Sorry, am still laughing at this one from thinkSPAIN.

“A British woman was saved by her ankle on Saturday after falling from a landing in Tenerife whilst having sex with her husband, and getting her foot caught in the banisters below.

The incident occurred in the early hours of Saturday morning, when the couple were having sex in the stairwell of an apartment block in Adeje on the island of Tenerife.

Four fire fighters lost their lives in a blaze in Cataluña which has yet to be brought under control

Horta de Sant Joan, Tarragona, is in official mourning for the four fire fighters from the Generalitat de Catalunya who died while trying to keep a forest fire in Els Ports natural park away from the town on Tuesday. A day of official mourning was also declared on Wednesday by the Catalunya regional government.

A battalion of 450 will be deployed next month ahead of the August presidential election

Spain has authorised sending extra troops to Afghanistan ahead of the presidential elections which take place there on 20th August. The 450-strong battalion will be in place from 21st July as what Defence Minister, Carme Chacón, described as a ‘third line of security’, to support the Afghan police and Army during the electoral process. They are expected to be there between three and four months, with a cost to the government of 44 million €, El País said.

Spain’s Princess Cristina is to move to Washington with her family as her husband has accepted a position in the US capital with Spanish telecoms group Telefonica, the royal palace said Thursday.

Cristina, 43, is the youngest daughter and second of King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia’s three children.

It was unclear when the princess, her husband Inaki Urdangarin, the Duke of Palma de Majorca, and their four children, aged between three and nine, would be moving, a spokesman for the royal palace said. But Spanish news reports said it would be after the summer.

The judge probing an August crash in Madrid airport that killed 154 people will ask the European Aviation Safety Agency for an expert report on the causes, he said in a ruling Wednesday.

Judge Juan Javier Perez said he had been unable to find qualified experts in Spain who are also “completely objective and impartial” to look into the Spanair accident.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said on Tuesday that his government will “drastically reduce” the amount of advertising allowed on the country’s two public television stations.

“We will approve and send to parliament a new audio-visual law and a drastic reduction in advertising on public television,” he told parliamentarians.

The prime minister did not specify by how much the limits on advertising on public television would be reduced or when the new limits will come into effect.

The Spanish government is considering an asylum request from an albino African who claims he might be killed in a witchcraft ritual if sent home.

The 18-year-old from Benin, known only as Moszy, arrived in Tenerife last week with 60 other African immigrants.

Some African nations have reported a growing trade in albino body parts, which some witchdoctors believe can bring wealth and good fortune.

The Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid described Moszy’s fears as reasonable.

Spain’s top-selling newspaper, El Pais, said Monday it has increased the price of its Monday to Saturday editions by around 9 percent to EUR 1.20 amid the economic crisis and a drop in advertising revenue.

The left-leaning paper, owned by Spanish media giant Prisa, said in an announcement on its front page that the price of its Sunday edition would remain at EUR 2.20.

A former top US government advisor who faces possible indictment in Spain for his role in establishing the Guantanamo Bay prison camp on Monday described the case against him as “outrageous”.

Douglas Feith – a key advisor in president George W Bush’s Pentagon – told Fox News that moves before a Spanish court to indict him for facilitating torture were an effort to “intimidate US government officials”

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana Wednesday thanked Spain, which last week announced the withdrawal of its troops from Kosovo, for its role in helping bring stability to the Balkans, the government said.

Solana held talks in Madrid with Spanish Defence Minister Carme Chacon, the ministry said in a statement.

The statement did not specifically mention Kosovo, and indicated the talks focused on Spain’s defence objectives in its presidency of the European Union in the first half of 2010.

Spanish police on Tuesday seized a light plane loaded with over a ton of hashish which made an emergency landing at a farm and detained its two Mexican pilots, reports said.

The plane was being chased by a customs police helicopter when it landed in a field near the central town of Valdepenas, public radio RNE reported, citing local police.

The four were identified as three Colombians and a Romanian national but their names were not given.

Leonidas Vargas, 60, was struck down by four shots on January 8 in his room in the Doce de Octubre hospital where he was being treated for a pulmonary complaint.

Police said the motive was probably a settling of accounts.

Six days after the killing, gunmen in Colombia also murdered his brother, Fabio Vargas, and the actress and former beauty queen Liliana Lozano.

A ski lift malfunctioned Monday in the Sierra Nevada in southern Spain, injuring 23 people, three of them seriously, a spokesman for the ski resort where the accident happened said.

The injured suffered bone fractures and bruises when the lift servicing a beginners piste snapped, sending them plunging to the ground several metres below, the spokesman for Cetursa told AFP by telephone.

The accident happened when the cable of a ski chairlift snapped in the resort of Sierra Nevada.

The injured – all adults – were in cable chairs which fell several metres to the ground, a Spanish official said.

The 17 were only slightly hurt, she said, because the snow on the ground had cushioned the fall.

The injured were treated for cuts and bruises at a medical centre in the small town of Pradollano but no-one had to go to hospital. (Via Sky)

A new bridge linking two mining villages in southern Spain and Portugal opened to traffic on Thursday following an investment of EUR 2.5 million, local officials said.

The inauguration of the bridge over the Guadiana river which acts as the border between the two countries means the Spanish village of La Granado is now just 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) away by car from the Portuguese village of Pomarao.

A Venezuelan fishing boat has been seized near the Canary Islands with five tonnes of cocaine on board, Spanish customs officials have said.

The drug shipment is thought to have a street value of 250m euros (£221m). Five Venezuelan crew members were held.

Officials boarded the Dona Fortuna about 780 nautical miles (1,444 km) north-east of the islands on Thursday.

Spanish police also impounded a speedboat on the country’s north coast on suspicion it was involved.

Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have agreed that their countries will work together to revive nuclear power in Italy.

The Italian power company, ENEL, and its French counterpart, EDF, agreed a deal to study the feasibility of building four power stations in Italy.

They would replace those closed in accordance with a referendum held after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986.
Since then Italy has become the world’s biggest net importer of electricity.

Eurostar has restarted a full service through the Channel Tunnel for the first time since a fire in 2008.

Repairs cost more than £60m and were completed on 10 February. Eurotunnel shuttle and freight trains have already returned to full capacity.

Eurostar said it had taken longer to return to full service because of the need for a new timetable.

The European Parliament’s campaigning Petitions Committee approved a damning new report slamming planning loopholes which leave homeowners defenceless against developers seizing part or all of their property.

Thousands of properties in Spain have been demolished without compensation for their owners – many of whom are British expatriates. In some cases, the authorities have even charged the property owners for the installation of local services, even after they have lost their property.

A van loaded with a bomb has exploded near a trade fair centre in the east of the Spanish capital, Madrid, Spanish National Radio (RNE) has said.

Police sources told the station that no injuries had so far been reported.

The bomb exploded at the Campo de las Naciones at around 0900 (0900 GMT), about half 90 minutes after a warning was received by the Spanish Red Cross.