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SOUTH EDITION Presidents meet with new water bosses
Your English Newspaper
Issue 636
23 DEC 2011-05 JAN 2012
Festive fears prove fanciful
REPRESENTATIVES FROM the new water company met with the San Miguel de Salinas Presidents Liaison Group at the Town Hall this week p7
by Louise Clarke
Fancy a New Year dip and dive?
BRAVE FUNDRAISERS will be raising lots of cash by having a New Year ‘dip’ in the Mediterranean on New Year’s Day p10
So what can we look forward to in 2012? FIND OUT more on p25
Spying on Santa HAVE A look at what Gadget Inspector has been doing this week p51
ITV Orihuela RFC show the way
ITV ORIHUELA RFC with the Juniors, Cadetes and Infantiles played in a tournament on Saturday in Murcia p63
The younger children danced to‘Jingle Bells’ before the play began
Standing room only By Louise Clarke IT SEEMED like the whole population of San Miguel de Salinas turned out on Saturday evening for the local primary school’s Christmas play. The play, which was entitled La Sosa Navidad de Laura, took place at the Casa de Cultura in the town and it was standing room only for the audience who flocked to the venue to see the kids perform. The ‘Festival de Navidad’ involved more than 50 pupils from the Gloria Fuertes Primary School and children aged from four years to twelve years.
TALK ABOUT causing a panic! It must be a light news week in the UK after various British newspaper reported that emergency evacuation plans are being drawn up for Brits living in Spain amid fears of the euro collapsing. This incredible story, which actually comes during a week when the financial markets are more positive about Spain’s finances than they have been all year, has resulted in RTN being inundated with calls from worried expats asking us whether they should take all their money out of their bank accounts! The Daily Mirror was one of the chief scaremongers and reported that these drastic proposals had emerged after an ‘unnamed’ (very convenient) former Security Minister had warned that expats could be left stranded and destitute by the breakup of the single currency. WORRYING It was also claimed that Brits who have invested their savings in Spain may not be able to withdraw cash and could even lose their homes if banks call in loans! According to these reports, which were also relayed on Sky News, the Foreign Office is preparing to bring us all back from Spain if it is forced out of the euro. Then the Tory Peer, Baroness Neville-Jones, got in on the act and added fuel to the fire by calling
the situation “very, very worrying”. Apparently, the 72 year old was quoted as saying that: “Spain is clearly a vulnerable area and our own citizens would not be able to get money out of their banks to live on.” Incredibly, the reports then went on to qualify their scaremongering with a quote saying that officials are “braced” for a nightmare scenario where thousands end up penniless and sleeping at airports with no means of getting home. And even that planes, ships and coaches could be sent, with some expats being brought out through Gibraltar! FANCIFUL RTN would like to reiterate that there is NO substance to these reports whatsoever and spoke to several of our financial contributors who told us that Spanish banks guarantee the first €100,000 that is deposited by savers. Meanwhile, RTN also contacted the British Embassy in Madrid about these, frankly ridiculous claims. A Spokesman told us: “All British Embassies regularly update contingency planning for all sorts of scenarios, including natural disasters and internal political unrest. However, there is NO Spain contingency plan for a euro-based evacuation, nor do we have any intention of preparing one, it is fanciful to imagine that a major evacuation of British nationals would either be necessary or feasible.” So there you have it, panic over! Phew!