Andorra  - At least two construction workers died when a traffic tunnel collapsed in the small south-western European country of Andorra Saturday, Spanish radio broadcaster RNE reported.

Search efforts are underway in the rubble for five workers. Four others, all suffering serious injuries, have already been rescued.

Work was underway on the three-kilometre long tunnel to connect the communities of Encamp and La Massana in the principality in the Pyrenees mountains. The unexplained collapse happened during the installation of a cement ceiling.(dpa)

Andorra la Vella, Andorra - The eighth stage of the 2009 Tour de France got underway Saturday in the city of Andorra la Vella, in the principality of Andorra, with Italian Tour novice Rinaldo Nocentini wearing the race leader's yellow jersey.

The 176.5km course to Saint-Girons in France takes the 176 riders left in the race over three mountains, two of them rated category 1 in difficulty, and is ideal for a long breakaway by riders with little hope of winning the Tour but eager to grab a stage victory.

Andorra la Vella - The centre-left Social Democrats (PS) have won the parliamentary election in the tiny Pyrenean principality of Andorra, falling just one seat shy of an absolute majority, election authorities announced Monday. By winning 14 of the 28 seats in the Parliament, the PS ended 14 years of rule by the Andorran Liberal Party
(PLA). PS head Jaume Bartumeu, 54, said he would try to form a coalition government with the new Andorran Party for Change (ApC), which took three seats.

Andorra la Vella - The tiny Pyrenean state of Andorra will lift its banking secrecy laws, the government announced Thursday.

The country of some 70,000 residents is hoping that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) will now remove it from its black list of uncooperative tax havens.

Andorra will pass a law changing its banking rules by November, according to an agreement signed by Prime Minister Albert Pintat in Paris on Wednesday.

Andorra will provide tax information on foreign depositors to the authorities of their home countries within the framework of bilateral agreements.