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Planes Fight Spain Wildfires, Thousands Evacuated

Scores of villagers spent the night in hotels and student halls after fleeing wildfires that continued raging out of control Sunday on the Spanish Canary Islands.

The fires on the Atlantic islands of La Gomera and Tenerife have forced the evacuation of more than 4,700 people in the past two days, the regional government said.

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Forest Fire Prompts New Evacuations from Spain's Canaries

Spanish authorities ordered new evacuations overnight as a forest fire raged on the Canary island of La Gomera as well as in the northern Galicia region, emergency services said Saturday.

The fires had been close to being brought under control after already ravaging an area of some 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) on La Gomera, including part of the Garajonay natural reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

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Spain Schools to Charge Pupils for Eating Packed Lunch

Several Spanish regions plan to charge pupils who bring their own lunch to school a fee to eat in the cafeteria, in the struggle to bring public deficits under control.

The northeastern region of Catalonia has said it will charge students who bring a packed lunch up to three euros ($3.70) a time to use a school canteen and the adjoining region of Valencia plans a similar move.

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Spain Jails Two Chechen al-Qaida Suspects

A Spanish judge on Sunday jailed two Chechens suspected of belonging to al-Qaida and possessing bomb-making material, a judicial source said.

A Turk who was arrested at the same time on August 1 had already been jailed on Friday after Spain's interior minister said investigators had evidence suggesting the trio were planning attacks in Europe.

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Spanish Police Arrest 3 Qaida Suspects

Spanish police arrested three suspected al-Qaida members thought to have been planning an attack in Spain or elsewhere in Europe and seized enough explosives to blow up a bus, the government said Thursday.

"One of the suspects is a very important operative in al-Qaida's international structure," Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz told a news conference.

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Crisis Kills Culture in Spain, Artists Warn

For the government, it's a target for crisis taxes and cuts like any other: the subsidized arts sector. For actors, artists and audiences, it's Spain's moral lifeblood, bleeding away in the recession.

The arts in Spain -- including the big film sector that gave the world Pedro Almodovar -- is in peril from a sharp rise in sales tax that will drive away audiences, top cultural figures say.

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Spain Angers Feminists with Plan to Tighten Abortion Law

Spain's conservative government has provoked a storm among women's groups with plans to tighten abortion laws to make the procedure illegal in cases where the fetus is deformed.

About 100 people took part in a rally in Madrid's central Tirso de Molina square on Sunday to protest against the proposed reform which they argue will take Spain back to the era of the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco.

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Spain Seeks French Support As Eurozone Crisis Deepens

Beleaguered Spain was to seek French support in the face of its soaring borrowing costs Wednesday as Europe's economic crisis deepened with a slump in German confidence and worsening British recession.

After talks in Berlin Tuesday, Spanish Finance Minister Luis de Guindos was to meet French counterpart Pierre Moscovici in Paris as the Eurozone tries to contain fears Spain may be headed for a full bailout.

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Firefighters Close in on Deadly Spain Blaze

Firefighters were on the verge Tuesday of stamping out a wildfire in Spain that killed four people and sent terrified campers from across Europe fleeing for their lives, officials said.

Hundreds of emergency workers and volunteers were fighting the fire, which has raged over 14,000 hectares (35,000 acres), devouring tall trees and leaving charred earth and flocks of dead sheep in its wake.

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France Says Aiding Spain Might Mean Fund Boost, ECB Action

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Tuesday that he hoped that Spain would not need a full bailout, but if so, it could require a boost to Europe's rescue fund or European Central Bank action.

"I hope it will not be necessary to intervene again," Fabius told France 2 television. "If we have to intervene, it could be (via) an increase of firewalls... or interventions by the (European) central bank."

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