Trapped visitors to Montserrat drama

Around 1,500 people visiting the Montserrat monastery had to be evacuated by cable car on Sunday after a landslide in the Els Degotalls zone blocked road and rail access to the emblematic Catalonian tourist attraction.

Around nine rocks each with a surface area superior to fifteen cubic metres fell from a height of around 100 metres close to the car park although no vehicles were damaged. A small group of visitors preferred to stay put until the road was opened so that they could leave by car.

This is not the first incident of its type on the mountain this year – two workers lost their lives clearing a landslide on the B-1121 access road last month.

$3 billion shareout in Spain’s Gordo lottery

Economic woes eased for thousands in Spain on Monday as the Christmas lottery — billed among the world’s richest — dished out some €2.32 billion ($3.23 billion) in prizes.

The top prize of the lottery dubbed “El Gordo” (The Fat One) went to holders of tickets bearing the number 32365 — which appears on 1,950 tickets, each winning €300,000 ($418,000). Thousands of others cashed in on runner-up prizes.

The top number was sung out at just after noon Monday by pupils of Madrid’s Saint Ildefonso School in a nationally televised draw held each Dec. 22.

Rather than a single jackpot, the lottery aims for a share-out in which thousands of numbers yield at least some kind of return.

The draw brought scenes of jubilation across Spain.

In the central town of Soria, Ricardo Jimenez’s bar sold all 1,950 of the third prize tickets, spreading some 97 million euros ($135 million) among customers, family and friends.

Television images showed him being showered with sparking wine by celebrating clients.

“I’m still shaking,” said Jimenez, who bought 15 tickets worth €750,000 ($1 million) for himself. “But I’ll keep on working. I’ll share this with my three children.”

Since it began in 1812, the Christmas lottery has become a favorite holiday tradition. This year, it sold an estimated €2.8 billion euros ($3.90 billion) nationwide — nearly 3 percent down on last year.

The lottery starts at 9 a.m. (0800 GMT) and people throughout the country typically tune into the radio, television or Internet to find out if their number is called for a prize.

The 1,950 tickets with the top prize number were sold across seven of Spain’s 52 provinces.

The state lottery agency estimates per capita spending of about 62 euros ($92) on the Gordo this year, down about 1 euro from 2007. Seventy percent of lottery sales goes back out in prizes, and 30 percent goes to the state.

Spain established its national lottery system as a charity in 1763, during the reign of King Carlos III, but its objective gradually shifted toward filling state coffers.

Spain holds another big lottery Jan. 6 to mark the Feast of the Epiphany. It is known as “El Nino” (The Child), in reference to the baby Jesus.
Source: IHT.com

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Caixa Catalunya to sell 824 of its branches

Spanish savings bank Caixa Catalunya is seeking to sell 824 of its 1,200 buildings in Spain in a bid to raise 500 million euros ($663.4 million), La Vanguardia reported on Sunday, citing sources at the bank.

The bank wants to strike a deal with potential buyers to continue to rent the branches, with a buy-back option for 10, 15 and 20 years, and wants to sell them in lots of 5 million euros, which would include 10 to 15 premises, the paper said.

The bank is in particular targeting its private banking clients as potential buyers, it added.

Its head office in Barcelona is not up for sale, added the report.

No one was immediately available at the bank on Sunday to comment.

Other Spanish banks have also closed leaseback deals on their property, notably Spain’s largest bank Santander which has sold more than 1,150 of its branches and other buildings and its headquarters complex at Boadilla del Monte on the outskirts of Madrid.

Source: reuters.com

What’s new in Spain

Sunny Spain is beckoning travellers who delight in ornate architecture, authentic culture and people-watching strolls in the cool of the evening. Here’s what to expect from a few of Spain’s cities if you visit this year.

In Barcelona, the curvy Palau Guell should reopen in 2008, offering the public a chance to see one of the finest interiors designed by the city’s most famous architect, Antonio Gaudi. To track down more great architecture by Gaudi and his Modernista buddies, stop into the tourist information office (at Plaza de Catalunya), where you can get discounted tickets and a helpful route map showing all of the city’s Modernista buildings.

In Madrid, the Prado Museum’s expansion continues in 2008 and may jumble the museum’s layout. A new memorial at the Atocha Metro station remembers the victims of the March 11, 2004, terrorist bombing. Walk beneath the 36-foot-high glass cylinder to read thousands of condolence messages in many languages.

Toledo’s El Greco Museum will likely be closed for renovation through 2008, but its 20 El Greco paintings will be on display at the nearby Victorio Macho Museum. Toledo’s Alcazar—the fortress that evokes so much civil war history emotion among Spaniards—will hold Spain’s National Military Museum when it reopens, hopefully in 2008.

Granada’s Alhambra, a fortress built by the Moors to keep out the Christians, now welcomes everyone, especially those with a reservation. (All others wait in a long line.) When you book your hotel room, ask if your hotelier can make an Alhambra reservation for you; many offer this as a service to their guests. Or you can order tickets on your own online (www.alhambra-tickets.es), or by phone (from the U.S. or Canada dial 011-34-902-888-001).

In Seville, the town’s grand boulevard—the Avenida de la Constitucion, once thundering with noisy traffic—is now a pedestrian-only thoroughfare. Suddenly cafes and shops along Seville’s main paseo have appeal. This is a good opportunity to see how the character of a city changes when a major thoroughfare goes traffic-free. To make your strolling even more enjoyable, Seville (like cities all over Spain) stretches sail-like canopies across the streets in the height of summer to offer a little relief from the fierce sun.
Source: chicagotribune.com

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Boss of Zara Spain bids to power the world.

The self-effacing billionaire boss of Spain’s Intidex textile empire, Amancio Ortega, who founded the Zara fashion chain, is taking a dramatic change of direction by creating a global alternative energy network.

As he did when he founded Zara over 30 years ago from his sister’s kitchen table in La Coruna, Mr Ortega, Spain’s richest man is launching his new venture modestly in his home region of Galicia, north-west Spain. But his ambitions are boundless and he has already established energy bridgeheads in three continents.

As chairman and chief shareholder of his company Capital Energy, Mr Ortega has produced a clutch of projects prompted by a tender offered by Galicia’s regional ministry for innovation and industry, to provide up to 2,323 megawatts of energy from alternative sources, and set up some 20 energy parks. Mr Ortega reportedly intends to invest more than €2bn (£1.65bn) in his new venture over the next 18 months, with plans that extend far beyond Spain.

The move into renewable energy marks a dramatic turning point for the man who built a €30bn fortune by persuading Spanish women to love the beige trouser suit. His fashion revolution caught the mood of a nation emerging from dictatorship, whose young women relished new-found freedoms. His formula of low-cost high-fashion conquered the world and continues to grow. A Zara shop, or one of its offspring, opens somewhere in the world every day and a half.

But after depositing chunks of his hefty fortune in research foundations, real estate and banking in recent years, Mr Ortega has now hit on renewable energy production on a world scale as the next big thing. One of the keys to Zara’s success was the company’s control of every step of production, from design, manufacture and distribution, to sales. It is a pattern set to repeat itself.

Next year, he plans to start building eolic parks, or wind farms, including those at sea, plants for the production of biofuels, and solar and photovoltaic energy plants. “Our plans cover development of projects from the outset. We will not be buying companies in operation, as often happens in the sector,” says Jose Espinosa, Capital Energy’s director of Strategy and Corporate Development.

As a country without coal, oil or gas, Spain has been keen to develop alternative energy sources, and solar panels and wind farms are a common sight. But such projects are mostly small-scale sidelines operated by Spain’s huge energy conglomerates whose main interest is distributing imported fuels.

Recent interest shown in the Spanish energy company Repsol by the Russian energy giants Gazprom and Lukoil has brought home to Spaniards how politically vulnerable they may become to possible political pressure through their energy dependency. Mr Ortega’s plans are well-laid, but their revelation yesterday, albeit low-key, in the Galician regional press, suggests that in energy, as in fashion, he is ahead of the curve.

Over the past year, Capital Energy has set up photovoltaic plants in the sunbaked Castilla-La Mancha region, and around Madrid, and is to erect wind farms across Spain in coming months. Mr Ortega has created 10 subsidiaries of Capital Energy to handle the energy produced, according to its source – biofuels, solar, wind – to take full advantage of subsidies for alternative energy. Capital Energy has already established a presence in Latin America, East Europe and India. But the plan is to draw in private capital to the tune of €100m in an operation masterminded Europe-wide by the private bank Edmond de Rothschild Europe. The aim, Capital says, is to expand throughout Spain and abroad. “Our immediate plans are to build 80 megawatt windmills, then 100 megawatt photovoltaic energy panels, and five thermosolar plants,” Mr Espinosa says. “That will cost €300m to set up. In four or five years all will be in operation.”

Projects include four biofuel plants using soya, rape seed and palm fibre planned for Seville, Bilbao, Cartagena, and Cadiz, to produce up to 250,000 tons a year; seven photovoltaic solar plants are being built, which will produce 0.7 megawatts. Bigger ones will be built in 2010, in Castilla-Leon, north of Madrid, and Catalonia. Wind generators of more than 2,000 megawatts will start going up next year, as plans are advanced for marine windfarms. Top of the list, where the enterprise was thought up, is wind-lashed Galicia.

Source: independant.co.uk

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