Spanish police arrested a British man who has admitted killing his partner, missing since September in a region of Spain popular with foreign tourists, a police source said on Tuesday.

The man confessed to the killing on Monday and on Tuesday morning led officers to the woman's body near the eastern city of Alicante, the source told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Police arrested two suspected jihadists Tuesday in Spain's north African territory of Ceuta on charges of belonging to a group that was "prepared" to launch an attack on Spanish soil, the government said.

"The national police at dawn this morning carried out an anti-terrorist operation which led to the detention in Ceuta of two suspected jihadists," the interior ministry said in a statement.

Four decades after the death of dictator Francisco Franco, Spain has not completely turned the page on his dictatorship as dozens of monuments honoring his regime are still scattered across the country.

"It would be inconceivable to see a statue of the Fuhrer in Germany or of Il Duce in Italy," said Eduardo Ranz, a 30-year-old lawyer who is leading efforts to have the Franco symbols removed.

A Spanish court on Thursday remanded in custody Ukraine's former finance minister Yuri Kolobov pending his extradition to Kiev where he is wanted for alleged fraud and theft of public funds.

Police detained Kolobov, who served under ousted president Viktor Yanukovych, on Wednesday in Altea, a hilltop village on the Mediterranean coast in the province of Alicante.

The European Union and Cuba held a third round of "frank" talks Wednesday aimed at normalizing relations, as Havana and Washington work through their own historic rapprochement.

The two-day session in Havana, part of a dialogue that began 11 months ago, is aimed at tackling sensitive human rights issues and finalizing an agreement "on political dialogue and cooperation," meant to turn the page on a decade of estrangement.

Spanish police on Wednesday detained Ukraine's former finance minister Yuri Kolobov who is wanted by Kiev for alleged fraud and theft of public funds, a police source said.

The 41-year-old, who served under ousted pro-Kremlin president Viktor Yanukovych, was arrested in Altea, a hilltop village on the Mediterranean coast, the source said.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Sunday called on his Greek counterpart to get "serious" about his country's debt-wracked economy, after Alexis Tsipras accused eurozone partners of undermining its negotiations with Brussels.

Rajoy was reacting to comments by Tsipras on Saturday, who said that during talks that earned Greece a four-month extension to its bailout, pressure from certain other European countries "had the character of blackmail" -- pointing especially to Spain and Portugal.

Police arrested eight Spanish men who returned from fighting alongside pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, in what they said was the first operation of its kind in Europe.

Officers detained the suspects in six regions across Spain after they returned from predominantly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, the interior ministry said in a statement.

Spain's conservative government reacted angrily Thursday to a visit by former Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to Cuba and his meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro, calling it disloyal.

Zapatero, Spain's prime minister between 2004 and 2011, and his foreign minister at the time, Miguel Angel Moratinos, met with Castro on Wednesday during a private visit to the Communist-run island.

A Spanish court on Thursday remanded in custody four men suspected of using Facebook and other social media to recruit fighters for the Islamic State extremist group.

The men, who were arrested in early morning raids on Tuesday in the northeastern region of Catalonia and Melilla, a Spanish enclave neighboring Morocco, face allegations of proselytism and indoctrination using social media sites, "mainly Facebook", a judicial source said.