San Sebastian, Spain  - Spanish police Tuesday detained four suspected members of the militant Basque separatist group ETA, police sources said.

The two men and two women were held in their homes in San Sebastian, Pasaia and Intxaurrondo in the Basque region.

They were suspected of supplying ETA with information about people who could be targeted by attacks. Police searched the suspects' homes.

Around a dozen ETA members have been detained within a month, including its suspected military leaders Mikel Garikoitz Aspiazu alias Txeroki and Aitzol Iriondo, who were captured in France.

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.

Madrid - The Spanish army helped to rescue people stuck in more than 400 vehicles during snowstorms overnight and Monday morning in the north of the country, military and police sources said.

Madrid - A combination of human error and mechanical failure may have caused the air crash that killed 154 people at Madrid airport on August 20, the Spanish daily El Pais on Monday quotes sources of the investigation as saying.

The Spanair MD-82 did not have its wing flaps and slats deployed, according to a preliminary report issued earlier by an investigating commission. The flaps and slats help to lift aircraft on take-off.

Madrid - The Spanish army helped to rescue people stuck in more than 400 vehicles during snowstorms overnight and Monday morning in the north of the country, military and police sources said.

Madrid - Santander shares dropped by 2.1 per cent Monday after trading started at the Madrid stock exchange.

The fall followed an announcement by Spain's largest bank that one of its investment funds had an exposure of 2.3 billion euros (3.1 billion dollars) to Madoff Securities, a Wall street broker suspected of a massive fraud.

Fewer than 1,000 wealthy clients were exposed through the high-risk Optimal hedge fund unit, with institutional and international private banking clients accounting for 2.01 billion of the money.