANISH President Pedro Sánchez is scheduled to visit the US to meet President Joe Biden, according to an official statement by officials on Wednesday, April 19.

The announcement was made by White House press

secretary Karine Jean‐Pierre, who said that Sánchez will be meeting Biden for talks on May 12.

Jean‐Pierre said, “The lead‐ers will coordinate on issues including climate change and expanded cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean, as Spain prepares to take on the rotating presi‐dency of the Council of the Eu‐ropean Union,” as cited by a news agency.

In a statement, she stated that “The two leaders will re‐view our efforts as NATO allies and close partners to strengthen our bilateral de‐fence relationship, transat‐lantic security, and economic prosperity”.

She also added, “They will discuss our unwavering sup‐

port for Ukraine and our ef‐forts to impose costs on the Kremlin as Russia continues its brutal war of aggression.”

Charging ahead

SPAIN has taken a major step towards reducing electronic waste and promoting sustainability in the technology industry by adapt‐ing the EU’s universal charger law to fit its own regulations.

On Friday, April 21, the country announced its adoption of the EU’s universal charger law, but with some unique regulations of its own. This move is set to revolutionise the way we charge our de‐vices and could save consumers and retailers millions of euros. Customers will now have the option to choose whether they want a new charger to come with their electronic devices. This means that people who already have chargers compatible with their new devices can opt‐out of purchasing a new one, reducing unnecessary electronic waste. The law will also ensure that manu‐facturers provide clear information on device charging capabilities. Spain’s adaptation of the EU regulations will help to promote the reuse of cables and chargers, reducing electronic waste and saving consumers approximately €26 million per year. Retailers and distributors are also set to benefit from an estimated increase of €48 million saved annually.

Prime business success

Betty Henderson

GLOBAL giant, Amazon registered record profits in Spain once again in 2022. The multinational retail corporation reported a whopping €6.4 billion in sales for 2022 in figures released on Friday, April 21.

The figures represent an income increase of almost 7 per cent compared with last year. Amazon’s earnings include revenues from its physical marketplaces operating in Spain, as well other branches of the busi‐ness including Amazon Web Services.

The company credits its Spanish success to investments totalling €3.7 billion in the country, which includes the opening of two new logistics centres in Zaragoza and

Girona. With 22,000 employees and over 40 facilities throughout Spain, Amazon is among the top 10 employers in the coun‐try.

However, the company isn’t without its critics, particularly as it announced some 9,000 layoffs globally, earlier this year which caused concern. Amazon later clarified that the layoffs are not exclusive to Spain, saying that it actually plans to expand its work‐force to 25,000 employees in the country by 2025.

Despite its immense success, Amazon said that its profit margins remain low due to the competitive market and increasing operating costs.

Sanchez to visit Joe Biden at the White House.

Fast and furious

ONE speed camera has been revealed to be Spain’s biggest issuer of fines according to a study released on Friday, April 21.

A speed camera in Tar‐ragona issued a whopping 67,582 fines last year. This ruthless device, located on the AP‐7 at kilometre 325, has been causing chaos for speeding drivers across Catalonia.

However, the region is also home to the coun‐try’s most lenient speed camera. A camera located on the N‐340 in Barcelona

Cold shoulder

issued just 8,227 fines last year.

The news comes as the country battles a worrying rise in road fatalities, with 1,145 people losing their lives on Spanish roads last year alone.

Authorities are keen to tackle the issue and have recently cracked down on speeding drivers and in‐stalled more speed cam‐eras on Spanish roads.

The DGT has increased the number of speed cameras by 7 per cent since Jan ‐uary 2022, bringing the to‐tal to over 2,000.

Betty Henderson

A BRAND‐NEW study by Electomanía, a leading Spanish polling company, has revealed the Region of Murcia is the most ‘hated’ autonomous community in Spain.

The study, released on Thursday, April 20, surveyed 1,620 peo‐ple across the country and asked them about their ‘spontaneous feelings’ towards their own autonomous community and the oth‐ers.

According to the results, Asturias is the most valued region in Spain, followed by Galicia, the Basque Country, and Navarra. But the region of Murcia ranks at the bottom, with a score of only 6.2, even lower than the north African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. The study also shows a clear divide between the north and south, with voters in northern regions consistently giving the worst ratings to Murcia, while southern regions ranked Murcia much higher.

The findings have caused quite a stir. Some have suggested it may be due to a lack of awareness or understanding about the re‐gion, while others speculate it may be due to its hot climate. and reputation as a retirement destination.

Murcia has sunk in national approval ratings.

New Housing Law 2023

THE Spanish government proposed a new housing law in February 2022. This new law, which is the first of its kind, has finally been agreed upon and is pending approval from the Spanish Parliament. It focuses on rental proper ‐ties in what they are call ‐ing ‘stressed areas’.

A ‘stressed area’ under the new law is an area where the cost of the mortgage or rent, plus bills and other basic prop‐erty costs, exceeds 30 per cent of the average in ‐come or where the rent has risen by 5 per cent above the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

This new law has rede ‐fined what a large and small landowner is. A large landowner is now someone who owns five properties or more, it used to be 10. A small landowner owns less than five properties. The most controversial part of this new law is the fact that

the tenant will no longer pay the real estate fees.

To ensure there are no loopholes in this new law they have prohibited the inclusion of extra charges (community fee, garbage removal, etc) and you cannot come to an ‘agree‐ment between parties’ contrary to the housing agreement. They have in ‐cluded tax benefits that will help offset these ex ‐tra costs for the owners.

Another big change is the elimination of the CPI when calculating the cost of the rent, it is capped

and cannot increase by more than 2 per cent in 2023 and 3 per cent in 2024. They have also in ‐cluded new measures to protect against evictions.

NEW LAW: Focuses on rental properties.

950,000 metric tons of sunflowers are grown in Spain.

New Nordic-inspired range of partially recycled glasses

INSPIRED by Nordic street style; with a mini‐malist approach in design and a focus on indi‐vidual expression, the new LUXe range from Specsavers Ópticas is applying both Nordic thinking and Nordic styling to their range. Now available in Spain, the range is classic, minimalist and partially made from bio‐based acetate and recycled materials.

The beautifully crafted frames blend mini‐malistic design and classic chic styling. They fea‐ture soft textures, rich earthy tones, natural crystal shades and modern silhouettes, provid‐ing a clean and timeless look. Even the tiniest details have been considered, from the her‐ringbone textured corewires to the two‐tone laminated acetate temple tips. Every aspect of each frame adds to their refined aesthetic.

Sustainability was identified as one of the key drivers in buying decisions in a recent re‐port from Specsavers Ópticas, making this range’s eco‐credentials even more important. These frames are handcrafted from 52 per cent bio‐based acetate, made with materials like tree pulp, and the metal frames are made from 54 per cent recycled metals.

Nerea Galdos‐Little from Specsavers Ópticas Marbella commented, “It’s a pleasure to intro‐

duce this Nordic‐inspired range to our stores. Over five million Scandinavians holiday in Spain ever year and there are around 20,000 perma‐nent residents from Scandinavia living in the Malaga Province alone.

A recent Sifo survey showed that 28 per cent of Swedes have at some point considered buy‐ing a home abroad and 22 per cent of those would like to buy a home in Spain. And it’s not just the Swedes who love Spain, Fuengirola on the Costa del Sol has the second largest num‐ber of Finns outside Finland!

Scandinavians have a love affair with Spain and so it only seems right to introduce a range inspired by their style to the Costa del Sol, Cos‐ta Blanca and Mallorca, which many of them call home.

There are nine Specsavers Ópticas stores in Spain.

THE European Union (EU) has issued a stern warning to Spain over a controversial en‐vironmental law that seeks to legalise irrigation in thou‐sands of hectares of land around Doñana National Park, one of the most impor‐tant wetlands in Europe.

Virginijus Sinkevičius, the European Commissioner for Environment, wrote a letter on Thursday, April 20, ex ‐pressing his concerns about the proposed law and threat‐ened to take legal action if it violates environmental legis‐lation.

In deep water

The EU has already re ‐quested clarification from the Spanish government about the law change, but no for‐mal response has been given yet.

According to technical esti‐mates by the European Par‐liament, the fine for non ‐compliance could be as much as €300m. Spain has previ‐ously faced environmental fines in the Basque Country.

Doñana in southern An‐

REYES MAROTO has caused controver ‐sy by suggesting introducing a tourist tax to Madrid, something that local hoteliers are already getting steamed up about, according to a news source on Monday, April 17.

For five years, Maroto was in charge of Spain’s tourism. Now she is standing for mayor of Madrid, which every year attracts millions of visitors, including lots of British holidaymakers.

A tourist tax was first proposed for Madrid in 2015 and 2018 but was never implemented.

“The most important thing is to know why,” Maroto said.

Speaking during a breakfast meeting

dalucia has been suffering from water shortages due to the expansion of irrigated agriculture in surrounding ar‐eas. A local ecological re ‐search centre, reports that 59 per cent of the major lagoons in Doñana have not been filled with water since 2013.

The situation has been at‐tributed to the increase in ir‐rigated land, which has ex‐panded by 30 per cent in the last decade.

New tourist tax

in Madrid, the Ex ‐ Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism said she liked the idea of introducing a tourist tax, which visitors to the city would have to pay per night, but added, “The tourist tax does not have to be merely a tax, it has to be a tax that reverts to the tourism industry.”

On hearing her comments the Madrid Hotel Business Association (MHBA) made clear its opposition to the idea without any hesitation, claiming that it would have a detrimental effect on the hotel sector and visitors.

AS well as low rainfall, Spanish farmers are also struggling to pro‐tect crops from a ‘plague’ of rabbits starved of fresh grass

As well as dealing with the ex‐ceptionally dry winter, farmers in Catalonia are facing a second prob‐lem, a plague of rabbits, who, starved of water, are beginning to destroy crops, especially wheat and

Spanish farmers

barley, and eat the bark on vines and fruit trees.

Local Alex Foix said: “A lot of fac‐tors have contributed to the rabbit population explosion: there was the pandemic when no one could

hunt for two years; they’ve be ‐come immune to myxomatosis; and the female can produce seven or eight offspring every two months.”

The local government has esti‐

mated that more than 250,000 rab‐bits need to be killed by September to contain the population. To aid in the effort to reduce the numbers, the government has permitted the use of aluminium phosphate,

1m seats

AS announced by the train operator on Sun‐day, April 23, Renfe will have a total of one mil‐lion seats available for travellers during the May bank holiday in Spain.

It has planned this mammoth total of seats to be available for travel on its AVE, Larga and Me‐dia Distancia trains be‐tween Friday, April 28 and Tuesday, May 2. For more information go to www.renfe.com

Renfe will offer addi‐tional seats to its normal schedules on its AVE, Av‐lo, Alvia, Euromed and Intercity services, with Andalucia, the Levantine area and Catalonia being the most popular desti‐nations.

The company said that this offer during the holi‐day period will save the combustion of 9.5 million litres of fuel, avoiding the emission of 28.8 million CO2 or 135.3 tons of NOx into the atmosphere.

which releases toxic phosphine gas when introduced into burrows.

“If it doesn’t rain in April and we have another year like last year, the vines won’t survive,” says Juan Samboda, a member of Pagesos o conills (Farmers or rabbits).

In Catalonia as a whole, water re‐serves are down to about 26 per cent.

Warning of high temperatures’

SPAIN’S Health Ministry is‐sued an advisory, after fore‐casts made by the State Me‐teorological Agency, AEMET, predicted exceptionally high temperatures across the country, for this time of the year.

In view of this warning, the Ministry of Health issued a series of recommenda ‐tions for dealing with the heat.

According to AEMET, tem‐peratures during this week were predicted to reach up to 40ºC in some parts of the country.

Some of the tips included:

1. Drinking water fre ‐quently.

2. Avoid drinks with caf‐feine, alcohol, or sugar.

3. Pay special attention to the elderly, babies, and chil‐dren.

4. Prioritise being in cool places.

5. Avoid practising sports between midday and 5pm. AEMET forecasts for the week state that “a very warm and dry air mass will enter over the Peninsula and the Balearic archipela‐go”, as per a news source. As a result, Spain will ex‐perience a rise in tempera‐tures to record “values typi‐cal of summer and exceptionally high for this time of year”.

Escape plan

Betty Henderson

THE Spanish government said it was on high alert on Friday, April 21 as it prepared to evac‐uate around 60 Spanish na‐tionals from war‐torn Sudan. The conflict situation in the country is rapidly deteriorat‐ing, and fighting shows no signs of abating. The Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, said military planes are on standby and ready to go when the situation stabilises enough to enter. Until then, the em‐bassy is working tirelessly to gather all Spanish nationals and prepare for the evacua‐tion. In the meantime, the Spanish government is urging Sudanese forces to reach a ceasefire that will allow for‐eigners to leave the country and Sudanese nationals to re‐ceive vital humanitarian aid.

Spain will also cooperate with other nations to rescue their citizens. Sudan is a coun‐try located in the northeast of Africa which has been em‐broiled in conflict and political instability for many years.

The latest outbreak of vio‐

lence erupted after a military coup in 2019, which led to clashes between government forces and opposition groups. The situation has deterio‐rated in the past week, with fighting intensifying in many parts of the country including in the capital, Khartoum, caus‐ing mass displacement and a severe humanitarian crisis.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

BRITISH actress Rachel Warren on mega success, new releases, and the tough road to the top.

They say the course of true love never did run smooth, and as it turns out the course of mega successful careers isn’t that different either.

Despite its glamorous exterior, act‐ing is one of the notoriously harshest of careers to make a name in, with a remarkable only 2 per cent of actors ever even making a living.

For those who do tread that path though ‐ undeterred by the knock backs, the low pay and the often far ‐from‐glamorous hours ‐ the payoff can often be something quite extraordi nary.

Now 38 and about to star in not only a new Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde remake but also her own series, the actress and producer sat down with the Euro Weekly News to talk US success, the importance of backing yourself, and the long road to the top.

Originally from Buckinghamshire, Rachel told the EWN acting has been practically a lifelong passion: “At five I pointed at the TV screen and I said ‘mum‐my that’ and I knew that’s what I wanted to do in life.”

“None of my family are in the industry and my parents really wanted me to have

HOLLYWOO

an education rather than going straight into acting.

“I compromised and I told them I would get an acting degree, which I end‐ed up doing in London.”

At one point things took a particularly dark turn when Rachel even had to take out a restraining order against someone else in the industry.

Those experiences, which would have (understandably) seen a lot of aspiring actors run for the hills, saw Rachel do the

Rachel attended the Marbella International Film Fes

OD CALLING

From there, as Rachel explains, every ‐thing else fell into place. She has since starred in The Last Heist alongside Terry Stone and has just shot multiple films, in‐cluding Dragged Up Dirty ‐ due for re ‐lease in 2024 ‐ alongside Nick Moran, Michelle Ryan, Peter Andre, and Junior Andre.

With multiple films under her belt, and often no longer having to audition for roles, Rachel’s star is now rising even higher with a seriously exciting new pro‐ject in the works; a high concept comedy series that she describes as a “mixture between Fleabag and Bridget Jones.”

Not content with simply reaping the re‐wards of her own hard work though, Rachel explained she now wants to help other actors, particularly in dealing with some of her industry’s darker sides.

opposite, working out how to cre ate her own way within a sometimes bru‐tal profession.

The result was RWI Creative, her own film and TV poster design company, which allowed her to stay within the in‐dustry on her own terms while paying the bills and still having time to audition for acting parts.

Rachel told the EWN her big break came with the hugely successful Rise of the Footsoldier franchise.

“I wanted to open doors for myself and now for others.

“That is one of the things I am fiercely passionate about; erasing manipulation and gaslighting in the industry and bring‐ing up new and young filmmakers in a safe environment and working with some of the big beasts in the industry.

Rachel’s latest film Ripper’s Revenge, following a journalist who covers the fa‐mous murderer’s crimes before finding himself the target of a series of letters from Jack the Ripper, is out now.

stival.

Credit: MIFF

Brecon Beacons renamed

THE Brecon Beacons Na ‐tional Park in Wales an ‐nounced that as from its 66th anniversary which was on Monday April 17 it will use the name Ban ‐nau Brycheiniog.

Those who run the park

say the change will cele ‐brate and promote the area’s culture and her ‐itage. It is part of a man ‐agement overall to ad ‐dress environmental challenges.

Brycheiniog was named after the fifth century King Brychan who ruled over this independent kingdom in the early mid‐dle ages.

The Welch names means ‘the peaks of Brychan’s kingdom’. You pronounce the name ban‐aye ‐ bruch ‐ ein ‐ log with the ch in bruch pro ‐nounced like the word loch.

The National Park’s chief executive, Catherine Mealing ‐ Jones said: “It just felt the right time to reclaim the old name for the area (it) reflects our commitment to the Welsh language.

“But we understand people are used to calling the park by the name ev ‐eryone’s used for 66 years, so we don’t expect everyone to use it, at least straight away.”

The park covers almost 529 square miles (1.347 sq km) of south and mid wales. About four million visitors come to Bannau Brycheiniog every year.

Coronation train

Anna Ellis

LONDON North Eastern Railway (LNER) is proud to launch a newly named ser‐vice to celebrate the Coro‐nation of King Charles III on Saturday, May 6.

From May 6, the daily 11.00am service between London King’s Cross and Edinburgh Waverley will be called the ‘Carolean Ex‐press’, with the inaugural service departing the iconic London station at 11.00am on the day of the King’s Coronation.

The era of British history under King Charles III will be known as the Carolean

Emergency landing

A CO-PILOT was forced to take over the controls of an easyJet flight after the pilot was taken ill.

On Friday, April 21, a flight from London on its way to Morocco ended up being diverted 500 miles after the pilot be‐came ill mid‐flight, leav‐ing the co‐pilot to make an emergency landing in Portugal, according to a news source.

At approximately 6.30am an easyJet flight left from London Gatwick and was on its way to Agadir, Morocco but had to be diverted nearly 500 miles away to Faro in Portugal.

era, the same name that was given to the eras of both King Charles I and II.

The ‘Carolean Express’ will join formal service names such as ‘Highland Chieftain’ and ‘Northern Lights’ which are popular daily services on the LNER route, operating between London and Inverness and London and Aberdeen.

The weekday ‘Flying Scotsman’ service operates in the opposite direction, taking customers to Lon ‐don King’s Cross from Edin‐burgh Waverley at 5.40am, stopping only at Newcas ‐tle.

It was reported that the co‐pilot landed the aircraft safely with 100 passengers on board at Faro airport.

The Airbus A320 was seen on online flight trackers making an un‐scheduled stop after a mid‐air alert.

A source at Faro air‐port commented that the diversion was the re‐sult of the pilot suffering an ‘indisposition,’ a red alert had been sent and the co‐pilot completed a successful landing.

The condition of the pilot and the cause of his illness is as yet unknown.

NATIONAL PARK: Celebrating the area’s culture and heritage.

AS WELL as the locals ex ‐tending their famous Scot‐tish Highland welcome to the newcomers, the team of the FISH SHOP were honoured on Saturday, April 22, to receive a sur ‐prise visit from Their Majesties King Charles and Queen Camilla.

FISH SHOP, a restaurant and fishmonger, is ready to open on Saturday, April 29, at 3 Netherly Place in the heart of Ballater, just east of the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland.

Ballater is the closest vil‐lage to the Balmoral Estate, the Scottish home of the Royal Family.

The support for this new venture was warmly wel ‐comed by the FISH SHOP team and Artfarm CEO Ewan Venters, said: "We were thrilled to be able to show His Majesty King Charles and Queen Camilla around Fish Shop on Satur‐day in advance of our opening this weekend."

"Sharing the values of our sister property, the Fife Arms, in neighbouring Braemar, the community is at the heart of everything

Royal surprise

we do, and bearing in mind the Royal Family’s long as‐sociation with Royal Dee‐side, we are deeply hon ‐oured that they came to show their support for this local restaurant and fish ‐monger"

Tony Blackburn off-air

MUCH-LOVED radio leg ‐end, Tony Blackburn was absent from his show last week due to illness and has said it may be some time before he’s back.

Last week, 80‐year‐old Mr Blackburn, was unable to host his weekly Radio 2 show, Sounds of the Sixties due to a chest infection, and his old friend Johnny Walk‐er, 78, stepped in to take over.

In a tweet on April 21, he tried to reassure worried lis‐teners that he was okay, ac‐cording to a news source.

The statement read “The infection I have is requiring more treatment than initial‐

ly thought and it means I am having to reschedule the Sounds of the 60s Tour for the moment in order to re‐cover fully.

“All tickets booked will be automatically transferred to the new dates and you will be notified of this change by your ticket provider. I am sorry for the disruption, and I really am looking forward to getting back on the road with the band.

“Finally, to all the nurses, Drs and support staff at Bar‐net General hospital who I spent a few days with over the last week, thank you for looking after me. You are brilliant!”

Royal Surprise

Image: FISH SHOP

Two WWI soldiers rededicated in France

TWO soldiers who were pre‐viously unknown have now had their graves rededicated with headstones to com ‐memorate their deaths in the First World War.

The two Irish soldiers are Private (Pte) James McCaffrey of the 5th Battalion Tank Corps and Corporal (Cpl) Thomas Stannage of the 10th (Prince of Wales Own Royal) Hussars.

The MOD’s Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre (JCCC), also known as the ‘War Detectives’ organised the cer‐emonies in France.

Louise Dorr of the JCCC said:

“It’s been a pleasure to have both men’s families with us today. As we rededicate their graves with known head‐stones. It is a great comfort to know that their bravery and sacrifice will always be re ‐membered.”

James McCaffrey was born in Tullyish County Down. He was found buried as an un‐known soldier northeast of Sebencourt. He was identified because three men were killed when two tanks were

clearing an area around Retheuil Farm and James was known to be one of them.

Two of the men had known graves so he was the only pos‐sible casualty left.

Corporal Thomas Stannage was born in Rathdowney, County Laois. His remains

were found buried east of Honnecy. His battalion’s war diary places the 10th Hussars in the area.

Nine corporals lost their lives and eight of them had known graves which left Thomas as the only possible casualty.

It’s a struggle

SIR ROD STEWART said he can’t get a response to his re‐quest to provide free MRI scans.

While he says he is “well on their side” about the doctors and nurses strikes, he said he can’t get a response about his plans to give away MRI scans.

In February he paid for some members of the public to have scans in a mobile unit at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Essex. It was in a Sky News phone in that he pledged to help when talking about the state of the NHS. He had just re‐turned from a scan himself.

“I said when I did Sky TV that I wanted to try and do them all

over the country.” He said, “Iam not going to show up and be photographed, I just wanted to do it.”

But he says he struggling to get his plans off the ground. “It’s like banging your head against a brick wall.”

47

The number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Spain.

IN a historic moment, the Ger‐man President Frank‐Walter Steinmeier became the first head of state to ask for for‐giveness for the atrocities committed by Germany dur‐ing the Second World War.

On the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising on Wednesday, April 19, Stein‐meier joined his Polish and Is‐raeli counterparts to mark 80 years since the doomed Jewish uprising against Nazi occupiers.

Standing at the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in Poland’s capital, Steinmeier asked for forgiveness for the crimes committed by Germans during the war. He also criti‐cised Russian President Vladimir Putin for waging war against Ukraine, breaking inter‐national law and bringing im‐measurable suffering, violence, destruction, and death to the people of Ukraine.

The Warsaw Ghetto Upris‐ing was the largest single act of Jewish resistance against the Germans during the war. The Jewish insurgents launched their revolt on April 19, 1943, preferring to die fighting than be sent to a death camp.

About 7,000 Jews died in the battles, and a further 6,000

Honouring heroes

“Never again” said German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

died in fires Nazi troops started in the ghetto.

The tradition of honouring

the Jewish insurgents who fought against their oppressors continues to this day.

Pub-lic worship

AN Irish pub in Luxembourg City became the unlikely venue for a Catholic mass on Sunday, April 16.

Father Michael Cusack, a parish priest from County Gal‐way living in Luxembourg, was in a bind after his church shut down for renovations, and he couldn’t secure another location for the Sunday service.

However, he found an unlikely ally in Eirelux, an Irish pub owned by Vincent and Adrienne Clarke. The couple, who hail from Sligo and Louth, respectively, were happy to pro‐vide their pub as an alternative venue for the mass.

The pub, usually closed on Sundays, became a makeshift church for the last two Sundays. Father Cusack’s congrega‐tion of over 1,000 people was grateful for the comfortable and unique space provided to them for worship. After the service, the pub opened up, and patrons enjoyed ‘wee pints of Guinness’ in celebration.

However, the decision wasn’t without its critics, as the Diocese was reportedly unhappy with the move.

Photo credit: Frank-Walter Steinmeier (via Facebook)

Mass for the King

HIS Royal Highness King Charles III will be remem ‐bered in a mass on Friday, May 5, at 11.30am at La Siesta Church, Calle Granados, Urb La Siesta, Torrevieja.

The mass, in English, is to

pray for His Majesty the King in preparation for His Majesty’s Coronation togeth‐er with prayers for Her Majesty, the Queen Consort.

Everyone is welcome.

For more information head to Facebook @anglicantorre vieja or call (+34) 693 932 438.

“The Coronation of King Charles III is a time of great re‐joicing and celebration,” said

Father Richard A Seabrook. “Our church will commemo‐rate this historical and spiritu‐al event on three days over the Coronation weekend.

“This is why we come to‐gether before the Coronation to pray for the King and Queen and also so that we may be prepared spiritually for the day of the Corona ‐tion.”

Holy Eucharist

IN honour of the Coronation of King Charles III, La Siesta Church is holding a Holy Eu‐charist on Sunday, May 7 at 11.30am.

La Siesta Church is lo ‐cated at Calle Granados, Urb La Siesta, Torrevieja.

Prayers and hymns of praise are being offered for Their Majesties.

Everyone is welcome. For more information head to Facebook @ an

glicantorrevieja or call (+34) 693 932 438.

“Whilst all the pageantry and ceremoni ‐al are spectacular with great processions of coaches, at the heart of the Coronation is a great act of worship, a celebra‐tion of the Eucharist, the crowning and the most sacred act, that of the anointing,” said Father Seabrook.

fun

CORONATION celebra ‐tions will be taking place on Monday, May 8, at La Siesta Church in Torre ‐vieja with fun and games for everyone.

Father Seabrook is or ‐ganising a big Bring and Share Afternoon Tea.

Expect to enjoy a Best Crown Competition, a Victoria Sandwich Com ‐petition and a Corona ‐tion Quiz, all washed down with a cava toast to Their Majesties.

Everyone is invited to this but please contact Sue Brassington (council lorlosbalcones@gmail.c om ) if you would like to come and join in the fun.

The Coronation Cele ‐bration begins at 4.00pm and will take place out ‐side La Siesta Church on Calle Granados, Torre ‐vieja.

Father Seabrook com ‐mented on the death of her late Majesty the Queen last September

“which showed how im ‐portant the Monarch is for us and now we antic‐ipate with joy the Coro ‐nation and the sense of coming together in cele ‐bration this brings.

“I do hope those who would like to celebrate the Coronation will join us. Everyone is welcome. God save The King!” Fa ‐ther Seabrook added. Further information can be found on the Church’s Facebook page @anglicantorrevieja

For more information email frras@c ‐ of ‐ e ‐ tor revieja.com or call (+ 34) 693 932 438.

Sowing controversy

ITALIAN Minister Francesco Lollobrigida has come under fire for his recent remarks on eth‐nic replacement in Italy.

The Minister for Agriculture, who is a close ally of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, suggest‐ed that Italians were at risk of being replaced by immigrants due to their low birth rates on Wednesday, April 19.

His comments have been condemned by op‐position leader Elly Schlein, who compared them to fascist rhetoric. The phrase “ethnic re‐placement” has been associated with the far‐right conspiracy theory of the Great Replace‐ment, which falsely claims that there is a plan

Betty Henderson

THE French President, Em‐manuel Macron, is no stranger to controversy. He has been facing intense backlash from the public over his plan to raise the pension age from 62 to 64. Seeking to escape the heat, Macron was caught on camera singing a street song with a group of young Parisians in a video recorded on Monday, April 17. How‐ever, the video went viral for

to replace white people through increased im‐migration.

Italy’s low birth rate has been a concern of the right‐wing government, with Meloni pledg‐ing to help Italians have more children.

However, critics argue that the government’s recent actions, such as stopping the registration of same‐sex parents’ children and discussing the prosecution of couples who go abroad for surrogacy, reveal a troubling trend of discrimi‐nation. While Meloni has not commented on Lollobrigida’s remarks, she has made similar comments in the past. Critics say recent events show the true colours of the governing coalition.

Hitting wrong notes

all the wrong reasons.

The group of men that the president sang with was re‐portedly part of a Parisian choir that sings traditional songs on the street. One of the singers asked Macron to join in a rendition of an old song called ‘Le Refuge’, which he had sung on a trip to the Pyrenees last year. However, the song was then shared by a Facebook group

reportedly set up by the far right.

The situation has only added to the negative public perception of Macron, with residents and protesters booing him on the streets during his recent visit to the eastern region of Alsace. De‐spite the backlash, the presi‐dent has now signed the deeply unpopular reforms into law.

PRESS EUROPEAN

DENMARK

Stay clear

DENMARK has lifted restrictions on sailing in waters near the Nord Stream gas pipeline which was sabotaged by a series of blasts last September. At the same time Denmark’s Maritime Authority advised against anchoring or fishing within one nautical mile (1.85 kilometres) of the site.

THE NETHERLANDS

Happy talk

EIGHTY-FIVE per cent of the Netherlands’ population told an official poll they were happy with their lives although 62 per cent believed things “were going wrong” with the country. A further 60 per cent were dissatisfied with the country’s political policies, compared with 49 per cent in the autumn.

BELGIUM

Early occupiers

DURING excavations in Elewijt near Zemst, archaeologist Kylian Verhaevert and his team discovered evidence of an Iron Age settlement with circular ditches and a burial ground. They also uncovered a Roman cemetery with up to 30 graves and signs of an open-air temple and sanctuary.

GERMANY

Second term

AS the 2024 EU elections approach, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has not said whether she wants to stand again. If willing, and she receives government backing, her re-election is a certainty as Germany wields significant influence regarding Brussels’ top jobs.

FRANCE

High up

ALAIN ROBERT, a free climber known as the French Spiderman, recently scaled a 38storey tower block in Paris in support of demonstrators opposed to the new pension law delaying the age when people can retire. Aged 60, he habitually climbs without a harness, using only his bare hands.

NORWAY

Open again

NORWAY’S Trollstigen winding road with its many hairpin bends, which is closed by the government each winter, has reopened to traffic. This area receives an average of 450 inches of snowfall and is impassable until April when snow ploughs clear the scenic route, ready for the tourist season.

FINLAND

Happy Birds

FINLAND-BASED Rovio, maker of the Angry Birds video games, has been bought by Sega Sammy Holdings. The Japanese gaming giant responsible for the Sonic the Hedgehog character is paying €760 million for Angry Birds, which was the first mobile game to be downloaded one billion times.

IRELAND

Short-changed

THE 10-kilometre Great Ireland Run accidentally became an 8.5-kilometre run as runners were accidentally sent the wrong way by marshals. The race, organised by Great Ireland Run and Dublin City Harriers, was held in Dublin's Phoenix Park but all results were afterwards declared void.

ITALY

Milan getaway

ITALY’S Justice Minister Carlo Nordio was summoned to parliament to explain why Russian businessman Artem Uss, under house arrest in a luxury apartment in Milan, was able to abscond. He was due to be extradited to the US to face charges of evading sanctions and money-laundering.

PORTUGAL

Sea rescue

SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD Erica Vicente was blown far out to sea while paddle boarding off the Vila Real de Santo Antonio beach. Twenty hours later the MSC Reef, a container ship waiting to enter Tangier (Morocco) harbour, spotted her in the water, alive but suffering from hypothermia and sunburn.

UKRAINE

Shooting star

A MYSTERIOUS flash lighting up Kyiv’s night sky on April 21 was originally identified as a Nasa satellite falling to Earth. After the US space agency revealed that it was still in orbit, Ukrainian space officials announced that the flash was probably a meteor entering the earth’s atmosphere.

SWEDEN

No Tweets

SVERIGES RADIO (SR) has stopped using Twitter, referring to its concerns over the company’s “recent turbulence” and questioning Twitter’s ability and willingness to fight fake news and hate speech. SR’s decision follows similar moves by the US National Public Radio and Canada’s CBC.

BUSINESS EXTRA Done deal FINANCE

Outlook cloudy

SUPERDRY no longer expects to make a profit this year and may have to raise new funds. Poor weather had resulted in less demand for the compa‐ny’s new spring‐summer col‐lection and sales had been hit by the cost of living crisis hit, the British fashion brand ad‐mitted.

Tax facts

MULTINATIONAL companies pay corporation tax averaging 21.8 per cent in Spain, more than seven percentage points below the European Union’s 29.03 per cent. Meanwhile, more than half of large Span‐ish groups pay corporation tax amounting to less than 20 per cent according to tax authority Hacienda.

CBI shamed

THE British Insurance Brokers’ Association, representing 1,800 insurance brokers and intermediaries, left the scan‐dal‐hit Confederation of British Industry (CBI) following sexual assault allegations against se‐nior staff. The CBI admitted that some members had left but stressed this was only in “single‐digit” numbers.

Gas cash

SPANISH engineering and con‐struction companies Tecnicas

Reunidas, FCC and Turkey’s Enka secured a €1 billion con‐tract to build one of Ger ‐many’s three planned regasifi‐cation plants for liquid natural gas (LNG) near Hamburg. An‐other Spanish company, Sener y Cobra, will be responsible for another in Brünsbuttel.

Charge sheet

LESS than 12 years before the first ban on diesel engines comes into force, the UK has no public electric chargers or hydrogen refilling station for lorries. Lack of infrastructure makes it impossible for opera‐tors to decarbonise their fleets, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) warned.

is the amount that Inditex was worth on April 17 as shares rose by 1.22 per cent, putting the fashion chain ahead of power company Iberdrola and Santander bank.

Deflating inflation figures

INFLATION in the UK fell less than was hoped, hampered by food and drink prices rocketing by 19.1 per cent.

The annual rate measured by the consumer price index (CPI) dipped to 10.1 per cent in March, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, continu‐ing its downward path after Febru‐ary’s 10.4 per cent.

Economists had expected a fall to 9.8 per cent but instead inflation re‐mained in double figures as food and drink prices rose at the fastest annual rate since 1977.

Britain was the only country in western Europe with double‐digit in‐flation in March, compared with an average of 6.9 per cent in the euro zone and 5 per cent in the United

FC BARCELONA is putting the finishing touches to plans for financing its Espai Barça project with a €1.5 bil‐lion bond issue.

Amongst other plans, this will finance a complete re‐modelling of the club’s Camp Nou football ground.

As investors will expect an interest rate of around 6 per cent costing the club an an‐nual €90 million, the market is waiting to see how and where it will seek the fund‐ing to meet these extra pay‐ments.

Little has gone smoothly for the club since announc‐ing its plans to finance the Espai Barça project.

Flat batteries

MTE Power, a small produc‐er of lithium ion batteries, initially intended to build its first factory capable of large ‐ scale production in Dundee.

The company recently told Sky News that it was considering whether to switch from the UK to the US where it would benefit from American subsidies under the Inflation Reduc‐tion Act.

“Unless we can make the UK a competitive place for battery manufacturers, we probably won’t end up with a battery manufacturing in‐dustry in the UK,” AMTE Power’s chief executive Alan Hollis said.

States.

It looks as though the Bank of Eng‐land will again raise the interest rate with financial markets now betting on

a 97 per chance that the Bank will in‐crease the base rate by a quarter of one percentage point to 4.5 per cent on May 11. There were indications, insiders said, that this could hit 5 per cent by the autumn.

Referring to the March figures, Grant Fitzner, the chief economist at the ONS, said the principal drivers of the reduction were motor fuel prices and heating oil costs.

“Both fell after sharp rises at the same time last year. Clothing, furni‐ture and household goods prices in‐creased, but more slowly than a year ago. However, these were partially offset by the cost of food, which is still climbing steeply, with bread and cere‐al prices at a record high.”

Barça’s on the ball

vate placement of bonds on Wall Street, split into three €500‐million tranches. The first would have been due on June 30, 2032, and the second on June 30, 2045. The club would have paid in‐terest on the third tranche only until 2045 despite ma‐turing on June 30, 2052.

EL CORTE INGLES has paid a to‐tal of €500 million to finalise its deal with Sheikh Al Thani.

With this transaction, the department store group ac ‐quired 4.2 million of its shares, representing 5.53 per cent of the group’s capital and half of the 10.33 per cent owned by AI Thani through Luxembourg‐registered Primefin.

El Corte Ingles repurchased these shares in June 2022 in an operation originally valued at €385 million. The final amount was increased to €500 million to include compensation and interest, principally as com ‐pensation to Primefin which granted a €1 billion loan to El Corte Ingles in 2015.

Home help

the club had to rethink its plans.

This involved reducing the number of bonds and taking on a bank debt that will be guaranteed by JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs.

Initially, Barcelona had hoped for a €1.5 billion pri‐

These plans came to nothing. Beset by the Ne‐grerira scandal over bribes to the vice‐president of the football referees’ commit‐tee, which coincided with last March’s banking crisis,

A smooth ride

NATIONAL EXPRESS reported a rise in first ‐ quarter revenues thanks to its UK buses and German rail improvements.

Overall earnings rose by 25 per cent to £774.4 million (€879.7 million), consis ‐tent with expectations, while Spanish subsidiary ALSA reported solid growth, especially on long haul and Morocco routes.

UK earnings rose 27 per cent year ‐ on ‐year, with scheduled coach revenue up 87 per cent on 2022, reflecting the recov‐ery from the Covid ‐ related restrictions 2021 and the impact of rail strikes.

Thanks to its first ‐ quarter results, Na ‐tional Express shares immediately rose 4.25 per cent after having fallen by around 48 per cent over the 12 months.

The company’s German rail interests rose 10 per cent on 2022 while it expects a 13 per cent price increase on the US bus contracts once these expire.

Some finer points have still to be decided, including the final amount of both the bonds and the bank loan. Sources close to the process suggested that ultimately the bond issue would be somewhere under €1 billion and the loan somewhat over €500 million.

Meter pact

ENERGY FIRMS agreed to ban forcible installation of prepayment meters in the homes of customers who are over 85.

Representatives must in future wear body cameras as part of a new code of conduct, the Guardian revealed.

Suppliers reached agreement with the government regarding new guidelines for installing the meters in situations where house‐holders have run up an energy debt. There will be no repetition of agents brandishing court‐approved entry warrants to break in to install them, power companies pledged.

They must now make at least 10 attempts to contact a customer and then conduct a ‘site welfare visit’ before a prepayment meter is installed.

THE Bank of Spain (BDE) revised the number of mortgages eligible for social protection measures agreed with the government and finance sector in late 2022. The updated and extended Code of Good Practice was ex‐pected to benefit one million vul‐nerable households and those at risk of defaulting on mortgage payments.

Instead, Spain’s supervisor cal‐culates that this would assist 550,000 families should the inter‐est rate rise from the current 3.5 to 4 per cent.

Nevertheless, past figures for households accessing the 2012 Code also suggested that only 200,000 households would bene‐fit, according to Bank of Spain’s latest Financial Stability Report.

Cheers Heineken

HEINEKEN has finished the first quarter of its fiscal year with buoyant sales in Spain.

The multinational brewing company reported that its net in‐come grew by more than 20 per cent owing to increased volume and the combination of channels and brands.

Sales of the 0.0. non‐alcoholic brand performed exceptionally well in Spain, together with the entire premium range led by El Aguila.

In addition, Spain is one of six markets that have completed the transition to Eazle, one of the largest e‐commerce platforms in the world, the company said.

MARCH INFLATION: In double figures owing to food and drink prices.

CAMP NOU: FC Barcelona plans to remodel iconic football ground.

Photo credit: Pexels/Gustav Fring

LONDON - FTSE 100

DOW JONES

Bagged it

EXTRA Housing for all

Linda Hall

EY cull

MULBERRY GROUP sales improved in the second half of its finan‐cial year, partly due to demand for luxury goods as China’s econo‐my reopened. The firm slumped during the first half on reporting £4 million (€4.5 million) losses for the six months ending 1 Octo ‐ber 2022.

AI is best

ROUGHLY half of Span ‐ish bosses said they would prefer artificial intelligence to make de‐cisions for them, a study by technology firm Oracle found. Forty ‐ five per cent of managers said that an over‐abundance of data and their inability to handle it efficiently had led to a greater reliance on machines.

SPAIN’S government will use European funds to finance 43,000 new homes for use as social housing at reasonable rents. This will add up to a total of 93,000 properties when tak‐ing into account an additional 50,000 properties which now belong to Sareb, Spain’s ‘bad bank’.

Speaking in parliament on April 19, Pedro Sanchez, presi‐dent of the Spanish govern‐ment, explained that some of the properties would be new‐builds while others would be renovated.

The cost would be covered by €4 billion in EU funding which will be made available

through Spain’s Official Credit Institute (ICO).

“Public and private develop‐

In-person preferred

A RECENT survey found that a third of the UK population prefer to do their banking in per‐son. Meanwhile, high street banks maintain in‐person services are underused although the survey found that people wanted person‐to‐person advice even when they were comput‐er‐literate and could obtain it online.

Forty‐four per cent of over‐55s said they would rather visit a branch but the survey by

professional services company, Accenture, found that not only older generations were averse to change as the 18‐34 age group also hesitated to switch entirely to online banking. More people were using the Post Office to manage money as a result of branches closing, which often made it the only location where consumers and businesses could do their banking.

ers will have access to this funding on the understanding that the properties will be available as social housing for at least 50 years,” government sources said. Not all of the 50,000 properties acquired by Sareb when the 2008 property bubble burst will be immedi‐ately available, however.

Twenty‐one thousand of the Sareb homes are finished and the bank possesses enough land to build 15,000 more, but a further 14,000 are at present occupied by squat‐ters. Raquel Sanchez, Trans‐port and Urban Agenda minis‐ter, explained during a La Sexta television interview, that where possible the govern‐ment hoped to be able to “le‐galise the situation” of the squatters.

The minister did not men‐tion that only 2,230 of Sareb’s properties were located in Madrid, Valencia, or Barcelona whose respective rents had risen by 10.4, 18.4 and 19.1 per cent since March 2022.

LONDON‐BASED accountancy firm Ernst & Young (EY) is cut‐ting 3,000 US jobs, citing over‐capacity. Days earlier, EY aban‐doned plans to separate its auditing and consulting divi‐sions although the company maintained that the reduc‐tions were unrelated. The cuts affecting approximately 5 per cent of its US workforce were part of its ongoing manage‐ment of the business, said EY, promising “comprehensive support” to those affected.

Cheap deal

THE National Competition and Markets Commission (CNMC) is investigating 35 of Spain’s small and medium‐sized elec‐tricity suppliers. The CNMC suspects that Holaluz, Cox, Fe‐nie Energia, Alpex Iberica, Al‐terna, Neuroenergia and Som Energia amongst others, have taken advantage of the Iberian exception, buying cheap elec‐tricity on the Spanish market and selling it to France. As al‐ways, the CNMC said it could not provide any further details.

RAQUEL SANCHEZ: Spain’s Transport and Urban Agenda minister.

Photo credit: Pool Moncloa

BUSINESS EXTRA

On the cards

DEMAND for paper money around the world is at its lowest in 20 years, banknote manufacturer De La Rue said. The company, which designs a third of the ban‐knotes used worldwide, ex‐plained that the demand for cash had fallen since the pandemic when central banks stocked up on curren‐cy.

Stone profit

MARBLE multinational Cosentino had a turnover of €1.7 billion last year, 22 per cent more than in 2021 and the company’s third consec‐utive year with a turnover topping €1 billion. Operating profits grew by 13 per cent to €312 million while net profits also advanced by 13 per cent to €117 million.

Tomato blow

THIS year could see the low‐est production of British tomatoes since 1985. The National Farmers Union warned that steep rises in production costs, including energy to heat and light greenhouses, had forced many growers to make cuts, mothball greenhouses or shut down altogether.

Speeding up

CAR production by 19.6 per cent during the first quarter of 2023 compared with the same period in 2022, manu‐facturers’ association Anfact announced. A total of 658,282 vehicles left Spanish factories thanks to a re‐newed supply of chips, al‐though production was 13 per cent lower than in 2019.

Quids in

PEPCO GROUP, which owns Poundland, posted strong sales growth after rising prices and inflation drove shoppers to seek out bar‐gains. Turnover grew by 22.8 per cent to €2.39 billion for the six months ending March, following solid trade at its Pepco outlets where revenues soared by 36.9 per cent.

Grenadier goes to Austria

INEOS, the company founded and run by Sir Jim Ratcliffe, will build an electric version of its new Grenadier off‐road vehicle.

Despite Ratcliffe’s staunch back‐ing for Brexit, the latest version of his 4x4 will be produced in Aus ‐tria, using car parts from the Canadian manufacturer Magna.

With production due to begin in 2026, the UK has once again missed out on building a second Ineos vehicle after Ratcliffe chose a French factory for the original Grenadier.

Ratcliffe, who transformed In ‐eos into one of the UK’s biggest private companies by taking over chemicals businesses, has since launched unrelated projects

which, together with the Grenadier, range from clothing to sports clubs.

These include the Nice football team in France, the Ineos Britan ‐nia sailing team as well as the for‐

Mammoth Aena contract

mer Team Sky cycling team, since renamed the Ineos Grenadiers. He has also put in a bid for Manch ‐ester United.

With a personal wealth which the Sunday Times Rich List put at £6 billion (€6.8 billion), Ratcliffe lives in Monaco for tax purposes.

He named the Grenadier after his favourite London pub, which he later bought, but despite the vehicle’s ostensible Britishness, the first version was built in Ham‐bach in eastern France.

This came as a disappointment for Bridgend in south Wales where Ratcliffe had originally planned to build the Grenadier following the closure of the Ford engine plant.

Another London acquisition

INDITEX founder Amancio Ortega paid £82 million (€93 million) for another London property in Foley Street, via his Pontegadea real estate company.

The 1920s building close to Oxford Circus and the British Museum, was origi‐nally built as a printer’s and later housed the BBC’s overseas service.

This was the Zara bil ‐lionaire’s second impres‐sive property deal in re ‐cent months, following the €100 million purchase last March of an apart ‐ment building in Dublin’s Hanover Square.

The Foley Street build ‐ing was bought from Abrdn ‐ formerly Standard Life Aberdeen ‐ in a trans‐action overseen by prop‐erty advisers Savills.

Abrdn bought the 4,000‐square metre Foley Street building for £70 mil‐lion (€79.5 million) in 2017, leasing it for 25 years to the Kier Group in 2018.

Undeterred by Brexit, Ortega continues to invest in the London property market with assets worth approximately €3 billion. His biggest purchase, The Post Building, was ac ‐quired in 2019 for around €700 million.

He owns properties in Oxford Street, St James’s Street and St James

US investment fund, Apollo Global Management, has the John Wood Group in its sights.

Usually referred to as Wood, the multinational engineering and consulting business headquartered in Aberdeen turned down four previous offers, main‐taining that they did not re‐flect its real value.

Matters changed with

Square as well as Devon‐shire House, the former townhouse of the Dukes of Devonshire in Piccadilly.

The Foley Street sale was one of London’s few largescale property trans‐actions in recent months, after sales slowed owing to the Bank of England's increased interest in ‐crease.

An American suitor

the fifth, which valued Wood at £1.66 billion (€1.84 billion), 59 per cent more than the share price before the first offer was made.

The board of directors lis‐tened to Wood’s investors ‐mainly big institutional funds ‐ and decided to open the books to Apollo.

This follows a steady de‐

STATE‐OWNED airports operator Aena is putting out to tender a five‐year, €1.5 billion contract for pri‐vate security.

What is possibly the Administra‐tion’s largest‐ever services con‐tract, seeks approximately 5,500 security guards and 2,000 assis‐tants for Aena’s 45 airports, two helipads and Murcia aerodrome.

They will be required to provide adequate security at Aena airports which foresee 286 million arrivals during 2023, rising to 288 million in 2024, 301 million in 2025 and 315 million in 2026.

Insiders familiar with the con‐tract specifications said in the Spanish press that this offered the option of an additional year, to provide the chosen companies with as much stability as possible.

Getaways

DESPITE the cost‐of‐living cri‐sis, spending on flights and holidays rose in the first three months of 2023.

Details from more than 24 million UK bank accounts showed a 27 per cent year‐on‐year rise on package holiday bookings, and a 36 per cent in‐crease in spending on airfares, according to analysis by digital advertising platform Cardlyt‐ics.

cline in Wood’s share price, partly to the problematical £2.2 billion (€2.5 billion) takeover of US engineering giant Amec Foster Wheeler, and attempts to diversify from oil and gas.

The original deadline for a decision has now passed and has been moved to May 17.

A health unto His Majesty

NYETIMBER, which produces English sparkling wine, predicted bumper sales for this summer.

Eric Heerema, Nyetimber’s chief ex‐ecutive and chairman, said the Sussex‐based company was expecting “strong demand” over the Coronation bank holiday.

Sales had already surged in recent years, Heerema pointed out, thanks in part to warmer weather which favoured production and shot up by 60 per cent over the late Queen’s Platinum

Jubilee weekend.

Glasses of Nyetimber wines, which have been served at numerous royal events, will be raised again throughout Britain during and after HM King Charles III’s coronation on Saturday, May 6.

Nyetimber, like rival Chapel Down, is launching a £39.50 (€44.83) limited edi‐tion wine for the Coronation, made from West Sussex grapes.

“Consumers are always proud to cham‐pion and celebrate British goods and craftsmanship,” Heerema said.

While all the travel industry has enjoyed a post ‐ Covid re ‐bound, figures suggest a trend towards low ‐ cost options as budget airlines are up 42 per cent year ‐ on ‐ year compared with 29 per cent for more ex‐pensive carriers.

Best start

BANKINTER had an excellent start to 2023.

The bank reported first‐quarter profits of €185 million, 20 per cent more than the same period last year and Bankinter’s best‐ever Jan‐uary‐March figure.

It also takes into account the €77 million that Bankinter paid as the first instalment of the temporary windfall tax. This was introduced last year to fund government mea‐sures brought in to ease the cost‐of‐living crisis.

The stock market immediately responded with a 5 per cent in‐crease in Bankinter shares al‐though these later fell back to around 2 per cent.

INEOS GRENADIER: Electric version will be built in Austria.

Photo credit: Flickr/Mario

AMANCIO ORTEGA: Inditex founder continues to add to property portfolio.

Photo credit: La Sexta

LEAPY LEE SAYS IT

OTHERS THINK IT

ONCE again the festival of Ra ‐madan has drawn to a close. Ten years ago, your average Brit in the street wouldn’t have had a clue as to the meaning or origins of Ra ‐madan.

This year you would have to be a recluse in a moon cave to miss out on what is actually the most impor‐tant Muslim celebration of the year. In fact, it now comes in as the UK’s third biggest religious event after Christmas and Easter. Appar ‐ently some four million Muslims have been fasting this month, and consequently the news has been carried on just about every media outlet you care to mention; includ‐ing of course the projections and decorations that have flooded the West End of London.

There has been a positive deluge of programmes on TV, explaining the custom and how it affects its followers. A number have shown special diets. Times to eat and sleep, and even a series of exercises designed to help the followers get through, what can obviously be an

I draw the line

extremely taxing period. I did slightly twitch at one interview however when the interviewee sug‐gested it would be thoughtful if non ‐ Muslims would try and avoid eating openly in front of anyone close by who was obviously Mus ‐lim!

Well I’m afraid I draw the line there. The idea of hiding yer actual ice cream or fish and chips, because you may ‘offend’ someone who is fasting, is just a step too far. Sorry about that. I actually spent eight years in a Muslim country, and con‐sequently saw the festival com ‐pletely close up as it were.

I do remember one fellow Brit walking through a supermarket in the day during Ramadan, scoffing bananas and telling me he couldn’t care less because he wasn’t actually a Muslim himself. I did feel this somewhat disrespectful, as we were guests in their country, but frankly being asked to refrain from eating openly in my own country because it may offend someone, in my opinion is a total liberty and the sort of inflammatory remark that

TRAFFIC JAM BLUES OUR VIEW

does nothing to improve under ‐standing and acceptance of other people’s beliefs whatsoever.

Incidentally, I do remember, dur‐ing my experience of those far off Saudi days, the whole month being great fun for those of the privileged elite, who would simply party it up all night and sleep all day. Nice work if you can get it.

Even I enjoyed visiting offices and helping a somewhat devious associ‐ate deliver illegal alcohol in the middle of the night. After all most of us enjoy a drink at Christmas, I can categorically assure you that in the 70s, Ramadan was no excep ‐tion.

It may have changed now, but I very much doubt it. In fact I was in‐formed that during the 70s Saudi Arabia was the world’s biggest im ‐porter of JW whisky. This couldn’t be shown on any books so they al ‐ways paid cash. I wonder where all that disappeared to!?

THE LIFESPAN OF YOUR HOUSEHOLD ITEMS

REBECCA SERWOTKA ‐ “We sell houses!

It’s what we do, it’s ALL we do!” Certified API Associate 00493. Your favourite local re‐sale property expert, of Inmobiliaria Estate Agents in Ciudad Quesada.

Prestige Award WINNER for Real Estate Agency Of The Year 2021/22 & 2022/23. Luxury

Lifestyle Awards WINNER, Ali‐cante Spain 2023.

Your home appliances are among the most af‐fordable items to re‐place and the easiest to repair. While some people may choose to upgrade to newer technology, it’s more financially prudent to use them until the end of their lifespan.

Microwave ovens can typically endure

for five to 15 years or more, depending on usage. Ovens can typically last for 10 to 20 years. Gas hobs typically have a longer lifes‐pan compared to electric ones.

Washing machines can last be‐tween an average of 10 to 13 years, but certain brands may produce washing machines that can last even longer than the av‐erage appliance.

Fridge/freezers typically last between 10 to 15 years. However, the lifes‐pan can depend on the model, so age alone should not be the sole determinant of whether it needs to be replaced.

Water heaters usu‐ally have a lifespan of 10 to 15 years before they need replacing.

AFTER years of pain following the 2008 banking crisis, much of Spain has seen a remarkable recovery as far as housing is concerned and in many parts of the country the sight of towering cranes indicates the amount of new accommodations that is being built.

It’s good news for the economy as it creates employ‐ment and also generates income for local councils espe‐cially as many of the buyers, particularly in popular holi‐day areas, are foreigners either purchasing a holiday home or moving to Spain permanently.

Whilst there are fewer British buyers there are large numbers of Germans and other Europeans who don’t need to follow the 90/180 day rule, so the market is cur‐rently very buoyant. There is however a major problem that certainly affects the Costa del Sol and we believe many of the areas where the seven editions of Euro Weekly News are distributed. Basically, the more new builds on previously vacant land, the more traffic and in many cases, the infrastructure is not keeping up with the developments, so that whilst each new urbanisation has brand new roads, they simply lead to existing roads which can no longer cope with the volume of traffic hit‐ting them. In addition, whilst the government is encour‐aging drivers to take public transport, there are whole ar‐eas where there are no trains and buses of course get caught up in the ever‐growing traffic jams.

Spain has a huge amount of EU funding and is invest‐ing left, right and centre, but with pressure to add or in‐crease costs on toll roads, the country will see empty motorways and even more traffic on the free roads.

Ice cream esteem

TWENTY‐YEAR‐OLD research in the US has linked dairy‐based desserts like ice‐cream to heavily reduced chances of developing insulin‐resis‐tance syndrome. This is a precursor to dia‐

betes in overweight people, but although ice cream has a lower glycaemic index than super ‐ healthy brown rice, doctors in the UK have given the recently resuscitated find‐ings an icy reception.

“It may contain some nutri‐ents which could be benefi‐cial, like calcium, and it has a low glycaemic index,” said Dr Duane Mellor, a senior lectur‐er and dietitian at Aston Med‐ical School.

“But this is likely to be out‐weighed by its sugar and calo‐rie content,” he added.

Cheers for beer

DAYS after dire warnings from the US regarding the dangers of alcohol, the University of Murcia put in a good word for beer.

Beer drinkers appear to have better mental

and physical health than teetotallers and ex ‐drinkers, a research team announced.

Analysing data from 33,185 participants in Spain’s National Health surveys between 2012 and 2017, they found that 80 per cent of mod ‐erate drinkers rated their

ICE CREAM: Benefits outweighed by sugar and calorie content.

physical health as ‘good’ compared to 50 per cent of non‐drinkers.

Ninety per cent of beer ‐ drinkers regarded their mental health as ‘good’ compared to 80 per cent of non‐drinkers.

The heavier their in ‐take, the better beer ‐drinkers rated their health although the ex ‐perts warned that they were more likely to eat fast food and smoke.

Food for thought

DOCTORS believe that the food a woman eats can in‐fluence the onset on the menopause.

A 2018 Leeds University study found that women who ate a daily 90 grammes of oily fish like mackerel or trout experienced the menopause nearly three and a half years later than the UK’s average age of 51.

In contrast, those with a diet of refined foods, in‐cluding pasta and rice, went through the menopause around one and a half years earlier, the investigators said.

Photo credit: Pixabay/Picjumbo

26% of adults in England are obese, 38% are overweight.

Photo credit:Pixabay/Alfbel

BEER: Researchers give it the thumbs-up.

APPROXIMATELY 10 million people suffer from mi ‐graine in the UK and more than five million in Spain. A face mask that delivers blasts of oxygen could soon help to alleviate their agonising headaches that are often accompanied by nausea, disturbed vision and sensitivity to light, sound and smells.

It is hoped that the de ‐vice, which is currently be‐ing trialled by 160 patients,

Vaping alert

VAPING does not help young smokers break the habit, a survey of UK 1,000 teenagers revealed.

US researchers analysing the data discovered that frequent smoking ‐ more than six cigarettes a week ‐was higher in those who began vaping before they were 15.

Youngsters who smoked and vaped were twice as likely to smoke heavily by the time they left school than their peers who used tobacco, the investigators found.

Blast of fresh air

will help to reduce inflam‐mation in the nerve cells in the same way as medica ‐tion.

The exact cause of mi ‐graines is not fully under‐

stood.

Nor is there a cure for them, which is habitually treated with painkillers and triptans to alleviate the pain.

Cranberry cure

SO they were right all along.

Cranberry juice really can help to prevent urinary tract infections (UTIs), Australian researchers found after reviewing 50 trials involving 9,000 partici ‐pants.

Many women swear by cranberry juice or supple‐ments for preventing cystitis and the Australian re‐view has confirmed that these can reduce the chance of contracting a future UTI by more than 25 per cent.

The odds were slashed by 53 per cent for children and those susceptible to infections following medi‐cal interventions, the investigation found.

Experts believe this is due to cranberries’ high concentration of the antioxidant proanthocyanidin, which prevents Escherichia coli (E.coli), the most common UTI ‐ causing bacteria, from sticking to the bladder wall.

Researchers nevertheless warned that cranber ‐ries cannot cure an established UTI, for which it is necessary to seek medical attention.

Good luck with that LETTERS

THIS is just a precursor to fully‐fledged, no go zones for the police, which will mirror the goings on in ‘culturally rich’ Sweden.

Birmingham City Council’s website says that “Birmingham is one of the first ‘super di‐verse’ cities in the UK where citizens from ethnic minorities make up more than half the population.” The headline to the article is “Why Birmingham’s super ‐ diversity is a strength, and not a surprise.”

We’ll see how that strength plays out.

Schengen

David

I read in your April 20‐26 edition that the UK along with France are the big spenders in the Valencian region. I wonder if the authori‐ties are aware that thanks to Brexit and the Schengen 90‐day Agreement that they are missing out on even more UK income. Al‐though I own property here I am now not coming over as much as I did and there are many more like me.

Manuel de Falla Villamartin.

Alan Morgan MD

Hello again

Do you think you could write something about this?

I have just read an article which has re‐duced me to tears of laughter, and it is seri‐ous. I tell you, 100 years down the line peo‐ple are going to look back to now and very recent times as lunacy. Political correctness is like an Orwell novel, as is woke etc.

This article refers to ‘larger‐bodied’ people and ‘people of size’. How bloody ridiculous. By normalising fat people, who are fat be‐cause they eat too much or do not exercise, we make life uncomfortable and more ex‐pensive and (health) less efficient for ‘nor‐mal‐sized’ people.

Currently, it is always the norm, the major‐ity, who have to suffer and subjugate them‐selves to the will of any minority.

The article is about Australia charging for two seats for a fat person. My opinion is that if that person can produce a valid medical certificate as to why they cannot reduce their weight, they should not be charged for two seats; otherwise, fair play ‐ two or even three seats charged.

If these people were shamed, perhaps they would do something about it. Go back 100 years, were there so many huge people about? No!!! Mostly it’s nothing to do with a medical condition. It is eating too much and laziness.

I have struggled with weight during my life and, because it is ugly and unhealthy, I have always tried to diet, exercise and keep it down.

Nowadays we are forced to watch ex ‐

tremely fat, mostly plain women, on our TVs in varying states of undress; in dramas or ad‐vertisements etc. It is unpleasant.

I agree with acceptance, of any person, but why do we have to aggrandise absolute‐ly every deviation from the norm?

Once again, sorry for the rant.

Jane

PS. Oh, and don’t start me on this bullying rubbish!!

Help needed

Dear Sir

I have a problem that I hope you or your readers can help me with.

I am an 86‐year‐old woman and I travel quite a lot .

I am quite fit, I go bowling two or three times a week. I also work one day a week in a charity shop.

I have always had travel insurance when‐ever I go away.

Since Covid the travel companies will not insure a person of my age.

The one I usually use stops at 85 years.

I have tried other companies, some stop at an even earlier age.

I might add I have never had to make a claim with any company.

I hope you can help me. I do have the card which entitles me to emergency medical treatment in some countries.

I can’t be the only older person who likes to travel.

I am hoping you can help me .

Kind regards.

I believe

Gwendoline Ottley

I was very interested to read your column in EWN April 20‐26 as I also believe “what you think is what you get.”

My bracelet is engraved with my motto ‘Think it, feel it, have it, be it’.

I followed the Law of Attraction for years then spent a long time studying a book on quantum physics. I was even compiling data to write a book about it all, then discovered that Pam Grout had already done one ‐ E2 ‐that gives you nine experiments to prove your thoughts create your reality.

When I talk to friends about it and the way that I can do things “because I believe I can”, I do get some strange looks, so it was great when I learned that the 2022 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to the men who proved the key supposition of quantum the‐ory: that local realism is fake.

Thanks again for sharing the information so clearly ‐ I do hope others who read it will learn more and change their lives for the bet‐ter.

Kind regards,

Tricia Gabbitas

PETS

Paw-ty Time

DID you know that ‘puppy parties’ are getting more and more popular with families opting to throw a party for their poodles on their birthday? If you would like to plan a pet party celebration but you don’t know where to start here are some tips.

You should take in‐to consideration the size of your dog and the invitees when picking the location for the party, you wouldn’t want your living room overrun with greyhounds for example.

Take into account the personality of your pup, if he scares easily, a small gather‐ing that won’t be too stressful is best.

Don’t forget the re‐freshments with plen‐ty of fresh water on hand, doggy snacks, and a pupcake of course. Don’t forget to check with the hu‐mans before giving out treats and don’t forget human snacks!

Party favours like frisbees and tennis balls are very popular along with some par‐ty hats if you can get them to keep them on.

Don’t forget the dog‐themed decora‐tion and take lots of photos so you can turn it into an album to remember the day.

MANY pet‐sitters are used to being in charge while pet‐minding. However, when Talisker the cat has sitters in, he keeps an eye on them. It is good to find someone who will play with your pets, as well as look after them. House sitmatch can help you find such a pet‐sitter and compan‐ion at very little cost.

If you’re planning a trip regis‐ter now to find pet‐sitters in time. Whether your trip is short or long, you’ll know that sometimes you must leave pets at home. Young and se‐nior pets in particular benefit from staying at home, so they can follow their routines undis‐turbed. Join our pet and house sitting network, and the sitters come for free!

Choose Housesitmatch.com for affordable travel, home and pet care. These are the steps to take:

1. Register as a homeown‐er on HouseSitMatch.com

2. Choose a Premium ac‐count (£89 per year) to ensure you can help online when needed

3. Create a profile with photos of your pet and the house

4. Post an advert for the dates when you want to go

PUPDAY: Don’t forget a pupcake. EMERGENCY NUMBERS

away. Sitters apply and you choose.

How does it work?

HouseSitMatch can help you find suitable sitters. Join our network for a small annual fee. You get ID checked for safety and then build your advert say‐ing when you are going on holi‐day. House‐sitters see your ad‐vert, they respond and you choose the sitter who’ll care for your pets.

Trustpilot Testimonials ‐ 4.9 / 5 Excellent 10 out of 10 for housesit match.com

I have had nothing but good and helpful service from the people who run this site, and my experience has been excel‐lent. Tristram Cosgrave Dog and cat owner, Malaga

How do you join?

Please register online via our website www.Housesitmatch. com.

Advertising Feature

Early diagnosis of cancer in pets

CANCER is a disease that tends to have a better prog‐nosis the earlier it is diagnosed. It is important for pet owners to know the signs.

Signs of cancer in cats and dogs include:

• Persistent or abnormal swelling.

• Non healing wounds.

• Loss of weight and/or loss of appetite.

• Bleeding or abnormal discharge from any body opening.

• Difficulty eating or swallowing.

• Lethargy or weakness.

• Persistent lameness or stiffness.

• Coughing or difficulty breathing

• Changes in bathroom habits, difficulty urinating or defecating.

• Evidence of pain.

• If you see any of these signs, you should go to the vet. A physical exam, blood tests, X‐rays, CT and MRI will be necessary. Once diagnosed, it is important to re‐sort to advanced diagnostic techniques, whether they are specific analyses and advanced imaging techniques. For example, one of the most common are breast tu‐mours. Before surgery, it is convenient to rule out metastasis. These tend to occur more frequently in the lungs. Many times a simple x‐ray is not enough. To de‐tect a metastasis by radiography, it must be at least half a centimetre.

In contrast, a CT scan can detect metastases as small as a millimetre. This is important for the prognosis.

Photo credit: Flickr Seth Byrd SPONSORED BY www.euroweeklynews.com • 27 April - 3 May 2023 45

Talisker the cat keeps an eye on the pet-sitters at work.

AIR CONDITIONING

ALARMS

AIRPORT TRASNFERS

ARTIFICIAL GRASS

AIR CONDITIONING

APPLIANCE REPAIRS

CONSTRUCTION

BALUSTRADES

BLINDS

BUILDERS

BLINDS

PAINTERS/DECORATORS

J & J PAINTERS. Insideoutside - clean - fast - low cost. Torrevieja - Orihuela Costa and surrounding areas. Tel: 650 363 159 (1296232)

INTERNATIONAL CHRISTIAN ASSEMBLY, TORREVIEJA Calle Beniajan 16, Torrevieja 03185, Alicante Evangelical non-denominational church. Sunday morning Services at 11.00am. All nationalities welcome - Contact 966 752 543 / 966 799 273. For other church matters phone: 966 799 273 / /617 215 463 www.icatorrevieja.org (95476)

you would like to go to a branch meeting then find your nearest one at, http://branches.britishlegion.org.uk/branches/orihuelacosta - covering from Punta Prima to San Javier. More info can be found on branch website www.orihuelacostarbl.co.uk. (95457)

THE PATIENCE LODGE No 2177 of the R.A.O.B Please call Secretary Dave Tonge on 688 704 091 for further information.

(253807)

INSURANCE

FOR SALE Busy small shop on Campsite. Fantastic investment opportunity. Accommodation available. For more info call 619 003 258 (303214)

PRIVATE collector will buy your Gold, Rolex & Patek Philippe Watches Tel - 678 716 693 (288662)

KENWOOD CentriFugal Juicer Excel IE850 €99ono. 628 860 606 (303013)

MOBILE homes & static caravans bought, sold and transported. +34 630 055 418 or elsyd7@hotmail.com (294686)

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS IS ALCOHOL COSTING YOU MORE THAN MONEY? Drinking to excess not only affects your health it can spill over into every other aspect of your life - damaging everything that is important to you. English-speaking AA meetings are held throughout the Costa Blanca from Valencia City to Murcia. Anyone wishing to attend a meeting or discuss a possible drinking problem contact Costa Blanca North: 648 169 045 or Costa Blanca South: 625 912 078 or Costa Calida 679 385 105 All calls are treated in the strictest confidence.

AA in German: 645 456 075; Spanish: 679 212 535; Flemish: 635 047 053; and Scandinavian: 659 779 222. www. aa-costablanca.org (93323)

CAMPELLO CONTRA CANCER

in conjunction with AECC Association Español Contra Cancer. Please support your local Cancer charity and if you wish to obtain literature or simply talk to someone. Please contact Mina or Trisha. Tel 650 071 278 or 610 921 413 e-mail aecc_campe llo@hotmail.com (95475)

CANCER SUPPORT GROUP (MABS) MURCIA/MAR MENOR

Help and support is just a phone call away, Avda Rio Nalón, Tel: 693 275 779 (95462)

CHURCH SERVICE IN ENGLISH

Tel: 950 617 549 www.giving light.com.(10006)

FREEMASONRY . Are you aware that Freemasonry is thriving on the Costa Blanca? There are various Lodges meeting up throughout the Valencia region. If you already are a Mason or simply wish to know more about Freemasonry in Spain please contact sec@glpvalencia. com Tel 600 841 064 (95477)

HELP VEGA BAJA. We are a nonprofit making organisation that helps and supports anyone, without prejudice, in times of need or crisis within the Vega Baja area. Our offices are based in San Miguel at Calle Lope de Vega 46 (Tel 966 723 733), Torrevieja at Rambla Juan Mateo Garcia 4 (Tel 965 704 282). We are online at www.helpvegabaja.com and also on Facebook. You can email the San Miguel Centre at office@helpvegabaja.com. We also have a 24-hour Emergency helpline which is available to both members and non-members on 966 723 733 (95456)

LA SIESTA EVANGELICAL CHURCH on Urbanisation La Siesta, Torrevieja is a friendly, English-speaking church. For more information, including details of our services, see our website www.lasiestaevangeli calchurch.org (10005)

PHILIP SCOTT LODGE No 10671 of the RAOB. Please call the secretary, Colin Bird on 693 287 614 for further information. (95459)

PILAR CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY CHURCH. All welcome from any church background or none. For further information, www. pilarchurch.org Reg No: 2009SG/A (95463)

ROYAL Air Force Association

Costa Blanca Registered Members Group: The RAFA Costa Blanca RMG replaces the RAFA Costa Blanca Branch 1359 which is now closed. The RMG is a social group of caring people and remains affiliated to the parent Association. Contact with the Royal Air Force Association and the RMG can be made via the RAFA website rafa.org. uk Tel:0044 800 018 2361. (238593)

ROYAL BRITISH LEGION - Why not make this year the year you volunteer? See how you can help either as a caseworker (with full training) or as a Telephone Buddy. We also visit beneficiaries who are housebound or in hospital. If you feel you could support us here in Spain, and you have a Spanish phone number then why not email us for more info tbuddyhhvisits@ gmail.com. If you or your partner served or are serving, and you feel you need help or support then contact us using the details on the card, we are here for the small things as well as the big, sometimes talking to someone is the first step to feeling more in control. It can be a personal need or some help with your home or information on what or who to speak to on a medical issue, we help with signposting if we cannot help directly, just call and have a chat with Pam who will try to guide you to where you need to be. If

ROYAL BRITISH LEGION Gran Alacant & La Marina Branch. For info, contact the branch Secretary at granalacant.secretary@ rbl.community

ROYAL MARINES ASSOCIATION (Costa Blanca) The aim of the Association is to bring together not just ex Royal Marines, but ex Service personnel with an affinity to the Royal Marines. For further details contact Hon Sec P S Wilkins Tel: 966 194 158 email: inkin spain@yahoo.co.uk (10004)

ROYAL NAVAL ASSOCIATION

For information please contact Chairman Anthony Jenkins +34 693 866 709, Vice Chairman Dusty Miller +34 711 006 670, Secretary Mike Cockman +34 670 224 822, Treasurer Carl Louden +34 678 518 202, email rnatorrevieja@aol.com (95455)

STROKE ASSOCIATION Spain (formally known as Torrevieja stroke support) Our aim is to help and support stroke survivors and their carers, with rehabilitation, speech therapy, OC therapy and a very active social group. For info please contact 653 588 475 English and 620 907 474 Spanish or email strokesupportgroup@ hotmail.com, website: torreviejastrokesupport.org. We are always looking for volunteers who have the skills and knowledge to support. (95473)

THE AIRCREW ASSOCIATION COSTA BLANCA BRANCH. Former & serving aircrews of the UK or Allied Armed Forces are welcome to join this convivial & friendly organisation, now in its 21st year. www.acacostablan ca.org or call the Secretary on: 966 495 042 (95465)

THE ANGLICAN CHURCH, La Fustera. For more info: contact Frank Bentley on 966 495 188. (95461)

THE BAKER Foundation Spiritual Centre Playa Flamenca. Calle Luis Gordillo, 1 Playa Flamenca Alicante 03189. You can join us on Facebook, The Baker Foundation spiritual centre. Or contact Linda Schug Tel. 606 990 665 for more details (95458)

THE SPIRITUALIST CENTRE, Benijofar meets at Hamilton’s Bake House, 62 Calle Vicente, Blasco Ibañez, Benijofar 03178. We hold a Sunday Sevrice at 11.30am. For further information: www.spiritualistcentre-benijo far.com . Telephone 711 060 171. Email martindroute 66@hotmail.com . Fiscal G54713789

MOVERS AND SHAKERS We are a non-profit organisation that supports people and their families with neurological diseases such as; HUNTINGTON’S, ATAXIA, MOTOR NEURONE, MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS and PARKINSON’S. Our MOVERS AND SHAKERS CLUB held every Friday @ 1pm –3pm, is a chance for members to meet up socially, for a drink and a chat on a full range of topics and to exchange ideas and information. The club is held at O’Briens Bar in El Raso, Guardamar del Segura (except July and August). For more details, contact Marion Smith on 711 008 250, or email: marion.smith@amscb. org.es, or you can find us on Facebook : fb@movers and shakers www.amscb.org.e s (295976)

FED UP OF NOT BEING SENT YOUR RENEWAL? CUT YOUR INSURANCE COSTS AND STILL HAVE 100% COVER. YOU HAVE TRIED THE REST NOW TRY THE BEST WITH SOS INSURANCE. WE CAN EVEN INSURE YOU FOR UP TO A €1,000 OF WATERLOSS. CALL 686 116 297 (WHATSAPP TO) OR VISIT www.sosinsuranceinspain.com or email tracey@sosinsuran ceinspain.com (290139)

BENEFICIAL INSURANCE SERVICES. Car, Home, Business, Travel, Life, Funeral, all insurances available. Policies in English. BEST rates, covers & service. Immediate quotes. Tel 961 129 215 / 622 275 561, (WhatsApp) info@beneficialinsuranceinspain.com or visit www.be neficialinsuranceinspain.com for online quote. (303063)

STAY SAFE! Abbeygate Insurance Call 971 277 455 For your security www.abbeygateinsure.com

MASSAGE

MR FIXIT . For all your electrical, plumbing, general & appliance & boiler repairs. No call out charge. 698 320 434 (291667)

ELECTRICIAN FOR SALE/WANTED

WANTED Gold, Silver, Rolex & Patek Philippe Watches Tel - 678 716 693 (288662)

GOLD WANTED

FRENCH, ELÉGANTE , slim, Sophie, 3 languages spoken. Experienced in a large variety of full body massages. Villamartin apartment or can travel to all areas. 693 357 526 (295405)

EXPERIENCE the best with a 1hr unique massage with Veronica. Shaving or permanent hair removal available. For appointments call 679 292 678

CLASSIC SPANISH LADY , Playa Flamenca area, private premises, all massage services from 40€. Ana 657 603 495

ATTRACTIVE, Girlfriend, Professional Masseuse relaxing and therapeutic Masseuse. Tel: 693 357 526

HEALTH & BEAUTY

RELAXING MASSAGE FOR MEN - Mario qualified masseur in Alicante - Special Massage for Men - 7 days 10am to 10pm - APPOINTMENTS visit: www.masajeyrelax.es/en or WHATSAPP 649 761 607

MEETING POINT CHARITY

PERSONAL TRAINER, WEIGHT LOSS, TONING, RESULTS GUARANTEED. CERTIFIED WITH 30 YEARS EXPERIENCE. FORMER US KICKBOX CHAMPION. CALL 747 438 225 (301319)

HOME IMPROVEMENTS

BATHROOM & KITCHEN Conversions Costa Blanca, contact 698 320 434. (293273)

GOLD & SILVER Bought & Sold, Rolex & Patek Philippe Watches Tel - 678 716 693 (288662)

PIANO , Keyboard, Organ, Qualified Teacher. Please call 606 984 535 (302201)

INTERNATIONAL SKIPPER LICENCE: Courses held in English and starts soon. VHF and Radar Courses. 626 245 098 (303137)

EASYHORSE CARE RESCUE CENTRE. We aim to rescue HORSES. If you would like to DONATE please call 965 967 033 or sales@easyhorsecare. net www.easyhorsecare. net or call Sue 652 021 980 (95706)

MR FIXIT. For all your electrical, plumbing, general & appliance & boiler repairs. No call out charge. 698 320 434 (291667)

WE ARE currently the market leader in our country in the sale of direct car, motorbike, home and company fleet insurance. Since we started out in 1995, our philosophy has always been to offer an excellent service with the best prices in the market. For the most competitive quotes in English, call Linea Directa on 952 147 834. (200726)

MOTORHOME / Campervan wanted. Left or right hand drive. Cash waiting for right van. Tlf 650 722 905

KAMAGRA Gold 100mg plus Kamagra Jellies. Collection or Delivery. ROY HAS A NEW TEL. - 613 584 915 (295447) tp

Male /Female viagra, cialis, kamagra jelly, mixed trial packs available, all areas mail order. 604 385 476. viagra4you19@gmail. com

TAILOR-MADE in durable canvas, pergola covers, sails, umbrella, spa and CAR COVERS. 10% off Cushions.

Mazarron to Costa Blanca. RETIRING SOON DON’T MISS OUT

Google: KrugerCanopies.com

WhatsApp: 667 879 399 krugercanopies@yahoo.co.uk (295010)

GATAMI ORGANISATION, to help kittens and cats, looking for good homes, also spaying wild cats in the community. Kittens require adoption, fully vaccinated, de-wormed, deflead. volunteers to Tel Anna: 966 806 976 / 654 729 977 (95709)

P.E.P.A. VOLUNTEERS & FOSTER HOMES URGENTLY NEEDED. By fostering an abandoned dog or spending a few hours each week on our telephone helpline, you could help save the lives of many animals. Please call: 650 304 746. For more information browse our website: www.pepaspain.com (95708)

SPAMA GANDIA SHELTER. Dog and cat rescue registered charity, La Safor area. 500 animals awaiting rehoming. Phone Gail 962 896 118. Visit our website for directions. www.spama.org and view our new blog at www.spama-safor.blog.com.es PLEASE HELP US TO HELP THEM (95707)

POOL MAINTENANCE Repairs, Spares and Leak Testing. Call 965 725 565 / 676 945 360 www.pooltechspain.com (290726)

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

FED UP PAYING TOO MUCH FOR YOUR MOBILE PHONE CALLS? THEN CONTACT TELITEC TODAY. CALLS TO SPAIN 7C PER MINUTE INCLUDING MOBILES. CALLS TO UK 5.3C PER MINUTE. NO MONTHLY FEES, NO CONTRACT. WWW.TELITEC.COM TEL: 902 889 070 (2001)

Decarbonising

Anna Ellis

UK ministers and aviation chiefs have revealed an action plan for the next two years in the race to reach Jet Zero by 2050, as the government contin ‐ues with ambitious plans to decarbonise faster than any other G7 coun ‐try, grow the economy, and support hundreds of thousands of well ‐ paid green jobs.

The Jet Zero Council ‐made up of industry, aca‐demic and government leaders ‐ met last week at Farnborough Airport.

Through its two ‐ year plan, the council commit‐ted to continue working to speed up the design, manufacture, and rollout of zero emission aircraft and vital infrastructure at UK airports.

The plan sets out how the council will help to ac‐celerate the production of sustainable aviation fu‐els (SAF), by continuing to

invest millions of pounds in first ‐ of ‐ a ‐ kind SAF plants, supporting crucial scientific research on a larger scale, and helping to drive down production costs.

Farnborough Airport al‐so played host to the Sus‐tainable Skies World Summit April 17 ‐ 18, which gathers experts and leaders from the worlds of aviation, gov ‐

ernment, energy, and en ‐gineering.

AMBITIOUS PLANS: To reach zero emissions.

Image: GVLR / Shutterstock.com

35% of registered cars owners in the UK are female.

Toyota Corolla Touring Sports - perfect choice?

ROAD TEST

byMarkSlack

FOR many people, espe ‐cially of a certain age, mention estate cars and Volvo comes to mind, es ‐tates that were favoured by antique dealers every‐where. Look for a large estate now and to be honest you’ll struggle. We’ve moved to ‘lifestyle’ estates which are colloquially known as Tourers, smaller load ca ‐pacity but arguably more stylish and better han ‐dling than the estate barges of old.

One of the sleekest and most affordable estates, sorry tourers, is Toyota’s Corolla Touring Sports. Carrying their very well ‐proven hybrid technolo ‐gy, still a much more all ‐round and useable proposition than an EV, the Corolla may not be the most exciting means

of transport, but as a package it pretty much does everything you could want of a car. Lots of equipment, affordable running costs and very well bolted together. It feels like a car that will still be running and look ‐ing good in 20 years‐time.

Prices start from €35,363/£31,560 with four trim levels and two engine options ‐ 1.8 or 2.0 ‐ litre petrol hybrid. Standard fare on the en ‐try level model provides everything from front and rear parking sen sors and auto lights to smart phone connectivity and dual zone air conditioning.

My test model was the Design trim, second up in the range, which adds key ‐less entry and start, pow‐er tailgate, privacy glass,

power fold door mirrors and auto dimming rear view mirrors to its stan ‐dard equipment.

One of the first things to say about the car is its apparent low stance, it looks very low yet isn’t compared to other cars of a similar type. So Toy ‐ota’s stylists obviously know a thing or two about sleek design!

Inside it looks and feels well assembled and the quality

puts some rivals of similar price in the shade. You still get the bolt ‐ on ‐ iPad look of so many cars but that apart there’s a pleas‐ing normality with a stan‐dard automatic gear shift lever, buttons (hurrah!) and decent functionality to the touch screen.

As with anything Toy ‐ota, the Corolla is a smooth and refined drive, push the throttle too en ‐thusiastically though and as is usual with a CVT transmission it

high engine revs meaning it’s rather vocal. Progres ‐sive rather than sudden acceleration is the order of the day.

cality than a hatchback, but still handles as capa ‐bly, looks good and is su ‐perbly well built, then the Toyota Corolla Hybrid Touring might just be the perfect choice.

TOURING SPORT: Looks good and is superbly well built - this might be the perfect choice for you.

Driver killed in horror crash

A HORRIFIC crash during the Rallysprint San Bar‐tolomé de Pinares in the Spanish province of Avila resulted in the death of rally driver David López Tomico.

The incident occurred on Saturday, April 22, while he was competing in a round of the Castilla and León Rallysprint Championship.

Tomico and his co‐driver Natalia Rios Diaz were on the first downhill section of the course between San Bartolomé de Pinares and the Port of El Boquerón when tragedy struck at around 3.15pm. Their Fiat Abarth Grande Punto left the road at high speed and subsequently rolled about 50 metres down a steep ravine.

Diaz was rescued from the wreckage by firefight‐ers who had been de ‐ployed to the scene and transferred to a hospital for treatment. Sadly, they were unable to save the

life of the driver. The race was abandoned for the rest of the day by its or‐ganisers as a mark of re‐spect to Tomico, as re ‐ported by a news source .

The deceased driver’s team, Vallejo Racing, posted a poignant tribute to him on Twitter. It read: “Again, this sport hit us where it hurts the most.

Vallejo Racing is in mourning because we have lost one of our own: David López Tomico, a passionate lover of mo‐torsports, a leader in his work and an example of perseverance and love for his people.”

It continued: “He joined the team in 2022 and his encouragement and strength were essen‐tial for the Dakar 2023 project to come to fruition. Today we not only lose a mechanic or a member of the team, but a real friend is gone. David, your strength will always be with us.”

Nagelsmann rejects new offer

ANY hopes that Chelsea had of tempting Julian Nagelsmann to be‐come their next manager have been crushed after the German al ‐legedly turned down the club’s of ‐fer.

According to reports on Friday, April 21, Julian Nagelsmann has re‐jected the offer of becoming the next manager of Premier League club Chelsea.

The 35 ‐ year ‐ old German was available having been sacked re ‐cently as coach of Bundesliga gi ‐ants, Bayern Munich.

Nagelsmann was thought to be one of the front‐runners to land the Stamford Bridge job currently held by interim boss Frank Lampard.

The club’s American owner Todd Boehly fired Graham Potter earlier this month after a series of awful results saw the Londoners freefalling down the table.

However, posting on Twitter on Friday, the respected sports jour ‐nalist Fabrizio Romano reported ex‐clusively that Nagelsmann was no longer in the running to fill the post in West London.

“EXCLUSIVE: Julian Nagelsmann has now withdrawn from the race

to become the new Chelsea head coach ‐ it looks like it’s his final de‐cision. #CFC German coach is said to be no longer available after mul‐tiple round of talks. Nagelsmann was top candidate for the job,” he tweeted.

Fabrizio posted again only a few minutes later, repeating what the

German had told Sky Sport DE: “Ju‐lian Nagelsmann when asked said talks had collapsed with Chelsea for head coach job: ‘To cancel some ‐thing, you have to commit to some‐thing’, he told Sky Sport DE. It’s def‐initely over between Nagelsmann & #CFC ‐ different views on crucial points.”

JULIAN NAGELSMANN: Had different views on crucial points

Credit: Steffen Prößdorf - Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0