Caja Castilla La Mancha taken over by the Bank of Spain in emergency bailout

Caja Castilla La Mancha, which has been tottering for a while, quietly fell over today and was quickly taken over by the national bank Banco de Espana. The politicians have been trying to quietly merge it with Andalucian giant Unicaja for a while now – No doubt Banco de Espana will keep the smelly bits while Unicaja, who are sharp cookies, keep the sweet pieces.

Latest POTALA plans

Here’s a link to the latest version of the POTALA plans as published on the Junta de Andalucia website: http://www.juntadeandalucia.es/medioambiente/site/web/menuitem.a5664a214f73c3df81d8899661525ea0/?vgnextoid=15bf5f4eecac9110VgnVCM1000000624e50aRCRD (Thanks to Mick Petty for forwarding the link, I missed this!)

Man looses land up to his pool for new motorway in Zurgena

According to Jim Simpson, Almerias only English councillor, over in Zurgena a gentleman expat has had his land expropriated up to a meter away from his swimming pool for the new motorway. (Here). Blimey. Of course, he won’t get a penny more than the 1,2€odd a m2 for land they actually take. He’s also stuffed inasmuch as he can’t do anything within 150m of the motorway, so goodbye any  new structure on his land….

The abortion dispute during Easter

<!– @page { margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } –> The Catholic Church has been criticized for interfering in the natural political process of Spain by attempting to create a political campaign against the modernization of Spains abortion laws. By first claiming that Spain holds in greater regard endangered species such as the Iberian Lynx than born children, it is trivializing the whole situation and ignoring the sterling work carried out by ecological Continue reading The abortion dispute during Easter

CAM offers direct to public its “distressed” properties

CAM Bank (www.cam.es) has gotten tired of real estate agents and offered, direct to the public, it’s stock of distressed and repossesed homes, together with prepacked mortgages of up to 80%. The whole list is over on the somewhat unfortunatly named website http://www.SubastaScam.es/ And Turre is STILL overpriced. Nobody wants to pay 98K for those dodgy 71m2 flats next to SuperTurre. That’s €1381 a square meter. Still better than Vera tho’: 2276m2 (141.170€ for a Continue reading CAM offers direct to public its “distressed” properties

BOJA publishes plans for the POTALA and creates steering committee

Here we go. The BOJA (Official state bulletin for the Junta de Andalucia) has published approval of the POTALA and has created a steering committee to see it through to the bitter end. Spain has so many layers of bureaucratic nonsense (even the Diputacion de Almeria admits that there is no real need for the Diputacion de Almeria) that it’s quite a big steering committee. Hopefully done that way on purpose so nobody has to Continue reading BOJA publishes plans for the POTALA and creates steering committee

Daily Mirror votes Huercal Overa hospital “second best in Spain”

No, I haven’t started reading the Daily Mirror, it was in La Voz de Almería. I can’t find the article quoted on the Daily Mirror website, but it seems that in a recent survey “La Inmaculada” hospital in Huercal Overa was voted second only to the University Hospital in Alicante for quality of treatment and patient care.

Juan Moreno restaurant in Vera wins another award

Local Vera restaurant “Juan Moreno” has won yet another prestigious award, this time the “Al Andalus” 2009 Gastronomic Award for the Best Restaurant in Andalucia, awarded by the Andalucian Federation of wine and food Guild ( Federación Andaluza de Cofradías Vínicas y Gastronómicas). Well done my son. An excellent restaurant.

New newspaper in the Almeria region

There’s a new newspaper hitting the Almería Levante region. It’s a freebie, out every two weeks, with actual opinion pieces, journalistic news reporting and much more. It’s also going to have a substantially bigger distribution area and print run than any of the other english freebies, meaning you get a lot more bang for your buck! It’s called “The Reader” and it has a beta version of its site up and running over at www.thereader.es. Continue reading New newspaper in the Almeria region