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.

Santiago de Compostela, Spain - A Cypriot-flagged freighter caught fire off north-western Spain early Monday, rescuers said.

Madrid  - Barcelona scored an important 2-0 home win Saturday over historic rivals Real Madrid, with late goals from star strikers Samuel Eto'o and Lionel Messi.

The win leaves Barca way out atop La Liga, eight points above second-place Valencia, who came from behind earlier Saturday to beat Espanyol 2-1.

Villarreal, who play Sunday at fourth-placed Sevilla, are nine points behind Barca.

Real, who have lost four of their last six games, are now fifth, no less than 12 points behind Barca - and practically out of the title race.

"We are now a considerable distance from them," said Real captain Raul. "But we shouldn't throw in the towel. We must keep on fighting."

Madrid - A 2-1 defeat of 10-man Espanyol on Saturday keeps Valencia in second place in the Spanish Liga - and leaves Espanyol third from bottom.

Valencia needed a goal eight minutes from time from supersub Vicente to break the resistance of an Espanyol side that had played with one man less for most of the game, due to the sending-off of veteran Francisco Rufete.

The late win leaves Unai Emery's team with 30 points from 15 games, five points less than leaders Barcelona, who are at home later Saturday to historic rivals Real Madrid.

Valencia are now one point ahead of third-placed Villarreal, who are at fourth-placed Sevilla on Sunday.

La Molina, Spain - Tanja Poutiainen of Finland claimed her first alpine skiing season victory in a giant slalom on Saturday and with it moved on top of the World Cup standings - profiting from crashes.

Placed fourth after the first run, Poutiainen clocked a combined total of 2 minutes 16.76 seconds from both runs as she pipped Italy's Manuela Moelgg by two hundredths of a second for her eighth career victory.

Moelgg clocked 2:16.78 and Nicole Hosp of Austria was third in 2:17.41 minutes in the Pyrenees resort of La Molina which saw its first World Cup race.

Madrid  - Spanish giants Valencia Wednedsay cancelled the contract of Ivan Helguera.

Helguera, 33, was under contract at Valencia until 2010, but is now a free agent to join any club in the January transfer window.

Helguera - who won the Champions League with Real Madrid in 2000 and 2002 - joined Valencia on a free transfer in July 2007.

He has hardly played this season due to a stormy relationship with coach Unai Emery.