Madrid - Valencia midfielder Manuel Fernandes played 75 minutes with a broken leg against Getafe in La Liga, the Portuguese player said Monday based on medical tests that confirmed the fracture in the fibula bone.

"I could finish the game because it was not hurting a lot," Fernandes explained. "The truth is it was not hurting a lot, but today (Monday) I underwent a medical test and they saw I have a fracture."

Madrid - The Spanish government on Monday criticized North Korea's firing of a high-altitude rocket, describing it as a "provocation which seriously weakens the regional security environment."

Sunday's missile launch also "contradicts the will expressed by the (North Korean) government to find solutions through dialogue," the Foreign Ministry said in a communique.

Madrid - French police have discovered 500 kilograms of explosives which were believed to have been stored by the militant Basque separatist group ETA, Spanish police sources said Monday.

The explosives were found in a garage in the south-eastern French city of Grenoble on Sunday.

The owner of the garage became suspicious after the people who had rented the garage were not heard of for months, and informed police, the sources said.

Police searched the garage, finding explosives, materials for making bombs and the anagram of ETA.

Madrid - French police have discovered 500 kilograms of explosives which were believed to have been stored by the militant Basque separatist group ETA, Spanish police sources said Monday.

The explosives were found in a garage in the south-eastern French city of Grenoble on Sunday.

The owner of the garage became suspicious after the people who had rented the garage were not heard of for months, and informed police, the sources said.

Police searched the garage, finding explosives, materials for making bombs and the anagram of ETA.

Madrid - Spain was Monday seen as having overcome its five- year freeze in relations with the United States after Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and US President Barack Obama had a warm first bilateral encounter.

Obama called Zapatero his "friend" and relations with Spain "solid" following a summit between the European Union and the US in Prague on Sunday.

The relations between Madrid and Washington cooled when Zapatero recalled Spanish troops from Iraq immediately after his election victory in 2004.