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Spain Paper Review - Thur May 25 2006
By h.b. - May 25, 2006 - 9:44 AM

Today's La Vanguardia, published in Barcelona
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The Batasuna negotiators, the crime wave and the cyclist doping are the main stories across the papers today
El Mundo leads with the revelation that an assessor from the Government office for the Economy put pressure to protect the auditor of the Afinsa stamp trading company. The paper claims that an investigation into the company was interrupted as a result in 2005.
El Mundo says the Defensor del Pueblo is now investigating why hacienda did not act in the case before now.

El Pais reports that the Pentagon has said that Iran has tested a medium range missile. The missle has a 1,600km range and a payload of 650 kilos.

El Mundo is among the papers to show a photo of the six members of the outlawed Batasuna, the political wing of ETA, who have nominated themselves to act as the negotiators in the hoped for peace process.
La Razón leads with the claim that police reports show that ETA is still active.

El Pais reports that the Ministry for the Interior has taken urgent measures to try and stop the spate of violent robberies from villas. The paper notes that Angel Acebes, the PP Secretary General, has linked the crimes with the ‘avalanche of immigrants’.
ABC says the Police and Civil Guard are themselves demanding the government do more against crime. They want harsher laws against organised crime.
La Vanguardia says the crime wave in the Girona area questions the model of urban expansion.

El Mundo reports that Manolo Saiz, from the Liberty Seguros cycling team was found with 60,000 € in cash and an isothermal bag when arrested in the new cycling doping scandal in Spain.
El Pais reveals that the investigators have found the medical details of 200 cyclists in the clinics which have been investigated as part of the affair.
ABC says that the police have been taping sportsmen who left the clinic used for the doping by Doctor Fuentes.
La Vanguardia says that 100 bags of frozen blood were recovered.
El Periódico says that Saiz was on his way to pay the clinic 60,000 € when he was arrested. The paper says the government has declared ‘total war’ against illegal substances.

ABC has a photo of the Sub Saharan immigrants who arrived on the island of La Gomera yesterday – 110 of them. ‘There is no room for so many people’ is the quote.

El Mundo reports that the secretary of Judge Juan del Olmo, who is about to be disciplined for a clerical error which resulted in the release of one of the March 11th Madrid train bombing suspects, has said he made the error because of the pressure put upon him by the media in the case. The paper quotes her as saying ‘He was physically exhausted, and continuously using eye-drops and a huge computer screen, as his eyesight stopped him working with a normal sized one’.

Prince Felipe is in San Roque today and La Razón says the Prince of Asturias has criticised the situation of Gibraltar, describing it as anachronistic.

El Pais has a front page photo of Antonio López. The painter from Ciudad Real has won this year’s Velázquez prize.

La Razón goes with the 41 year old Physicist Juan Iganacio Cirac – who has won the Prince of Asturias prize for research this year.

ABC reports that the Junta de Andalucia has ordered that crucifixes be removed from classrooms of a school in Jaén. A circular says that cross can only be kept in the room where religion is taught.

And finally,
A statistic from El Pais – At least six municipal officers in Marbella have been earning more than the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister’s wage is 87,522 € a year by the way.