BAGS of Andalucian super chips are set to go on sale in the UK

BAGS of Andalucian super chips are set to go on sale in the UK for a staggering four pounds a packet.
Said to have the ‘best ingredients in the world’, the crisps made by company San Nicasio, in Priego de Cordoba, are handmade from extra virgin olive oil, Catalan potatoes and Himalayan pink salt.
UK distributor Mike Coleman said: “They are twice the price of anything else, but you can definitely taste the difference.”

Costa del Sol-based Muldoon, 64, and his wife Kim were accused of leading an operation that conned £9million from hundreds of timeshare owners

An arrest warrant has been issued for Kim Muldoon, believed to have headed to Turkey, and six other members of the gang after they missed a court hearing in Malaga, Spain, brought by 300 mainly British claimants.
Maidstone-born Toni Muldoon and nine other defendants were given suspended sentences of under two years on condition that they repaid £438,000 within two years. Six pleaded guilty to fraud, the rest agreed to charges of illicit association and received a one-year suspended prison term.
The scam was run from call centres in Fuengirola from 2001 to 2006. Britons seeking to offload overpriced timeshares were contacted by telesales staff from companies including Screenit and Platinum Properties and offered an enticing rate after being told a buyer was interested.
An upfront fee of about £1,200 was then demanded for the sale management, never to be seen again. Twenty-six other companies, all linked to Muldoon, presented a fresh front for the racket, allowing it to run unchecked. A follow-up scam by company Conectese, run by Scotsman Richard Bain, saw the timeshare victims offered “legal assistance” for £250 to get their money back.
Lawyer Antonio Flores, of Marbella firm Lawbird, who represented 160 British claimants, said: “The amount the claimants were defrauded is considered only a fraction of all those who were swindled. This was a multi- million-pound scam. Muldoon is just horrible. He’s a natural-born conman.”
Victim Victor Jacobs, 89, of Hauxton, Cambridgeshire, said he was conned by “crooks”. The former engineer and his wife Peggy, also 89, received a call in 2001 from a Muldoon-linked company offering to sell their timeshare.



Mr Jacobs was keen to sell, being fed up with high maintenance fees at Lanzarote Beach Club. “The caller, a young woman, said, ‘We’ve got a buyer lined up for you,’ ” he explained. “They gave me his name and told us we would have to pay in advance.” The couple sent the £926 fee but were not contacted again.
Thousands of victims are thought to have funded Muldoon’s lavish lifestyle which includes a mansion in Benalmadena. He wrote on social networking site Bebo: “I love the fact that my work is not work. It is my passion and as I feel I am also good at it that makes me a happy man.”
Muldoon has been linked to more than 50 companies based in the UK, Spain and offshore, part of a huge international racket investigated by Interpol. He is also understood to be wanted in the UK in connection with two scams which netted £6million, after 15,000 victims paid upfront fees to websites promising debt elimination and a string of escort work.

Timeshares

Timeshares – a form of ownership where multiple people have a right to use a property for a period of time every year – were often sold aggressively and without any legal advice. Figures from the European timeshare industry show that 590,000 Britons still own timeshares, while thousands are up for sale on websites and forums.
If owners can't pass the properties on, the contracts lock them in for life. And the management companies that run timeshares often refuse to buy them back. Most recommend the use of costly middlemen, who take a fee for handling your timeshare with no guarantee of a sale.
The Timeshare Consumers' Association (TCA) estimates that as many as half the 1.5 million timeshares in Europe are being kept "under duress".
"Timeshare owners may be continuing to pay maintenance fees because they have little choice legally," said Sandy Grey, a spokesman for the non-profit, entirely voluntary TCA. "We receive around 20 inquiries every day, and the majority are from timeshare owners who have been contacted by these companies offering to take the timeshares off owners' hands – for a fee.

The large quake struck the community on Wednesday evening, two hours after a moderate 4.7 earthquake hit the town.

An earthquake measuring 5.3 hit a town in southeast Spain today causing houses to collapse, damaging historic churches and killing at least six people.

Some reports said that the rare earthquake in Lorca, sent tremors through the region of Murcia and had affected a nursing home and the tower of an important church in the town which is dependent on farming.

The large quake struck the community on Wednesday evening, two hours after a moderate 4.7 earthquake hit the town.


Wreckage: At least six people have been killed in an earthquake in southern Spain, with damage shown in this Twitter picture


Several buildings were destroyed by the pair of earthquakes in Lorca, with the aftermath captured in another Twitter picture

'Unfortunately, we can confirm ... deaths due to cave-ins and falling debris,' the mayor of Lorca, Francisco Jodar, told radio station Ser.

'We're trying to find out if there are people inside the collapsed houses.'

A Murcia government spokesman said on the radio that six people had been killed in the earthquake.

The quake hit at 6:47 p.m., according to data from Spain's National Geographical Institute. The U.S Geological Survey said the epicentre was 1 km below the ground.

Lorca, which has a population of about 90,000 people, dates back to the Bronze Age and probably gained its name from the Romans. The old part of the town is made up of a network of narrow alleyways.

At least seven people, including a child, have been killed and dozens more hurt by two strong earthquakes in southern Spain.

A 4.4-magnitude tremor hit the small town of Lorca, in the region of Murcia on Wednesday afternoon.
It was followed by a stronger 5.2-magnitude quake around two hours later.
The epicenter of the quakes was close to the town of Lorca, and the second came about two hours after the first, officials said.
Francisco Jodar, the town's mayor, told radio station Ser of the first reported fatalities.
"Unfortunately, we can confirm... deaths due to cave-ins and falling debris," he said.
"We are trying to find out if there are people inside the collapsed houses."
The Murcia regional government said a hospital in Lorca was being evacuated, dozens of injured people were being treated at the scene and a field hospital was being set up.
It said the seven deaths included a minor and were caused by the second, stronger quake.
Large chunks of stone and brick fell from the facade of a church in Lorca as Spanish state TV was broadcasting live from the scene.
A large church bell was also among the rubble.
The broadcaster reported that schoolchildren usually gather at that spot around that time, and if it had happened 10 minutes later, a "tragedy" could have occurred.
The town of Lorca has around 90,000 inhabitants.