Woman, her 7-week-old baby and grandmother in accident on Casares road

No serious injuries despite ten-metre drop

CASARES (Málaga) -- A car apparently driven by the mother of a seven week old child fell off the MA-8300 road, at Km 10, within the municipality of Casares. Rescue services attended the accident as soon as they were advised of it, reporting that there were no apparent serious injuries involved. (Source: TioJimeno)

Wildlife photography winnners 2014

Overall winner, Michael Nichols (USA)for The last Great Picture, of sleeping lionesses

The Young Talent award went to Carlos Pérez Naval (Spain), aged 8

Sotogrande reduces losses by 12%

Sotogrande S.A. agrees to joint venture

SOTOGRANDE (San Roque, Cádiz) -- Sotogrande S.A., the real estate branch of the NH Hotels chain, registered losses of €9.01 million up to September 30, 2014, which is 12% less than the €10.2M losses for the same period last year. According to documents registered with the Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV, National Stock Exchange Commission), group income was €14.3M, compared to that of 2013, which amounted to €20M, 28% less. Other significant news about Sotogrande SA is that it informed the CNMV that Sociedad 3 and its majority shareholder, NH Hotel Group SA, had agreed to a joint venture with the Cerberus and Orion groups, with the objective of transmitting 96.997% of Sotogrande SA's share capital and of the intragroup financing rights.

How to eat a pomegranate

ANDALUCÍA: You will have seen them in the shops, this is their season. Different sizes but all about the same colour. What you may not know is that in Spanish, the fruit is called a granada -- yes, the same name of a whole province in Andalucía, as well as one of the liveliest cities in Spain and, of course, home to the Alhambra. It was considered a great delicacy during Roman times, and later, especially by the Moors, who lived in the area for almost 800 years, until 1492. After all, it contains phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, sodium, calcium and vitamins A, B and C,. It is excellent for stomach problems such as heartburn, hernia hiatus, reflux, etc. In addition, prevents problems kidney and respiratory (such as asthma), anemia, atherosclerosis and improves combat high levels of uric acid. There are plenty of ways to eat a pomegranate and I've tried most of them:

Who's who in the largest PP corruption cases

Latest PP corruption scandals in Madrid put the party way behind in voter intention polls

SPAIN -- "The voters are absolutely fed up with all the corruption coming out now," said a supporter of the new alternative party, Podemos, at a rally the other day. Her opinion reflects the result of the latest poll by El País, which has put the PP and also the PSOE into a panic. This is just the latest in a string of scandals that have flowered over the last years, though by no means are these limited to the governing party. However, the list is so long that we can only present the PP cases below. Other cases will come up here as we can write about them. For that purpose we've done a Who's Who of the bigger cases that have come to court, with the proceedings as they stand on Sunday, November 2. (Those politicians, business people and others, below, are not part of the latest upheavel that has resulted in 53 arrests on a huge number of charges, some of whom are in jail, though -- we will be doing their list later.) Enjoy:

Ricardo Tejeiro, cartoonist extraordinaire and a whole lot more

LIVERPOOL -- Born in Barcelona and now living in Liverpool, Ricardo Tejeiro, 48, has a PhD in Journalism and Psychology. He is an associate researcher in the Fighting International Internet Paedophilia (FIIP) project at the University of Liverpool, participated by academic and police forces from 5 European countries (UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain and Estonia) and funded by partners and the European Commission. He also has a wife and two children, Ana and Alejandro. He lived for several years in Algeciras, from where he published over thirty books on a variety of subjects including stories, psychology, education, history and essays among others. He has won a dozen prizes for fiction. How he has time to be a cartoonist as well is not only a mystery, but also admirable. (Sample below). And we're very glad he is because Ricardo has very kindly given us permission to publish his cartoons 'as long as the translation's outside the frame' and 'there's a link to my website', to which we agreed with alacrity. His work will appear sporadically. Welcome aboard, Dr. Tejeiro, and many thanks! (Check a sample below.)

Provincial crime headed by La Línea

(bibliotecadeinvestigaciones)

LA LÍNEA (Cádiz) -- The crime rate has risen in the border town from 2,341 reported incidents until September 2013 to 2,456 for the same period this year, a 4.9% increase. Algeciras has reduced its rate by 4.7%. Crime rates in the Campo de Gibraltar are varied. La Línea is prone to drug offences, for instance, while Castellar and Jimena account mostly for burglary. As to homicide, Algeciras registered none, compared to the two events in 2013. La Línea had one murder reported, the same as the same period last year. Statistics for the whole province of Cádiz were down by 2.1%, from 43,493 to 42,594, the principal events being 'robbery with violence and intimidation', which went down by 13.8%. In total, crime was reduced in the province by 6.9% according to Carmen Crespo, government delegate in Andalucía.

Spain asks EC to sanction Gibraltar for assigning itself tuna quotas

Image: WWF Global

MADRID -- The central government has urged the European Commission (EC) to initiate an infringement procedure after Gibraltar allocated itself a quota of 10 tonnes of bluefin tuna to capture in 2015.

The Spanish authorities have stressed that this decision is totally illegal in accordance with Community and international law. Fishing opportunities for bluefin tuna are set based on the decisions of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), which is responsible for the management and conservation of tuna stocks in the East Atlantic and Mediterranean.

Unicaja becomes a bank and will head a banking 'league'

MÁLAGA -- At an Extraordinary General Meeting, shareholders ratified the transformation: Unicaja became a Banking Foundation on October 30, with assets of €2,500 million, thus putting an end to 130 years of activity as a building society (USA: savings & loan). As soon as it is registered with the Stock Exchange authorities and the paperwork is completed, and the recent acquisition of Banco Ceiss is properly consolidated, it will be split in two and be offered on the Madrid Stock Exchange (La Bolsa): one part is the Fundación Bancaria, which in turn will own 90.8% of Unicaja Banco, which will control the daily banking business as well as its 'social' arm. When all this is done, the bank will become one of largest banks in Spain. The banking business in Spain will consist of two 'leagues',