It appears that the 40 workers of the Almería edition of “El Mundo” newspaper -which is a local franchise operating under the “El Mundo” banner – today received letters informing them that the newspaper has gone under. Many of these workers claim not to have been paid “in months”, the offices are padlocked, and of the two editors, a certain Joseba Murga Eizagaetxebarría, appears to have fallen off the face of the earth, and the other, Luis Montoya Palencia, has switched his phone off.

It appears that despite Luis Montoya Palencia recently throwing a big birthday bash celebrating three years of his paper (he started the local version in October 2005), nobody is surprised at the collapse of the paper, as bills nor wages have not been paid for quite some time. Workers who complained at not being paid were threatened with instant dismissal, which lead to this little leaflet being produced:

However, it is only a few weeks since Murga signed a contract with the local freebie “Diario de Almería” to produce and distribute that newspaper as well. It seems that this paper also has a few unpaid bills – when the editor of “Diario” complained to Murga about these unpaid bills and wages, he was suspended without pay for three months by the company. Currently nobody knows if the Monday edition of Diario de Almería will appear – most workers are assuming that they, too, are to be laid off.

Tomorrows edition of “El Mundo” distributed in Almería will be the central Andalucian copy, El Munda have confirmed. They have not yet commented on the collapse. El Mundo newspaper was founded by Pedro José Ramírez Codina, the live in lover of fashion designed Agatha Ruiz de la Prada. He is mainly known in Spain for hating the PSOE party, after he blamed Felipe Gonzalez (expresident of Spain) for leaking a videotape of him dressed in womans clothes with some prostitutes. Which is probably why little of the Junta de Andalucías €195,000,000 propaganda budget was spent bailing out his newspaper.

For a gleeful look at why El Mundo Almería collapsed checkout teleprensa.net.