La Liga: This January’s transfer window has been a relatively quiet affair, especially in Spain. But one big name has made a huge, and not widely expected, impact since switching clubs earlier this month.

It is fair to say that the local reaction to Fernando Torres rejoining Atletico Madrid this week will have surprised many outside Spain.

UAE ambassador struck women and referred to them as ‘rubbish’

The death of a Deportivo La Coruna ‘ultra’ in fighting before last Sunday’s La Liga match at Atletico Madrid has led to attempts at expelling all such radical ‘supporters’ from the Spanish game.

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Tuesday, March 10, 2009, and Marca’s editors are sure they are onto a winner.

Someone will finally have to claim this season’s La Liga trophy next Saturday when Atletico Madrid travel to Barcelona’s Camp Nou.

Manchester United have begun their hunt for a successor to David Moyes in earnest, drawing up a shortlist and sending out feelers to potential candidates.

Atletico Madrid 1 Barcelona 0 (Atletico Madrid win 2-1 on aggregate)

World number five Rafael Nadal has criticised the decision of a Spanish court to destroy more than 200 blood bags seized during Operation Puerto – and therefore allow those involved to remain nameless.

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MEXICO’S new president has vowed to demilitarise the campaign against drug cartels, but thousands of troops likely will remain in the field for years to come, spearheaded by US-favoured naval infantry.

Mexico’s state-owned oil company has made its first large-scale discovery of deep-water oil deposits in the Gulf of Mexico, President Felipe Calderon said today.

Drug-related violence in Mexico has claimed 50,000 lives in six years.

Suspected drug cartel killers in Mexico dumped 49 headless bodies on a highway near the northern city of Monterrey, a sickening atrocity that prompted the government to condemn the “inhuman” violence plaguing the country.

A 17,886ft volcano outside Mexico City exhaled dozens of towering plumes of ash and shot fragments of glowing rock down its slopes this morning, frightening the residents of surrounding villages with hours of low-pitched roaring not heard in a decade.

Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado, who led Mexico from 1982 to 1988 during economic crisis and a devastating earthquake, died today at age 77, President Felipe Calderon announced on his Twitter account.

Striker Andy Carroll returned to the Liverpool starting line-up to face Brighton in the FA Cup fifth round at Anfield today.

Alan Pardew refused to blame Newcastle’s limp FA Cup display at Brighton on their midweek trip to Tenerife.

MEXICAN human rights activists want the International Criminal Court to investigate President Felipe Calderon, top officials and the country’s most wanted drug trafficker, accusing them of allowing subordinates to kill, torture and kidnap civilians.

Mexican authorities have fired nearly 1,000 police officers to weed out corruption from the violence-ravaged Gulf coast state of Veracruz.

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MEXICAN President Felipe Calderon declared three days of mourning yesterday and demanded a crackdown on drugs in the US after armed men torched a casino in northern Mexico, killing at least 52 people.

Workers were today continuing to pull bodies out of a burned casino in northern Mexico, where gunmen spread petrol and ignited a fire which trapped and killed at least 53 patrons and employees.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has compared today's battles against drug cartels to the country's fight against the French invasion nearly 150 years ago.

FORMER Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon believes Jose Mourinho’s recent antics have been “harmful” to the club and has questioned whether the Portuguese will remain at the helm for a second season.

Former Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon believes Jose Mourinho’s recent antics have been “harmful” to the club and has questioned whether the Portuguese will remain at the helm for a second season.

The US ambassador to Mexico resigned amid a furore over a leaked diplomatic cable in which he complained about inefficiency and in-fighting among Mexican security forces in the campaign against drug cartels.

A letter purportedly signed by La Familia drug cartel announcing a one-month truce circulated in Mexico’s western state of Michoacan.

FC UNITED’S memorable FA Cup adventure came to a crushing end with a 4-0 second-round replay defeat to Brighton at Gigg Lane last night.

THE Mexican army have discovered several clandestine graves holding at least 20 bodies near a ranch in the northern border state of Chihuahua.

MEXICAN soldiers seized 105 tonnes of marijuana with a US street value of more than $340 million (€246m) on Monday in Mexico’s biggest-ever pot haul, the army said.

Mexico looked beyond its drug war and looming Atlantic storms today to throw a 200th birthday bash celebrating a proud history, whimsical culture and resilience embodied in the traditional independence cry: “Viva Mexico!”

Mexican marines captured Sergio Villarreal Barragan, a presumed leader of the embattled Beltran Leyva cartel who appears on a list of the country’s most-wanted fugitives, in a raid in the central state of Puebla, the government said.

A SURVIVOR has told police that 72 people found dead at a ranch near the Mexican border with Texas were migrants kidnapped by an armed group, a federal official has said.

PRESIDENT Felipe Calderon said he is willing to change Mexico’s drug war strategy and promised a new offensive against money laundering after hearing blistering criticism from opposition leaders.

SOLDIERS killed a top leader of the Sinaloa cartel in a raid on his posh hideout, dealing the biggest blow yet to Mexico’s most powerful drug gang since President Felipe Calderon launched a military offensive against organised crime in 2006.

One of the top three leaders of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartel died in a gunfight with soldiers, ending the long run of a mysterious capo considered a founder of the country’s massive methamphetamine trade.

TO cries of “Kill them all!” gunmen opened fire at a weekend birthday party in Torreon, mowing down at least 17 people in another attack that laid bare the brutality of Mexico’s long-running drug war.

The death toll in Mexico from flooding caused by former Hurricane Alex rose to six, authorities said.

Gunmen assassinated the front-running candidate for governor of a Mexican border state in what President Felipe Calderon called an attempt by drug gangs to sway local and state elections this weekend.

President Felipe Calderon appealed to Mexicans to support the fight against organised crime in a national TV address hours after troops killed 15 suspected gang members.

The mysterious disappearance of a former Mexican presidential candidate has sparked fear that nobody is safe from relentless kidnapping and rampant drug violence.