Nerja News

Guardia Civil officers have arrested a 41 year old Colombian man who had almost a kilo of cocaine in his vehicle. more »

Singer Ana Torroja and actress Esther Arroyo are recovering in hospital after a road accident yesterday on the N-340 near Vejer de la Frontera. One person died in the incident and six others were injured. more »

Three people suffered minor injuries this morning when a tree fell on a bus in Plaza del Duque, Sevilla. The injured were transferred to various hospitals in the city.

In Cádiz province, one person had to be rescued from a fishing boat this morning which was adrift near Algeciras. One would have to question the sanity of anyone going out fishing in this weather!! In the town of Algeciras itself, the collapse of the roof of a house in calle Sagrado Corazón caused injuries to two people, both of whom are now in Hospital Punta Europa.

In Huelva province, a rockslide blocked calle Del Monte in Calañas, and in the capital, numerous buildings were flooded. The streets calle Valverde del Camino, Villalba del Alcor and La Palma del Condado were particularly badly affected.

The storms and high winds are causing a lot of damage all along the coastline. Waves up to four metres high and winds gusting at 90 kph have all but destroyed La Caleta beach in Málaga and the Local Police and Fire Brigade have been unable to cope with all the calls for assistance. more »

A new roundabout is to be constructed in Arroyo de la Miel to help ease traffic congestion in and around avenida de la Estacion.

The new roundabout will be at the junction with calle Blas Infante, a pedestrian street, and the project is expected to take about 6 weeks to complete at a cost of around €45,000. The Council is also planning to install a number of ’speed bumps’ in the area to curb the over exhuberant use of the accelerator pedal by motorists in the vicinity.

A spectacular fire on Peñoncillo beach has destroyed a boat which was, for many years, a restaurant and a venue offering ‘live’ entertainment.

Firefighters took three hours to extinguish the blaze, which has left just ashes and a pile of twisted metal where once ‘El Barco’ stood.

The boat ceased functioning as a restaurant a few years ago now and had recently been used by a group of homeless people. It is thought that the fire was probably caused by the carelessness or negligence of one of this group.

The Rio Guadalquivir rises in the Sierra de Cazorla, passes through the cities of Córdoba and Sevilla and is then navigable as far as its mouth in Sanlúcar de Barrameda. At no point does it pass through Palma de Mallorca and there are no plans for any new tributaries for it to do so. more »

A judge at the Provincial Court in Jaén has sentenced a 40 year old man to four years and one month in jail for sexually assaulting his former wife.

The Court heard how the man apparently entered the home of his ex-wife without her consent while she was at work and upon her return, he sexually asaulted her. The defendant denied the charges.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries of the Junta de Andalucía is to begin the construction of an artificial reef in Algorrobo later this month.

The €304,346 project, funded by the European Fisheries Fund, is designed not only to prevent erosion of the coastline but also to preserve fish stocks and prevent unauthorised trawling. more »

An employee of the Unicaja bank in the Parquesol area of Antequera, a man in charge of driving the armoured truck, placed a bag containing €20,000 on a table and in full sight of customers in the branch. Whether he was over-trusting, over-confident or negligent (or stupid!) is not known, but the bag didn’t remain there for very long.

For two men and two women in the bank, believed to be South Americans, it was too much of a temptation and an opportunity not to be missed. They grabbed the bag and legged it.

The police, who for some reason were not notified of the robbery by the bank until some twenty minutes later, are now trying to identify the robbers through the recordings on the security cameras.

The Málaga Provincial Council, under their Programa de Concertación, is making €9.6 million available to the muncipality of Antequera during 2009 for projects relating to public works, culture, festivals, tourism, youth, sports and services.

One project, for which a financial contribution has now been approved, is for a heliport in Villanueva de Algaidas. It will be located next to the Secondary school (Instituto) and close to the health centre, health care being the primary motive for the heliport.

On Monday, a Paraguayan couple were detained on suspicion of mistreating their 18 month old baby after paediatricians at the Hospital Materno Infantil in Málaga considered bruising on the baby to be consistent with possible abuse. Following standard protocol in such cases, the doctors notified the police of their suspicions.

At their court appearance yesterday, the judge issued a restraining order against the father of the baby and ordered him to be placed in the Detention Centre for Foreigners pending expulsion from the country. The mother was not charged with abuse and was released.

Two men and a woman, all aged between 18 years and 22 years, have been arrested in Málaga in connection with the robbery of, and subsequent setting fire to, a man on September 9th. They are charged with attempted murder and extortion. more »

The Guardia Civil and Marine Rescue intercepted two boats carrying a total of 48 passengers on board, five of them minors.

One boat was spotted near Caños de Meca, Cádiz province, and contained 38 Moroccans and 2 Algerians and including 5 minors.

The second boat was spotted 48 miles southeast of Cabo de Gata, Almería, with 8 North Africans on board.

The National Police has seized over four tons of hashish on a remote beach in Almería.

An investigation into drugs smuggling in the area, codenamed ‘Operación Odisea’, led to the discovery that a shipment of drugs was due in from Morocco. In the early hours of Tuesday morning, officers found the drugs, hidden amongst weeds, at la Cala ‘Bello Rincón’, a remote and almost inaccessible creek near the old N-340.

However, the police found no sign of any of the smugglers. The smuggling network is known to be run by a group of Moroccan nationals.

This morning saw the first snows of autumn at the ski station in the Sierra Nevada mountains in Granada province. The snowfall left a covering of about 2 cm from around 2,300 metres.

A 41 year old agricultural worker is in a serious condition in hospital after yet another accident involving a tractor. The incident occurred in the Peñalosa area of Fuente Palmera in Córdoba province.

The man suffered multiple injuries and had to be flown to hospital by helicopter.