Madrid  - Fires at an electricity substation and a transformer Thursday left 40,000 people without power in Madrid, officials said.

The fires in the central Retiro neighbourhood prompted the evacuation of dozens of people, but caused no injuries.

The fire at the transformer, which was sparked by explosions inside, was extinguished. Firefighters continued battling flames at the substation, where underground cables were on fire.

Madrid- Spanish novelist Isaac Montero has died at age 71, press reports said Thursday.

Montero suffered a heart attack in Madrid on Wednesday.

Winner of several awards, the author of novels, essays and short stories was best-known for his novel Ladron de Lunas (Thief of Moons), which earned him the Critics' Prize in 1999.

Montero was known for the social realism of his satiric depictions of Spanish society under 1939-75 dictator Francisco Franco and the subsequent democracy.

Madrid - The air crash that killed 154 people on August 20 at Madrid airport is expected to cause Spanair losses between 30 and 60 million euros (40 to 80 million dollars), Spanish press reports Thursday quoted sources of the airline as saying.

Ticket sales have dropped by about 8 per cent, reports said. Spanair human resources director Hector Sandoval said the carrier was working to regain the confidence of clients.

Spanair and its employees are currently in negotiations over a savings plan, tabled before the accident, which is to trim staff by a quarter to about 2,700 and the fleet by 14 planes.

A Spanair MD-82 jet crashed off the runway after take-off for reasons that remain unclear. Eighteen people survived the accident.

Madrid - The Spanish judiciary is increasingly becoming a playground for political interests, an association representing the legal profession was quoted as saying by the media on Wednesday.

An agreement between the two main parties on who parliament should confirm as new members of the General Council of Judicial Power (CGPJ) was described as a "shameful spectacle" and "fraud."

Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and conservative opposition leader Mariano Rajoy reached an agreement on the composition of the CGPJ after a two-year party struggle for the control of the organ, which appoints judges and watches over them.

Madrid- United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will shortly appoint US diplomat Christopher Ross his new personal envoy to Western Sahara, the Spanish daily El Pais reported Wednesday.

The daily quoted sources close to the negotiations between Morocco, which annexed Western Sahara after the colonial power Spain pulled out of there in 1975, and the Saharawi independence movement Polisario Front.

Ross will succeed Dutch diplomat Peter van Walsum, whose mandate will not be renewed. Van Walsum has confirmed that he is leaving the job in an article he wrote for El Pais.

Madrid  - Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on Wednesday admitted that the country's economy was facing "hard and complicated" times, but stressed its resilience and capacity to cope.

The economy was "practically stagnant," Zapatero admitted on explaining economic policy to parliament, and called for a collective effort to deal with the difficulties.

The inflation, now running at 5.3 per cent, would drop under 4 per cent by the end of the year as oil prices went down and consumer confidence increased, the premier predicted.