COMING SOON TO A DEVICE NEAR YOU!

See Cádiz with your mobile

CÁDIZ -- One of the loveliest cities in Spain, and not one that is overcrowded with visitors, is the capital of the province of the same name. A new app is available as a 'tour guide' that will show you places off the usual routes. Called Geoexperiencias, it is based on the GPS system and you get the information as you are living them, right on the street. Available for Android as well IOS, it is aimed at local inhabitants as well as to tourists. Created as a joint project by Seis6 and Isoluciona, with the cooperation of Natures and Enreda, as well as the availability of vast photographic data from Diario de Cádiz, it was co-financed by an EU social fund for young developers, Intercooperación Empresarial en la Economía Social. For the moment, it is available only in Spanish, but translations into other languages, including English, are in process.

Islamic State (IS) prepare for attacks in Spain

(dailysignal.com)

MADRID -- The Guardia Civil and the National Police report that IS cells (what the heck IS its name??) have been preparing for a number of kidnappings in the country, in order to finance themselves and obtain big headlines -- a common objective throughout the world for this lot. The report comes about as the result of a number of important arrests made in Melilla (one of two Spanish enclaves on the Nort African coast, the other being Ceuta), where several Yihadists (as is the preferred usage in Spanish) were taken into custody. Until recently, these cells had been involved mainly in proselytising, indoctrinating and recruitment among the Islamic community in Morocco and Algeria. They also carried out financing operations, transferring money throughout the Islamic world, included among which are operations for the March 11, 2004 attacks in Madrid and those of London a year later.//The cell that was dismantled in Melilla last week was being watched since May. It was a group of six men under instructions from Syria and Iraq by one Zakaria Said Mohammed, a former professional soldier trained in explosives. The Melilla group had a mountain of information on its computers, which were taken away and thoroughly examined.

Your questions: Do I need an Energy Certificate when buying from a bank?

Q: I am about to buy an apartment from a bank. Should I ask for an Energy Certificate? And do I need one to sell or rent it?

A: An Energy Certificate (Certificado Energético) is obligatory to all proprietors and therefore, also to financial entities, including Sareb ('The bad bank') and all official agencies wanting to sell or rent a property. The Certificate must be presented when completion at the Notary is signed or at the time of signatures for a rental contract. Also, the property must have its current Energy Certificate when it is advertised for sale or rental, including//on estate agents’ website and other advertising.

Drug shortage uncovers large fraud in over 100 pharmacies

MADRID -- A sudden shortage of medication for treating cancer or against rejection in transplants, and treatments against leukaemia and epilepsy, has uncovered an illegal sales scheme by pharmacists all over the country. The police have been investigating over one hundred pharmacies in 14 autonomous regions for a year, centering it on the fact that several expensive medicines, provided by the government and among the most expensive, were being removed from the official, legal circuit, and prescribed in the normal way by doctors. The medicines were being bought by distribution companies at prices well below the norm and then sold on to companies or individuals abroad, where they obtained up to three times the cost in Spain. The illegality lies simply in the fact that pharmacies are not allowed to sell any medication to anyone other than patients, and most of it under prescription. The Spanish pharmacists' organization says the case is 'mostly residual' and it had to "defend the other 99% of our members," according to the President of the College of Pharmacists of Zaragoza, where the scam was first detected. There are some 22,000 chemists (farmacias) in Spain, and by no means are they all implicated in this fraudulent practice. Chemists and/or companies abroad involved include several in Germany, Holland and the UK, among others.

The shame of Spain: Thalidomide victims get no compensation

Patients hearing the bad news

MADRID --The Provincial Court of Madrid has decided to annul the indemnization to victims of the Thalidomide scandal of the 1950s, who had been claiming between €155 and €204 million (depending on which source you choose) from the manufacturers, the German pharmaceutical company Grünenthal and UCB Laboratories. All over the world, Thalidomide was well proven to be the cause of serious malformation in the womb, although for a number of years it was prescribed as a 'safe' medicine for pregnant women. Also all over the world, victims have been compensated with varying amounts, but this Madrid court's sentence says that the matter had prescribed. It added that the association of Thalidomide victims, called Avite (Asociación de Víctimas de la Talidomida en España), which presented their case to

There are 2,826,000 children living below the poverty line in Spain

Alberto Di Lolli / Ana del Barrio

MADRID (EFE) -- Strange though it may seem, a lot of expats don't know that Save the Children has a branch in Andalucía. The NGO works in 120 countries, so it isn't very surprising that there's a need for them in one of the poorest areas of this country, Andalucía. With recent news about Malala Yousafzai winning this year's Nobel Peace Prize, which she shares with Kaylash Satyarthi, also a defender of the poorest children, below are some of the facts for Spain and Andalucía, according to various sources, but especially a recent report by UNICEF:

Spain loses billions on tax evasion and errors

MADRID -- According to Brussels in a study published last week by the European Commission, Spain lost €12,400 million (that's over 12 billion!) in IVA (VAT) income -- a full 18% of what the national coffers should have received. This is caused mainly by tax evasion, but also by company bankruptcies, statistical errors and tax avoidance. Nevertheless, the difference is nearly 4% lower than last year. The EU in total, did not ingress some €177 billion through fraud or simply unrecovered. This is 16% of the income it had forecast.//Since 2012, the countries registering lower VAT loss levels were The Netherlands (at 5%), Finland (5%) and Luxembourg (6%). The biggest gaps between projected income and the reality were registered in Romania (44%), Slovakia (39%) and Lithuania (36%). Among the EU's largest members, the VAT gap: Germany (10%), France (15%) Italy (33%) and the UK (10%). The European Commission is presently working on a 'basic reform' of the VAT system to give it "more solidity and efficiency and to reduce its vulnerability against fraud," according to Algirdas Semeta, the Commissioner for Fiscal matters.

New store for British products opens in Pueblo Nuevo

(europasur.es)

PUEBLO NUEVO (San Roque, Cádiz) -- British expats will be delighted to know (if they don't already) that the much-awaited Overseas shop opened its doors to the public last week. Behind the official name, is a Spanish chain that has 15 establishments throughout the country. Overseas, is a franchise belonging to a locally resident British couple that will be employing some 15 people. The opening ceremony last week was presided by the Mayor of San Roque, Juan Carlos Ruiz Boix, and the Councillor for the Guadiaro Valley, Juan Roca. Located on Avenida Sierra Bermeja, the main street in Pueblo Nuevo, it is aimed at catering to the 10,000 foreigners living in the area. The shop will be offering products from the Iceland and Waitrose stores available in Britain. We are told that they are looking for a large storage facility in the area.

Competition authorities to fine car dealers for price fixing

MADRID -- The National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC, Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia) has recently advised car dealers (Audi, Seat, Volkswagen, Skoda, Nissan, Toyota, Land Rover, Hyundai and Opel, so far) that it intends to fine them for alleged anti-competition practices in the retail market. An investigation that began in June 2013 revealed that they had all agreed not to discount their vehicles for more than 4%, in what the report says was a 'sort of non-aggression pact' that is against competition legislation. The organization considers it proven that the manufacturers' distribution network took part in an organised system whereby concurrent prices were avoided within