Madrid - The Spanish government is to help the country's tourism industry deal with the effects of the global financial crisis by supplying a cash injection worth some 400 million euros (500 million dollars), Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez said on Saturday.

The aid packet is intended to help modernize the tourism industry and make Spain a more attractive tourist destination, local media reports said, particularly through interest-free loans for small and medium enterprises in the tourism sector.

Madrid - The Basque separatist organisation ETA has been sending more letters to Basque companies demanding money for not being targeted for attacks, El Pais newspaper reported Saturday.

It said ETA had been demanding between 30,000 and 130,000 euros from companies, warning that failure to pay would mean they faced being targeted.

ETA is known to finance its operations partly by such protection money operations. In the organisation's jargon, the companies are required to pay "revolutionary taxes" or "contributions towards liberating the Basque Country".

Madrid  - Argentina striker Lionel Messi was injured in training Friday, but it was unclear whether it would affect his participation in Barcelona's game against Getafe on Sunday.

"Messi finished the training session with pain in the quadriceps muscle in his right leg," Barcelona's club doctors said in a statement.

"After carrying out different tests, a muscular injury has been discounted. In spite of this, the participation of the player in forthcoming matches depends on the clinical evolution of this problem, in order to avoid a situation of risk."

It was not immediately clear if Messi, 21, would be fit for either Sunday's home game against Getafe, or for Wednesday's Champions League clash away to Sporting Lisbon.

Madrid  - The Spanish government was Friday accused of not providing justice for victims of alleged human rights abuses during the 1936-39 civil war and the
1939-75 dictatorship of General Francisco Franco.

The government rejected the charges, with Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega saying it would continue working to "repair the pain" of those who had not been able to "close the wounds" of the past.

However, Emilio Silva, president of an association exhuming remains of Franco's victims from mass graves, slammed Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero for saying that the Franco era should "sink into oblivion."

Madrid - Fabio Cannavaro will be out of action for at least a week after pulling a muscle in his right thigh in Wednesday's Greece-Italy friendly.

Cannavaro, 35, will miss Real Madrid's home game against Recreativo Huelva on Saturday, as well as Tuesday's Champions League clash away to BATE Borisov.

Madrid - Concern was mounting in Spain on Friday over a possible Russian purchase of nearly 30 per cent of the country's largest oil company Repsol YPF, with the governing Socialists appearing divided over the issue.

Repsol should remain a "clearly Spanish and independent" company, senior European affairs official Diego Lopez Garrido said amid reports that the Russian oil giant Lukoil was about to become Repsol's main shareholder.