The medical centre in Benitaxell on the Costa Blanca has received a “much-travelled’ defibrillator from the Teulada -Moraira Lions Club.The way in which the defibrillator has actuall reached Benitaxell is an unusual one.

A 20/20 cricket match was organised by two teams ,not just at any old venue but at the Everest base camp.The funds raised were to be donated to the Lord’s Taverners  and the Sherpa Trust ,a charity which supports the families of sherpa’s who are in need of help.The match would also be listed as a world record for being a cricket match which had taken place at the highest elevation above sea level.

The match was played in April and had a lot of media coverage and it raised about 100,000 pounds.Included in those who took part there was a four strong medical team and  a part of their kit was a defibrillator.When they returned to the UK the machine was no longer needed and in fact it was never used on Everest.

There was a connection between someone who took part in the cricket match and someone in the Teulada -Moraira Lions and as the Lions had been looking for a defibrillator it was decided to give the Everest Cricket a donation in exchange for the machine.The rest is history so to speak and now the machine is in Benitaxell.The hisory of the machine will most certainly be a talking point when  it is being usedon a patient.

The IU ( United Left) has asked once again for a war memorial to be built in the harbour area of Torrevieja .The memorial would be in memory of those killed in an aerial bombardment during the Civil War.On August 25 1938 Italian aircraft based in the Balearic Islands launched a terrifying attack on the town.Numerous people died ,including many innocent civilians,children ,even babies .It has been described as a terrorist attack against civilians.

It seems that the aircraft deliberately hit a queue of people waiting outside the fish marketand other bombs fell on homes and on a football pitch.The spokesperson for the United Left said that they had made a formal request to the Torrevieja town hall in 2007 for a memorial to be erected to mark the 70th anniversary of the air raid.There has still been no reply from the ruling PP party.

The IU will now take their request to the regional and national governments to ask them to intervene in an effort to obtain a license from the port authority to erect such a memorial.The spokesperson has said that it is the obligation of the town hall to remember the people who died.

Recently a Murcia taxi driver was injured in his taxi.He was stabbed by one of his fares.In Benidorm last week more than 150 taxi drivers blocked the entrance into the town’s bus station to give a statement of solidarity and to ask for greater protection for all taxi drivers.

The taxi drivers arrived at the bus station at about noon and once they had organised themselves a statement in support of their colleague in Murcia.The statement was read in front of the president of the taxi drivers association.He then told them that being a taxi driver can at times be a very dangerous occupationand that it has very little if any real security .He called on the authorities to come up with some plan to standardise taxis so that security inside them could be improved.

He also called for government subsidies to help drivers to install security systems.To instal one into the town’s 232 taxis would cost about 600,000 euros.

The Spanish government finance minister ,Elena Salgado,is expected to announce tax rises in the next few weeks.So say some of the leading Spanish economists.They warn that the government will have to do this to cover the cost of their public spending.There is it seems a deficit caused by its increase in public spending.

Public works minister Jose Blanco has already given hints that people who earn more should pay more taxes.Analysts believe that this was his way of warning that tax rises were inevitable.The government doesn’t want to cut its public spending programme but maybe that is just what it must do .It is very bad housekeeping to spend money that you do not have to spend.Then to claw it back from the public seems to be quite immoral.Increasing the tax on alcohol,cigarettes and the like would be a much better way than putting up the general rate of tax.The 2010 budget will be announced in the next few weeks.

The bus company SuBus and Alicante council have opened a new bus service to and from Alicante airport to the city centre.The new C6 service will start at the Plaza Puerta del Mar( near the Melia hotel) and will run every 20 minutes with the journey time between the city centre and the airport being 30 mins.The cost of the trip each way will be 2.60 euros and the buses have been equipped especially to take both passengers and their luggage.They will also have a WI-FI system,wheelchair access and audio-visual announcements.The buses will start at the Plaza at 06.20 and the last bus will depart at 22.40.From the airport the first bus is at 06.50 and the last one at 23.10.The service will operate on every day of the year.

The regional transport councillor has said that the new line was needed because of the new terminal at El Altet.Once that is complete then it could see the airport having 20 million passengers pass through the terminals each year.The old routes from Alicante airport to the city centre have now been incorporated into other routes which will take people to Elche,crevillente and Torrellano.

Men arrested at Manises airport in Valencia have led to the seizure of 8 million fake 500 euro notes .This is the largest forgery haul in Europe and it has stopped the notes reaching the open market.

At Manises they discovered paper used to print the money and then rthe National Police followed up this lead to discover the 8 million which was about to flood the European market.The money was discovered hidden in the two properties owned by the men who were arrested at the airport.A search of a house in real de Gandia also uncovered the laboratory where the money was printed.This led to a further twelve arrests.

The paper had come from China and it was ready to use.The National Police and the Banco de espana have both said that if the paper had not been discovered then there could have been 7,000 million euros in high quality fake notes circulating throughout Europe.This is the biggest coup since the euro was launched.This could have caused a major problem with the EU economy.

This investigation began in 2008 and at first it was thought that it related to drugs .A court in Valencia has begun proceedings against the two Spanish nationals detained at the airport and they will be charged with counterfeiting ,money laundering and drug trafficking.