Spain’s government has repatriated more than 73,000 illegal immigrants this year, almost a fifth of whom were sub-Saharan Africans, the deputy premier said yesterday in a parliamentary debate.

IN A visit billed as a mini-showdown with Spain’s Socialist government, Pope Benedict XVI drove home the importance of the traditional family before hundreds of thousands of pilgrims yesterday, insisting that marriage must be between a man and woman.

A VALENCIA subway train was travelling at twice the normal speed when it derailed, killing 41 people, a Spanish government official said today.

A subway train that derailed and killed 41 people in the eastern Spanish city of Valencia had been travelling at twice the normal speed, a government official said today.

The Spanish government today approved an aid package for the Canary Islands, where thousands of houses were damaged earlier this week by Tropical Storm Delta.

A GROUP of day-trippers have confessed to starting the blaze that killed 11 firefighters in central Spain in the country’s worst firefighting loss in years.

SPANISH rescue teams yesterday recovered the bodies of 11 firefighters who died trying to douse a forest blaze in central Spain – the deadliest in five years — believed to have been sparked by a barbecue.

Companies with female executives or board members will receive favoured treatment in bidding for Spanish government contracts under a broad new affirmative action programme passed by the Cabinet.

The host of a birthday party that ended in tragedy as 18 guests died of apparent carbon monoxide survived by sleeping in another room.