Madrid - The Spanair plane involved in a crash that killed 154 people in Madrid in August attempted to take off without opening its flaps and slats, according to the 12-page preliminary report on the accident released Thursday in Madrid by the Spanish Public Works Ministry.

The document said that the wreckage of the MD-82 showed the malfunction, but the pilots would not have known there was a problem because the alarm signal did not go off.

Madrid - The Spanair plane involved in a crash that killed 154 people in Madrid in August attempted to take off without opening its flaps and slats, according to the 12-page preliminary report on the accident released Thursday in Madrid by the Spanish Public Works Ministry.

The document said that the wreckage of the MD-82 showed the malfunction, but the pilots would not have known there was a problem because the alarm signal did not go off.

Madrid  - The Spanish edition of the internet encyclopedia Wikipedia on Thursday erroneously said French author Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio had died of a heart attack on hearing that he had won the literature Nobel Prize.

"On hearing the news, because of the surprise, he suffered a heart attack and was taken in critical condition to the Charles de Gaulle hospital in Paris, where he died at 1.05 pm," the Wikipedia entry on Le Clezio said.

Madrid - The human rights group Amnesty International (AI) on Wednesday accused the Spanish government of not having tried to prevent US flights transporting terrorist suspects to illegal detention centres across Spanish airspace.

At least 90 flights linked to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) made stopovers at 15 Spanish airports, mainly on the Canary Islands, between 2002 and 2007, the Spanish section of AI said in a report.

About 200 people were taken to the US prison camp in Guantanamo, Cuba, on flights that took off from US military bases in Spain or crossed the Spanish airspace, AI charged.

Madrid  - Spain's new fund to shore up banks facing the international financial crisis will raise public debt by up to 2.8 percentage points to a maximum of 41.6 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2009, officials said Wednesday.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on Tuesday announced the creation of a government fund of 30 billion euros (41 billion dollars) to buy assets from banks and to thus support lending to companies and individuals.

Madrid - Spain will increase its guarantees for bank deposits from 20,000 to 100,000 euros (27,000 to 137,000 dollars) per account holder and bank, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero announced Tuesday.

Zapatero also announced the creation of a government fund of 30 billion euros to guarantee liquidity to the financial system through the purchase of "maximum quality" and "non-toxic" assets from banks.