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.

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