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News, December 2004More NewsA few more news items and where to find more news about Spain: Personal Debt25 Nov '04. 43% of homes have some debt and the average among them is 22,000 Euros, mostly mortgages. Those least likely to be in debt are precisely the (otherwise) worst off! Low income families and pensioners are most able to survive, apparently, without incurring debt. Only just over 20% of home owners have an outstanding mortgage. 80% of the families surveyed owned their home. Of great alarm is the 8.5% of families who owe three times - or more- their income. Bank of Spain figures based on a survey almost 2 years old of some 5,000 homes. 25% of Spanish homes have access to the InternetAccording to recent official surveys by the National Statistics Institute in December 2002 the number of people with access to the Internet was only 17.4%, but a year later had grown to 24%. By the end of July '03, the number of ADSL lines was 1,343,823 with Madrid and Barcelona way ahead, emphasising the gap between town and country in technological advance. (El Mundo, TVE) A campaign run by the government between September 2004 and spring 2006 aims to improve rural internet access possibilites. In September 2004 still only 25% of homes have access to internet. 43% of Spanish computer users hit their machine when it fails to work as they would like. Principal problem seems to be the mouse. www.elmundo.es has over 5 million unique monthly visitorsEl Mundo, as well as a very popular printed paper, is Spain's most widely read electronic news service and first crossed the 5 million mark in October 2004, with 5.4 million in November. The number is increasing rapidly. Other papers lag, with dailies specialising in sport having most success: www.marca.com almost reached 3 million and www.as.com is now above a million, with the second general daily www.abc.es close behind it. 'Circulation' stats are the speciality of www.ojd.es which can be read in English. Test Tube Tourism23/11/04 Since Spain has one of the easiest legal regimes for artificial, in-vitro insemination processes, many Europeans are visiting Spain in their desperation to become pregnant. 40% of the several thousand cases each year are foreigners, from countries such as Britain. Finally, more news from the churches is always available at the Protestante Digital and Protestantes sites:
This week on Protestante Digital:Official silence reigns over Christmas service cancellation |