ANOTHER ATTEMPTED CHILD KIDNAPPING
A local Malaga newspaper has reported another attempted child kidnap case in the Vistamar urbanisation in Rincón de la Victoria. A 12-year-old girl was returning home just after midnight a week last Sunday when a man came out of the lift on the floor of her home and tried to drag her to the stairwell where another person was standing. The girl's mother heard her screaming and rushed to help her. The man let go of the girl and the mother managed to get her inside their home. She said the attacker had his face covered, and had a foreign accent. She reported the incident to the Guardia Civil to "warn the population of the Axarquía to be on their guard".
LETHAL FRUIT JUICE CONTAINED COCAINE
The health authorities have confirmed that the bottles of noni fruit juice confiscated from the home of a man who died in Ogíjares, Granada province, last month contained a large amount of cocaine, and that quantities of the drug were found in the dead man's body. A health alert was put out after the man's death, and the Junta de Andalucía's health councillor, María Jesús Montero, has once again called for anyone who may have similar bottles at home to avoid drinking it and to hand the bottles in to the regional health department in their province. The juice, called Tahitian Noni, is sold in one-litre glass bottles. It is manufactured by the Mexican company, Morinda.
WATER SAVING MEASURES URGED
Showering instead of having a bath or giving up the dishwasher are just two of the tactics used by the residents of Malaga city where the average water consumption per person has dropped 330 litres a day two years ago to 215 litres today. The province's environment delegate, Ignacio Trillo, now wants to see everyone in the province adopting such tactics because if rain continues to be as scarce as it has been so far this winter, water rationing will be a distinct possibility this summer.
NEIGHBOURS SAVE WOMANS LIFE
The prompt action of neighbours saved the life of 65-year-old Antonia Moya Martín last Wednesday in Cártama de Estación. Around 5 pm they heard screams coming from her home, where her husband was beating her with a hammer. When several neighbours appeared, 71-year-old Salvador Gálvez Meléndez, made his escape on a moped to the campo, where he committed suicide. Police found his body hanging from a tree later that evening. He had been previously arrested for abuse of his wife a year ago. The victim was taken to the Hospital Clínico in Malaga, where she was placed under observation. Some 300 residents of the town held a silent demonstration against domestic violence outside the town hall for five minutes at noon last Thursday.
MAN KILLED BY MECHANICAL SHOVEL
A 31-year-old man was killed in Estepona last Friday when he was hit by a mechanical shovel on a building site in the Costalita urbanisation. He was standing on a raised platform waiting for the shovel to unload a block of cement when the arm broke, hitting him in the chest. A spokesman for the Comisiones Obreras trade union said he was the second worker to die in an on-site accident in the province this year. The man, a Spaniard, had only been working for the construction company involved since the beginning of the year. Labour Ministry inspectors have been called in to determine if the company was implementing safety regulations correctly at the site.
OLIVE THIEVES CAUGHT
The Guardia Civil has arrested nine people, all from the same family, suspected of carrying out 17 robberies of olives in Malaga, Córdoba, Jaén, Granada and Sevilla. According to the Guardia, the gang would arrive at an olive grove at night and load as many olives as possible into trucks. They were then sold later on the black market at much below the going price of 40 cents a kilo. The Guardia managed to recover 90,000 kilos of the total 170,000 kilos stolen.
HOW OUR DENTURES HAVE CHANGED
Delegates at the II Andalucian Symposium on Dental Implants held in Malaga last week learned how much techniques have changed over the past 5,000 years. Archaeological remains show that people in 2500 AD were using threads and wires to keep their primitive false teeth in place. Two centuries later, the first implants, usually of seashell, appeared. Modern implants came into being just 30 years ago, when dentists began to use titanium to make them because the human body does not rejected this metal. They've come a long way from seashells.
TOTAL COVER PROMISES MINISTER
The Industry Ministry pledged last week to make sure that people will be able to use their mobile phones in every part of the Malaga province. At present it is impossible to use them in more than 50 rural areas. Take the village of Sedella high up in the mountains east of Malaga city. One resident said: "Many of us keep our mobiles in drawers at home because we can't be bothered to walk to the highest spots in order to make a call." In some parts, users have no choice but to use the single mobile phone company that has coverage in their area. One user said: "It's very frustrating because we can't take advantage of better offers from the other companies." Coverage is poor even in towns and the city of Malaga, where residents in the Olías district have to go somewhere else to make a call. This also affects parts of Ronda, Alora, Cartama, Mijas, Velez-Malaga and Alcaucin to name only a few of the 25 towns where coverage is spotty.
WIFE CANT VOTE FOR HUSBAND
The leader of the Partido Popular in Andalucia, Javier Arenas, is apparently quite a hit with the ladies but ironically, his biggest fan, his wife Macarena, won't be able to vote for him in the March 9th regional election. She's on the voting list in Sevilla but her husband is standing for Almeria.
COIN HORSE FAIR
The organisers of the next Andalucian Thoroughbred Horse Fair, SACAB, in Cóin expect more than 15,000 visitors. The first fair was held four years ago and it has grown bigger each year, attracting visitors from all over Spain and beyond. This year more prize cattle will attend. SACAB opens in the Cantarranas industrial park on March 25th, with events every day until March 30th. A full programme will be published closer to the date.