Spanish Telecom giant Telefonica (TEF) has unveiled the details of a large-scale field trial project related to the company’s 4G network services, which is based on the Long Term Evaluation (“LTE") mobile broadband technology.

The company will test run its 4G LTE network in six countries across Europe and Latin America. The outcome of the trials will help Telefonica to chalk out its next phase of network deployment strategy.

Telefonica will conduct 4G LTE trials during the next six months in multiple European countries such as Czech Republic, Germany, Spain and the UK, while the Latin American trials will be staged in Brazil and Argentina. The company has already conducted its first LTE trial in Madrid in April 2009, which has demonstrated encouraging throughput levels.

Telefonica has also announced network infrastructure and equipment vendors to facilitate the field testing. It has reportedly selected six technology providers: Alcatel-Lucent (ALU), Ericsson (

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ProLogis (PLD), one of the leading global providers of distribution facilities, has recently announced its third new 4.8 megawatt solar project in Spain as part of its renewable energy program. The solar project would be installed on eight rooftops at ProLogis Park Sant Boi in Barcelona and ProLogis Park Alcala in Madrid. With these installations, ProLogis currently has solar projects on 20 buildings spanning 7.2 million square feet of roof space in the U.S., Japan, France, Germany and Spain. On completion of the new project, ProLogis would generate more than 11 megawatt of energy, which is equivalent to the power consumption in over 1,100 households per year. For the current solar project in Spain, ProLogis has leased 2 million square feet of roof space to Recurrent Energy, a leading provider of solar energy and power distribution company. Recurrent Energy will own and operate the project, and ...

Hey, the economy is not only recovering…it’s becoming better than ever before!

“Banks recover to their levels before the fall of Lehman,” is a headline in this Monday’s El Pais from Madrid.

“Public assistance enables the world’s largest 15 financial firms to return to the capitalization they had in September 2008,” the article continues. The largest of the largest, HSBC, is now judged to be worth $186 billion, according to the stock market. China’s ICBC is on its heels, with a market cap of $178 billion. BNP Paribas is 7th at $87 billion.

We will overlook the compromising detail that banks actually lost money in the last quarter – more than $3 billion. And let’s forget that China’s major banks are sitting on mega-losses from more than eight years ago (to say nothing of the more recent losses). Western banks, too, still have billions in assets whose real worth is an open question…and

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As we all know, the depression is over. The stock market seems to think so… with the Dow up 32 more points on Friday… and apparently eager to go higher. Oil rose above $64. And gold is trading at $937 this morning.

Friday, two more banks – the Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) and Citigroup (NYSE:C) – announced impressive results. Between them, they made $5.4 billion in the last quarter.

These follow announcements earlier in the week from JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) and Goldman (NYSE:GS). As reported in this space, Goldman set the pace by reporting that it has managed to earn more than $1 billion per month in the 2 nd quarter of this year. It said it did so by helping clients raise money… refinance… and restructure.

Goldman made so much money that it has set aside more than $11 billion so far this year in compensation for its

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This essay is based on a lecture given by Mr Stephen Roach on June 22, 2009 to the Rafael del Pino Foundation in Madrid, Spain.

Here are the opening paragraphs:

Like all crises, this too will pass. But the severity of the current debacle - not just in financial markets but also on the real side of the global economy - points to a very different post-crisis healing than that which has taken place in the past. Most importantly, over the foreseeable future, the macro environment is likely to be characterized by the combination of lingering problems in a damaged financial system together with an unusually anemic recovery in the global economy.

Tensions will undoubtedly persist in such a tough post-crisis climate. In sharp contrast to the V-shaped recoveries of yesteryear, when relief was quick and powerful, the next several years are likely to reflect a persistent fragility, punctuated

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by Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /Well that so called investor "risk appetite" took a surprise hit yesterday (and from an unexpected quarter). It wasn't the worries about US fiscal deficits that caused the panic, but problems in the European banking system. a href="http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/06/16/57171/investor-fears-cut-risk-appetite/"Gwen Robinson reports/a:br /br /blockquoteRisk appetite suffered a sharp deterioration on Monday as fresh uncertainty about the global economy prompted investors to shift from equities, commodities and emerging market assets into the perceived safety of government bonds and the dollar. Markets were further unnerved by warnings on the economic outlook from the head of the IMF and an ECB report saying eurozone banks face another $283bn in writedowns on bad loans and securities this year and next./blockquotebr /As Izabella Kaminska notes, a href="http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=117027956538h=wHY-pu=bc40uref=nf"it is Southern Europe that is now getting all the attention/a.br /br /blockquoteThis time it’s the turn of 25 Spanish banks, all of whose senior ratings ...

by Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /The title to this post poses an interesting question I think, since the answer you give to it would seem to depend more on the meaning you attribute to the word "really" than on any consensually agreed objective fact. This is especially the case since Spain itself has at least two "official" unemployment numbers, so the backround to (and reason for my asking) the question is the apparent divergence between these two numbers (one from the national statistics office, and one from the employment office INEM), both of which were given extensive international press coverage recently, with the ensuing "spread" between one reading and the other causing general confusion and even leading some to question the very validity of the whole Spanish "headcount" process. br /br /As we shall see, what we have here is not necessarily a simple "fudging" of numbers, but rather ...

Below is an exclusive translation of a breaking story from the Spanish press. First published in El Pais, and also covered by several other outlets, the story concerns Antonio Valdés-García, a Spanish-Russian dual citizen who was beaten and tortured to force him to provide false testimony against Mikhail Khodorkovsky. It should be illustrative of the weakness of the state's case that they have to nearly murder Vasily Alexanyan, and now, allegedly beat this individual to within an inch of his life to produce false testimony against Khodorkovsky. It is a story that speaks for itself.

Spaniard accuses Russian police and prosecutors of forcing his false testimony against Khodorkovsky

Antonio Valdés-García, 38 years old, a Spanish-Russian dual citizen, is accusing representatives of the Russian

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by Edward Hugh : Barcelonabr /br /First, the one year Euribor reference rate, which has been falling since the ECB started lowering interest rates in the autumn of last year.br /br /a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SczgfkdRq9I/AAAAAAAANRs/RR-woQi0VR8/s1600-h/one+year+euribor.png"img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 253px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SczgfkdRq9I/AAAAAAAANRs/RR-woQi0VR8/s400/one+year+euribor.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317872092984749010" //abr /br /And secondly the chart showing the average rate of interest charged by Spanish banks on new mortgages, which as we can see, has been rising steadily since December 2007.br /br /a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SczgslWr4lI/AAAAAAAANR0/qrqpJgLSnxY/s1600-h/new+mortgage+rates.png"img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 256px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SczgslWr4lI/AAAAAAAANR0/qrqpJgLSnxY/s400/new+mortgage+rates.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317872316563841618" //abr /br /The average interest rate charged by Spanish banks for new mortgages in January 2009 was 5.64%, meaning that the average cost of a new mortgage had gone up by 10.2% over January 2008 (when the rate was 5.1%), and by 1.1% when compared with December 2008. Meanwhile the Euribor reference rate looks set to close this ...

Enable IPC Corp. offers streamlined strategies for transforming technologies into products, and introducing them into the marketplace. The company today announced it has shipped its first batch of ultracapacitor electrodes to IMDEA Energia in Madrid, Spain.

The ultracapacitor is one of Enable IPC’s two break-through energy technologies, which launches the company into the multi-billion renewable energy market. Enable IPC’s ultracapacitor electrodes will be applied to a power conditioning unit by IMEDA and renewable energy manufacturer Green Power, as part of a demonstration in part of the SA2VE project, a program pushed and sponsored by the Spanish government to focus on green energy alternatives.

Dr. Mark Daugherty, CTO of Enable IPC and president of SolRayo, said the role of Enable IPC’s technology in the presentation may give the company exposure to more actors in the renewable energy market.

“This is a high profile demonstration that we expect will lead to

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