An Al-Qaida suspect plotted to poison tourists' water supplies to avenge the killing of Osama bin Laden, a Spanish judge said Saturday as he remanded the man in custody.

Abdellatif Aoulad Chiba, a 36-year-old Moroccan, had gone so far as to obtain manuals on poisons, toxins and explosives on jihadist websites, the judge said.

A violent storm lashed Pope Benedict XVI and around one million pilgrims at an open-air service in Madrid, forcing him to cut short his speech and drenching the faithful who had waited for hours in blistering heat.

As the heavens opened during World Youth Day celebrations Saturday night, Benedict's skullcap was swept off and an assistant tried to shelter the 84-year-old pontiff with a large white umbrella.

A sea of pilgrims cheered Pope Benedict XVI outside Madrid's cathedral Saturday as he embarked on a final weekend of dazzling Catholic festivities, hit by repeated protests.

Tens of thousands of young pilgrims, many waving national flags and wearing orange floppy hats made for August 16-21 World Youth Day celebrations, packed the square in front of Madrid's Almudena Cathedral.

Spain said Friday it is joining calls for U.N. Security Council sanctions against Syria's government, blamed for at least 2,000 deaths since protests started in mid-March.

Spain is backing Britain, France, Germany and Portugal, which are preparing a sanctions resolution against President Bashar Assad's government, Foreign Minister Trinidad Jimenez said.

Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday denounced the profit-at-all-cost mentality he says is behind Europe's current economic crisis. The pontiff insisted that morals and ethics must play a greater role in formulating economic policy in the future.

"Man must be at the center of the economy and the economy must not be measured only by the maximization of profit but according to the common good," the pontiff told reporters aboard his plane as he traveled to Madrid for the Catholic Church's World Youth Day.

Coco Chanel: A fashion icon whose name has become shorthand for timeless French chic, a shrewd businesswoman who overcame a childhood of poverty to build a luxury supernova and ... a Nazi spy?

A new book by a Paris-based American historian suggests Chanel not only had a wartime affair with a German aristocrat and spy, but that she herself was also an agent of Germany's Abwehr military intelligence organization and a rabid anti-Semite.

Spanish gays and lesbians say they will hold a protest "kiss-in" Thursday in front of Pope Benedict XVI when he joins huge Catholic youth festivities in Madrid.

The kiss-in is being organized on Facebook by gay groups including Asamblea Transmaricabollo de Sol, which was set up during popular "indignant" protests that erupted May 15 over Spain's economies woes.

Spanish police said Tuesday they had arrested a foreign student suspected of planning to use asphyxiating chemicals to attack a protest march against a visit by Pope Benedict XVI.

Police said they had seized a laptop, portable memory, and two notebooks containing notes about chemicals not on the student's course. But they made no mention of chemicals or equipment being taken.

Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims poured into Madrid for a giant open-air mass Tuesday, launching a six-day youth party for Pope Benedict XVI at a time of economic hardship in Spain.

The faithful will pack into the emblematic central Madrid square of Cibeles for the inaugural mass celebrated by Madrid's archbishop, Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela.

European stocks sank Tuesday on news of a sharp slowdown in Eurozone powerhouse Germany, and before crisis talks on the economy between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In morning trade, Frankfurt's DAX 30 index of leading shares dived 2.29 percent to 5,884.61 points, the Paris CAC 40 dropped 1.47 percent to 3,191.41 points and London's FTSE 100 slid 0.77 percent to 5,309.4.