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The Marbella Club Spring Games 2012
Resurrected 2 years ago by Pablo Hohenlohe, they were originally started in the 1960’s by his Uncle, Prince Alfonso Hohenlohe. The hugely popular games, sponsored by Veuve Clicquot, will be staged on April 19 2012. Contestants from all over the world compete in six...
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Spain wilts in driest winter for 70 years
February is barely past but already Spanish farmers are on drought alert as reservoirs shrink, crops wilt and brush fires crackle after the country’s driest winter in 70 years. Spain is used to fires in the summer, but this year they have come early, ravaging woodland,...
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Libyan Arab Foreign Bank project in Marbella is back on the road
As featured on SpainReview.net A large real estate project which the Libyan Arab Foreign Bank wanted to place in Marbella is back on the road. The project was frozen because of the death of Muammar Gaddafi, but now the lawyers for the development say it is active again. The...
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"Chameleon is an extremely versatile theme with a myriad of options and styles"
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The Marbella Club Spring Games 2012
Resurrected 2 years ago by Pablo Hohenlohe, they were originally started in the 1960’s by his Uncle, Prince Alfonso Hohenlohe.
The hugely popular games, sponsored by Veuve Clicquot, will be staged on April 19 2012.
Contestants from all over the world compete in six disciplines: golf, alpine skiing, motor racing, water skiing, clay shooting and paddle tennis
Each event is individually timed so that the sum of points determines the champion.
An international group of 28 sportsmen and women will compete in the one-day event ranging from European aristocracy to former F1 drivers, with the event culminating the next day in front of 200 guests, aficionados and media at Marbella Club’s illustrious Villa del Mar.
For more information visit GolfMagic or The Marbella Club Hotel
Read MoreSpain wilts in driest winter for 70 years
February is barely past but already Spanish farmers are on drought alert as reservoirs shrink, crops wilt and brush fires crackle after the country’s driest winter in 70 years.
Spain is used to fires in the summer, but this year they have come early, ravaging woodland, while the general dryness stunts crops and leaves farm animals without grass for grazing.
Brush fires have already swept across 400 hectares in the wooded northwestern region of Galicia.
Near the Galician village of Brocos, the Portodemouros reservoir has visibly shrunk and egg-shell cracks have appeared in the mud.
“We have a very hard drought, spectacularly intense in some territories,” said agriculture minister Miguel Aras Canete.
“The water reserves are not at alarming levels, but we are beginning to have a lot of forest fires.”
Spaniards emerged from their usual choking summer last year gasping for rain, but over the past three winter months Spain has had average precipitation of just 55 litres per square metre, far below the average of 200 litres.
“We have experienced three winter months with minimal levels of rain in all of Spain — December, January and February have been the driest since at least the 1940s,” state weather service spokesman Angel Rivera told AFP.
“Previously the driest winter had been in 1980-81,” Rivera said. “Then it rained 30 litres more per square metre than it is now.”
The latest official drought report on February 22 said Spain’s reservoirs were only two-thirds full, meaning less water for the fields where crops grow and animals graze.
“Leafy plants, vegetables and cereals are suffering the most,” said Gregorio Juarez, a spokesman for the young farmer’s association ASAJA, warning that olives, vines and almonds may be next.
“There is a large part of southern Andalucia and Aragon where there is land that has already been lost, where there is now no solution whether it rains or not,” he added.
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Libyan Arab Foreign Bank project in Marbella is back on the road
As featured on SpainReview.net
A large real estate project which the Libyan Arab Foreign Bank wanted to place in Marbella is back on the road. The project was frozen because of the death of Muammar Gaddafi, but now the lawyers for the development say it is active again.
The lawyer Ignacio Pérez de Vargas said the plans are for 1,915 homes, a golf courseand a congress hall to be built in La Resinera, the finca owned by the Libyan in Benahavís which stretches to 6,900 hectares across the municipalities of Benahavis, Estepona, Pujerra and Júzcar.
Part of this is in the Sierra de las Nieves, declared a Biosphere Reserve, but the PGOU urban plans shows 500 hectares which can be built on in Benahavís.
Construction could start as early as December.
The Spanish Government blocked all the assets owned by the Libyan Government in Spain, or related to Gadaffi, when the fighting started in Libya. There is another plot in Nerja also owned, as nearly all the Libyan assets, by the Libyan Foreign Bank.
Now the politicians and ambassadors of the two countries have been talking, and the Libyan Ambassador commented ‘Soon we will know what is going to happen to our properties in Spain. We have asked for meetings to find out what we can do with them. Now we will try to complete the arrangements so the projects we initially had in mind can go ahead.
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Parent sue Marbella teacher as boy almost blinded
A MARBELLA schoolboy’s parents are suing a teacher and the regional education department after their son was almost blinded by a pair of scissors.
Their son, aged 3, is at risk of losing an eye due to injuries he sustained when a classmate threw some scissors at him at school, according to a local Spanish Press report.
The child’s parents claim the accident occurred while she allegedly left the class unattended to tell a colleague she had won some money on the ‘El Gordo’ lottery on December 22 last year.
The children were in pre-school class taking part in a handicrafts activity in which they were using sheets of card, glue and scissors.
The denuncia (complaint) alleges the teacher left the children alone on two occasions – for several minutes – according to the statements of three mothers who were at the school at the time.
It was during this second occasion she allegedly left the room that tragedy struck. The school has denied these claims, maintaining she never left the room, according to the report.
The boy underwent surgery and doctors have not yet determined if there is any permanent damage to his sight.
Read MoreNational Marbella Poker Festival Added to WPT Calendar
The World Poker Tour (WPT) have added a new stop to their Season 10 schedule for this year – and it’s one that is sure to attract the Brits, as well as others, in droves as the Costa del Sol is the destination.
A long-time favourite with millions of British holidaymakers, Marbella will play host to the first ever WPT National Marbella Poker Festival from April 19 to 27, when poker pros from all across the globe will gather for the Party Poker-sponsored four-day, €1,650 buy-in main event – to be recorded for television and streamed live – right on the shores of the beautiful Puerto Banús marina.
The festival will also include the five-day WPT stop from April 20 to 24, while numerous side events and cash-only games will be staged to keep the Casino Marbella-hosted event running at a breakneck pace.
In what is sure to be among the hottest of European festivals this year, players can also expect lots of sun, sea and sand, as well as some parties that will surely live long in the memory.
Read MoreBritish golf pro jailed in Spain for sexual abuse of girl, 14, over five years
A British golf professional who subjected a young girl to five years of sexual abuse has been jailed for nine years.
Sean Stiff, a former pro at Branston Golf and Country Club, Burton, Staffordshire, was jailed by a court in Spain after admitting sexually abusing the girl.
The 40-year-old was living on the Costa del Sol, where he ran El Soto de Marbella golf club.
His victim, now 14, who cannot be named for legal reasons, claimed Stiff, who was known to the family and had taught her to play golf, had abused her for five years from the age of eight.
Her family, originally from England, said the teenager was still struggling to cope with the ordeal, was plagued by feelings of guilt and had counselling after she began self-harming.
The girl’s mother said: ‘I don’t think I would be happy with whatever sentence he got, because nothing’s ever going to stop what my daughter is going to suffer for the rest of her life.
‘It’s just been hell. I can’t begin to describe what it’s been like.
‘She’s had so many problems and started cutting herself – she didn’t know how to take away the pain.‘
She added that her daughter is now on medication to help her to sleep, doesn’t eat properly and that it’s disrupting her education. The 14-year-old does not know who to trust or how to talk to people and is very secretive.
‘She blames herself for it because she thinks she could have stopped it, and feels guilty,’ she said.
Stiff was previously golf professional at Broughton Heath Golf Club in Church Broughton, and Manor Golf Club in Kingstone, near Uttoxeter.
After some time at Branston, Stiff moved seven years ago to Spain, where he was golf professional at Cabopino Golf Club, in Marbella, becoming head professional at El Chaparral Golf Club, in Mijas Costa, near Fuengirola, before moving to El Soto.
He is understood to have taught golf, run competitions and set up a children’s academy at the latter club, where he taught his victim to play golf before the allegations came to light a year ago.
The girl’s mother said: ‘She rang me up at work and said she needed to talk to me. I went to see her and she told me: ‘Sean’s a paedophile’. She said this had been happening since she was eight.
‘We were just shocked. Everybody loved Sean and he was well respected for his golf. Nobody had anything bad to say about him.’
‘I confronted him about it and he didn’t deny it. He said he wanted to go and get help but there’s no therapy for something like that.
‘I couldn’t believe that he would do something like this. We thought we knew him.
‘I don’t feel hate for him, I just feel numb. All my energy now goes into looking after my daughter.’
Read MoreComplaints against lawyers ignored in Spain
THE Olive Press has discovered a number of other complaints against lawyers have been ignored by the Malaga Law Society.
One Marbella legal company Lawbird confirmed that it had made several complaints to the self-regulatory body about malpractice that have gone unheard.
One of these involves a commoner passing herself off as a lawyer.
Another property buyer is now being forced to take separate legal action, after the body failed to reprimand a lawyer who overcharged him 34,000 euros.
“It is a clear cut case,” the British businessman told the Olive Press. “The lawyer in question kept promising to give me the money back, but it never came.
“I can’t believe that the society feels there is no case to answer.”
It has also emerged that one of the employees of the embattled society is himself linked to a dubious legal practice investigated by police.
“What chance is there of getting justice here in Andalucia when these sorts of people work in the so-called regulatory body,” asked Antonio Flores, from Lawbird.
“The law society is certainly acting in a strange way and is not at all transparent.
“They have a very lax way of dealing with things.”
Here, the Olive Press shines a light on the three cases:
Case study 1:
A complaint made to the Malaga Law Society by a British businessman after he was overcharged a staggering 34,000 euros by his lawyer has fallen on deaf ears.
According to the expat, the body insisted the lawyer was using his ‘knowledge and expertise’ and that they would take no action.
“It is ridiculous. It is cut and dried. I went to the trouble of documenting everything, translating it in to Spanish and then sending it recorded delivery to the law society and they just said no.”
“What is the point in having the society if it doesn’t deal with these matters?”
Case study 2:
Despite complaints from law firms, one high-profile woman is passing herself off as a registered lawyer and yet she has no qualifications.
Advertising in various rival newspapers, she even speaks at legal seminars for expats.
“We have reported her several times but no-one at the Law Society seems to take any interest,” insisted one lawyer.
“We cannot afford to have a regulating body which allows fraudsters to run bogus law firms,” he added. “It’s very detrimental to the image of the profession.”
Case study 3:
In an ironic twist, a lawyer working for the Malaga Law Society to keep check on the profession has been linked to an alleged fraudster.
Tovar Oliver Hernandez Riverol (above) works in the department that deals with good legal practices and imposters.
Yet, he is mentioned in a police report as having connections to law firm Ramirez & Ramirez, which has been investigated for defrauding victims in the timeshare arena.
Arrested four times, its boss Fabian Marcelo Ramirez was accused of falsely promising his victims to recover money in boiler room, timeshare and cashback scams in exchange for an upfront fee.
“Ramirez backed up his activities using a number of lawyers, including Hernandez,” explained Antonio Flores of law firm Lawbird.
While there is no suggestion Hernandez was conning the victims himself, as Flores adds: “Surely the Law Society must know that a man supposedly protecting the purity of the profession should not have these kinds of connections. Why have they not done anything?”