Madrid - A former Spanish senior official Wednesday admitted that the former conservative government allowed US flights transporting terrorist suspects to make stopovers in Spain, but denied that stopovers actually took place, judicial sources said.

National Court judge Ismael Moreno questioned Miguel Aguirre de Carcer in the framework of his investigation into alleged flights of the US Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) via Spain between 2002 and 2005.

Madrid- The US embassy in Madrid was cordoned off temporarily Wednesday after

Madrid - Spain's National Court on Wednesday acquitted two journalists and a caricaturist of insulting King Juan Carlos by alleging that he had chased a drunken bear in Russia.

Two of the accused created a photomontage published in 2006 by the Basque newspaper Deia, which showed a drunken-looking Juan Carlos with an equally drunken bear leaning on a wine barrel.

The tame bear had been given vodka to make it easier for the king to shoot it, the caricature claimed in a reference to unconfirmed press reports quoting Russian sources.

The third accused called the king "irresponsible" in an article on the bear chase.

Madrid - The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at outgoing US President George W Bush at a recent press conference expressed the "rage" of the Muslim world towards the US administration, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said Tuesday.

The behaviour of the journalist was not "dignified," but the support he received reflected the feelings of Arabs and Muslims, Moratinos, a former European Union special envoy to the Middle East, told the television station Telecinco.

Madrid - Spanish league leaders Barcelona are poised to extend and improve the contract of goalkeeper Victor Valdes, the Catalan daily Sport reported on Tuesday.

In the past fortnight, Barca have improved the contracts of Euro 2008 top player Xaxi and of youngster Sergio Busquets.

Now comes the turn of Valdes, who is in excellent form at the moment, as Real Madrid discovered in Saturday's 2-0 defeat.

Valdes, 26, has conceded only nine goals in 15 Liga games this season, one of the best goalkeeping record in Europe's major leagues.

Madrid - International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said Monday that the global economy will continue "deteriorating," predicting a "very difficult" year 2009.

The forecasts that the IMF will make public in January will be even worse than the current ones, which predict a 2.2 per cent global growth next year, Strauss-Kahn said in Madrid, where he was attending a conference.