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The calendar has been produced by the Madrid Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transsexual collective COGAM Controversy in Madrid with the launch of a 2010 lay calendar which shows images of ‘transsexual virgins’ recreating religious scenes decorated with crowns, condoms and phallic symbols. The lay calendar takes the religion out of the dates of the year, so Christmas Day becomes the day you eat the traditional Spanish turron to mark International Democracy Day, for example. The images are all based on famous Catholic images and iconography. The Venezuelan photographer who assembled the calendar, Juan Antinoo, had been commissioned by COGAM, the...

COPENHAGEN – The race for the 2016 Olympics has come down to just Rio de Janeiro and Madrid, with the International Olympic Committee eliminating Chicago in a stunning first round of voting. Tokyo was knocked out in the second round. That left just Rio and Madrid still in the mix. The IOC voted again to separate the two and elected a winner, which will be announced by IOC president Jacques Rogge later Friday. Madrid's surprising success in reaching the final round came after former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch made an unusual appeal for the Spanish capital, reminding the IOC...

Presidents and prime ministers can make an Olympic bid with a little, well-timed sweet talk. However, they can also break it with one embarrassing slip of the tongue... Chicago's long serving Mayor Richard M Daley has been through many elections and many press conferences. However, it didn't seem that way on Tuesday when it was revealed that Rio had been angered by his implication that they were not up to hosting the Olympics. Asked at a press conference to respond, he replied tersely: "No comment." He may have looked distinctly uncomfortable but at least he had not made a complete...

A model displays a spring/summer design by Carlos Diez during the Pasarela Cibeles fashion show in Madrid, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2009.

Well, I feel as if I've finally "arrived."True, over the years my name has been mentioned disparagingly a few times in the pages of America, but what appeared in its online edition today has reached a whole new level of invective (even by America's standards of invective).I responded yesterday to Sr. Maureen Fiedler's obit piece on Senator Ted Kennedy in NCR ("He Made Me Proud to Be Catholic"), and my comments obviously hit a raw nerve among that community of disciples over at America, as evidenced by my being roundly chastised by one of their writers today.Honestly, I don't think...

A car bomb has exploded in a business district of Madrid, following a telephone warning claiming to be from ETA, the Basque armed separatist group. No one was hurt in the blast, which destroyed about 30 cars and blew out windows at nearby offices, leaving a crater in the ground about one metre deep. The Spanish Red Cross received the warning call 90 minutes prior to the blast, allowing police to cordon off the area before the device exploded at around 0900 local time (0800 GMT). The incident came a day after Spain's supreme court banned Democracia 3 Millones and...

In 2006, Thailand announced it was blocking access to YouTube for anyone with a Thai I.P address, and then identified 20 offensive videos for Google to remove as a condition of unblocking the site. ‘If your whole game is to increase market share,’ says Lawrence Lessig, speaking of Google, ‘it’s hard to . . . gather data in ways that don’t raise privacy concerns or in ways that might help repressive governments to block controversial content.’ In March of last year, Nicole Wong, the deputy general counsel of Google, was notified that there had been a precipitous drop in activity...

Some 140 people were killed today when a packed passenger jet caught fire and overshot the runway as it tried to take off from Madrid airport, official sources said. The Spanair plane, with 173 passengers and crew aboard, crashed and broke apart as it tried to take off from Terminal 4 at the Barajas airport. It was heading for Las Palmas airport on the island of Gran Canaria. The Reuters news agency quoted sources in the emergency services as saying that all but about 25 of those aboard had been killed - far ahead of initial death tolls given by...

MADRID — A Spanish court absolved four men and upheld the acquittal of a fifth on Thursday in the convoluted legal proceedings relating to the 2004 Madrid commuter train bombings that killed 191 people in the deadliest attack by Islamic militants on European soil. The rulings followed appeals of some of 21 convictions by a lower court after a five-month trial that ended in October. Seven other people were acquitted at that time. Most dramatically, the court on Thursday upheld the acquittal of one of the bombing’s accused masterminds, Rabei Osman, an Egyptian, who was found guilty in 2006 in...

Germany coach Joachim Low generously praised Spain ahead of Sunday's Euro 2008 final in Vienna, pinpointing their consistency throughout the competition. "The Spaniards have been the most constant team here," said Low. "They have shown consistent levels of performance, they are flexible regarding their positioning and they are sure of the passes they make. ..."We have the experience of this kind of tournament. We believe we can win such games - we have a winner's mentality."

The Vida Foundation of Spain has proposed opening of a museum on abortion. Abortion is a business in Spain with sales volume at $81 million. The director of Fundacion Vida in Spain, Manuel Cruz, said his institution has proposed the opening of a Museum on Abortion as a means of “educating people, especially university students and young people from schools and institutes,” as “very few know what [abortion] is.” “We want to show the instruments that are used, the kinds of abortions, the places where abortions are performed in Spain and testimonies from women who had abortions,” Cruz said. In...

MADRID (Reuters) - A Moroccan suspected of direct involvement in the 2004 Madrid train bombings which killed 191 people was arrested on Sunday in Rabat, a judicial source in Spain familiar with the case said on Monday. Abdelilah Hriz, 29, will be tried in his home country for his suspected part in Europe's deadliest Islamist attack, the first time Morocco has agreed to try one of its citizens for crimes allegedly committed abroad, said the source. Spanish Judge Juan Del Olmo recently traveled to Morocco to question Hriz and take DNA samples, the Moroccan state news agency MAP said last...

The secret war On the North-West Frontier, soldiers are trying to tighten the noose around bin Laden's forces. But in Europe and America, there is no clear enemy to fight - yet every expert knows that a terrorist atrocity is coming Mark Townsend in Tangier, John Hooper in Madrid, Greg Bearup in Peshawar, Paul Harris in Washington, Peter Beaumont in Baghdad, Antony Barnett, Martin Bright, Jason Burke and Nick Pelham in London Sunday March 21, 2004 The Observer There were shadows in the rocks. As the 12 US Special Forces soldiers arrived at a remote mountain region in eastern Afghanistan...

Men behind Madrid bombs laugh in court By Fiona Govan in Madrid Last Updated: 2:33am GMT 01/11/2007 A Spanish court yesterday convicted three men of murder over the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 passengers. The three received symbolic sentences of more than 40,000 years each but under Spanish law they will serve a maximum of 40 years. Two Moroccans, Jamal Zougam, 33, and Otman el Gnaoui, 32, were convicted of carrying out the attacks on four commuter trains. A Spaniard, Jose Emilio Suarez Trashorras, 30, was found guilty of supplying the explosives. Eighteen other people were convicted of lesser...

MADRID, Spain - Spain's National Court convicted the three main suspects in the Madrid commuter train bombings of mass murder Wednesday and sentenced them to tens of thousands of years in prison for Europe's worst Islamic terror attack. But the verdict was a mixed bag for prosecutors, who saw four other key defendants convicted of lesser offenses and an accused ringleader acquitted altogether. With much of the case resting on circumstantial evidence, the three judges may have been wary after a number of high-profile Spanish terror cases were overturned on appeal. Spain's prime minister said the verdict still upheld justice....

Court finds 21 guilty of Madrid bombings By Leslie Crawford in Madrid Published: October 31 2007 14:27 | Last updated: October 31 2007 14:27 A Spanish court on Wednesday convicted 21 people of involvement in the country’s worst terrorist attack, the 2004 Madrid train bombings that traumatised a nation three days before a general election. Seven of the defendants were acquitted, including an Egyptian accused of masterminding the attacks. The March 11 bombings, which killed 191 commuters and injured more than 1,800 in the early morning rush hour, changed the course of Spanish politics. The conservative Popular party government...

HISTORY - Time line [some] Important dates in radical ISLAM VS WORLD 1263 - 1328 The 'Godfather of Islamic Fundamentalism' Who is the True Godfather of Islamic Fundamentalism? His name is Ibn Taymiyyah, or Taq ad-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah, and he lived from 1263 to 1328. His name by birth was Ahmad ibn Abdul-Halim ibn Abdas-Salaam. This individual could be considered as the real godfather of fundamentalism. Maududi borrowed extensively from Taymiyyah's writings. http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/index.php? id=1194248__________________1347 [The Bahmani sultans & genocide on Indians]The Muslim conquests, down to the 16th century, were for the Hindus a pure struggle of life and death....

Madrid, 17 April (AKI) - Al-Qaeda's jailed leader in Spain, Syrian born Imad Eddin Barakat on Tuesday told a Madrid court that the deadly 11 March 2004 attacks on commuter trains in the city were "inadmissible." But he said they took place in the context of the war in Iraq in which Spanish troops were at that time taking part. "In our countries, our cultures, war generates hatred. Abuse generates hatred," Barakat, also known as Abu Dahdah, told the court in halting Spanish. He was being questioned by the prosecution in the high-security trial of 29 people suspected of involvement...

Widow attends massacre trial wearing Mohammed cartoon 26 March 2007 MADRID ? The widow of a man killed in the Madrid bombings attended the trial of Islamic radicals with a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed with a bomb on her T-shirt. The judge in charge of trial on Monday asked security guards to check the woman?s T-shirt and ordered the cameras to halt live transmissions. Initially, he thought the woman could been a relative of one of the 29 accused and thought she might have put some kind of message on her T-shirt. The T-shirt was a copy of the...

BERN, Switzerland -- For centuries, this Alpine nation has successfully relied on a strict policy of political neutrality to insulate it from the wars, invasions and revolutions that have raged outside its borders. These days, a new threat has emerged: one from within. As they have elsewhere in Europe, Islamic radicals are making inroads in Switzerland. Last month, Swiss officials announced the arrests of a dozen suspects who allegedly conspired to shoot down an Israeli airliner flying from Geneva to Tel Aviv. In a related case, a North African man has been charged with organizing a plot from Swiss soil...

Madrid blast 'ends Eta ceasefire' The government says Eta has ended the ceasefire Basque separatist group Eta have carried out a car bomb attack at a Madrid airport ending a ceasefire, the Spanish government has announced.At least four people were injured in the blast in the car park of terminal four at Barajas Airport. "It is an attack which breaks nine months without violent actions by Eta," said Spain's interior minister. He said the prime minister would stress later that "violence and dialogue are incompatible in democracy". Officials said Eta had made a call to claim the attack -...

Three people have been injured by the explosion of a car bomb in the parking of the T-4 [Terminal #4] of Barajas Airport in Madrid around 9:00 AM this Saturday. They are agents of the National Police corps. The Madrid regional government has activated alert level 2 in the region and the SAMUR has set up a portable hospital next to the way out of the terminal. The news agency Vasco press attribute to ETA a call around 8:00 AM to the road assistance asociation DYA in Guipuzcoa [Basque Country] warning of the planting of a bomb in a Renault...

Strong explosion in Madrid airport...

Two police officers arrested and kept two weeks in jail after talking to the independent newspaper EL MUNDO and a girl forced to take away from her home a banner showing criticism to the 3/11 investigation are the first clear signs of breaking of Civil Rights in Spain, as the popular movement for knowing the truth on 3/11 grows.------------------------------------------------------ HE MAINTAINS THAT THERE IS NO EVIDENCE TO JUSTIFY HIS ARRESTThe Jailed Police Officer Arrested For Meeting a EL MUNDO Journalist Requests Del Olmo to Inhibit [From His Case] Because of "Clear Lack of Jurisdiction".Inspector Parrilla is in jail since last...

Source: University of Kentucky Date: December 14, 2006 Researchers Complete Seismic Borehole In Kentucky Drilling has been completed on the deepest borehole for seismic instruments in the eastern U.S. The four-inch diameter hole for the Central U.S. Seismic Observatory (CUSSO), located at Sassafras Ridge in Fulton County, Kentucky, reached a depth of 1,948 feet, where bedrock was encountered. The location is near the most active part of the New Madrid Seismic Zone, the source of at least three major earthquakes in the winter of 1811-12, before the region was heavily populated and developed. This location will allow instruments in the...

Luis del Pino, author of “The Lies on 3/11”“The False Islamic Plot has been Created by the Services of the State in Order to Mislead”On December 11th, the association “Black Pawns” [Peones Negros] will hold another a rally in Salamanca again. This civic movement has the journalist Luis del Pino as one of its intellectual inspirers. Del Pino has become a truly “outsider” of the political information in Spain, as a consequence of his investigation on the 3/11 attacks. JORGE HERNÁNDEZ The author of “The Enigmas of 3/11” and “The Lies on 3/11” has been investigating and publishing data since...

In an unprecedented step, informer Abdelkader Farssaoui aka Cartagena reported last Friday pressures from the Police to cover-up links between Islamists and ETA. Farssaoui surprisingly appeared at the National High Court to file a sixteen page report on which he gives details of the orders he received from his controllers and the tasks he carried out. He claims they pressured and coerced him to conceal the links between Islamists and ETA members in his testimonies before Judges Del Olmo, investigating 3/11, and Garzón, in charge of the supervision of the operation Nova. He also says he elaborated notes on Islamists...

A person involved was on 3/11 in the Vallecas precinct.A Police Plot in Madrid on Goma-2 ECO and Detonators Trafficking Is Being Investigated.The Provincial Brigade of Information is investigating various National Police officers that might be involved in Goma-2 ECO and detonators trafficking. According to EL MUNDO revelations, one of the suspects was assigned during the night of 3/11 to the Vallecas Bridge precinct, where the backpack number 13, that led to the first arrests and on which the Official Version is founded, appeared. Although it was not known until now, the investigations began last August 15th, with the supervision...

PORTLAND - Oregon attorney Brandon Mayfield, who was wrongly accused in the 2004 Madrid terrorist train bombings, has settled his lawsuit against the federal government for $2 million in damages. The lawsuit said Mayfield was wrongly arrested on the basis of misidentified fingerprints. Mayfield, a convert to Islam, said he was arrested because of his faith. Mayfield was held for two weeks in 2004. Attorney Elden Rosenthal confirmed the settlement Wednesday and plans to hold a news conference with Mayfield in Portland in the afternoon. Mayfield is still challenging the Patriot Act. The FBI in Portland did not immediately return...

The tattered and a bit muddy "Madrid for Congress" sign hung on the wall of Democratic Party headquarters as Patricia Madrid this morning conceded the 1st Congressional District race to U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson. But that plastic banner could soon say "Madrid For Something Else." During her concession speech, Madrid hinted she might run for governor or the U.S. Senate after leaving the Attorney General's Office she has run for eight years. Her term ends in December. "Whatever I do, if I look at it, will very likely be a statewide race," she said. "Certainly, I don't ever want to...

Republican Rep. Heather Wilson retained her seat Friday, narrowly winning a fifth term in Congress by defeating Democrat Patricia Madrid and overcoming election-season sentiment that battered GOP incumbents nationwide. Wilson won New Mexico's 1st Congressional District after Bernalillo County Clerk Mary Herrera released the county's final unofficial count Friday night. The final unofficial tally was 105,916 votes for Wilson, and 105,037 for Madrid. That gave Wilson a winning margin of 879 votes — with roughly 211,000 ballots cast in the race. ''The people of New Mexico have asked me to continue to represent them in the Congress,'' Wilson said Friday...

GOP confident of Wilson victory; county extends deadline to 9 p.m. With incumbent Rep. Heather Wilson holding on to a roughly 900-vote lead, and GOP observers claiming there are about 500 ballots left to count, according to this morning's Albuquerque Journal story, you'd think it would be over. The official unofficial number of votes left to be counted as of this morning is 1,985, but GOP tallies say the actual count is no more than 500, and county elections administrator Jaime Diaz told the Journal that an estimated 200 of those had been disqualified. But it's never over till it's...

Democrat Patricia Madrid cut into Rep. Heather Wilson's margin in the 1st Congressional District vote-count Wednesday night, but she also lost opportunity as hundreds of other ballots were disqualified. A new tally of more than 900 Bernalillo County "in-lieu-of" ballots broke more than two-to-one in Madrid's favor, cutting Wilson's lead to 1,164 votes, according to an unofficial count. But according to estimates by County Clerk Mary Herrera, at least 845 other ballots had been disqualified, meaning that no more than 1,985 ballots remained to be counted in Bernalillo County. Madrid, the state's attorney general, would have to win about 79...

Republicans cried foul Monday after Attorney General Patricia Madrid's office provided legal advice on how to count Bernalillo County ballots in her close 1st Congressional District race against Rep. Heather Wilson. The legal advice could allow more provisional ballots to be counted in the ongoing tallying of votes— a possible advantage for Madrid, who trailed Wilson by 1,487 votes. "The attorney general should never even have been asked to rule on this, because it's a clear conflict of interest," said Enrique Carlos Knell, spokesman for the four-term Republican congresswoman. Assistant Attorney General Chris Coppin said he— not the Democratic attorney...

By all accounts, the United States’ midterm elections have produced a political earthquake by handing over control of the Senate and the House of Representatives to Democrats. And by all accounts, the trigger of the quake was Iraq. Surprisingly, however, Iraq, although used as a code concept for attacking President George W. Bush, was hardly debated in the context of its broader realities and the impact its future might have on the regional and, indeed, the global balance of power. The word “Iraq” brought together a disparate coalition that might unravel, now that the Democrats share greater responsibility in shaping...

ALBUQUERQUE -- The vote-counting process is far from done in Bernalillo County despite the last of the ballots rejected by scanning machines being counted by hand and added to totals. With the inclusion of 642 rejected ballots, Rep. Heather Wilson’s lead over Democrat Patricia Madrid shrank by 126 votes. That still leaves Wilson 1,481 votes ahead out of more than 108,000 cast, enough for her to declare victory as Democrats say her claim is premature. Election totals remain unofficial until certified by the county and state canvassing boards. Today Bernalillo County Clerk Mary Herrera said she may need to ask...

ALBUQUERQUE -- Heather Wilson raised a toast of orange juice with her husband and children, confident that re-election was secure after a 36-hour delay. The incumbent Republican declared victory late Thursday in her bid for a fifth term in the U.S. House. Wilson holds a razor-thin lead over Democrat Patricia Madrid in one of New Mexico's most caustic campaigns ever. ''My children expected to be celebrating with orange juice on Wednesday morning. It's taken a while, but I'm glad they're here with me to celebrate. Josh and Cait, we won,'' she told her 13-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter. Democrats refused...

Video of Republcan Heather Wilson declaring victory in New Mexico District 1 at 10 p.m. MST, November 9, and Rats responding by claiming "Republicans don't like Democracy and don't want every vote counted." Heather leads by 1,607 votes with 4,400 provisional votes left to count. Provisional ballots, most commonly filed by dumb Dems who forget where they registered or even if they are registered, are often disqualified with 40 to 50% thrown out not being uncommon.

In Bernalillo County, it seems the dreary part of democracy always ends up in a drab warehouse, with weary election workers hand-tallying ballots among fast-food cups, political observers and attorneys. This year is no different. About 100 election workers continued to tally 4,580 ballots by hand Wednesday at the warehouse, near Interstate 25 and Montaño NW. And after that is finished, they still have another 3,800 provisional and "in-lieu-of" absentee ballots to examine. They will start counting those today, and County Clerk Mary Herrerra estimated it would take two days. They are counted as part of the canvassing process, which...

Here are the latest, unofficial returns from New Mexico TP PR Madrid Wilson Bernalillo 414 413 91,488 90,731 Sandoval 15 15 3,971 3,810 Santa Fe 3 3 604 1,297 Torrance 18 18 2,100 3,266 Valencia 15 15 2,990 3,352 Totals 465 464 101,153 102,456

She was the Democrats' best hope against U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson, their No. 1 star in an election season scarred by scandal and war. And Attorney General Patricia Madrid still might be. But we probably won't know for sure until the end of the week. Or next week. After the congressional candidates spent a long evening playing cat-and-mouse in their vote tallies, they went into the morning hours with Wilson holding a 1,303-vote lead. But their fate is bound up in two sets of uncounted ballots totaling more than 5,000 votes. One group consists of more than 2,000 ballots rejected...

Republican Rep. Heather Wilson and Democratic challenger Patricia Madrid brought out some political and local star power Sunday during their separate high-energy, high-decibel political rallies. Wilson's northeast Albuquerque event highlighted her support among some Hispanics and members of the opposing political party, featuring former Rep. Manuel Lujan Jr. and New Mexico musical legend Al Hurricane, who happens to be a Democrat. "She's super bright," said Lujan, who from 1969-1989 held the 1st District seat now held by Wilson. "I served there for 20 years, so I watch her very closely— and I think she does the right thing." At a...

The Heather Wilson campaign for Congress is using footage from KOB-TV’s televised debate between Wilson and her opponent, Attorney General Patricia Madrid, in a new attack ad. Click here to watch the Video

In an election in New Mexico's 1st Congressional District today, 10/16/06, Democrat challenger Patrica Madrid tops Republican incumbent Heather Wilson by 8 points, 53% to 45%, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted exclusively for KOB-TV Albuquerque. Since an identical SurveyUSA KOB-TV poll released 9/21/06, Madrid has gained 7 points and Wilson has lost 6 points. Wilson had led by 5, now trails by 8, a 13-point swing. Madrid leads by 16 points among women. The race is tied among men. Wilson gets 85% of Republican votes. Madrid gets 79% of Democrat votes. Independents favor Madrid 55% to 42%. In the...

A SUSPECTED al Qaeda leader, accused of being involved in September 11 and planning the 2004 Madrid train bombings, has been imprisoned in a secret US jail for the past year, Spain's El Pais newspaper reported today. Mustafa Setmarian, 48, a Syrian with Spanish citizenship, was captured in Pakistan in October 2005 and is held in a prison operated by the US Central Intelligence Agency, Pakistani and European security service officials told El Pais. A spokesman for the US embassy in Spain declined to comment on the report. Setmarian's 2005 capture was reported in May of this year after the...

Spanish villages are abandoning the centuries-old tradition of burning effigies of the Prophet Muhammad for fear of offending Muslims. The annual festivals...feature locals donning medieval costumes to re-enact battles between "Moors and Christians" during the Reconquista period. The fiestas celebrate events in 1492, when the Catholic kings of northern Spain defeated and expelled Islamic forces, ending more than 800 years of Moorish rule in the Iberian Peninsula. Traditionally the festivities have culminated with the burning of mannequins of the Mahoma, a figure based on the Prophet Muhammad, to represent the final defeat of Islam in the region.

Republican incumbent Heather Wilson and Democratic challenger Patricia Madrid are running dead even in a race for New Mexico's 1st Congressional District seat, a new Journal Poll found. The war in Iraq appears to be weighing on the nationally watched contest that could help decide the balance of power in Congress: 59 percent of the registered likely voters polled said the candidates' positions on Iraq are "very important" factors in how they will vote. Wilson has defended the war and backed President Bush, while Madrid has criticized Wilson's position. "The mood of the state and the nation regarding Iraq is...

Heather Wilson (R) 51% Patricia Madrid (D) 46% Undecided 3% 503 Likely Voters, +/- 4.5% MOE

MADRID (Reuters) - The trial of 29 people accused over the 2004 Madrid train bombings, which killed 191 people, is expected to get under way in February 2007, a court source said on Tuesday. The 29 were charged in April with murder and other crimes related to the four bombs which were placed in commuter trains on March 11, just days before a general election which saw the defeat of the conservative government. The trial is expected to be one of Europe's biggest terrorism trials. The defendants are mostly Spanish or Moroccan. A senior judicial source told reporters at a...

A chance arrest in the city of Rotterdam and tapped telephone conversations were both key factors behind the move to the heightened terrorist alert that has been in place in the Netherlands since 9 July. On Wednesday, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service and Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that a 17-year-old Dutch Muslim youth had been arrested on 30 June on suspicion of involvement in a raid on a supermarket. A subsequent search of his home allegedly led to the discovery of a number of items which, while they had nothing to do with "ordinary" crime, could be connected with...