Spain Papers Review - Thursday October 8 2009

Spain Papers Review - Thursday October 8 2009
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By h.b. - Oct 8, 2009 - 9:04 AM

La Razón today

The death of another Spanish soldier in Afghanistan leads most of the papers today

El Mundo headlines that Cristo Ancor died in an obsolete vehicle when it was attacked by the Taliban. The paper says the BMR vehicle was 30 years old and was set to be replaced next month. It happened as the Spanish patrol had gone to break up some controls set up by the radicals.
El Mundo also notes that a split is increasing in the Obama administration as to what should be done in Afghanistan, but El País says that Obama has assured that he will be keeping the number of United States soldiers in Kabul.
El País says the Spanish victim was driving the vehicle and reports that five other soldiers were injured.
La Razón has a photo of the victim and notes that the 25 year old had been decorated previously in Lebanon. The paper tells us he came from Las Palmas and was a father of two.
ABC also headlines the death of the soldier.

El Mundo has a front page photo of Mariano Rajoy with Ana Mato during a PP meeting on next year’s budgets. The paper says the PP leader has said he will demand responsibilities for the Gürtel case, but he did not say what.
El Mundo notes that the businessman at the centre of the affair, Francisco Correa, organised parties with ‘servicio de chicas’ for PP mayors and councillors implicated in the corruption. The paper has carried out its own internet poll and prints that 94% of those who voted called for the resignation of all the politicians who have accepted gifts.
El País leads with more from the case summary and says that recordings show the power of those implicated in the case in Valencia. The paper says the Valencia government gave contracts to another five of Francisco Correa’s companies.
La Razón says that Rajoy has promised not to look the other way in the case. The paper says the brains in the case, (Francisco Correa) has not made an income tax declaration in Spain since 1999 and carried the money in a shoe box.
Público headlines that 18 top members of the PP collected 6.3 million in the scandal, in a list headed by the ex treasurer, Luis Bárcenas. The paper says the list includes Mayors, Councillors, Regional Deputies and even José María Aznar’s personal assistant, Antonio Cámara.
The paper notes that Rajoy considers it proven that there was no illegal funding of the party, only ‘a corrupt network which took advantage of the PP’.
Público highlights the declarations of the PP General Secretary, Maria Dolores de Cospedal, who said yesterday that the party had done all it could in the case, but Público notes that there were contracts from the corrupt group when she was the transport councillor in the Madrid regional government.
ABC says that Correa blackmailed a PP mayor with a video showing him counting money.
La Vanguardia reports that Mariano Rajoy tried without success to remove the Valencia number two Ricardo Costa in an effort to stop the Gürtel case.

El Periódico in Barcelona leads with the news that Jordi Millet, the ex President of the Orfeó Català-Palau de la Música in the city, illegally took 9.8 million € in cash from the concert venue over a six year period. He has confessed to the crime after some months ago Hacienda detected suspicious payments made by ‘al portador’ cheques.

La Razón puts four photos of a 14 week old foetus on its front page today, with the headline – ‘The abortion law allows the end of the existence of his human being’. The paper describes the images as 4D scans which the paper says show that the foetus breathes and moves.

El Mundo has more on the Faisán case and says that the police gave the Guardia Civil erroneous information to confuse them as they were trying to investigate the police leak.
ABC says that summary of the case includes details of ETA extortion of businesses, contracts and payments in the Basque Country.

El País reports that most of Spain’s regions broke the limit for public deficit which had been fixed by central government last year at 0.75% of GDP. The paper says in Navarra it is over 4%, while other regions scrape 3%.

ABC has a large front page photo of Granada poet, Federico García Lorca, and says that the scientific study of the land has revealed that his civil war grave was ‘manipulated’ shortly after he was killed.

In international stories
El Mundo notes that the Italian Constitutional Court has removed the immunity enjoyed by Silvio Berlusconi.
El Pais has a front page photo of Berlusconi, with ‘a worried gesture’ according to the caption, taken at an official reception yesterday at the Chigi Palace in Rome. The paper headlines that the Constitutional Court has thrown away Berlusconi’s immunity.
La Razón tells us that Berlusconi has said he could not care less about the decision – ‘le importa un pepino’.

Público notes that Telefónica has launched a hostile take over bid for the Brazilian company GVT.

And finally,
El Mundo puts Nicolas Sarkozy jogging on its masthead and says he is putting his ministers on a diet, so they can set an example.

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