Luxury chalet and grow house in Mijas

NATIONAL POLICE in Mijas, Malaga, have dismantled an indoor marihuana growing operation in a luxury chalet.

Three hundred and fifty plants have been confiscated along with five kilos of marihuana buds.

Two people have been arrested under suspicion of crimes against public health and defrauding the electricity supply. The two detained are both Colombian, a man of 42 and a woman of 33.

Investigations began back in May when the police received a report that there was a luxury villa in Mijas which was being used as an indoor 'grow house'.

Initial inquiries revealed the exact location of the house and the fact that it was being rented by a Colombian couple. After getting a search warrant for the premises the police proceeded to enter the property and quickly found two bags containing five kilos of marihuana buds which had been dried and prepared for sale along with three indoor plantations, with a total of 350 plants in various stages of growth. Police also confiscated all the paraphernalia associated with the indoor operation including the lights, plant pots, fertilisers, ventilators, extractors and even a machine which stripped the plants and separated out the buds.

The couple were arrested and will remain on remand until their case can be heard.

New protocols for public schools in Andalucia

TRANSEXUAL students in Andalucia will be able to attend classes dressed as the gender with which they identify.

Luciano Alonso, Andalucia councillor for education, has presented a new plan which includes protocols about gender identity and allows for students to choose a name with which they identify as well as the uniform and which toilets they feel more comfortable using. Alonso commented that in a perfect world such rules would not be necessary but now that they have the new protocol “what was a problem will cease to be one and, hopefully, it will end discrimination and favour the social integration of these individuals.”

This is the first such protocol in Spain and has been brought in to regulate the way public schools deal with transsexual children.

Francisco Garcia, chief of school social cohabitation, has commented that the name the child uses will be agreed with their parents and will be used on all school documents but that, until the child can legally change their name, their original name will have to be used on all external documentation.

This new law, brought in by the Andalucia parliament, has the aim of ending social stigmatisation and the pain felt by those who suffer it.

Reality star White Dee kicked in head and shoved in pool

Benefits Street star White Dee has been kicked in the head and pushed into a swimming pool in Mallorca party hotspot Magaluf.

The attack happened at a luxury resort on the island. Reportedly, while she struggled to swim after the cowardly attack, her assailant's friends stood back laughing and filmed the incident.

The reality TV star, 42, is said to have suffered whiplash in the incident. Dee, real name Deirdre Kelly, was said to have been due to lead a pub crawl in the resort – an ever more popular paid for activity which is now coming under stricter control of the authorities.

Her alleged attacker is said to have run the length of the pool, kicked her in the head then pushed her into the water. The man, said to be in his 20s and a promoter, has been sacked by his company.

Police are investigating and are appealing for witnesses. They are examining CCTV footage to try and gather evidence. The alleged attacker is to be interviewed by police today.

White Dee was hosting a four hour pool party, to be followed by the pub crawl, at the time as part of a paid 'holiday'. She is due to fly home to her Birmingham council home tomorrow with a GP's appointment already booked. She and her manager were due to meet organisers of the event today to discusss 'compensation'.

Soul great Bobby Womack is dead

Soul great Bobby Womak died yesterday (Friday) aged 70.

The cause of death is as yet unknown.

In a career that spanned nearly six decades his music influenced generations of musicians, perhaps to a greater extent than the public realised.

In the 60's acts from the Rolling Stones to Janis Joplin were all fans. He worked with some of the biggest names in soul including Wilson Pickett, Sly Stone, Sam Cooke, Ray Charles to name just a few.

In later years his influence lived on with him collaborating with Damon Albarn and Gorrilaz

One of five brothers, he was born in Cleveland, Ohio and by the age of 10 he was touring with his family as part of a group called the Womack Brothers. After being spotted by Sam Cooke they were signed up to his SAR label.

But in his early years he was known more as a session musican and songwriter, working with greats like Elvis, Dusty Springfield and Aretha Franklin.

He wrote a string of songs for Wilson Pickett through the 60's, but his own solo career never took off in the same period. But come the 70's there was a turn of fortune. Despite a tempestous private life he started to churn out some of the biggest numbers on the soul circuit.

That success continued through the 1980's until he attained the status of soul legend.

Tofu could solve renewable energy toxicity

AN ingredient found in tofu could revolutionise the way solar panels are manufactured.

A chemical compound used in making tofu could substitute a highly toxic and expensive substance which is currently used in the solar cells.

In Spain solar energy is one of the highest contenders to take over from traditional sources but if the renewable market wants to compete then it will have to reduce its costs and the result of this chemical compound could do that.

Scientists at the Stephenson Institute for Renewable Energies from the University of Liverpool are proposing to swap the cadmium chloride for magnesium chloride which can be extracted from sea water and is also used in the making of bath salts and anti-freeze.

Cadmium chloride is used in the manufacture of millions of solar cells every year all over the world and it is not only very expensive to produce but also highly toxic; it requires high levels of safety measures to protect the workers handling it.

Jon Major, of the Euroscience Open Forum, commented that magnesium chloride had given good results and had proved itself to be both easy to handle and cheap: 0,001 dollars per gram compared to cadmium chloride at 0,3 dollars per gram.

Tourism on the rise again

FOREIGN tourists spent a total of €20.129 million between January and May; that is 9.1 per cent more than in the same period last year.

The biggest spenders were the British, German, Scandinavians and Asians, while the biggest benefactor of this spending was the Canary Islands.

May’s total spend was a whopping €5.273 million which is an historic maximum and a rise of 3.5 per cent compared to last year.

Hotels are still the most popular place to stay while on holiday with 66 per cent of tourists using them; the average stay was of eight and a half days.

The average tourist spends €939 in those eight and a half days which is €18 more than in 2013.

The Canary Islands were the biggest benefactor receiving 26.6 per cent of the total spend; Andalucia received 16.3 per cent, Madrid 11 per cent, Cataluña 5.4 per cent and Valencia 1.2 per cent of the total.

Of tourists visiting Spain 65.1 per cent were on a ‘free’ holiday meaning they had not booked a package deal, although package deals saw a rise of 20.5 per cent in their bookings.

Legal highs on the rise

MORE and more youths in Spain are taking 'legal highs'.

They are substances which imitate the effects of illegal drugs and are usually sold in powder, pill or herbal form.

In 2011 only 5 per cent of youths in Spain claimed to be taking the legal highs but this has jumped to 13 per cent in 2014, according to a European study done by Eurobarometro.

After Spain the other highest increases were Ireland, which went from 16 per cent to 22 per cent, and Britain which went from 8 per cent to 10 per cent.

Of those interviewed 15 per cent claimed they could get hold of new psychoactive drugs “very easily” or “easily enough” within 24 hours of their being on the market.

The majority - 68 per cent - claimed they usually got their drugs from a “friend” and only 3 per cent said they bought them on the internet.

Viviane Reding, vice president of the European Commission (EC), commented that they were already drafting legislation to protect the young from any new psychoactive substances which could be harmful. She went on to say that the results from the survey indicated that there was no time to lose in the implementation of the EC’s new legislation which would stop the spread of any harmful substances through the European zone.