Interest on Spanish and Italian debt fell to record low on Monday while Portugal's continued to drop as investor concerns about the eurozone's former laggards eased.

Borrowing costs for southern European countries have fallen since the European Central Bank brought in unprecedented measures in June to help boost weak inflation in the bloc.

A luxury yacht given to Spain's former king Juan Carlos, who abdicated last month, will be sold for 2.2 million euros ($3.0 million) to a shipping company, in a move to cut costs, officials said Monday.

The 41.5-meter (136-foot) yacht Fortuna was donated to the monarch in 2000 by a business group in the Balearic Islands which hoped the royals presence in the Mediterranean archipelago would draw holidaymakers.

The new leader of Spain's main opposition Socialist Party vowed Sunday during his inaugural speech to lead the party back to power and get the crisis-hit country "back on track."

Pedro Sanchez, 42-year-old economist who was virtually unheard of only a few months ago, said Sapin was "exasperated, angry, hurt" after six years of "unprecedented" economic crisis during a speech to an extraordinary party congress in Madrid.

Spanish police said Sunday they had smashed a ring suspected of trafficking people, mainly Cubans, from Spain to the United States through Mexico, with the arrest of 14 people.

Several hundred protesters demanded a halt to Israel's ground offensive in Gaza during a peaceful demonstration Thursday outside the Israeli embassy in Madrid.

About 400 demonstrators, many of them waving Palestinian flags in red, white, green and black, chanted "murderers" as police looked on.

A year after a train flew off the tracks on the outskirts of the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela, killing 79 people, the driver on Thursday asked for forgiveness in an open letter to the victims.

"I feel a great deal of pain and sorrow," Francisco Jose Garzon Amo, who has been provisionally charged over the accident, wrote in the letter published in daily newspaper La Voz de Galicia.

Criminal charges were filed Wednesday against six people in what authorities said was a global cyber-crime ring that created fraudulent e-tickets for major concerts and sporting events.

Real Madrid on Tuesday signed Colombian striker James Rodriguez, the top scorer at the World Cup, from Monaco on a six season contract.

Neither team gave the transfer fee, but Spanish media reported a figure of between €75 million and €80 million ($101m-$108m), making him one of the most expensive players in history.

Spanish firefighters on Saturday battled forest blazes that have destroyed hundreds of hectares of parched land and forced scores of people from their homes, authorities said.

Nearly 500 emergency workers were fighting two blazes in the central province of Guadalajara, according to the regional Castile-la-Mancha agriculture ministry.

Spain accused Britain on Friday of "unacceptable interference" for launching a diplomatic protest over a maritime dispute off the contested British territory of Gibraltar.

It was the latest in a long string of diplomatic skirmishes over the tiny Mediterranean peninsula which has been governed by Britain since 1713 but is claimed by Spain.