The Andalusia region’s official gazette on Thursday announced proceedings to temporarily embargo the home of María del Carmen Andújar in Huelva following a request from her to stop the eviction proceedings initiated by a mortgage securitization corporation.

The firm, A Y T Mixto III, has 15 days to present its arguments against the embargo.

This was the first such action initiated by the Andalusian government after it approved a decree last month allowing for the seizure for up to three years of the homes of the neediest families facing eviction. Andújar met the criteria established for such embargos, which include having monthly income of under 542 euros and having suffered a significant deterioration in one’s financial situation subsequent to the mortgage being granted — such as the loss of employment — that causes the monthly burden to service the home loan to increase by at least 1.5 times.

The decree in Andalusia calls for a register of unoccupied homes owned by financial services and real estate companies to be established and for fines to be imposed if those homes remain unrented, as well as a pool of government-owned housing to rent to low-income groups.

Over 80 percent of Spaniards own their own homes in a country where there is a lack of affordable housing for rent. Many people were priced out of the housing market by a property bubble that burst five years ago. Although prices have subsequently fallen, tight credit conditions, and more significantly an alarming jobless rate of 27.2 percent, are major obstacles to buying a home and maintaining ownership.

Many of those lucky enough to have been able to hold on to a job are trapped in homes with negative equity as a result of having bought during the bubble.

There has been a spate of evictions in Spain of late due to the ongoing economic crisis, with a number of cases of suicide involving those due to be evicted.

Under the new rental law passed by Congress on Thursday with the votes of the ruling Popular Party, which has an absolute majority in the lower house, and backed by the regional parties UPN and Foro Asturias, tenants who fail to pay their rent can now be evicted in 10 days if they fail to provide a judge with reasons for the eviction not to be executed.

The controversial new law also removes rent subsidies for low-income groups. The standard length of a rental contract has also been reduced from five years to three. Tenants can now abandon a rented property without financial penalty by providing the landlord one month’s notice, while the owner of a house that requires the property for himself or family members can repossess it by giving the tenant two months’ notice to leave.

The new legislation also establishes a register that blacklists tenants who have previously failed to pay their rent. This list can be consulted by potential landlords.

The Public Works Ministry, which is responsible for housing affairs and sponsored the law, said changes to the legislation were needed to make the rental market “more flexible.”

Experts believe there could be up to six million empty homes in Spain, or over 20 percent of the total. One of the arguments used to explain this phenomenon was the rental law. This legislation favored tenants, who were hard to evict legally — even when they failed to pay the rent.

Previously, Gallardón had only gone so far as to say that the new law would be loosely based on 1985 legislation, thus removing the 2010 deadlines introduced by the Socialists. Of the three legal 1985 requirements for an abortion, Gallardón stressed that rape would be maintained but fetal abnormality would not.

The minister did not elaborate on what exactly would constitute a physical or psychological risk, which was not subject to deadlines under the 1985 law. If accredited by a doctor, a termination could be carried out at any time. Risk of psychological damage was the reason most used for abortions up to 2010, when the Socialist-backed reform allowed women to abort at up to 14 weeks for any reason, and 22 weeks in the case of risk to the mother.

Gallardón said on Wednesday that severe fetal abnormality will be included in the reform as a legal reason to abort but “disability” would not. Of 118,359 abortions carried out in Spain in 2011, only three percent were due to fetal problems. Of those, 356 were considered to be serious or incurable abnormalities — statistics similar to those under the 1985 law.

The minister said the new law will “resolve difficult situations for women” but comply with international commitments to rights for disabled people.

As part of the government’s assault on tax evasion and fraud based on legislation passed last year, the Tax Agency now requires all taxpayers in Spain to declare assets worth more than 50,000 euros in any of four different categories of investment.

According to figures provided Wednesday by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, 131,411 taxpayers declared assets held overseas, of which 129,925 were individuals and the rest companies. Individuals declared 67.1 billion euros and companies 20.6 billion.

A European Union summit on Wednesday approved measures to crack down on tax fraud and evasion. “Spain’s commitment against tax fraud is total,” Rajoy told a news conference in Brussels. Spain is estimated to have a huge black market, which could amount to about a quarter of its official GDP. “The EU is going to make life difficult for tax dodgers and lead the world on this,” Rajoy said.

The government launched an amnesty for tax evaders last year under which they could declare assets held abroad that had been previously undeclared, paying a fine of only 10 percent of the value of their holdings. The program unearthed 40 billion euros in previously undeclared assets. However, it swelled the state’s coffers by only 1.193 billion, when the government had been looking to raise 2.5 billion.

In an embarrassing development for Rajoy’s Popular Party government, the former PP treasurer, Luis Bárcenas, who has been implicated in the Gürtel kickbacks-for-contracts scandal, availed himself of the amnesty.

Twenty-eight-year-old Alpha Pam died in his home on April 21 without having received a proper diagnosis or any treatment for his condition. A report by the regional health department indicates that "a diagnostic error may have been committed by not having applied the rules of procedure when confronting a case of possible contact with tuberculosis."

Neither the emergency room doctor at the Inca hospital nor the nurse who carried out the initial evaluation when Pam arrived had warned of the case. Instead Pam was diagnosed with bronchitis without either an x-ray or being admitted. The hospital's admissions coordinator has also been reprimanded.

Regional health chief Martí Sansaloni admitted there had been mistakes and bad internal practice in his administrative and care systems, but the Balearics government rejected criticism that Pam had not been treated because he was an immigrant without required residency papers.

It insisted that it continued to universally treat undocumented migrants who are minors, pregnant, destitute or carriers of so-called public and mental health diseases without charge.

Following the recent introduction of a government decree related to migrant healthcare, public health centers across the Balearics, as in other regions, have been demanding illegal immigrants sign a payment commitment before receiving treatment.

On April 18 Eva de Mingo, a law and political sciences graduate who has worked for the diplomatic corps for 10 years, was included in the Jordan delegation but just a month later was informed that she had been removed. When asked for the reason, a spokesman for the Diplomatic Information Office replied: "No comment."

Colleagues of De Mingo said that the veto had been issued by the Spanish Intelligence Service (CNI), despite the 38-year-old working under Ambassador Luis Belzuz — a former assistant to CNI director Félix Sanz Roldán — in Honduras. De Mingo was refused the necessary security clearance to handle classified documents.

But the perceived problem with this diplomat is not in fact connected to her, but to her husband, Mohamed El Masry, whom she married in 2012. The CNI believes El Masry, a naturalized Spaniard of Egyptian origin who has lived in Spain since 1996, "could be recruited by a foreign intelligence service." De Mingo was informed of the CNI file verbally by her superiors, but never in writing.

El Masry, 40, initially worked as a security guard at the Egyptian Embassy in Madrid and is now chief of institutional relations at the Saudi Arabian mission in the city. A business administration graduate, he is also studying for a doctorate at Madrid's Complutense University. He received Spanish citizenship in 2005 and has a one-year-old daughter with De Mingo.

"I believed Spain was a democratic country but now I am beginning to doubt it," says El Masry. "An accusation has been lodged against me that is false and I haven't even been given a chance to defend myself." He adds that he is perfectly willing to clear up any queries the CNI may have, but has not been contacted by the intelligence service.

De Mingo has received no response to her appeal against her security clearance denial. Neither has she or her husband seen the CNI report supposedly questioning El Masry's patriotism. "We feel completely defenseless," says De Mingo.

A spokesman for the CNI told EL PAÍS that the agency "does not name diplomats and, in consequence, does not veto them." So then who does?

Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, a 47-year-old Syrian who is married to a Spaniard and has dual nationality, helped to found an Al Qaeda cell in Spain. He was arrested just weeks after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and was sentenced to 12 years for belonging to a terrorist organization.

His telephone number was found in a contacts book belonging to one of the perpetrators of the plane attacks in Manhattan that left 2,973 dead and scores of others injured.

In the 1980s, Barakat, who is known as “Abu Dahdah,” was one of the founders of Al Qaeda in Spain and took over the leadership of the terrorism cell from Mustafa Setmarian, another Syrian-Spaniard, who became an important member in the organization. Setmarian fled alongside Osama Bin Laden during the US-led invasion of Afghanistan and was later captured in Pakistan in 2005. He was turned over to the United States, but his whereabouts are still unknown.

Over the past several years, US officials have held high-level meetings with Spanish authorities at the Foreign and Interior ministries to discuss including Barakat in the so-called UN Security Council Designation – an international watch list of terrorists and criminals who are subjected to strict financial embargos and prohibited from traveling abroad, among other restrictions.

According to US State Department cables that were released in 2010 by the WikiLeaks whistle-blower website, US diplomatic moves to pressure the Spanish government were long, tense and difficult.

"We should continue to expend energy on getting al-Qa'ida financier Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas designated," wrote Hugo Llorens, the US Embassy's then-deputy chief of mission, in September 2006. "This should be relatively easy as he has already been convicted of membership in a terrorist organization. The practical effect of designating him may be limited as he is in jail, but it would certainly have some symbolic value."

Spain’s Interior Ministry supported the US government’s request but Foreign Ministry officials opposed it.

Anti-terrorism security sources say that the negotiations continue with the aim of controlling the movements of Barakat inside and outside of Spain.

Jacobo Teijedlo, Barakat’s lawyer, said nothing has appeared about his client in Spain’s official state gazette concerning the designation.

The UN list, which was created in 1999, has come under stern criticism by lawyers and human rights activists who claim that it is nothing more than a blacklist aimed at ruining people for the rest of their lives.

The confiscation of assets and travel prohibitions placed on “designees” holds member states accountable to act on these requirements. The accuracy of the information contained in the UN list has also been questioned.

Teijelo said that for the past 11 years his client has had no role in Al Qaeda and that his penitentiary behavior was outstanding.

“All he wants is to lead a quiet and normal life,” said Teijelo on Thursday. “He wants to find a job and start over. He has six sons and an entire life ahead of him. He has told me many times that he hates violence, and even condemned yesterday’s [Wednesday’s] attack in London.”

The High Court had originally sentenced Barakat to 27 years in prison, but the sentence was reduced to 12 years by the Supreme Court. He was scheduled to be released in November, but a top court panel gave him credit for the seven months he was in preventive custody after he was arrested on money-laundering charges, which were later dropped.

Abu Dahdah’s trial was the first major trial of an Al Qaeda member in Spain. It took place in April 2005.

Those formally implicated by Judge Pablo Ruz include Manuel Fernández de Sousa-Faro, who was removed as chairman of Pescanova after the company was taken over by the receivers, and board member Alfonso Paz-Andrade. Pescanova shareholders José Alberto Barreras and José Antonio Pérez-Nievas, who was also a board member, were also formally implicated on allegations of insider trading.

Pescanova has acknowledged masking the full extent of its indebtedness by keeping a parallel accounting system. Fernández de Sousa-Faro has also admitted to sell shares in Pescanova before the extent of its financial problems came to light. The company’s debts are believed to have amounted to around four billion euros.

At a news conference, Rajoy refused to be drawn in by journalists to respond to Aznar’s comments as leading members of the ruling conservative party expressed their loyalty to the prime minister. Asked several times for his reaction to Aznar’s remarks, Rajoy said: “You’re not going to find me caught up in any polemic with a former prime minister, and least of all with Prime Minister Aznar.”

True to his reputation for equivocation, when journalist persisted, Rajoy said jocundly: “I would ask you not to make me say the same thing, even if it is in a different way.”

When asked in an interview with television channel Antena 3 on Tuesday if he would return to politics if circumstances demanded, Aznar said: “I would fulfill my responsibility with my conscience, with my party and with my country. I have never shirked my responsibilities.”

Aznar, who stood down as prime minister after two terms in office in 2004 and ceded leadership of the PP to Rajoy, also called on the ruling party to establish a “clear political project.”

“I am going to maintain the direction of economic policy,” Rajoy confined himself to saying. “A direction has been set and we have to keep to it, and it will allow us to emerge from the crisis,” he added. “I am doing what we believe we have to do.”

PP barons rallied around their leader. “The PP is a party of loyalties,” said Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the premier of the region of Galicia and one of the party’s leading barons. “This party was loyal to Prime Minister Aznar and that means in consequence that its loyalty to Prime Minister Rajoy is unswerving.”

Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría said the Rajoy government was working to pull the country out of its economic crisis.

“Spain is going through a difficult moment,” she said. “This government is working to make a go of things.”

Referring to Rajoy’s Socialist predecessor as prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, a man who suffered the constant barbs bordering on ridicule from the then PP opposition, the new PP spokesman in the Basque regional assembly, Borja Semper, said in his Twitter account: “Zapatero has consolidated his position as the best former prime minister.”

Finance Minister Cristóbal Montoro reiterated the government’s position that it had no alternative but to reluctantly raise taxes in order to reduce the public deficit. “I would like to lower taxes but there is no room to do so,” he said. The government has indicated it wants to reverse tax hikes once an economic recovery is well under way.

The PP’s congressional spokesman, Alfonso Alonso, said Rajoy’s reformist agenda was helping the country to recover. “Everyone can say what they think and Aznar as well, of course,” he said. “A democratic system is based on informed political debate.”

Congressional speaker, Jesús Posada, who held the agriculture and public administrations portfolios under Aznar, suggested the former PP leader might be suffering from an attack of nostalgia. “Things are not going to go back to the way they were,” he said. “The passage of time is inexorable. There are things that had their moment, and I believe that those of us who were with him [Aznar] can feel very proud.”

Rajoy also received some support from the opposition in the shape of the congressional spokesman of the CiU center-right nationalist coalition group, Josep Antoni Duran Lleida. “He hasn’t done Rajoy any good and Rajoy doesn´t deserve the comments of Aznar,” he said.

Elena Valenciano, the number two in the main opposition Socialist Party, said the idea of Aznar’s return was like a mixture of “the time tunnel and the ghost train,” while Cayo Lara, the coordinator of the United Left group, referred to the legacy left by Aznar of Spain’s participation in the war against Iraq and the subsequent train bomb blasts on March 11, 2004 in Madrid, which left 191 people dead.

One of the few PP leaders who came out clearly in support of Aznar was Madrid regional premier Ignacio González. He described Aznar as “probably the best prime minister Spain” has had in the modern era, adding that his opinions are “enormously interesting for everyone.”

The files seized by police over two years ago, to which EL PAÍS has had access, demonstrate the disproportionate profits the ring received in the form of public contracts from state airport authority AENA, managed by the Public Works Ministry, and through numerous town halls run by PP mayors. The accounts also record the losses incurred by the Gürtel conspirators when putting on electoral events for the PP, which were even provided free of charge, such as that thrown by Aznar in Marbella to present Ángeles Muñoz’s candidacy for the mayorship in 2002, or with huge discounts, like the Valencia regional PP’s convention that same year.

What follows shows just a small portion of the Gürtel accounts from the period covered by Aznar’s premiership.

Free or discounted events

On November 26, 2002, six months before municipal elections, incumbent Prime Minister Aznar traveled to Marbella to support Ángeles Muñoz’s campaign. Special Events, the Gürtel company that organized all of the PP’s electoral acts, took care of the staging and decoration of the pavilion that hosted the dinner. The cost of these services was noted in the accounts as losses amounting to 5,245 euros with a note next to it: “Gift from Mr Correa” — the indicted leader of the corrupt ring of businessmen.

In the case of the Valencia regional PP convention in 2002, the real cost incurred by Special Events was 20,067 euros for staging the event at the Palau de la Música. But in another annotation, “by order of Álvaro [Pérez, the Gürtel frontman in the region],” the regional PP was billed for only 6,010 euros.

Municipal contracts

Among the swaths of paper handed over the judge investigating the Gürtel ring are hundreds of contracts with town halls governed by the PP with profit margins that in many cases exceed 100 percent in favor of the corruption network. One of the most stand-out examples is the accounting records for the Luis del Olmo Journalism Awards held on June 16, 2002 in the main square of La Nucia, a municipality in Alicante governed by the PP.

The Gürtel ring, which was hired to organize the entire event, invoiced 305,662 euros. According to the paperwork seized by police, the ring recorded the real cost as 184,708 euros, handing it a tidy profit of 121,000 euros.

Among the list of services rendered at the awards is the cost of hiring the presenter, which was written down as 6,010 euros but the municipal government was invoiced for double that amount. The real cost of the set and decorations was 90,000 euros. The invoice that landed on the local authority’s desk was for 120,202.

AENA

Francisco Correa, the Gürtel ring’s mastermind, boasted in front of former High Court Judge Baltasar Garzón that he had won contracts with the state’s airports authority because of his friendship with Francisco Álvarez-Cascos, public works minister from 2000 to 2004. The documentation stored in an Alcorcón warehouse details many of the services provided by Correa’s companies to AENA, with profit margins close to 100 percent.

An event noted under the heading “Barajas new terminal inauguration, laying of first stone” on June 20, 2000 was organized by Special Events, which invoiced the company that had won the contract to construct the terminal 26,772,000 pesetas (160,000 euros). In the secret accounts, the real cost of 14,593,000 pesetas (88,000 euros) is noted.

Correa also told an associate that he had given some six million euros to former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas for “the awarding of contracts during the time of Álvarez-Cascos.”

Two ex-AENA executives are under investigation in the Gürtel case for paying illegal commissions to ensure favorable contract bids on behalf of the Gürtel network.

The union between Ana Aznar and businessman Alejandro Agag took place amid great fanfare at El Escorial monastery outside Madrid in 2002. On the corrupt business network’s own accounts, which were seized by police from a warehouse in an industrial park to the south of the capital, the costs incurred were for lighting, generators, parking, accreditations, scaffolding and other items. No charge to the client was noted on the accounts, with the 32,452 marked down as losses.

Francisco Correa, who at that time was responsible for organizing the majority of the PP’s electoral campaign events, acted as a witness for Agag at the lavish wedding, which was attended by the king and queen, Silvio Berlusconi, Tony Blair and many representatives of the Spanish political elite.

Ana Botella, now the mayor of Madrid and Aznar’s wife, said on Tuesday that nothing had been asked for in return for Correa’s wedding gift. “The doubt is offensive,” she added.

Agag’s representatives sent a statement to EL PAÍS in which he stated that Correa had merely paid for the lighting rigging for the reception. “It was a standard service offered by Mr Correa during that time through his events agency. Mr Agag was unaware of the amount paid for that service. Mr Agag held no public post at that time and Mr Correa was not indicted in any judicial investigation at the time.”

“As my son-in-law said, it was a present for a wedding that took place 11 years ago on the part of an invitee of the bride and groom,” Botella told reporters. “I have nothing to add to what my son-in-law has said.”

The sums Nasarre referred to, which included two payments of 30,000 and 40,000 for the Fundación Humanismo y Democracia (Humanism and Democracy Foundation) and monthly payments in addition to his salary as a deputy of 1,800 euros a month between 2000 and 2004 were noted in secret ledgers maintained by the PP’s former treasurer, Luis Bárcenas.

In light of the Bárcenas papers, initially published by EL PAÍS, High Court Judge Pablo Ruz has extended the existing investigation into the Gürtel kickbacks-for contracts scandal to include a probe of alleged illegal donations to the PP and cash payments to leading party officials.

Nasarre said the sums he received for the foundation in October 2003 were in the form of cash handed over by former PP treasurer Álvaro Lapuerta in the latter’s office and in the presence of Bárcenas. The money was deposited in the foundation’s safe as an “anonymous” donation. He said he included the bonus payments he received in his annual personal income tax declaration.

A source present at Ruz’s interrogation of Nasarre quoted the PP lawmaker as saying he found it normal that deputies who carried out extra duties within the PP should receive bonus payments. These sums were subject to withholding tax paid into his current account.

Nasarre described the bonus payment arrangement within the party as “generalized.” Nasarre also said he believed it normal practice to declare the sums he received for the foundation as being from an “anonymous donor.”

A judicial committee headed by Judge Ruz was due later Monday to question the speaker of the Senate, Pío García Escudero, about the PP’s financial affairs in the latter’s office. Specifically, Ruz wants to inquire about a payment noted in Bárcenas’ ledgers to García Escudero of one million pesetas (6,000 euros). The Senate speaker told EL PAÍS that the sum in question related to a five-million-peseta-loan (30,000 euros) he received from the party to repair damage to his home caused by a car-bomb explosion by the Basque terrorist group ETA in the summer of 2000.

In the PP’s official accounts there is a reference to a payment of four million pesetas (24,000 euros) paid to García Escudero, who subsequently repaid the amount in installments of one million pesetas. The remaining one million pesetas allegedly came from the alternative accounts maintained by Bárcenas.

Judge Ruz will also question current and former leading PP officials Jaime Ignacio del Burgo, Santiago Abascal, Calixto Ayesa and Jaume Matas. With the exception of Matas, a former premier of the Balearic Islands who was convicted of corruption last year, these officials have acknowledged receiving sums of money included by Bárcenas in his ledgers.

Two of the PP’s current financial affairs team – cashier Luis Molero and head of accounting, Milagros Puente - are also due to be questioned this week.

EU legislation permits a maximum annual average of 40 micrograms of nitrogen dioxide per cubic meter. Madrid has failed to comply with the limit since 2010, when it was first introduced, and now faces sanctions.

"The Commission thinks that it is appropriate to make objections regarding the extension of the deadline for compliance with the annual and time value limit of nitrogen dioxide since the Spanish authorities have not shown the possibility of complying by 2014," reads the text of the decision, dated May 16, to which EL PAÍS has had access.

According to the time limit, maximum levels of nitrogen dioxide can only be exceeded 18 times a year. Madrid surpassed that at six monitoring stations in 2010 — one on 76 separate occasions.

According to a document prepared by the Madrid employment department, to which radio station Cadena SER has had access, four of the region's employment offices have received written instructions to find jobs for workers aged between 20 and 45 who have high-school diplomas that give access to university studies and are still receiving unemployment benefits — ahead of older workers no longer entitled to benefits.

Workers are entitled to a maximum of two years' unemployment benefit. Thereafter, the long-term unemployed receive only a minimum safety-net payment of 400 euros a month.

A civil servant at one of the offices selected for the pilot scheme, which was launched in February, said she had received instructions to first filter out those no longer entitled to unemployment benefits when helping people find a job. "In that way, people who are most in need are not receiving job offers," she said.

The normal practice at employment offices in the case of two candidates with the professional profile demanded of employers has been to give priority to the candidate who has been out of work the longest.

The regional employment department said that if the experimental scheme proved successful, it would be extended to all of the region's 42 employment offices. However, they insisted this did not mean that unemployed people not fitting the identified profile would remain unattended.

Newswire Europa Press quoted the regional commissioner for employment, Ana Isabel Mariño, as saying that the measure was aimed at "modernizing employment offices."

Mariño said the scheme was open to "both those receiving unemployment benefit and those who are not."

She said unemployment offices "should not just be the place where people go to receive their benefits or sign on as unemployed but also one where there is dialogue between employers and the unemployed."

The regions in Spain are responsible for running employment offices but not for labor policy or for paying unemployment benefits. Cadena Ser quoted sources at the national Labor Ministry as denying instructions had been given to the regions to shift their priorities when helping jobseekers.

The congressional spokesman for the ruling Popular Party, Alfonso Alonso, on Tuesday said the government's priority was to find work for the young, the long-term unemployed and those who receive only the safety-net payment.

One of the civil servants at the employment office where the experimental scheme is in place claimed that the regional employment office had also imposed quotas for sanctions imposed on the unemployed who abuse the benefit system by, for example, working in the black market while continuing to claim unemployment benefits. "Anyone who is sanctioned loses a month's unemployment benefit," she said.

The civil servant said there had also been a big increase in the number of jobless people called into employment offices for orientation courses. "Through such practices, which entail massive summonses to catch out the unemployed person who does not turn up, the number of people who receive some form of benefit who have been punished has increased fivefold," she said.

Pedro Gallego, an official at the UGT labor union, said such practices formed part of a strategy to drastically reduce spending on unemployment benefits, for which the budget for this year has been reduced from that of 2012 despite official forecasts of a further increase in the jobless rate.

The number of people out of work in Spain hit a record 6.2 million in the first quarter, with the jobless rate rising to 27.2 percent.

The congressional spokesman for the Plural Left, José Luis Centella, described as "aberrant" the practice of imposing directives on the "profile" of the jobless for deciding who should receive a work contract. The only rationale behind this, he argued, was "to avoid the state having to continue to pay unemployment benefits."

"You cannot play with the situation of millions of people who are going through a dramatic situation," Centella said.

The congressional spokeswoman for the main opposition Socialist Party, Soraya Rodríguez, said it was "cruel" to "discriminate" against the long-term unemployed and those aged over 45.

A memorandum of understanding in this area was signed Tuesday in Madrid by Spanish Labor Minister Fátima Báñez and her German counterpart Ursula von der Leyen. It includes work combined with professional training and stable posts for qualified workers.

Báñez welcomed Germany’s “commitment” toward helping young Spaniards, adding that the accord would provide “many opportunities for many young Spanish people which today, because of the crisis they do not have in Spain, and which, however, they can have in other European Union countries on a temporary basis.”

The accord calls for the interchange of workers and cooperation in the area of labor affairs. There are currently 43,548 Spaniards affiliated with the German Social Security system, and 37,797 Germans in the Spanish system.

Both countries also agreed to work together on initiatives at the EU level to reduce youth unemployment. “This cooperation between Spain and Germany will very soon show itself in additional joint measures that will make a better life for our young people possible,” the two countries said in a statement

Von der Leyden acknowledged the reforms that Spain has undertaken, which she indicated would take time in bearing fruit. “Germany was the sick man of Europe ten years ago, with a very high unemployment rate [and, therefore,] knows what measures work,” she said.

The average in Spain last year was up 0.5 percent on the previous year. However, taking inflation into account, workers suffered a fall in their purchasing power of 1.9 percent.

The downward trend in purchasing power continued at the start of this year. The consumer price index in April was up an annual 1.4 percent, compared with an average increase in salaries through collective agreements of 0.6 percent.

“We cannot continue to depress the spending power of people as a result of the combination of an increase in taxes, regulated prices and downward pressure on nominal salaries, without incurring the enhanced risk of further erosion of the economy, and, therefore, employment,” the secretary general of the CCOO labor union, Ignacio Fernández Toxo, said at a seminar on Wednesday.

CCOO and UGT reached a pact on wage and company margin constraint with the country’s main employer groups last year. However, as the Bank of Spain has pointed out, the brunt of Spain’s internal devaluation to improve competitiveness has fallen on workers’ salaries, with little sign of moderation in company profits.

The agreement removes the threat of some 2.5 million workers whose collective accords have expired seeing the conditions of their salaries, working hours, professional category and disciplinary framework left in limbo after July 7.

The pre-accord was reached in negotiations held on Tuesday by the country’s two main unions — CCOO and UGT — and leading employer groups, the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE) and the Spanish Confederation of Small and Midsized Enterprises (CEPYME). It now needs to be ratified by the boards of the four organizations. Sources close to the talks said they expect a final agreement to be signed on Thursday.

The reform of Spain’s labor laws introduced in February of last year by the conservative government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy eliminated the indefinite extension of existing collective agreements in the absence of an accord on their renewal. The new law now limits the amount of time an expired collective agreement can remain effective to one year as from July 7 of last year when the reform came into effect.

In the absence of an accord, thereafter, employers and workers will be subject to the working conditions of the sector in which the company operates and in the ultimate instance by the Workers Statute. Company collective agreements normally include working conditions that are more favorable than sector rules and the statutory minimums.

In the event of negotiations on the renewal of collective agreements failing to prosper by July 7, companies and labor unions agreed to tap available avenues for arbitration.

The IAAF is seeking a two-year ban for the athlete, considered the most successful in Spain’s history, who is also a Popular Party senator. The allegations stem from Domínguez’s biological passport, which has shown anomalies that led analysts to conclude that she has performed blood doping at some stage in her career. An athlete’s biological passport, an initiative launched in 2009 by the IAAF, records all of the blood values of its holder, such as hematocrit, hemoglobin and reticulocyte levels. It was introduced precisely because traditional methods of laboratory anti-doping controls can easily miss anomalies. Through the passport, it is possible to determine a range of minimum levels that can be considered the athlete’s norm. Any levels recorded above or below that range can be considered suspicious.

In Domínguez’s case, according to sources who have seen the report, the hemoglobin level that raised the alarm was recorded in August 2009, coinciding with the Berlin championships. However, those levels were not calibrated until three years later, when compared with far inferior values considered to be the athlete’s norm when she returned to competition after having a baby.

After the initial results, which indicate a 99-percent probability that Domínguez’s increased hemoglobin levels were the result of blood doping, the data was revised by an IAAF expert, who confirmed the recordings, and then passed it on to three independent analysts. The identity of the athlete was not revealed and the experts did not consult during their investigation. They all reached the same conclusion: the 2009 result was anomalous. To be even more certain, the IAAF tested Domínguez again out of competition and sent the samples to the experts. Once more their response was unequivocal: the 2009 results do not fall into the natural range of her blood levels.

Domínguez was also implicated in Spain’s Operation Greyhound doping scandal but was cleared of any wrongdoing. Dutch chemist Douwe de Boer, who is regularly employed by the athlete’s lawyer and who presented evidence in the doping case against cyclist Alberto Contador, claimed in Domínguez’s defense that the proper procedures for testing athletes were not adhered to at the time Domínguez’s blood was taken. The experts dismissed De Boer’s arguments.

There is a decidedly Wild West feel about the Spanish countryside lately, where it is not uncommon to find vigilante patrols and mysterious cattle rustlers roaming the land.

There are three raids on crops or livestock every hour, and that's on a good day. These attacks take place most frequently in southeastern Spain, with Almería and Valencia the hardest hit. It is a low-key kind of violence (or low-intensity, in the industry jargon) because the countryside does not get the kind of media attention that densely populated areas do. But it has already been going on regularly for four years. And the most dangerous part is that the stolen material enters the consumption chain through flea markets, street stalls or even the conventional retailers.

The stockgrowers near Limia (Ourense) hope to get some answers soon. In the meantime, they trust that authorities will arrest the cattle rustlers any day now. "They brought a truck and two vans," says one local about the latest heist. "Since January there have been five robberies, most of them at feeding stations owned by the Coren Group. They steal the calves when they are nine months old, they have that kind of information. They have a contact somewhere who should be easy to find."

The same resident quickly does the math and comes to the same conclusion as the breeders: "Each live calf is 400 kilos. That's cuts of 200 kilos after going through the slaughterhouse. Listen here, that's maybe 10,000 to 15,000 kilos of meat if we include the eight attempts in four months. You need vets, slaughterhouses to bring all that to market... I think it's going to be easy to find them."

But the Ourense cattle rustlers have not been caught yet. People suspect they are crossing over into Portugal. But there is no news of them, except when they hit.

The crisis was and continues to be the excuse for a recurring phenomenon that every so often brings together industry groups and local authorities to discuss what's to be done. The raids are far from improvised jobs, and the raiders take advantage of the defenselessness of the agricultural and livestock sectors, industry groups claim. A significant amount of the raids are well planned and require significant organizational skills as well as inside information. It is a type of crime closely linked to crops and to market prices. And growing numbers of farmers and stockgrowers have come to suspect that some of the guilty parties are among them. That is why Civil Guard spokespersons are very prudent about describing the type of criminal involved: yes, there are citizens from Eastern European countries, but there are also Spaniards.

"Everything gets stolen: copper, iron, machinery, implements, sprinklers, solar panels, calves, lambs, pigs, processed food and crops. And not in small amounts, either. We're not talking about a few kilos of vegetables that the thief will sell by the roadside," notes Rafael Cervera, of the Union of Small Agriculturalists (UPA). "We're talking about 2,000 kilos that are going to enter the consumption chain."

"We were talking about this nine years ago already, but things have changed," says Andrés Góngora of the Coordinator of Farmers and Ranchers Organizations (COAG) in Almería. "They used to go for the copper a lot, but now they steal entire crops. So it was with the spring crops, with the fruit — first the melons and now the watermelons. If they steal 2,000 kilos, you know they're going to put it on the market; if they take 300 kilos, you know they're going to sell it by the roadside or in street markets. Now they're taking beehives. But the prime target is the machinery. We need to have greater control at the ports, at the scrapyards. It's a curious thing: they draw up a catalogue of products that could be stolen, they take notes and pictures of the equipment until they find a buyer. People should watch out for secondhand material."

Official figures talk about 15,434 "instances of theft at agricultural and livestock operations" during 2010. That number rose to 20,481 the following year, representing a 32-percent hike. What happened in 2012? What about so far this year? There is no comparable data, because the new government introduced a change in the methodology. Interior Ministry sources say that 2012 figures are similar to 2011, but that there was a spike in the last quarter. But what kind of a spike, if there are no comparable numbers to work with? The perception of the problem is very different among industry associations (UPA, COAG, Asaja) and their representatives in various Spanish regions, where they insist that the trend is clearly on the rise.

On April 27, 2011, then-Interior Minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba and Agriculture Minister Rosa Aguilar came up with an action plan. The Interior Ministry was adding 1,170 Civil Guard agents to patrol duty, and ordering the drafting of crop maps to assist with surveillance. Two years later, the Popular Party (PP) government not only maintains this plan but has even added 16 agents on horseback in the Mediterranean area. That is why it is hard to understand why the Socialists are now asking the current interior minister, Jorge Fernández Díaz, to explain the situation, except if it is simply to admit that both administrations have failed. The Socialists called in the infantry and the PP brought in the cavalry, but nobody so far has been able to stop the rustlers.

The 3,500 students have 10 days from next Monday to choose one of three payment methods: two payments in July and September; payment in four monthly installments from June to September; or a single payment in September. The situation was described by a university spokesman as "unprecedented."

At the beginning of the academic year the UCM warned of the consequences of fee hikes, which are 16 percent on average nationwide but 38 percent in Madrid. The criteria for obtaining grants were also toughened. Thousands of students received theirs halfway through the year while others await the outcome of appeals against initial denials of state aid. Many universities have set up a fund to bail out students in precarious financial situations.

But the UCM says it is unable to do so: José Carrillo, the dean, had promised a million-euro fund to tackle the problem, but the crisis seems to have put paid to the scheme. The UCM is one of the most indebted universities in Spain, with negative figures of 142 million euros. On the other side of the coin, the regional government of Madrid has been gradually turning off the tap to its six public universities and in 2008 tore up a funding plan that ran to 2011. The UCM is now pursuing 62 million euros it calculates the regional administration owes it through the courts. If and when it arrives and its own debts have been cleared, some of that money will go toward helping its students. But that is not likely to happen in time for the 3,500 affected.

One of the reasons for non-payment is that many students do not yet know if they have been given a grant for 2012-13. The UCM blames the Education Ministry for the delay, which in turn says the necessary documentation has not been received.

Individual faculties have alerted the central government to the problems they face. One brilliant politics student faces exclusion as she can't pay a 300-euro fee. The Geography and History faculties face losing between 150 and 200 students, according to its head Luis Enrique Otero. None of the faculties can assume these debts themselves. "In our case it is impossible, because 300,000 euros is more than half of our budget for the year after cutbacks of 40 percent," says Otero.

In previous years, students were informed of non-payment by their faculties and given three chances to cover their fees before being thrown off their course. "Nobody came to us to say they couldn't pay because of the crisis, as is happening this year," says Otero.

The ultimatum issued by UCM for the end of May has been extended until September, but the university staff has asked that fees be modified so that students can pay the courses they have already sat and leave the rest for another time. The student body has called for the university fund to be activated so that nobody need be excluded and that the time frame for meeting fees be extended even further. They have also asked Carrillo to agree to carry over results of exams sat this year over to the next.

"This sit-in is getting results and we are on the right path to getting the help that many students need," said political sciences student Miguel Rodríguez after the protestors met with vice-rector María Encina González, who gave the green light to payment by installments.

The names of the couple were not officially released, but the Bogota daily El Tiempo has identified them as Ángel Sánchez Fernández, 43, and María Concepción Marlaska Sedano. Quoting several sources, news agency Efe reported that the woman is related to High Court Judge Fernando Grande-Marlaska.

Authorities have not ruled out that the couple were taken across the border to Venezuela. According to the daily, the two rented a car in Bogota and were heading to the beach resort of Cabo de la Vela, in La Guajira department, before they were kidnapped on Friday.

La Guajira is considered a dangerous area because of the number of paramilitaries, drug traffickers, smugglers and guerrilla groups that operate there.

The couple left their luggage behind at a hotel in the region while their car was found with a broken window at a ranch about 85 kilometers outside of Uribia, El Tiempo reported.

During calls to the victims’ families back home, the kidnappers identified themselves as members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), but authorities consulted by Efe have not confirmed this.

According to one source, it is not the guerrilla group’s modus operandi to demand a ransom the following day after a kidnapping.

Prepared by the US State Department, the report is an annual survey of how religious tolerance and freedoms fare in different nations across the world.

“The [Spanish] Constitution and other laws and policies protect religious freedom. However, some local government policies restrict the religious freedom of minority religious groups, including Muslims and non-Catholic Christians,” states the document released in Washington on Monday.

It cites instances in some cities where Muslim groups charge that special ordinances have been “politically motivated,” such as in Lleida where the city council prohibited the use in public buildings of the burqa, niqab and other Islamic clothing that covers the face. In February, however, the Supreme Court overturned that law which was challenged by the Watani for Freedom Muslim immigrant group.

But the biggest problem facing Muslim groups last year was obtaining permits from local town and city officials to build mosques. The Jewish community and some evangelical groups also reported difficulties in securing permits for new places of worship. “Although Catalonia had the highest concentration of Muslims in the country, it lacked a formal mosque; Muslims worshiped in approximately 200 prayer centers. Among the factors that Muslim leaders cited for the absence of a formal mosque was opposition from neighborhood groups and from some political parties,” states the report.

Last July, Molins de Rei, a town outside Barcelona, said that it was suspending indefinitely all constructions of religious buildings, a move Muslim groups believe was aimed at them. In Torrejón de Ardoz, near Madrid, a signature drive was initiated to keep the city from granting a permit for a mosque in the center of town. In Badalona, Catalonia, Mayor Xavier García Albiol of the Popular Party (PP) announced that Muslims would no longer be permitted to use public spaces for prayer on Fridays and during Ramadan.

The report also states that Jewish groups continued to be the target of anti-Semitism in the media and on the streets. In one high-profile incident, vandals spray-painted graffiti reading “No Jew in the house… terrorist state” on the walls of the Camp Nou stadium when former Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been kidnapped by Hamas in 2006 and held for more than five years, attended a Barcelona game in September.

In Sabadell, a court indicted members of two neo-Nazi rock bands and their managers for hate-related crimes related to songs, and in November police closed down a neo-Nazi website for “spreading xenophobic messages and promoting ideas that supported genocide.”

The report also detailed steps taken by the Spanish government to help religious groups integrate into society. Among the measures taken have been funding teachers for Catholic, Islamic, Protestant and Judaic instruction in public schools when at least 10 students request it. Military rules now allow military funerals by various religious groups. And the government also allows workers to take Jewish and Islamic holidays, including Friday afternoons from work, to observe the Sabbath.

US government officials held meetings and roundtables on religious freedom and tolerance with Spanish government officials last year.

The 37-year-old local police officer had been sent to the jail while awaiting trial for the killing of Granada lawyer Rosa Cobo on September 20. Folgoso killed the 51-year-old lawyer by clubbing her around 40 times in the head, neck and chest because he thought she had favored his ex-wife during the couple’s divorce proceedings, leaving him unable to see his baby daughter.

Folgoso had admitted killing Cobo but said he had not wanted to murder her. But on Saturday EL PAÍS had revealed it had had access to a video showing the officer carrying out the murder.

Several weeks before her death, Cobo had installed a security camera in the parking garage of her apartment block after finding her car had been damaged and the tires punctured. But rather than capturing someone smashing up her car again, the camera ended up recording the moment of her own death at the hands of an obsessed ex-client who had lain in wait in the shadows behind a concrete column.

EL PAÍS decided not to publish the video because of the extreme nature of the images caught on camera, which show the lawyer being savagely and repeatedly beaten until she was left unconscious in a pool of her own blood in the darkness of the garage. The paper published some still images from the recording.

Cobo’s body was later found in the trunk of her incinerated car on a stretch of waste ground on the outskirts of Granada. The corpse had been blackened by the smoke and there were burn marks on her feet. It also showed the signs of being hit around 40 times by an extendable police baton. Some of the lawyers on the case believe the blows had been made with a L-shaped tonfa, a weapon withdrawn from police use in 1996 because of its dangerousness. One such weapon, stained with the victim’s blood, was later found in Folgoso’s car.

Folgoso was arrested the day after the crime close to the town of Guadix, 59 kilometers outside Granada. Civil Guard officers found him inside his car with foam around his mouth and 150 grams of tranquillizer pills in his stomach, having tried to commit suicide.

Folgoso’s ex-wife had needed psychological treatment after fleeing the family home with her baby daughter and taking refuge in her parents’ house in Motril, Granada. After that, Folgoso began targeting all his in-laws: following them silently down the street, puncturing tires, scratching their cars and getting into fights with them in the street. In total his ex-wife, her parents and her siblings had filed 13 complaints against him.

Cue audible sighs of relief around the Bernabéu. The Portuguese has hardly been winning any popularity contests in the white half of the capital this season and could not even leave a significant trophy in the cabinet by way of recompense for his repeated assaults on the institution of Real Madrid. But Mourinho will also have woken up on Tuesday with a fresh spring in his step: the Real job, and the constant attention of a media thirsty for controversy, has put 10 years on the former Chelsea and Porto coach, who arrived in Madrid comparatively fresh-faced in the summer of 2010.

Real devours managers. Its haughty self-importance rarely allows a coach to flourish and even success is often rewarded with a bullet, as Vicente del Bosque well knows. The Bernabéu crowd is among the most fickle in Spain and player power is a constant minefield a coach must negotiate. Earlier this year, it was reported that team captains Casillas and Sergio Ramos gave Pérez an ultimatum: either Mourinho leaves, or we do. The Real honcho looked considerably less comfortable at the press conference hastily convened to deny that mutinous ménage a trois.

Mourinho has more than likely had an agreement in place with former employer Chelsea for some time: Rafa Benítez was handed a caretaker’s role at the London club earlier in the season when it dispensed with Champions League-winning coach Roberto di Matteo but ended it with another European trophy for his paymasters. But loyal Blues fans cannot forgive his comments about their club when he was in charge at Liverpool. Mourinho has been openly courting Chelsea for weeks.

The question for Real is whom does it employ to replace the Portuguese?

The job is not so much a poisoned chalice as a suicide pill; few who have taken on the role have profited as a result. Del Bosque spent a few years in the soccer wilderness after Real sacked him the day after delivering the league title — as did the side, in terms of European success — while the likes of Wanderlei Luxemburgo, Bernd Schuster and Juande Ramos never managed in Spain again.

Real, through Pérez, has made no secret of its desire to lure experienced Italian schemer Carlo Ancelotti from Paris Saint-Germain. But the Madrid club is no longer the biggest boy in the playground and PSG is in no mood to hand over its title-winning coach without a bit of a scrap. As with all things at Real, it will be simply a matter of money. Pérez inserted his intention to stand for re-election as club president next month into the Mourinho conference. It remains to be seen if he will run opposed: last time out, he was the only person who could afford to stump up the 50-odd million euros required to present a candidacy.

Real has already made an approach for Ancelotti, and has already been told no dice. Pérez admitted the club had not agreed a pre-contract with anyone yet: “On the subject of a coach, it is not something we will be able to solve overnight but we have sufficient time to think about it. Furthermore, we haven’t got just one coach in mind but several... one, two, three or more.”

La Real had offered Montanier a new one-year deal but the French tactician had demanded a three-year agreement. Doubts over Montanier’s future have been rife for weeks, with reports that he has been in talks with Ligue 1 side Rennes. However, the timing of the decision between club and coach is hardly convenient: Real Sociedad sits fourth in La Liga, at the gates of Champions League qualification with just two games to play. Level on 62 points with Valencia, Real only has to match its rival’s results due to a superior head-to-head record.

Montanier arrived in San Sebastián in 2011 after a successful spell in France with Boulogne and Valenciennes. In his first season La Real finished 12th but at the beginning of the current campaign the Anoeta crowd turned against their coach after six defeats in the first 10 games and a King’s Cup loss to second-division side Córdoba.

But then Real Sociedad went on a run of 14 wins, 10 ties and just two losses playing expansive soccer and drawing praise from all quarters on a base of cantera graduates such as Xabi Prieto, Antoine Griezmann, Asier Illarramendi, Rubén Pardo and David Zurutuza. In fact, only six of the first team squad did not come through the ranks at Real Sociedad B. Now the relatively simple search will begin for a coach who fancies a potential shot at the Champions League next season.

The police consider the alleged events “verified” but cannot charge Carballo with any crime unless further allegations come to light. Sexual abuse against minors has a statute of limitation of 20 years from the time the victim reaches adulthood under Spanish law. The alleged abuse took place when Carballo was in his thirties.

In a statement to police in December, a 48-year-old former member of the national team detailed the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of Carballo between the ages of 12 and 15, which included penetration, and took place “during training, in hotels where the team stayed, and even in the car of the accused,” the police report said.

Another member of the team at that time, who roomed with the complainant, backed her statement. “We were staying at a hotel before the Moscow Olympics. Practically every night Fillo [as Carballo is known in the gymnastics world] would come to the room. That night, like many others, he gave me a massage to loosen my back. Later I heard him in the other bed. I froze and pretended to be asleep. It was so traumatic that we never talked about it among ourselves,” she told EL PAÍS by telephone.

Not all the gymnasts suffered abuse, only the “chosen ones,” according to those that have come forward, to whom the police give complete credibility as witnesses. “He had incredible psychology. He knew exactly who he could do things to and who he couldn’t. He had a great ability to subject us to his will,” says the former Olympian, now 47.

When he took charge of the team, Carballo placed a wall between the boys and the girls, who previously had trained together. “The atmosphere was strange among us. Some were obsessed with Carballo and would compete to be by his side. He was a master of manipulation. We all had complete trust in him. It was an atmosphere of disproportionate love and genuine fear,” says another former gymnast.

Investigators have taken statements from dozens of people, including present and former members of the national set-up. “Many [...] did not want to give a statement or did not want to become involved for fear of reprisals in the workplace by identifying Jesús Carballo as the person who monopolized the world of artistic gymnastics,” reads a police report. A Madrid criminal court shelved the case as the alleged crimes had prescribed and there was no evidence of other charges.

The Madrid regional High Court is to decide whether to pursue charges against Carballo after suits launched by the former gymnast and Spain’s Higher Sports Council (CSD).

The decision to go to the authorities was made last year when former team members met at a reunion. “After that meeting we realized we weren’t the only victims and that generations of gymnasts had suffered his abuse. We were in panic. We thought it might still be going on and so we went to the CSD for help. We only took that step when we felt united and ready psychologically. We just want to heal and to let Fillo know that his actions did us a lot of damage when we were only children.”

The victim, who is now 48 and wants to remain anonymous because of family reasons, said that coach Jesús Carballo, now 69, abused her during the 1970s and 1980s. "Carballo destroyed my life after he sexually assaulted me," the woman told EL PÁIS in an interview. "I am still feeling the effects today."

Through his lawyer, Carballo denied all the allegations.

A court ruled that the statute of limitations on the alleged crimes has expired, but the victim has appealed that decision with the Madrid regional High Court. The government's Higher Sports Council (CSD) has also sided with the woman in her appeal.

"He kept saying that he was like my father, and the fact is I spent more time with him than with my own family," she said. "I had mixed emotions. On one side I admired and loved him, but at the same time I felt obligated to withstand the things that he did."

According to the police inquiry, two gymnasts in the 1980s had complained to the federation, but nothing ever came of the investigation.

The police have collated at least 14 statements from people who recall "humiliating episodes" in which the coach also reportedly hurled insults at the team. But they have not found "sufficient evidence" to accuse Carballo of abusing other victims. The CSD restricted Carballo from training facilities last January after the complaint was filed.

But Ziani was neither responsible for religious affairs or president of the Islamic Cultural Council — he was only a spokesman on the board.

When he was asked for an explanation by the Moroccan community as to why he was introduced to the monarch in this way, Ziani said that it was "a protocol error that is being used against \[him\]." Today it is difficult to find anyone in the Muslim community in Catalonia who has anything good to say about Ziani.

Last Friday, the 45-year-old Moroccan was deported from Spain via Melilla after the National Intelligence Center (CNI) accused him of working on behalf of Morocco's secret service, the DGED.

Ziani, who was born in Oujda, northern Morocco, traveled to Barcelona in 1999 from Belgium, where he was studying before also being expelled from that country, according to Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz. Although he dabbled in real estate, he mostly spent his 14 years pushing a religious agenda — he served as an imam at one point — among Catalan parties. He is married to Atiqa Bouhouria Moulay Meliani, who is also from Oujda. The couple has no children.

According to the deportation order dated May 3 and given to the police commissioner's headquarters in Barcelona, CNI director Félix Sanz Roldán accused him of being "a very important collaborator with an intelligence service since 2000," who has "put the state's security at risk."

The DGED, which is headed by Yassine Mansouri, an old school chum of the Moroccan king, has an important presence abroad. In Spain, it has a two-fold mission: to control and monitor 800,000 Moroccan migrants by penetrating different groups to see if there are any extremists or anti-monarchy supporters, and to investigate the pro-Western Sahara Polisario Front and its connections to Algeria, its biggest backer.

"I don't work for the DGED," Ziani told a Moroccan newspaper, adding that he was "disgusted" at the CNI's allegations. He explained that his work only involved trying to integrate the Moroccan community within Spanish society.

But Barcelona police investigators paint a different picture. In 2010, he tried to take over the Islamic Council with the purpose of organizing an Islamic congress with the help of Mohamed Ahmed Ali, an influential Ceutan who supports the decolonization of the exclave, and Mohamed Chaib, a deputy with the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) who has strong ties to Rabat. At the time, Ziani made connections with the Socialists, who were governing the region.

But his attempt to lead a coup on the Islamic Council failed and he was kicked off the board. Resigned to failure, he founded the Union of Islamic Cultural Centers of Catalonia (UCCIC) in June 2010. Although it was still in its infancy, the organization became one of Rabat's preferred groups in Spain. The Ministry of Islamic Affairs sent its imams to the UCCIC during Ramadan. The organization also received the second-largest subsidy (158,700 euros since 2010) the Rabat government grants to Moroccan immigrant associations in Spain.

But Ziani had an ax to grind. He convinced the Catalan government to "freeze aid" allotted to the Islamic Cultural Center and instead grant it to his organization. Ziani was often seen at some of the more radical mosques, like the Al Hilal in Salt, Girona. "It was to see what was going on there and relay the information back to his bosses," according to two prominent members of the Muslim community, who asked not to be identified.

But the CNI in its complaint believes that he was trying to contribute to "the radicalization of Islam" in Spain. It would seem unlikely that a radical Islamist would be working for the Moroccan state, however. Ziani helped in the fight against Western Sahara independence movements. In 2010, he organized an excursion of supporters to Granada to hold a demonstration in favor of Morocco's sovereignty over the disputed territory during the European Union-Moroccan Summit.

The PSC lost the regional elections in 2010 and the tripartite government fell apart. And so Ziani began to look for new political friends. In March 2012, he hammered out an agreement with Àngel Colom, who is the leader of Fundació Nous Catalans, to bring Moroccan migrants over to the nationalist cause. Colom named him director of the Catalan-Moroccan office within his foundation.

The Catalan nationalist CiU bloc — which is now in government — has reiterated on many occasions that the mosques should be places of worship and not breeding grounds for political agitation. CiU officials have long feared that radical groups could capitalize on the pro-Catalan independence movement.

Nevertheless, Ziani and Colom made their rounds to the region's mosques during last November's electoral campaign, explaining how independence would help the region. "It would give greater welfare and benefits to migrants," Colom said, first in Catalan and then in Spanish. Ziani would translate the message into Arabic.

Rabat fears that any type of pro-independence movement in Catalonia will only encourage pro-Western Sahara groups. The Barcelona consulate did not look favorably on Ziani's dealings with Catalan independence groups. On December 19, it was clear that Ziani had had a falling out with his former bosses during a meeting presided by Abdellatif Mazouz, the deputy minister for migration. The "spy" and the consul confronted each other publicly. In the end, Rabat withdrew its support for Ziani. Proof of this can be seen in the official Moroccan press, which in the past has come out against the CNI's allegations. This time the news media was silent.

The debt-management arm of the Economy Ministry sold 3.51 billion euros in three- and nine-month bills, 10 million more than its maximum target of 3.5 billion. It sold 2.619 billion euros in nine-month paper, with the average yield rising to 0.789 percent from 0.787 percent. It placed a further 892 million euros in three-month paper as the average yield rose to 0.331 percent from 0.120 percent at a tender held on April 23.

Demand for the three-month issue exceeded the amount sold by 4.3 times, while the bid-to-cover ratio for the longer-dated issue was 2.2 times.

“It was a good tender, but without surprises,” Reuters quoted Madrid-based Citigroup strategist José Luis Martínez as saying. “Rates rose a little, but they were already very low and there is little room left for further falls.”

The Treasury has issued debt worth 110.5 billion euros in debt this year, slightly less than half of its target for the full year of 230 billion.

Spain’s total outstanding public debt at the end of March stood at 923.311 billion euros, the highest figure in over a decade. That was equivalent to 87.8 percent of GDP.

The difference stems from two decrees approved last year requiring Spanish lenders to step up their provisioning for potential losses from exposure to the ailing real estate sector. After having covered for such possible losses, lenders may now be being more selective about which companies they will continue to support.

"Up until now the banks have been refinancing companies, but after the decrees of [Economy Minister Luis de] Guindos last year they have already provisioned for the loss in value of these loans in their balance sheets and from now onward are going to choose which real estate developers they save and which they do not on the basis of the possibility of recovering their loans," the head of valuations for property consultant CB Richard Ellis's Spanish division, Javier Kindelan, said.

Valencia-based Llanera in 2006 acquired an orange grove in Chiva, Valencia province, covering nine million square meters for 186.3 million euros in a deal financed by US investment firm Lehmann Brothers, which itself later went under sparking a global financial meltdown. Before construction began the land itself was valued at 300 million euros.

But things did not go as planned. Just a year later, a company that had started up as a small family business in 1988 and grew to sponsor Valencia CF and Charlton Athletic in England became the first large Spanish developer forced to seek protection from creditors with debts of 746 million euros. It was later followed by Martinsa Fadesa, Habitat and Sacresa.

It eventually managed to emerge from receivership, paying 50 cents on the dollar on its debts. "It was the first big receivership case. You have to assess it on the basis of what the situation was like then," sources in the sector said. Even after emerging from receivership, Llanera was unable to meet the schedule for repaying its debts as the sector continued to languish.

The failure of fellow real estate company Reyal Urbis last year was taken as a warning by the sector that the banks were now willing to let developers go under, no matter how big.

The managing director of consultant Irea, Mikel Echavarren, believes that other companies will go down the same road. "The only ones that will survive are those that have rental income, those that have finished developments that can be sold for for more than the amount of their debt, and those that can count on the support of a bank," he says.

The sector booked losses of 3.224 billion euros last year and only managed to shave a quarter off its combined debt, which stood at 24 billion euros as of the end of 2012.

In addition to the problems of meeting the business plans imposed by their lenders in a languishing market, real estate firms face the added irony of having to compete with the banks themselves in selling off assets to meet debt repayment schedules. The seven biggest banking groups in Spain last year sold property assets worth 14.029 billion euros, compared with 384 million by the seven listed real estate firms.

De Guindos’ comments were in line with those of Finance Minister Cristóbal Montoro, who in an interview published Monday with the financial paper Cinco Días said it was impossible to cut taxes under current conditions.

In its updated economic scenario for the next few years, the government predicts a return to meager growth of some 0.4 percent in 2014, with the economy expected to remain in recession this year. It will not be until 2016 when the pace of growth returns to levels of over one percent. Even that will be insufficient to create jobs in a significant way to reduce unemployment, which has hit a record 27.2 percent, with 6.2 million workers out of a job.

De Guindos rejected the Bundesbank’s criticism of the performance of the European Central Bank (ECB) as being based on its own particular vision of things and urged the German authorities to focus more on the interests of the euro zone as a whole. Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann on Sunday took objection to the ECB’s recent cut in interest rates.

The economy minister was speaking at a joint presentation with Agriculture Minister Miguel Arias Cañete of the government’s plans to double the exports of Spain’s food industry over the next five to six years. In order to do so, the Agriculture Ministry plans to establish a committee for the sector, which will produce annual reports and act as a forum of the exchange of information.

De Guindos said the domestic food industry highlights the efforts to enhance the internationalization of the Spanish economy and help pull the country out of the crisis. “Gaining competiveness and the search for markets is the great hope for emerging from the crisis,” he said.

Blesa, who spent one night in prison, is now out on 2.5-million-euro bail. Investigative Judge Elpido José Silva said that there was enough evidence to charge Blesa with misappropriation of funds and document forgery stemming from the purchase of City National Bank of Florida. A complaint was filed against him by the obscure rightwing union Manos Limpias.

But according to sources, prosecutors had been against charging Blesa from day one because of a lack of evidence.

Blesa, who headed up Caja Madrid between 1996 and 2009, is being tried for irregularities in the acquisition of the US bank, as well as for a loan of 26.6 million euros that was granted to Grupo Marsans, a travel agency that went bust with huge losses in 2010. Obscure right-wing union Manos Limpias is a plaintiff in the case against the banker.

Blesa was summonsed to court as a matter of urgency Thursday in relation to the 2006 purchase of City National Bank of Florida after Manos Limpias decided to extend its case beyond the initial complaint over the Marsans loan and on the findings of KPMG analysts, who confirmed that the loan did not meet legal requirements.

Blesa and former Marsans owner Gerardo Díaz Ferrán, who is also in jail as part of another investigation, are accused of corporate crimes and falsification of documents. On April 16, Judge Elpidio José Silva also issued summonses to six members of the bank’s financial committee.

Caja Madrid took control of City National Bank of Florida in 2008 after paying 618 million euros for 83 percent of the US lender in a deal approved unanimously by the Spanish bank’s board of directors in order to “strengthen” its presence in America. The Bank of Spain noted that as well as excessive investment in the US lender the purchase was carried out in such a way as to “elude the obligatory control of the tax and economy authorities in Madrid.”

That may have been the last bit of help that Blesa, 65, received from the Popular Party (PP), the political group that made him president of Caja Madrid in September 1997. A lawyer by trade, Blesa never concealed the fact that his close friendship with former PP prime minister José María Aznar was a key factor in his appointment to head Spain’s second-largest savings bank, with 190 billion euros in assets. Aznar and Blesa studied together to be tax inspectors, and before presiding Caja Madrid Blesa had served at FAES, the PP’s think tank.

Blesa, who was sent to preventive prison on Thursday on embezzlement charges, is one of the most representative examples of political interference in the running of Spain’s regional savings banks, which have undergone a major merger process to avoid bankruptcy after decades of overexposure to the property bubble and misguided loan policies based on political interests rather than sound business practices.

Blesa’s story illustrates the reason for the savings banks’ troubles: a president is appointed based on friendship with political leaders, rather than professional merit; the real estate bubble comes around, and money seems to fall from the sky; the industry watchdog fails to apply pressure, and managers end up ruining the businesses.

Even though he was on the PP’s wavelength, Miguel Blesa’s appointment received support from a CCOO union leader and the United Left coalition.

From the get-go, Blesa had a clear goal in mind: to double the balance, grow across Spain and expand the size of an institution that turned 300 years old in 2002, during his tenure. He wanted to open up new branches, hire more staff and multiply profits. In an interview with EL PAÍS in May 1997, Blesa rejected the idea of growing slowly. He felt hindered by the the fact that his company was linked to a region, Madrid, that did not comprise several provinces like many other Spanish regions. This placed him at a disadvantage compared to other savings banks. Thus his obsession with growing, even in the face of the upcoming storm.

Stock market operations and revenues from investment banking had a stabilizing effect on the business’ overall problems. Caja Madrid acquired stakes in Telefónica and Endesa, which brought in 600 million and 2.4 billion euros, respectively. This mitigated the losses of the commercial network, which expanded but never achieved much profitability.

By 2003, Blesa prepared a new expansion program. Bank of Spain reports show that “he took a long time to react to the loan default problems detected in 2006.” He was also accused of conducting an aggressive commercial policy without evaluating the risks.

Despite a sharp drop in the financial margin, in the middle of the property bubble Blesa got Caja Madrid into heavy debt in the international markets. He joined the rush to attract new customers among the immigrant population, and above all he invested billions of euros in real estate.

In 2008, he acquired the City National Bank of Florida for close to 1.12 billion dollars. It was probably not a very fortunate move, but far from the one that caused the lender the greatest losses. The expansion policy produced great benefits in the short run, but in the long run it was Blesa’s undoing – or rather, Caja Madrid’s undoing.

In 2009, when the crisis and international accounting rules made him feel the pressure, he issued massive amounts of preferential shares worth over three billion euros. “We have expanded the share issue because they’re flying out of our hands,” said Blesa to justify the increase from two billion to three billion euros. He did this even though the ratings agency Moody’s gave the May 2009 share issue junk bond status because it was very likely that Caja Madrid would be unable to pay the interest.

This is the same preferential share issue that has caused so many woes to customers who bought them and now stand to lose an average 40 percent on their investment.

Despite this ending, Blesa arrogantly told Congress in November 2012: “I do not admit to having caused damage with the preferential shares.”

Esperanza Aguirre, then the regional premier, had a great sense of ownership over Caja Madrid, and between mid-2008 and late 2009 she tried to eject Blesa from his post. She failed, but her maneuvering –a shameful example of political interference- helped destabilize the institution.

On his last day on the job, on January 20, 2010, Blesa presented the lender’s accounts, which showed a 68 percent drop in results due to the provisioning mandated by the Bank of Spain.

 “It is not pleasant to end things with such a sharp drop; I could have set less money aside, but I preferred to reinforce the institution,” he claimed. Yet his replacement, Rodrigo Rato, was forced by the end of that same year to provision a further four billion euros, proof of the gaping holes left in Caja Madrid.

 But the veteran lender’s real death sentence was its merger with Bancaja, another savings bank that was seriously affected by the property crash. It all ended with Bankia and the 22.4 billion euros that taxpayers had to provide to prevent bankruptcy.

 Despite all these figures, the 12 years that Blesa spent at the helm of Caja Madrid were extremely profitable to himself and his aides. Upon arrival, he multiplied his salary by 18. The money he made in the first few years is not known, but he made 12.44 million euros between 2007 and January 2010. His closest aides made between two to 9.7 million over the same period of time. The Bank of Spain asked for reports but placed no limits on the exorbitant wages.

 When he took over in January 2010, Rato –a former IMF chief- decided to cancel a 25 million euro bonus that Blesa had arranged for himself and nine other executives to receive after they left the bank. Nevertheless, Rato raised his own salary even higher. In February 2011, the Bank of Spain finally stepped in and ordered a 20 percent reduction on Rato’s and other executives’ bonuses, alleging the need for austerity and the fact that the bank had accepted public money.

 Blesa passed on his problems to Rato, who inherited an institution that “asked its branches for business volume. For 10 years it went well, but when the crisis hit, everything turned into non-performing loans,” says a former executive.

 Going to prison is the bitterest end of all for a man who was once one of the PP’s biggest bankers.

Some 86 members of opposition groups will participate in the two-day Meeting for National Syrian Consultation, which is being sponsored by the Spanish Foreign Ministry. Leading opposition figure Moaz al-Khatib is to close the symposium on Tuesday.

But even the leadership of Al-Khatib is an indication of the difficulty of bringing the Syrian opposition together. Under international pressure, Al-Khatib in April resigned as president of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (CNS), which is recognized by more than 100 countries including the 27 EU member states and the United States. The election of a new president is also scheduled for this week.

The CNS and the Syrian National Council, which was absorbed into the former and whose leader, George Sabra, is acting president of the CNS, will be joined at the summit by military representatives. The Free Syrian Army, which coordinates rebel actions in the country, is represented as are radical Islamist militias, led by the Al-Nusra Front, of huge relevance on the battle front. However, Foreign Minister José Manuel García-Margallo said that the factions attending the meeting represent the more moderate sector of the opposition.

The presence of Al-Nusra has raised suspicions in Brussels and Washington, which do not wish to back the opposition more conspicuously. The supply of arms to the rebels is currently blocked and military intervention vetoed by China and Russia. One of the objects of the Madrid meeting is to give Brussels new guarantees ahead of a May 31 debate on lifting the arms embargo.

Spain has supplied 4.7 million euros in humanitarian aid since the rebellion of March 2011 and the subsequent civil war. The government has maintained communication with the opposition in exile and groups within Syria that propose a political transition without Al-Assad but with some members of the existing apparatus, an opinion shared by the prime minister’s office.

On the ground in Syria, government forces backed by Hezbollah militia claimed on Monday to have retaken the strategic town of Qusair, which is less than 20 miles from Homs and a vital link for government forces to strongholds on the coast, and for rebels to receive supplies from Lebanon.