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/ 20 October 2005
David Beckham and Jonathan Woodgate made Real Madrid history on Wednesday as it was the first time that two Englishmen had scored in the same game for the Spanish giants. The England internationals, with Woodgate hoping to soon be back in England coach Sven Goran Eriksson’s plans after 17 months out injured, scored Real’s first and last goals in their 4-1 Champions League thrashing of Rosenborg.
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/ 20 October 2005
Andy Roddick blew a match point in the second set and lost 3-6, 7-6 (7), 7-6 (3) to Ivo Karlovic of Croatia in the Madrid Masters’ second round on Wednesday. It was Roddick’s first tour match since the United States Open’s first round in August, and Karlovic’s first win over the American after two defeats this year.
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/ 19 October 2005
David Nalbandian advanced to the Madrid Masters’ third round on Tuesday, and last year’s runner-up believes he can supersede absent titleholder Marat Safin. ”I think I can win this sort of tournament,” Nalbandian said. ”If that happens, I will be close to the Masters Cup. That’s why I’m playing right now, to be able to get there.”
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/ 18 October 2005
Top seed Rafael Nadal will go easy on his tender left knee in training while vowing to take to the court for his matches at the €2,1-million Madrid Masters. The top seed is one of the last remaining big draws at an event hit by injury pull-outs by Roger Federer, Andre Agassi, Lleyton Hewitt and holder Marat Safin.
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/ 14 October 2005
Seve Ballesteros endured a nightmare return to the European Tour after a two-year absence on Thursday when he carded a six-over-par 77 in the first round of the Madrid Open. The 48-year-old Spaniard, who gave fans a taste of his old magic when he hit one shot on his knees, never recovered from a horror start.
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/ 11 October 2005
Cellphones in the hands of sub-Saharan African immigrants left to their fate in the desert after trying to reach Spain have proved to be a key weapon in the fight against human rights abuses, allowing aid organisations and the media to find them.
Spain’s announcement that it plans to build a third fence to separate its enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla from Morocco has drawn loud criticism while giving rise to many questions. The most frequently asked question is whether the measures designed to dissuade desperately poor people from sub-Saharan Africa from attempting to enter Europe will be effective.
Hundreds of would-be immigrants mounted a fresh assault on Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla on Wednesday, and 65 of them succeeded in breaking through its defences to what they hope will be a better life. Recent months have seen a sharp increase of such incidents.
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/ 29 September 2005
Four people died and dozens were injured when hundreds of would-be immigrants tried to storm a border-crossing between Morocco and Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta early on Thursday, as the countries’ prime ministers held a summit on illegal immigration.
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/ 26 September 2005
David Beckham said on Monday that Real Madrid are interested in extending his contract. ”The club have said they want to talk to me about signing a new deal and I am very happy to do that,” Beckham said. ”My life here is perfect and I’m happy at Real Madrid, so of course I want to stay as long as I can.”
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/ 14 September 2005
Real Madrid coach Vanderlei Luxemburgo insists the team mustn’t panic in the face of a dismal start to the season that continued with a 3-0 Champions League defeat to Lyon. The thrashing at Stade Gerland on Wednesday came four days after the team’s 3-2 home loss against newly promoted Celta Vigo in the Spanish league.
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/ 13 September 2005
Villarreal goalkeeper Sebastian Viera was keeping remarkably calm on Tuesday despite the imminent arrival of the Manchester United artillery in the shape of Wayne Rooney and Ruud van Nistelrooy. Manchester United return to the Mediterranean coast for the first time since they triumphed in the 1999 Champions League and now face Villarreal in a group D match on Wednesday.
It is said to be the world’s largest tomato battle. Tens of thousands of people hurled truckloads of tomatoes at each other on Wednesday, sending knee-deep rivers of tomato sauce down the streets of the small Spanish town of Buñol during its annual food fight, the Tomatina.
Rivers run low, crops wither, livestock starve to death and wildfires rage on the Iberian peninsula in the grip of a devastating drought that makes it look like the Sahara is reaching out across the Mediterranean. The peninsula’s fiercest drought in 60 years is seen as a further sign of desertification in the region.
The football world has obviously become too small for Real Madrid, with the Spanish giants now planning to open theme parks in the United States and China. Real president Florentino Perez told Friday’s AS newspaper that the club have already had talks with officials in Miami and Beijing.
Hooded protesters destroyed a bus and a bomb damaged offices in northern Spain overnight on Thursday after an alleged member of the Basque separatist group ETA died during a police chase, officials said. The explosion at about 2am local time on Friday extensively damaged the offices of a building company in Guernica.
A Spanish parliamentary panel investigating the Madrid rail bombings has concluded that the former government of Jose Maria Aznar ”manipulated” and ”twisted” information about the blasts to further its electoral interests, it emerged on Wednesday.
Spanish champion FC Barcelona drew 0-0 with Real Sociedad on Saturday in their final league match of the season. Barcelona, who lacked five of their title-winning team, including Ronaldinho and Deco, gave a relaxed display at Sociedad’s Anoeta stadium. The champions were applauded by their opponents before the match.
A powerful car bomb slightly injured three people in the Spanish capital, Madrid, on Wednesday, and officials blamed the armed Basque separatist group ETA. Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero last week won controversial parliamentary backing for a plan to open talks with ETA if the group agrees to disband.
England skipper David Beckham said he is ”amazed” and finds it ”incredible” that his family’s former nanny sold a story making claims about his marriage to a Sunday tabloid newspaper. The Real Madrid player and his wife, Victoria, have already admitted they plan to sue the former nanny Abbie Gibson for breach of confidence
Spain’s Lower House of Parliament approved the Socialist government’s gay marriage Bill on Thursday, a major step toward making Spain the third European country to legalise same-sex marriages. Belgium and The Netherlands are the only two other European countries that have legalised gay marriages.
An Argentinian former naval officer who threw prisoners, drugged and naked, to their death from planes was convicted of crimes against humanity and jailed for a total of 640 years by a Spanish court on Tuesday for his part in the ”dirty war” against dissidents conducted by the Argentinian military regime in the 1970s.
A meteorite that residents described as a ”huge ball of fire” was spotted on Wednesday over the eastern Spanish regions of Catalonia and Valencia, according to astronomers in the region. ”We received scores of calls from witnesses, who at first thought it was an asteroid flashing past,” said a spokesperson for an astronomers’ association.
Crocodiles living in the Sahara sounds like fiction, but Spanish scientists are investigating such a group in southern Mauritania. The reptiles are regarded as the last remains of the abundant crocodile population that roamed the Sahara before it dried up about 9Â 000 years ago. The group of a few dozen crocodiles subsists at a pond near the Senegalese border.
Real Madrid coach Vanderlei Luxemburgo has defended David Beckham, saying he is the hardest-working player at the club. ”He is the player who works hardest here and he plays in a position which isn’t his,” Luxemburgo said in an interview with sports daily As, published on Wednesday.
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/ 23 February 2005
A 1-0 home leg win over Juventus leaves record European champions Real Madrid well placed to reach the quarterfinals of the Champions League. In other action, a brace from Claudio Pizarro helped Bayern Munich down Arsenal 3-1, PSV Eindhoven beat AS Monaco 1-0 and Liverpool continued to save their best perform for Europe, beating Bayer Leverkusen 3-1 at Anfield.
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/ 16 February 2005
A Spanish scientist who went blind discovered the cause of his retinal disease, making it possible to treat up to two million sufferers worldwide, the daily El Pais reported on Wednesday. Luis Carrasco (55) microbiology professor at Madrid’s Autonomous University, began losing his eyesight in 1994.
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/ 14 February 2005
The skyscraper in Madrid’s business and financial district that was gutted by a weekend fire remained upright but unstable on Monday with a large construction crane still perched on the roof atop the building’s blackened frame. ”Don’t Fall Down,” read the front-page headline on the free newspaper Que passed out to morning subway and bus commuters.
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/ 14 February 2005
Michael Owen and Ivan Helguera scored three minutes apart late in the second half and Real Madrid rallied past Osasuna 2-1 on Sunday to give coach Vanderlei Luxemburgo a record seventh straight victory since taking over the club. The victory on a wind-swept field kept Madrid four points behind Spanish league leader FC Barcelona.
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/ 1 February 2005
Four hospitals and 60 pharmacies in the north-eastern Spanish region of Catalonia will distribute cannabis to patients suffering from Aids, cancer, multiple sclerosis or chronic pain of nervous origin, local media reported on Tuesday. Patients not responding to conventional treatments will be prescribed capsules containing cannabis powder.
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/ 24 January 2005
The odds on Valencia retaining their Spanish league title lengthened on Sunday after the reigning champions went down 3-1 at local rivals Villarreal. Villarreal’s Argentine international Juan Roman Riquelme was the man who did the damage with a hat-trick.
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/ 13 January 2005
Don Quixote, the endearing tale of a mad, errant knight and his sidekick, Sancho Panza — described variously as the ”universal novel” or the ”bible of humanity” — celebrates its 400th birthday this week, kicking off a year-long party for one of the world’s most acclaimed literary works.