Ibiza Sun - News from the Mainland

News from The Mainland

Disappearance
Two businessmen in the textile industry, José Montoya and Fernando Carmona, failed to communicate with their colleagues in Spain for more than a week when they were travelling in Mexico. Their bodies were found, handcuffed and bearing bullet wounds, in the boot of a car in a canal near the small village of Villa López Mateos, after locals spotted the rear of the vehicle sticking out of the water. They had hired the vehicle in Guadalajara to contact potential customers to sell their products. It was reported that they were accustomed to travelling within the Americas and had apparently stayed in a small hostel until the 4th of May, but had not been heard from since. They were last seen in Sinaloa, which is one of the most violent states in the whole country, where murders are commonplace and territorial fights between rival drug cartels are rife.
"Nobody in their right mind would travel to see the scenery in these parts" commented a member of the diplomatic corps. It was also mentioned that travellers in Mexico should be on the alert, as several people have found to their cost. In February this year two brothers, also commercial travellers, were found by the side of the road, where they had been beaten and robbed, and in the same month six young Spanish girls were raped in the tourist city of Acapulco.

Captured
One of Britain"s most wanted men, 31 year old Andrew Moran, was arrested by the police in Calpe, not far from Benidorm, last week. He had been on the run since February 2009, when he assaulted four security guards to escape from Burnley Crown Court. He was on trial for an armed robbery which had taken place against Royal Mail guards, one of whom was injured in the fray, in Colne, Lancashire, in May 2005, and had just been found guilty when he made his bid for freedom. The Organized Crime Agency had apparently been informed by the local police of his whereabouts in November last year, but he evaded capture by ramming two police cars and making his getaway by driving the wrong way down a motorway. His partner in crime, Stephen Devalda, also escaped at the same time but was arrested in March 2011, also in Spain.

Agreement
The world"s two largest fashion retailers, Sweden"s H&M and Spain"s Inditex, together with high street chain stores such as Tesco, Primark and C&A, have announced a package to improve the labour conditions in their factories to prevent a repeat of the building collapse in Bangladesh, in which more than 1,000 people lost their lives. They are presenting a co-ordinated system of inspections, the results of which will be made public, improved rights for the workers and financial commitment from retailers to improve conditions in factories in the country, the world’s largest clothing exporter. Amancio Ortega of Inditex said that they are still working on the details of the agreement, but it will be implemented shortly. Six percent of all the group"s merchandise was produced in Bangladesh last year, where factory workers earn the lowest minimum wage anywhere in the world, at 29€ per month.

Do not pass go!
Miguel Blesa, the former President of Caja Madrid, was ordered to go directly to jail last Thursday, unless he could pay bail of 2.5 million euros, which his lawyers did the following day. He headed the bank for ten years from the late 1990s and is being investigated over charges concerning the purchase of the State Bank of Florida, together with a loan of 26.6 million euros which was granted to the Marsans Group, a travel agency which went bust with huge losses in 2010. Blesa and the former Marsans owner, Gerardo Diáz Ferran, who is also in jail as part of another investigation, are accused of corporate crimes and falsification of documents. Caja Madrid took control of the American bank in 2008, after paying 618 million euros for 83 percent of its assets, a move which was approved unanimously by the Spanish bank"s board of directors, in order to strengthen its presence in the United States. After Blesa retired as President, the bank merged with six other savings banks to ward off bankruptcy, but the resulting group, Bankia, required a record bailout of 22 billion euros two years later.
Once one of the country"s most powerful business figures, he was appointed to the plum job by the PP government headed by José María Aznar, and is so far the only banker to see the inside of a prison cell because of his actions during the economic crisis, but it is doubtful whether he will be the only one, as an estimated 90 bank executives from nine savings banks are currently under investigation. Although Blesa has now been released from prison, he will have to report to the court periodically and has had his passport confiscated, as the judge ruled that there was a good chance of him fleeing the country.
Speaking in Parliament last Friday, the Deputy Prime Minister, Soraya Sainz de Santamaria, said, “For the government, the fact that the institutions are working normally and that the law is being applied equally, is very positive”, implying that the ‘old pals school’ no longer exists and villains, however high ranking, will have to face the music.

Lucky Man
A 41 year old Ecuadorian man was recovering in hospital last week after being hit by a bolt of lightning in the Puente de Vallecas area of Madrid. He had been playing football in a local park with friends when he received a telephone call and went to stand under a tree to talk, when the lightning passed through his shoulder. Although there were no visible burns to his body, the emergency services realized that his heart had stopped and carried out reanimation techniques and managed to find a faint pulse. He will be kept in the La Paz Hospital in the capital to monitor his recovery.

Winner
Against the odds, the Celler de can Roca in Girona, north of Barcelona, was named as the best restaurant in the world by the magazine "Restaurant" at a ceremony held in London last week. The panel of judges had the difficult task of evaluating fifty renowned restaurants and once again opted for Spain; elBulli having been the winner for five consecutive years until 2010, when it was the Danish restaurant Noma which was considered the best. El Celler is run by three brothers, Josep, Jordi and Juan Roca, and had been ranked in second place for the past two years. It was inaugurated in 1986 and blends the traditional with the innovative. After the announcement was made, it was reported that, if you fancy dining in this exclusive eatery, there is now a waiting list of at least eleven months. In fact there were three Spanish restaurants which were placed in the first eight, the only country to have more than one highly rated establishment in the top ten.

New Technology
Residents in the rural area of Santpedor in Cataluña are the first in the country to be able to use smart ‘phones to make complaints or report infractions. They can now send a WhatsApp directly to the authorities, who are able to react immediately. The first delinquent to be apprehended using this system was a thief who was captured on the security camera of the property he was stealing from, together with images of the stolen goods. A van driver was surprised when he stopped for just a few minutes on a double yellow line, as Local Police officers were soon on the scene to hand him a fine. This is now the fifth line of communication in Sanpedor as they already have the traditional telephone line, the 112 emergency number, an e-mail address and a Twitter account. Many other towns in Spain are considering implementing a similar system to enlist the help of the man in the street to prove that crime does not pay.